Naming Of Chinese Herbal Medicine And Corresponding Cultural Connotation Research

Chinese herbal medicine is the precious medical resource. As a part of vocabulary in Chinese medicine filed, its naming not only embodies the general characteristics of Chinese noun but also its distinctive feature, carrying profound cultural connotation.This paper, explores about 1370 Chinese herbal medicine names (including scientific names and alternative names) from the chapter of herbs in Compendium of Materia Medica from the perspectives of word building approaches and principles, which will facilitate the understanding of Chinese herbal medicine names, which sometimes have the same functions with different phonetic forms and even some have the same phonetic forms with different functions. Meanwhile, this exploration will offer theoretical basis for the pronunciation and words choosing of Chinese herbal medicine. Furthermore, this paper probes into the culture connotation of the naming of Chinese herbal medicine. Finally, this paper analyzes the skilful wide use of Chinese herbal medicine names in all styles of Chinese ancient literature works.This paper is generally divided into 3 parts. The first Part mainly focuses on the naming rules of Chinese herbal medicine. This part explores the naming rules from phonetics, semantics, grammars and rhetoric perspectives, attaching more importance to rhetoric way of naming. This part makes a detailed analysis of rhetoric way of naming from metaphor, assimilation, metonymy, hyperbole, allusion and taboo. The second part analyses the naming principles of Chinese herbal medicine from the perspectives of simplex words, compound words and borrowed words in terms of etymology, borrowed words from other languages and compound types, of which compound words are the main focus. Through the analysis of word building principles, this part further elaborates on the significance of research on the naming principles of Chinese herbal medicine. The third part makes a tentative exploration on the cultural connotation of Chinese herbal medicine names from the influence of social production and social life and social ideology culture on the naming. Furthermore, this part makes an all-round description of the skilful use of Chinese herbal medicine names in ancient Chinese literature works.