称名还是道姓?——汉语和英语专名指称功能的对比分析

By given or family name?A contrastive analysis of proper names as referential devices in Chinese and English

本文首先扼要叙述汉语和英语姓名的起源与发展,然后围绕汉语和英语姓名用作指称手段时表现出来的特点,侧重讨论四种相关现象,提出两个观点。四种相关现象是:1)汉语历史上专名指称系统的复杂程度远远超过英语,历史上中国王朝对于姓氏的重视程度也远远超过英国宫廷;2)当代汉语常用姓氏的覆盖率很高,同姓远远超过同名,姓氏的使用频率高过名字;3)当代英语常用名字的覆盖率很高,同名远远超过同姓,名字的使用频率高过姓氏;4)英语常用名一般都有一些变体,有的甚至达几十种之多。两个观点是:1)除了单纯指称作用,姓名使用同时还传递其他信息,其中最重要的是表示双方熟悉程度,或彼此关系远近。从信息载荷角度出发,现代英语称名一般相当于汉语道姓,即James、Emily相当于“老李”“小王”;2)基于下面两条具有普遍意义的理论原理进行逻辑推衍,上述现象和观点是必然结果。这两条原理是:a.语言成分的意义主要取决于它与其他相关成分在系统中的对立;b.香农(Shannon)的信息熵原理——信号的出现概率与其信息量呈反比关系。最后讨论,本文的研究结果能给语言理论研究带来哪些值得进一步思考的问题。

This study begins with a brief account of the origin and development of proper names in Chinese and English.It follows with a detailed discussion of four phenomena relating to proper names used as referential devices in the two languages,and puts forward two propositions.The four phenomena are:1)A much more complicated referential system involving proper names evolved through several stages in Chinese than in English,and more importance was attached to the family name by the imperial courts in China than has been the case with the British royal courts;2)Chinese family names far outnumber given names;3)English given names far outnumber family names;4)English given names in common use usually feature multiple variant forms.The two propositions are:1)In addition to simple referentiality,proper names also serve the function of indicating how close the relationship is between the addresser and addressee.English given names like‘James’and‘Emily’are functionally much closer to Chinese family names like“Lao Li”and“Xiao Wang”than to Chinese given names in terms of information load;2)what is presented above ensues logically and naturally from two theoretical principles of universal validity:a)the meaning of linguistic terms derive mainly from the opposition of related items within the system;b)As elaborated in Claude Shannon’s theory of information entropy,the values of the information of signals stand in inverse proportion to the probability of their occurrence.It will end by exploring the implications of the findings of this study on issues of more general interest in theoretical linguistics.