Language Ecology Study On The Names Of Macao Streets

The names of streets reflect the city's outlook and are closely related to people's daily life.Macao is a special city with a history of being colonized by Portugal and returning to the motherland.The names of Macao streets have changed before and after its return.Language ecology is a new discipline which combines linguistics with ecology.It mainly explores the interaction between language and ecological environment.From the perspective of language ecology,a systematic and comprehensive analysis on the names of Macao streets before and after its return will help to build a harmonious linguistic ecological environment in Macao.This paper is divided into five chapters.In the first chapter,the introduction briefly introduces the research background,research significance,research status,research objects and research methods,with emphasis on the source and quantity of the corpus.Chapter two discusses the internal and external ecological environment of the names of Macao streets before its return.The internal ecological environment revolves around three aspects: structural system,phonetic system and vocabulary system.Structurally,“proper name + generic name” structure is the main structure,but there are also derivative structures formed by adding other components on the basis of this structure;phonetic syllables are diverse,and mainly three syllables;vocabulary shows the characteristics of etymology diversity and systematization.The external ecological environment is developed around three aspects: natural system,social system and cultural system.Different factors in each system affect the naming of street names in Macao to a certain extent.Chapter three discusses the internal and external ecological environment of the names of Macao streets after its return.From the perspective of the internal ecological environment,the structure of the street names is basically the same as before the return.The number of five syllables increases.The vocabulary is similar to that before the return,and the etymology is still diverse.From the point of view of the external ecological environment,the changes of geographical,political and emotional factors in Macao have impact on the addition of streets and naming of street names after its return.Chapter Four analyses the language ecology of the names of Macao streets from two aspects: ecology and non-ecology.Before and after the return of Macao,the regional characteristics of street names are both obvious.After the return,there is a trend of decolonization.Those are the embodiments of ecology.From the nonecological point of view,many problems have mostly existed before returning to China,such as one street with many names,many streets with one name,the existence of uncommon words,some streets with colonial traces,too long syllables,translation confusion and so on.These problems have not been solved after returning to China.At the same time,according to the actual situation of Macao,this paper puts forward some suggestions for the construction of a harmonious language ecology of the names of Macao streets from three aspects: government,experts,and citizens.Chapter five is a summary,which summarizes the conclusions of the full text,and explains the shortcomings of the article,hoping to be further improved in the future.