A Study Of Ambivalent Words In Chinese And English

Ambivalent words refer to the phenomenon that some word with two opposite or relative meanings. It should meet two requirements. First, regardless of synchronic or historical level, an ambivalent word has two opposite or relative meanings. Second, the two meanings exist in a word.This phenomenon exists in many languages, in English and Chinese it also occupies a considerable proportion. Contents of this paper are to analyze ambivalent words in Chinese and English, especially explore constituted ways, similarities and causes of constituted ways of ambivalent words specifically and deeply. The aim is to get some common and individual awareness of developments and changes between two languages, provide more materials and basis for lexicographer of Chinese and English, promote Chinese and English language teaching.The article is divided into four parts.The introduction is a review of research status of ambivalent words. The text includes three parts, they are respectively a review of research status of ambivalent words in Chinese, a review of research status of ambivalent words in English, a review of research status of comparative study between Chinese English ambivalent words.The first chapter studies constituted ways of ambivalent words in Chinese and English. From semantic point of view, a constituted way mainly refers to the relationship between the two contrary or opposite meanings in an ambivalent word. From the perspective of constituted ways, ambivalent words will be divided into three parts including the one whose two opposite or relative meanings are complementary and reverse, the one whose two opposite or relative meanings are emotional reverse or praised or derogatory relatively, the one whose two opposite or relative meanings have pros and cons of oppositions. In order to analyze better, many examples have been illustrated.The second chapter compares Chinese and English ambivalent words on the analysis of comparisons of two languages from the perspective of constituted ways illustrating the similarities. Also this chapter analyzes the reasons of constituted ways of Chinese and English ambivalent words. The ones caused by dual nature of things have been analyzed as one important point. The other reasons are divided into two aspects. The one is from the linguistic point of view including generality and vagueness of language, meaning extension, pragmatics and cognitive linguistics. The other is from the philosophical and psychological points of views including the theory of interpretation to the opposite side and so on.The last chapter made a summary of the full text indicating the lack of the article and the direction of further study.