The Study of Japanese Loanwords in Mandarin in Taiwan
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Cheng, Hui-Wen
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the actual state of "Japanese Loanwords" in Mandarin in Taiwan. The subject was Japanese loanwords used by Taiwanese nowadays then their examples were extracted from a newspaper "The Liberty Times" and investigated. In order to clarify what categories of words are easy to get into Mandarin and in what types that Japanese loanwords are borrowed in Mandarin, Japanese loanwords were classified on the basis of "category" and "translating method". In addition, to understand the state of practical usage of Japanese loanwords in Mandarin, this study focus on and investigated two directions "Using frequency" and "Variations appeared in Mandarin." The results of this study are as follows. As for category, dictions related to the leisure category and dictions which can be used in every category were more easily accepted by Taiwanese; as for translating method, “borrowed word” and “transliteration” took the major part which reflected that Taiwanese translated foreign words mostly on the basis of convenience consideration. Then the researcher observed Japanese Loanwords from the usage in the newspaper. As for the using frequency as a whole, although Taiwanese did use Japanese loanwords in the newspaper during the investigation period; however it was undeniable that actually the words with less using frequency took a major part in it. On the other hand, this study found out those three aspects of Japanese loanwords--“meaning”, “syntactic function” and “outlook”—had obvious variations. In summary, as Taiwanese used Japanese loanword, they kept some parts of the original nature of the word, in addition, they may change the meaning, syntactic function or outlook of a word. This phenomenon may be attributed to Taiwanese’s flexibility in wording or their lack in understanding the original word.
Subjects
Japanese Loanwords
Category
Translating Method
Using Frequency
Variations appeared in Mandarin
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