"modern Chinese Dictionary" Received Word The Principles And Scope Of The Received Word

From 1978 to 2005, the Modern Chinese Dictionary, a medium-sized standard one, shorted as "Dictionary" in the following, has already published five editions. The researches focus on single edition or between two are numerous, while fewer studies are carried on between those five editions. By the means of statistic analysis, comparative research and synthetical induction, the author in this thesis systematically studies all the collected words with the initial letter of A, E, O and Z, as well as some other colleted words. Based on the present achievements of Dictionary, the author gives a precise and deep investigation and analysis on the principles and scopes of word-collection of the dictionary. It has alredy passed fifty years since the scholars firstly compliled this dictionary and thirty years passed since it was firstly published. The purpose of conducting the present study is to offer a new vision of the dictionary research and to further extend the present research field of the Modern Chinese Dictionary.It is the 1956 that the documents Department of State's Directions of Promoting Putonghua and The Outline of Compiling Modern Chinese Dictionary (draft) were firstly published. Two years later, Lv Shuxiang and other linguists published The Detail Principles of Compiling Modem Chinese Dictionary (revisied). After then, all the editors of five editons of Dictionary persisted in the principles brought forward by the above three documents. And those principles are "colleting the most general words" and "partially collecting the subordinated words", which can be found on the prefaces of and words collected in all the five editions. With the developments of lexicographic theories and practices, the academic circles has a deeper and clearer recognition of word-collection principles of Dictionary, proposing the following rules as "maxim of terms competing", "maxim of focusing on the systematization", "maxim of considering practical use" and "maixm of words relatively stabe". Meanwhile, the Scholars considered that like the examples and explanations in the Modern Chinese Dictionary, the word-collection also has its own thought tendencies, which was mainly realized in the selecting of the words and phrases of political inclinations. Followed the word-collection principles, the five editions of Dictionary has extended their word-collection scopes, which in time reflects the changes of all aspects of modern and contemporary society, especially in recent open-up periods. The words collected in the Modern Chinese Dictionary extended like a triple-jumping. That is, the first two versions have almost the same number collected words, and the third and fourth versions are of the same number words, but the collection of those two are comparatively larger than the first two versions; the numbers of words in the fifth version are larger than that in the third and fourth. Generally, the five editions of Dictionary has the same fields of selecting words, including the general words used in the political, cultural, economic and social life as well as word used in the different trades and subjects. However, in different versions of Dictionary, there is an obvious distinguish of collected words of different categories. Also, there is some varieties on the recognition of certain category words between some versions. Besides, the resource fields of word-collection in the five editions are increasingly expanding. Such expandings are the results of the enlargement of the knowledge subjects as well as the distributions of languages.As Lv Shuxiang initiates the new words research movement, the Modern Chinese Dictionary began to pay special attention to the new words collection, which became one of the most important parts of the Dictory since the publishing of the third version. The new words collected followed the above principles of word-collection in Modern Chinese Dictionary, and emphasized the principles of universal use and endurance. In a word, the scopes of word-collection in the Dictionary are definite and stable, which keep pace with the times. The new word-collection in Modern Chinese Dictionary has a remarkable effect on the standardization of modern Chinese vocabulary, especially of the cyber words.The collection of soft-voiced words, vowel-retroflexion words, ancient-used words, loan words, dialects, variants and acronyms in Modern Chinese Dictionary are not only all followed the general principles and scopes, but also has their own characteristics. The collection of soft-voiced words focuses on the necessity, compatibility and frugality, decreasing the numbers version by version. The collection of vowel-retroflexion words increases stably, which pays attention the words featured in differentiating the part of speech and the meanings, and the obliged ones in in Pekingese spoken language. The ancient-used words are selected from the oens having been used in modern books and papers, and the numbers are slowly increasing. The loan words come from wide fields of subjects and different languaes, esp. the English, persisting in the principle of universal and systematical use. The dialects are collected seriously, focusing on the popular dialects. The word variants are the very representatives of the standard purpose of the Dictionary. Since the third version of Modern Chinese Dictionary, the acronyms are collected on the principle of universality and necessity, and the scopes and numbers are increasingly enlarged.The efforts of determining and defining the word-collection principles and scopes in Modern Chinese Dictionary have been encouraged by the most scholars partly or wholly, considering that it has already surpassed other dictionaries, and reached a new height. However, there are also some critical opinions about the shortcomings of word-collection principles and scopes of Dictionary, someone even proposed some negative suggestion which seems exceeded the academic arguments. From the whole consideration of the three times revising of Modern Chinese Dictionary, the editors have promptly applied the new research acheivements, including the critical suggestions to the work of revising of the Dictionary.It is a great project to compile and revise the Modern Chinese Dictionary. All the five editions of Dictionary have significantly impact on the standardization of modern Chinese vocabulary. It is certain that there are some defects of considering the specific word-collection principles or scopes, which need further studies to make them perfect.