The Contrast Of Word Meaning Between Chinese And English Taste-like Words And Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language

The diet is closely related to our daily life.When we describe the taste of food,we use taste words.This article is based on the five original flavors in Chinese: “sour”,“sweet”,“bitter”,“spicy” and “salty”.Firstly,the five basic taste words in Chinese are analyzed in time.The historical documents and ancient Chinese corpus are used to search for the sentences.The development and evolution of the five basic taste words are analyzed by relatively rare diachronic analysis.The original meaning and basic meaning of each taste word are summarized.The connection between extension and meaning and the cultural meaning contained in it.Then it finds out the corresponding “sour”,“sweet”,“bitter”,“spicy” and “salty” in English as the objects of study,mainly through related classic English books,Oxford Advanced English Dictionary and Collins High Level.English and Chinese Interpretation Dictionary and BNC corpus example sentences to analyze the meaning of taste words in English.The third part compares and analyzes the meanings of taste words in Chinese and English.After research and comparison,they find that the meanings of the two words are changed from the concrete to the abstract.However,because of different cultural backgrounds,the meaning of the words is also shown.For certain differences,the predecessors mostly believe that because of the commonality of people’s cognition,the two languages have more commonalities in metaphor and cognition,but through the diachronic analysis of Chinese taste words,I found that there are some differences.The fourth part mainly compares the cognitive projections of taste sense metaphors in two languages.Due to different meanings,there are differences in the process of metaphorical projections from the basic meaning to the extended meaning of the two taste words in Chinese and English..In the end,according to the comparison of the semantic meanings of the two Chinese and English taste words in the previous article,two teaching suggestions are put forward in contrast to the process of metaphorical projections.They are: 1.Teaching in the context of word meaning comparison,specifically analyzing the differences in the field of meaning metaphorical projection between Chinese and English taste words,and suggesting different levels of Chinese learners should perform vocabulary teaching at different stages.2.Pay attention to the cultural background teaching of vocabulary.You can use intuitive experiential teaching or strengthen the understanding and use of word meaning in the process of communication.Through practice,you can truly grasp the meaning of Chinese taste words on different occasions.Although the theory is not mature enough,it hopes to provide some reference for Chinese learners who speak English as their mother tongue,thereby promoting further exchanges between the two languages and cultures and contributing to the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language.