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Chapter One: General Background 研究背景
1. Introduction to This Topic T主题介绍
这里是一个惊人的现象，许多不同的语言共享同一个词“妈妈”几乎相同的声音。九如下。英语：德国妈妈：妈妈法语：马曼中国：妈妈（妈妈）俄罗斯：丹麦Мама：铁道部意大利语：妈妈葡萄牙语：MAM？É西班牙语：妈妈这样一个事实不可避免地需要一个解释：为什么是可能的，尽管这些语言是从不同语言的家庭吗？一次偶然的机会，很显然，这样的问题是不是一个有说服力的答案。生物心理学家可以进行他们的研究的基础上，对婴儿的大脑和器官的衔接。一些研究结果指出的是，[米]是最简单的生产，为婴儿和母亲的行列的语音在第一时间在他们的通信中的基本概念，所以很自然，这样的声音被选择表示母本。这听起来很合理，但是在一定程度上，研究人员还应该注意到，它是不是真正的所有的人类语言。here is an amazing phenomenon that many different languages share the almost same sounds for the same word “mom”. Nine of them are as follows. English: mom German: Mama French: Maman Chinese:妈妈(māma) Russian: Мама Danish: mor Italian: Mamma Portuguese: Mam?e Spanish: Mamá Inevitably such a fact needs an explanation: why is it possible even though these languages are from different language families? By chance, obviously, is not a persuasive answer to such a question. Biological psychologists could conduct their studies on the basis of infants’ brains and their organs of articulation. Some findings point out that [m?] is the easiest speech sound for infants to produce, and mother ranks in the first place among the basic concepts in their communications, so it is natural that such a sound is chosen to indicate a female parent. It sounds reasonable to some extent; however, researchers should also notice that it is not true to all human languages. Although the present author fails to find out the exact time when the character 妈/媽(mā) came into Chinese lexicon, we can ensure that it is never the only choice for Chinese language to express the same meaning, beside which some other words, 娘/孃(niáng) for example, are also available, furthermore, the latter was even used more widely than the former one in the history. Additionally, 妈/媽(mā) could also be applied with to refer to aunt (sister of one’s parent or wife of one’s uncle) in Chinese expression 姑妈, 姨妈, and 舅妈. Apart from the case of “mom”, there are tremendous other pairs in which two words, although from different languages, share the almost same pronunciations and meanings: French bon and Chinese 棒, English typhoon and Chinese 台风, French bonbon and Chinese 棒棒(糖), Chinese 苦力 and English coolie, etc. Among all these examples, sufficient proofs support that one language got its words in advance, and then these words exerted crucial influence over the forming of their counterparts in another language, i.e. http://www.ukassignment.org/ygkczy/ some words of one language could be created by following the words of another language, after all language will never change for no reason. In the perspective of linguistics, if one language adopts individual words or even large sets of vocabulary items from another, we name this phenomenon as “Lexical Borrowing”, which is a very common result of linguistic contact. In the field of linguistic origins, the hypothesis of lexical borrowing is also a major method to conduct researches.
2. Language Contact & Lexical Borrowing 语言接触与词汇借用
知道语言（包括变种）通常不完全孤立的存在是重要的，因为不同语言的人之间的互动会产生。这种相互作用通常是强大到足以影响至少一种语言的。这种语言的影响已在社会语言学领域引起了强烈的关注。这是很容易识别的语言接触。It is important to know that languages (including their varieties) normally do not exist in complete isolation, because the interaction between speakers of different languages will definitely arise. Such interaction is generally powerful enough to influence at least one of the languages involved. This linguistic influence has attracted moderate attention in the field of sociolinguistics. It is easy to recognise language contact. Take Singapore for an example, it has four official languages: Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and English. Thomason (2001:1) defines language contact as “the use of more than one language in the same place at the same time”; also it could be understood to mean “the interaction between two languages and the effects over time of such interaction on the phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of each language”. (胡兆云, 2001:1) The study of language contact is called “Contact Linguistics”. As a common sociolinguistic phenomenon, language contact could have a variety of products, such as bilingualism, pidgins, creoles, code-switching, etc. Anyway, the most common way in which languages affect one another is the exchange of words and expressions, i.e. lexical borrowings. Lexical Borrowing is generally believed to be the simplest influence that one language may exert over another; Hock (1996:253) defines it as “the adoption of individual words or even of large sets of vocabulary items from another language or dialect”. When a borrowing is a single word, it is called a “Loan Word”. All languages change constantly and are changing in many ways. Vocabulary is the least stable component of any language system. Although linguistic purism is spread and supported widely in most countries, it is simply true that every language has borrowed a certain number of words from one another. With the expansion of international trades and cross-cultural communications, lexical borrowing can be expected to grow to a even larger scale. Meanwhile, “since vocabulary is perhaps the most visible part of a language, lexical borrowing is perceived as affecting the language in its very being.” (Appel, 1987:164) In this sense, lexical borrowing is no doubt significant in the researches of language contact.
3. Additional Information其他信息
Lexical borrowings are generally attributed to several reasons, among which semantic gap is the most obvious one. As far as Chinese language is concerned, new words are needed to be developed for unfamiliar concepts such as unusual foods and drinks, exotic plants and animals, new etiquettes and technologies, etc. Chinese vocabulary will naturally enlarge by borrowing words (completely or partially) from the host language. Prestige is another cause of the borrowing practices. The terms of more prestigious language are more likely to be borrowed into the less prestigious language. Since today English becomes the most prestigious language on this planet, at present English is primarily a donor language. In Chinese, many terms have been created to refer to this linguistic phenomenon, such as 外来语(loan), 外来词(loanword), 借用(borrowing), 借词(lexical borrowing), 借字(borrowed word), etc. Two that are more frequently used are “loanword” and “borrowing”. To the present author, “borrowing” seems to lay more emphasis on the process itself while “loanword” pays more attention to the result. It is much easier to find a borrowing process than to identify a borrowing result. What is more, the concept “loanword” is too narrow to cover all the borrowing practices. Many linguists insist on the distinction between “loanword” and “semantic loan”, that between “loanword” and “calque”, etc. For instance, by now there is no consensus reached on the identification of lettered words or borrowed concepts which are introduced through free translation or paraphrase. Owing to these difficulties caused by the term “loanword”, the present author would like to expand “loanword” to a wider sense or choose “borrowing” directly in this thesis. The present research is basically a theoretical study. Although there is no experiment involved in this thesis, a lot of instances will be provided to enrich the theoretical description and make all the categorizations as logical as possible. #p#分页标题#e#
Chapter Four: Conclusion 结论
1. Overall Summary 总结
要借用一个英语单词，不只有一种方法适用于这样的一个来源的本地化。即使使用同样的方法，一个源仍有可能被本地化为两个生成类型。因此，对同一英源，不止一个结果可能会出现在不同的时间。To an English word to be borrowed, not only one method is applicable to localise such a source. Even with the same method, one source is still possible to be localised into two resultant forms. Consequently, to the same English source, more than one Chinese result could possibly come into being at different time. In the present thesis, many borrowing methods are sorted in a sequential structure in accordance with their degrees of localisation. If we make a chronological study, numerous resultant forms in Chinese rarely remained fixed and were replaced by some new substitutes. The general trend of changing is a forward development from a lower level to a higher one, which resembles a lot to the process of biological evolution. Within a given period of transition, two or more Chinese results could exist simultaneously. Additionally, some backward motions are also possible in the borrowing practices, as counter-evolution does to the biological world. These two opposite trends are referred to as domestication and foreignisation respectively. Different types of borrowings (same as borrowing methods) definitely have their distinctive features in both developmental trends. Some of them are much more stable, while the others have more chances to change, moving closer to either Target Language or Source Language.
2. Weakness of The Thesis 论文的不足之处
There are many difficulties hard to overcome in this research, and the present author acknowledges that at least two problems remain unsolved due to his own personal limits in academic performance. a. Difficulties in Tracing some Loans As the previous chapter shows, tremendous borrowings are in the motion instead of being fixed. Many forms of loanwords could have stopped being active, so it is never easy to affirm their origins even they once played an important role in daily communications. Take 原子笔(ball pen) for example, its origin is not as obvious as most of us might think. When a ball pen (ballpoint pen) was brought to Shanghai at the beginning, local Chinese in Shanghai translated its name into “圆(ball)珠(point)笔(pen)” as a “Loan Translation”. Definitely these three characters were read in Shanghai dialect, with its pronunciation similar to “Yuan Zi Bi”. However, such a pronunciation sounded awkward to the outsiders who did not speak Shanghai dialect. For this reason, Chinese from other provinces misheard and rewrote it into “原子笔”. A couple of years later, people realised such a mistake because this kind of pen had no connection with “原子(atom)”. Consequently, “原子笔” became obsolete gradually and somehow lost in the Standard Mandarin. In the studies of English-Chinese borrowings, few faithful written records can be found about some loans’ origins. Also a large number of pronunciations should be examined in certain regional dialects. These obstacles made some etymological studies unbelievable demanding. In spite of the present author’s great efforts, still many origins are still unclear and hard to affirm. b. Drawbacks in Classification Classification of the present author can be only seen as a tentative explanatory system of loanword domestication from English to Chinese. It is far from a so-called exhaustive or flawless one which suffices to explain all the borrowing processes. In the reality, some cases of domestication are so complicated that they are processed with many methods simultaneously. “咸水妹 Handsome Maid” is such an instance. Phonologically the first English word “handsome” was transcribed as “咸水” in Cantonese dialect system, so “Phonemic Loan” was used in the first step. Next, when the second English word “maid” was translated into Chinese “妹”, it was “Phono-Semantic Matching” that took effect. When these two parts were combined to form one phrasal word, this instance should be somehow regarded as a “Half Phonemic & Half Semantic”. As a whole, “咸水妹” used to be an euphemism of prostitute in Cantonese. Similar to “Absolute Phonemic Loan”, categorical tags could also be attached to some instances of “Loan Translation”. Examples are “鼠标 Mouse”, “鸡尾酒 Cocktail”, etc. If taking “抛光 polish (verb)” for an instance, we will find the first character in Chinese “抛”(pāo) echoes to the first syllable in English [p?], and the second character “光(brightness)” functions as the objective of the English verb “to become smooth and shiny by rubbing”(OALD, Fourth Edition). These loans could not be classified into any category of the present classification, and they will inevitably demand a better system.
3. Questions Need Further Studies 进一步研究的建议
Besides two difficulties mentioned above, another important part requiring further efforts is “Indirect Borrowings (via Japanese)”. Since having very little knowledge of Japanese, the present author could only work out a general review of the existing literatures. http://www.ukassignment.org/ Researchers who have a good command of all three languages (English, Japanese, and Chinese) are more capable to continue this subtopic in the future studies.
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