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| Confirmation and Enlightenment of the Written Form and Pronunciation of Chinese Female Third-person Pronouns |
| Xie Juntao |
| School of Chinese Language and Literature, Shandong Normal University, Ji’nan 250014, China |
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Abstract In the Late Qing Dynasty, English became one of the Western languages exerting great influence upon Chinese. The third-person pronouns such as he/she/it in English were used to signify the masculine, feminine and neutral. The writing and pronunciation vary with different genders, thus it was difficult for “she” and “it” to be translated into Chinese. “他”, “伊”, “”, “他女” were used to refer to female third-person pronouns in the vernacular materials at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China. This kind of chaotic writing forms caused many inconveniences for translating foreign languages into Chinese and the creative writing in Chinese vernacular.In the May Fourth Period, the need for translating foreign languages into Chinese or vice versa, the call of the times for new literary creation and the requirement for the clarity of the third person gender indication, all have objectively promoted the differentiation of the Chinese third person pronoun. This paper argues that there are two basic reasons why the character “她” has finally become a standard third-person character for women. Firstly, “她” and “他 (ta for man)” can effectively distinguish genders by the semantic components in the form of characters, which conforms to the family similarity of the distribution of character components, to the cognitive psychology of Chinese character memes, to the categorization theory of human cognition, and are easy to recognize and remember in writing. Therefore, using “他” and “她” to express the corresponding male and female is easy to be understood and accepted. The forms of “伊”and “” are so different from that of “他”, so that it is difficult to associate them with female third-person pronouns. The word “伊” is mainly used in the coastal Hokkien language in a small area. It refers not only to people but also to objects, and it is hard to know whether “伊” means a woman without the context. As a newly-created character, “” lacks mass foundation and is difficult to deduce its meaning. Secondly, as to the pronunciation, “她” and “他” have the same pronunciation, which has not changed people’s listening and speaking habits, while there is a big difference in the pronunciation between “伊”and “”. The sudden change of the pronunciation can put the populace at a loss and even causes resistance sentiment. The similarity of pronunciation and form, together with the inner meaning hint of the same side, determines that “她” is more recognizable and acceptable than “伊” and “”.To sum up, the paper concludes that the emergence, recognition and popularity of the Chinese female third-person pronoun “她” is not only the result of the communication between Chinese and Western languages, but also the combination of oral and written forms of language. The definition of the form and pronunciation of the Chinese female third-person pronoun “她” indicates that whether borrowing or creating words should be based on whether they are just needed or practical, and should accord with people’s cognitive psychology, the writing form should be easy to remember and write, the rules of phonetics should consider people’s habit of saying and greeting, and the characters expressing a certain concept should have broad mass basis.The emergence and use of the written forms of the third-person pronouns in Chinese for the female is a topic of considerable concern in the academia. However, scholars have not studied the following issues with a systematic and macroscopic view. The first is the reasons why the character “她 (ta)” eventually replace “伊 (yi)” and “ (tuo)” and became the female third-person pronoun in Chinese. The second is to determine its form and sound, and the third, the exploration of its enlightenment effect.Ancient Chinese did not have special characters for female third-person pronouns. The appearance of female third-person pronouns in modern Chinese and the determination of their forms and pronunciation are mainly related to the need for translating female third-person pronouns in foreign languages and the clarity of written expression. It is of theoretical and practical value in analyzing the problems that occur when translating female third-person pronouns into Chinese, exploring the writing forms and pronunciation of Chinese female third-person pronouns as well as their determination mechanism, and reflecting on their significance in translating foreign languages into Chinese and language planning.
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Received: 10 November 2021
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2022, Vol. 52 
