汉语谦词的语义分析及其文化理据 — 以“家” “舍”两类谦词为例

Abstract

There is culture in language, but the culture is not just a simple aspect of culture. As a part of the Chinese vocabulary, humble words also reflect many aspects of Chinese culture. Starting from the semantics of ‘家’ and ‘舍’, we should first summarize their semantic categories respectively, and then find out the similarities and differences between the two kind of humble words, and then find out the culture behind them from these similarities or differences. Through the analysis, there are two points in the same point, the first point is that both can indicate the speaker of their relatives of humility; the second point is that both can indicate the speaker of his home. There are four different points, the first point is the two types of humble words relatives of the different generation, ‘家’ humble words is the elders, ‘舍’ humble words is the younger generation; The second point is the two types of humble words in the relatives of the elders are different, ‘家’ humble words is the elders of the generation, ‘舍’ humble words is the young generation; The third point is that ‘舍’ humble words can not be humble words of many relatives at the same time, but ‘家’ humble words can be humble words of the many relatives at the same time; The fourth point is that one relative can be humble by multiple different ‘家’ humble words, but ‘舍’ humble words do not have many different humble words to humble the same relative. Both types of humble words can be humbly called their own relatives and their own home, which is influenced by the ancient Chinese culture of virtue worship and heavy rites. The reason for the difference between the two types of humble words is also influenced by the relevant culture of the ancient Chinese patriarchal clan system, that is, the internal and external differences, grade difference and son preference.