Research On The "Atavism" In Modern Chinese Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a mirror.Social developments and changes are first able to be reflectedon the vocabulary.Research on the developments and changes in the vocabulary has madesignificant achievements. And it is building up with the innovation of modern Chineselexicology research methods.But the research about the phenomenon of "atavism" ofmodern Chinese vocabulary is slightly vulnerable.This paper purposes to further theexploration in the development of vocabulary evolution in details on the basis of theformer research, from the phenomenon called“The Atavism of Vocabulary”.Atavism derives from biological terms, but we only quote its concept, namely the"Second Appearance". Some words, or meanings or linguistic phenomenons appeared incertain period of the development of the language,and it precipitated down after a long orshort period of time. It was no longer used or widely used in a certain period. But theydidn’t precipitate down forever, they reappeared out off the surface of the water in thelong process of language development, they were re-used or widely used. Due to theconfounding between this phenomenon and other terms, therefore, it’s necessary to defineit distinctively. This paper tries to explain what caused such phenomenon on the basis ofanalysis of the classification from the angle of traditional views,such as the political,economic, cultural and social view. Furthermore, this paper attempts to introduce thecognitive psychology thereby making deeper explanation for the causes of thisphenomenon.The process of study must blend specific examples and interpretation. This paperintends to study the phenomenon of atavism of modern Chinese vocabulary from threeaspects as follow: First, collecting the phenomenon of atavism in the development andevolution of modern Chinese vocabulary from the available dictionary, newspapers,books, magazines and network, and analyzing the classification of the atavism in detail.Then analyzing and describing it base on the "dominant-latent" theory; Finally,explaining the causes on the basis of the traditional analysis that why such phenomenonproduced from the point of view of cognitive psychology. This article combinesdescribing phenomena and explaining its reasons.The language description is the basis ofexplaining.To explain language is an important way of language research. Making a full and reasonable explanation of the language is quite helpful for the rule description andpractical application of language.This pape sticks to the principle of combination ofdescription and explanation, basing on the investigation to a large number of corpusinstances to strive to make meticulous and full description of the phenomenon of atavismof modern Chinese vocabulary through the investigation of the corpus of instances. Thereis no doubt that interpretation would further understanding of the evolution of thephenomenon of atavism in modern Chinese vocabulary in the process of generating.