Beyond English Anthroponym, Toponym And Loan Word

Cultural linguistics is a topical subject in language studies of today, for its great significance to English teaching, translation and cross-cultural communication. It attracts more and more scholars to exercise their wits in this field. I am making an attempt in this thesis to delve into this issue from the angle of lexicon.The body of this thesis is roughly divided into three parts: Anthroponym, Toponym and Loan word. They are independent of one another, but meanwhile, they all centre around the relationship between language and culture. Each part, in analyzing the constitution, etymology and connotation of the words, digs into geography, history, economic development, political changes, social values and national mentality of the relevant countries.Anthroponym. Human society is made up of individuals. Anthropomyms, as personal codes, are universally existing. Everyone, without exception, has at least a name. So, anthroponym is a common social phenomenon. It is seemingly simple but in fact complicated. The ancestors of the English people, the Anglo-Saxons, originally bore no surnames. It was only after the Norman Conquest that they learned to employ such a name pattern. The most important function of given name lied in its validity in distinguishing different members in a tribal group or a certain community; while surname, at the beginning, was a symbol indicating wealth and upper social status. It reflected the fact that the male and the well-to-do held dominant positions in the ancient English society. Middle name was born due to much name duplication as a result of the rapid growth of social population. Thus, an English name is composed as "given name + middle name + surname". Such a pattern reveals that individuality, instead of generality, is traditionally highly favored by the English people. That provides a strong, supporting evidence for the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis which holds that language structure is decisive to people's way of thinking and value preference. English anthroponym originate from various kinds of languages. Personal names derived from French, German, Hebrew, Latin and Greek are still in use today and they constitute a significant percentage in English anthroponyms. That is simply the inevitable result of long-term amalgamation of varied races and nationalities in history. Likewise, people's religious belief, naming psychology, sexual discrimination are reflected to the full in the common anthroponyms. The understanding of antonomasia, namely, anthropnyms which have entered the common core of English vocabulary, also requires a good mastery of cultural background knowledge.Toponym. Place is essential to human beings' activities, and place-name plays an important role in turism, telecommunication, foreign trade and so on. Place-names are 'traces", from which people can perceive historical invasions and tribal migrations in remote ages. The study oftoponym is a significant job not only to linguists, but also to historians, geographers and anthropologists, for place-names provide precious evidence to these scholars in their own research fields. In Tylor's theory, "evolution" and "traces" are both concepts of great importance. He pointed out that the purpose in studying culture was to infer the connotations from the "traces" left by ancient cultures and give appropriate interpretations to them. Many "traces", as a matter of fact, have been reserved in language. Take English for example. Generally speaking, place-names containing the word "Avon" (Celtic, meaning "river") indicate the inhabitancy of the Celts, their multiplication and migration. Places get their names in all kinds of ways. The sources and the purposes in naming them inform us that there is a close link between place-names and geography, history, celebrated people (many places are named after famous persons; this kind of names are called eponyms), social values and religious culture, etc. Once a name is set, it will undergo slow and mild changes. A change of place-name is. for most cases, the result of social tur...