The Research Of New Judicial Synonym On Chinese Dictionary During The Southern And Northern Dynasties

Since the establishment of legal linguistics in China,researches on legal vocabulary have become increasingly rich and been developed in a systematic trend.And exploration into dynastic legal vocabulary is the most significant manifestation of this trend.However,most of the existing documents and achievements about dynastic vocabulary exhibit the research findings in the form of special books.There are relatively few researches based on the basic corpus—— dictionaries,which hinders the comprehensive and profound exploration into legal vocabulary.Therefore,it is an irresistible trend to take dictionaries as the carriers to develop related researches.The Northern and Southern Dynasties,which was preceded by the era of Sixteen Kingdoms and succeeded by the flourishing Sui and Tang Dynasties,was an important transitional period in fudal society of ancient China.During this period,the whole society underwent comprehensive changes and certain changes also took place in its corresponding legal systems.And the clearest records about this period as well as on its legal system changes and evolutions are(judicial)words.Therefore,this paper proceeds from the perspective of words and selects Chinese Dictionary as the research tool to explore features of legal vocabulary(especially new judicial words)and analyze judicial synonyms and unfamiliar words in the Northern and Southern Dynasties.In the process of research,this paper focuses on new judicial words(especially synonyms)in the Northern and Southern Dynasties,mainly attributed to the following reasons: new judicial words serve as the most typical words to reflect characteristics of the times;and analysis of related words reproduces the development of judicial words and legal systems at that time.Under the premise of a closed language environment,this paper emphatically analyzes synonyms of “legislation,private prosecution,arrest,judgment and punishment” in judicial vocabulary of the Northern and Southern Dynasties,and explores the similarities and differences between related words in terms of pragmatic features,collocations and semantic features.The research is carried out mainly by using traditional exegetical method and objective description method,while judicial synonyms is screened based on the prototypical category theory.It is worth mentioning that this paper brings together and utilizes related theories and corresponding methodologies of modern linguistics and traditional exegetical method in a comprehensiveway when analyzing overall features of legal vocabulary in the Northern and Southern Dynasties,which is an innovation of this paper.