也谈“转注”

A Study on Transcription

转注是传统汉字结构理论的“六书”之一。对转注的解释,历来争议颇多,但不少在论证方法上存在问题。根据许慎关于转注的名称、定义及用例,结合文字学理论和汉字发展史知识,转注指根据事物的类别,用最能代表这类事物意涵的字作为表达这类事物的字的部首,而表达同类事物意义的字可以采用其同类字的部首。转注不能直接造字,但它是造字的重要补充,不能简单地认定为用字法。转注的提出,有助于完善汉字构造理论、促进汉字的发展、成熟和规范。

Transcription is one of the six categories of traditional structural theory of Chinese characters. The definition of transcription has remained controversial and quite a number of the demonstration methods have been found deficient. According to Xu Shen's definition and illustration of transcription, together with etymology theories and the development history of Chinese characters, the author puts forward that transcription, in accordance with the categories of different objects, can be regarded as the selection of the radicals of those characters which best describe the objects’ characteristics. Same radicals can be applied to characters referring to similar objects. Transcription is not word-formation, however, it is a crucial complement of the making of words.It is improper to regard it simply as word employment. The proposition of transcription helps to optimize the structural theory of Chinese characters and meanwhile, accelerates their development, maturation and regularization.