汉语熟语分类新解 An Innovative Classification of Chinese Phraseological Units

Abstract

There is little doubt that phraseology is at the heart of all language use. In the Chinese linguistic system, phraseological units also play an important role. In this paper, we have discussed and clarified several important aspects of Chinese phraseology, including the status of Chinese phraseological studies in the Contemporary Era, the definition of Shuyu (“phraseology”), its main characteristics, the terminology and use of Shuyu and its subcategories, some taxonomies which are most representative and popular, both the traditional ones and the improved ones. Considering the multiplicity of contradictory viewpoints and the abundance of confusing terminology that have prevailed in Chinese phraseological studies, it is necessary to make an assessment in this regard; especially, its taxonomy is in need of reforms so to be more clear-cut, accurate, systematic and “user-friendly”. Based on the theory of grammatical metaphor, we try to apply a new taxonomy to the Chinese phraseology. This classification method is closer to the Western tradition, in accordance with the criteria of fixedness, idiomaticity and multilexematicity. By means of offering determined terminologies, definitions, representative examples for each phraseological subcategory, we have proved that this phraseological taxonomy, originally proposed by Pamies (2007, 2014, 2016, 2017) for a series of Western languages, is also applicable to Chinese. Due to the particularity of each language, there are also slight differences, and thus, some modifications are needed in the classification process. Hopefully, this innovative taxonomy will be useful and enlightening, serving as an objective descriptive instrument and thus facilitating comparative studies between Chinese and other languages. It also represents an attempt to provide a starting point for further study related to Chinese phraseology.