Comparative Study Of The Motivation Of Plant Denomination In Chinese And English

This paper deals with motivation of plant names, that is, the reason why a plantgets that particular name. It attempts to offer a comparative study of plantdenomination in Chinese and English. The analysis of the data shows that there arebasically six common types of motivations for plant names: shape&form, color&grain, habitat, growth habit, property (smell, taste, texture and other properties) andfunction (medicinal use, edible use, other uses), although some English plant namescan be motivated by legend and mythology or personal names. English and Chineseplant denomination share some common rules of characteristic-selecting: the priorityof visual perception over function and preference for form regarding the sensation ofsight. Besides, the motivations in the two languages both demonstrate metaphoricalthinking, concreteness and brevity. Except for the similarities, specific motivationshave reflected distinctive cultural differences:(1) Chinese worship of the two mysticalcreatures Loong and Fenghuang;(2) different perspectives of social hierarchy;(3)Greek mythology has exerted considerable influence on the western culture;(4) thehousehold Bible is also well-embedded in the western culture;(5) western emphasison scientific spirit and rational thinking which results that a portion of English plantnames are motivated by those contributors to the botanical field of study.