Comparison of motivation of the Russian and Chinese terms (based on the material of linguistic terminology)

Abstract

One of the paramount peculiarities of the Chinese terms is their sinicization. Sinicization of the term is often viewed a translation and adaptation of foreign language terms to the specifics of Chinese language. This implies that the new word is being rooted in the Chinese “soil” and subsequently recognized as Chinese native. The subject of this research is the peculiarities of Chinese and Russian linguistic terminology. The goal is to compare the motivation of Chinese and Russian linguistic terminology and determine the influencing factors. The research material was collected from the Dacihai Dictionary and the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary, and consists of more than 6,000 terminological units. The article employs the methods of description, comparison, and continuous sampling. The scientific novelty lies in determination of the factors that influence the motivation of Chinese linguistic terminology, as well as in its comparison with Russian linguistic terminology. The conclusion is made that Chinese terms have stronger motivation than Russian terms. On the one hand, Chinese characters are the ideograms that convey the thought in a motivational form, and offer more opportunities for increasing semantic transparency. On the other hand, the syllabic characteristics of Chinese language limit the possibility of transliteration of foreign words. With the exception of proper names, the Chinese terminology features a very few transliterated or partially transliterated terms.