On Expansion and Features of Word-formation between English and Chinese New Words

Abstract

The most important tool for expressing thoughts and communicating information among people--- language has emerged some main changes as the development of modern science and technology. Thousands of new words have emerged in both English and Chinese. Their emergence reflects the new things; new thoughts and new ideas appeared in the fast developing society. This paper starts with the history of the study of word-formation, analyzes the main methods of word-formation of new words of English and Chinese, then compares their features of word-formation. Although English and Chinese belong to the different language system, their main methods of word-formation are the same. The reason leading to the distinction is the difference of each other’s culture, history and tradition. The biggest difference between them is: English is phonogram, but Chinese lays stress on matching the meaning. This also makes them show remarkable differences in absorbing and assimilating the loanwords. Using abundant examples and materials, the paper expounds the similarities and differences between them in different aspects, According to the study of these comparisons, it will do favor for us to find out English and Chinese new words’ features and their trend of development.