A Study On Mosuo Matriarchal Cultural Terms

The Mosuo people is an ethnic group that live in the border between Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province. The Mosuo people who live in the Yunnan province is a branch of the Naxi ethnicity. The Mosuo people who live in the Yongning have special marriage system and unique family composition, which attract many anthropologists and ethnologists’s attention. However, Mosuo language and culture haven’t been getted more attention. Generally, Mosuo language is categorized as an eastern dialect of the naxi language, which linguists characterize it as an unsubgrouped Tibeto-Burman language, and classify it as the periphery of Loloish. In the dissertation, we call Mosuo language as "Mosuo dialect"We pay more attention to Mosuo language and culture, which is the purpose of the dissertation, use the chaos theory and fractal theory, which provide methodology for language and culture study, analyse Mosuo matriarchal cultural terms, in order to get more Mosuo cultural information, and interpret the relation between Mosuo language and culture, reveal the connotation of Mosuo culture and the character of Mosuo language.The dissertation consists of nine parts.The introduction mainly introduces the reason of choosing the title, expounds the current domestic and overseas research situation, explains the research purpose and significance, defines the research contents、methods and theories, and interprets the source of language materials.The first chapter expounds the general situation of the Mosuo people and the charaters in the Mosuo language, mainly introduce the appellation、origin、distribution and traditional culture of the the Mosuo people, interprets the characters and usage situation in the Mosuo language.The second chapter uses the chaos theory which provide methodology for language and culture study, takes the fractal theory to expound the self-similarity between language and culture. We analyse the some words、folk songs and proverbs in the Mosuo language, reveal the self-similarity between Mosuo language and culture.The third chapter analyses "household" cultural term in order to show Mosuo matriarchal family system. By analysing the Mosuo" household "cultural term, we reveal the genius and intension of the Mosuo "household society" and "household culture". At the same time,we study the Mosuo household’s space construction, expound the equipment and arrangement of the Mosuo people residence space, reflect the cultural construction in the Mosuo society, which the Mosuo socity respects women and mothers, especially regards women as the centre, and represent the ethnic mentality of the Mosuo people, which the Mosuo people attach important to household.The fourth chapter analyses " bisexual and marriage " cultural term in order to show Mosuo matriarchal marriage system. By analysing the Mosuo "bisexual and marriage" cultural term, we reveal the special marriage form and social constitution of the Mosuo people. Owing to the influence of the shyness culture, the bisexual appellation of the Mosuo people are very implicit. In different occations, the bisexual appellation of the Mosuo people have different expression manners. The "the bisexual visiting system" of the Mosuo people is a cultural result which adapts to the household system.The fifth chapter analyses "kinship terminology" cultural term in order to show Mosuo matriarchal society form. By analysing the Mosuo "kinship terminology" cultural term, we reveal the special social constitution、family form and marriage mode of the Mosuo people. The Mosuo people take matrilineal kinship terminology as the principle thing, the whole kinship terminology almost haven’t affinal kinship terminology and patrilineal kinship terminology. These phnomenons reflect the ethnic mentality of the Mosuo people that give weight to household harmony and matrilineal kinship, and mirror the shyness tradition and special culture concept of the Mosuo people.The sixth chapter analyses "swear words" cultural term in order to show the character of Mosuo shyness culture. By comparing the Moso swear words between the Chinese swear words and the English swear words, we reveal the characters of Moso swear words, discuss the intensions of the Mosuo culture. The Mosuo culture extremely emphasizes clan politesse、ethical moral、clan concept and household harmony. Generally speaking, the Mosuo people don’t talk swear words, which result in the sparse amount and euphemistic character of the Mosuo swear words.The seventh chapter analyses the "mi33" cultural term in order to show the feature of Mosuo matriarchal thinking modes. In the Mosuo language, it has an enormous terms which uses "mi33" as root morpheme、word-class morpheme or composed component. By analysing "mi33" cultural term, we can clearly reveal the semantics and function of "mi33"morpheme, also expound the development and evolution of "mi33"morpheme. Meanwhile, we can insight into the historical and cultural character that respect and worship mothers, learn unique society form and cultural intensions, reveal an essential bisexual cognitive attitude in the Mosuo socity.The conclusion mainly summarizes the research contents、the research methods and the research intentions, and interpret the edification that gives some people who devote to linguistic anthropology.Different social form governs different language character and cultural intension. In the dissertation, we analyse and study different language characters and cultural intensions which differ from the mainstream society, expound the relation between Mosuo language and culture. The significance of the dissertation is to firstly provide for a unique case in a different social form, which is to serve as the language and culture research of the minority. Simultaneously, the dissertation is to enrich the theories of the linguistic anthropology, replenish the theories of the minority dialect and culture research, supply the vacancy of the Mosuo lexical research, and provide for the proof and reference of the linguistics,which are social form、family constructure、marriage system、kinship system、ethic moral concept、history and culture of the Mosuo people.