The Constructional Path of Sinicization for Chinese Loanwords

  • WEI Zaijiang
Expand

Online published: 2026-01-28

Abstract

Constructional morphology emphasizes “form-meaning pairings”, a characteristic that highly aligns with the research needs of loanwords. Construction grammar offers a new perspective for the study of loanwords, enabling an in-depth analysis of their constructional features, formation mechanisms, and localization processes in Chinese through the pairing relationship between form and meaning. This paper, taking construction grammar as the framework, discusses the word-formation mechanisms of Chinese loanwords from several aspects, including constructional wholes, constructional schemas, constructional coercion, and constructional pragmatics, providing a new perspective for loanword research. This research indicates that Construction Grammar provides a universal analytical framework that can uniformly explain the Sinicization mechanisms of different types of loanwords, including transliteration, free translation, semi-transliteration and semi-free translation, and loan shapes.

Cite this article

WEI Zaijiang . The Constructional Path of Sinicization for Chinese Loanwords[J]. Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies, 2025 , 25(6) : 150 -159 . DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2025.06.017

References

[1] Booij, G. 2010. Construction Morphology[M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[2] De Swart, H. 1998. Aspect shift and coercion[J]. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16(2): 347-385.
[3] Fried, M. & K. Nikiforidou. 2025. Construction Grammar:Introduction[A]. In M.Fried & K.Nikiforidou(eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar[C]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1-20.
[4] Goldberg, A. E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure[M]. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
[5] Goldberg, A. E. 2019. Explain Me This: Creativity, Competition and the Partial Productivity of Constructions[M]. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[6] Michaelis, L. A. 2004. Type shifting in construction grammar: An integrated approach to aspectual coercion[J]. Cognitive Linguistics (1): 1-67.
[7] 岑麒祥. 2015. 汉语外来语词典[Z]. 北京: 商务印书馆.
[8] 高名凯、 刘正埮. 1958. 现代汉语外来词研究[M]. 北京: 文字改革出版社.
[9] 黄婷婷、 章宜华. 2025. 汉语中欧美外来词汉化研究的现状与前瞻[J]. 辞书研究(3):24-32.
[10] 李茜. 2024. 港式中文外来词在标准汉语系统的使用状况及特征研究[J]. 汉字文化(13):56-59.
[11] 李艳、 施春宏. 2010. 外来词语义的汉语化机制及深度汉语化问题[J]. 汉语学习(6):59-68.
[12] 刘祥清. 2019. 外来词音译汉化研究[J]. 外国语文(2):112-117.
[13] 刘正埮、 高名凯、 麦永乾、 史有为. 1984. 汉语外来词词典[Z]. 上海: 上海辞书出版社.
[14] 刘玉梅. 2014. 外来词语形成的认知机理[J]. 现代外语(5):597-607.
[15] 孙道功. 2018. 音译外来词语素化的制约参数考察[J]. 语言文字应用(2):44-51.
[16] 苏新春. 2003. 当代汉语外来单音语素的形成与提取[J]. 中国语文(6):549-558,576.
[17] 史有为. 2013. 汉语外来词(增订本)[M]. 北京: 商务印书馆.
[18] 史有为. 2019. 新华外来词词典[Z]. 北京: 商务印书馆.
[19] 杨文全、 杨昊. 2019. 外源性类词缀的身份演化路径及其对汉语词汇系统的影响[J]. 西南大学学报(社会科学版)(4):155-164,200.
[20] 杨锡彭. 2007. 汉语外来词研究[M]. 上海: 上海人民出版社.
[21] 章宜华. 2024. 基于模因仿造的欧美外来词的汉化机制研究[J]. 语言文字应用(2):88-99.
[22] 中国社会科学院语言研究所词典编纂室. 2016. 现代汉语词典(第7版)[Z]. 北京: 商务印书馆.
Outlines

/