한·중 문화어휘에 관한 일고찰

Abstract

Lexicon, an integral component of the cultural medium of language, plays a crucial role in cultural exchange and understanding. That accounts for the necessity to examine words with cultural connotations in both Chinese and Korean. This research starts with a categorization of cultural words, based on previous linguistic discoveries: words which denote directly , that is, symbolize or represent, cultural phenomena and the words which take on cultural significance within certain context. The first group are termed as direct cultural words and the second, indirect cultural words with cultural background. The third chapter further divides direct and indirect cultural words into subcategories, focusing upon mainly the features of direct words, while Chapter Four probes into the historical, traditional, institutional and cognitive differences between the two countries in an attempt to describe the features of indirect words. These comparisons and analysis further strengthen the idea that studies upon cultural words may contribute to proper understanding of similarities and differences between Chinese and Korean cultures.