A Contrastive Study Of The Multi-Category Noun-Verb Words Between The Commercial Press Learners’ Dictionary Of Contemporary Chinese And Modern Chinese Dictionary(7th Edition)

Teaching Chinese to international students is part of its international communication,in which the learners’ dictionary plays an important role.Quite a few internationally-oriented Chinese learners’ dictionaries have been published,but are not updated,and therefore have difficulty in meeting the need of further spreading the Chinese language across the world.Inspired by frequent discussions of the problem of no distinction between internationally and domestically-oriented learners’ dictionaries of the Chinese language,this thesis is aimed at the multi-category noun-verb words in The Commercial Press Learner’s Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese and Modern Chinese Dictionary(7th edition).In terms of research methods,a lexicon is constructed for a comparative analysis,with quantitative statistics and qualitative assessment combined.Similarities and differences between the two dictionaries are explored from four perspectives,i.e.,collection of lexical items,semantic items,ways of explanation and examples for semantic items.In collection of lexical items,the principle,numbers and grades of words are compared in order to find the problems in The Commercial Press Learner’s Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese.In collection of semantic items,the language used for semantic explanation and the order of semantic items are investigated to see if they are reasonable.Ways of explanation are compared regarding lexical items or words collected in both dictionaries.In examples for semantic items,the focus is placed on the deficiencies of the number,type and wording of the common words.Four problems are revealed involving the multi-category noun-verb words in The Commercial Press Learner’s Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese: 1)small number of lexical items and insufficient closedness,2)use of too difficult words to explain the collected semantic items and illustrating example,3)unreasonable arrangement of semantic items,and 4)high similarity of semantic explanation and examples in the common multi-category noun-verb words to those in Modern Chinese Dictionary(7th edition).Therefore,five suggestions for the updating of the multi-category noun-verb words in The Commercial Press Learner’s Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese are given:1)collecting up-to-date words or lexical items;2)enlarging its vocabulary collection in an all-round way;3)improving the closed-loop of the vocabulary;4)controlling the difficulty of words;and 5)enhancing differentiation.In addition,the closed lexicon established in this thesis not only provides a reference for teaching and learning Chinese as a second language,but also offers a new idea for the future study of the multi-category noun-verb words.