In the course of the historical development, the coinage of the Chinese characters has undergone tremendous changes. At first pictograms dominated. Later pictographic-phonetic characters dominated. The system of the Chinese characters incorporate sounds forms as well as meanings. In comparison with the Western words, the Chinese words have the following special properties:
1） The Chinese words are ideographs that are not connected directly with pronunciation. The Chinese in different dialectal regions can read out the written words in their dialectal pronunciations and understand the meanings of the words, so as to exchange their idea, and understand each other. In the respect of the forms, the Western script has developed from the primitive hieroglyphs to the linear alphabetic system. The alphabetic words are only signs of the language. Only through the mediation of pronunciation can their meanings be communicated. As Sausseur stated, “Language and words are two different sign systems; the sole reason why the latter exists is for the expression of the former.”(“Course in General Linguistics”) However, the Chinese words are different. The Chinese words in their square forms can reflect directly and comprehensively their meanings and pronunciations. For instance , the word “忍” (endure) is composed of “心”(heart , mind) and “刀”(knife) . “人”(man) symbolizes a person with his two feet standing on land had his head under the sky . “梦”(dream) represents a man sleeping in woods (林) at night(夕) . Its meaning is evident upon a glance at it. They are all vivid and perceivable images.
2） From the angle of pronunciation, the Western words are alphabetic and the Chinese words are themselves syllabic. Being phonetically spelt the Western words depend on changes of pronunciations to convey the semantic meanings. They are constructed through free associations of well-developed consonants and vowels. Their phonemes have clear borderlines among them and their syllabic forms are complicated. The phonemes of a word give jointly the meaning of the words. A word may not be represented by different pronunciations. On the other hand the Chinese word appears in a single syllabic pattern, and one word does not require several syllables. It depends on its tone to convey the meaning jointly. As the Chinese word has a single syllable, so the Chinese language has many homophonous words. So, tones are an added feature of the Chinese words. Tones provide a wider range for the use of the words in the Chinese language. To illustrate this point, let us consider the 20 word long antithetical couplet engraved on the gateway of the Lady Mengjiang Temple at Shanhai Pass (the Mountain and Sea Pass). The couplet included fourteen similar words , “海水朝朝朝朝朝朝朝落，浮云长长长长长长长消，”, which should bee read out as follows: “海水潮，朝朝朝，朝朝朝落；浮云涨，长长涨，长涨长消” (Sea tide rises and ebbs everyday/Drifting clouds appear and fade frequently) . The artful employment of the words “朝” and “长” leads to the different tones and connotation of the words despite the superficial similarities among the seven “朝”s and seven “长”s , thus homophones and their different tones have brought forth a difficulty to the learners . People might not be able to write the words correctly on the basis of their pronunciations or the Chinese words.
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3） With respect to connotations the Western script is abstractly rational while the Chinese script is imaginable and perceivable. In the Western scripts words are abstractly rational, because there are no inherent relations between the signs of the words and the information conveyed by the words, which are rationally defined. The Western script is generally incomprehensible by itself. The Chinese words are combinations of forms and meanings, so the Chinese words are imaginable and comprehensible. For example, in the olden days the Chinese women had a low status and were looked upon as disasters. Accordingly a group of derogatory words appeared that have “女”(women) as a segment , such as “奸” (cunning) , “婪” (avaricious), “娼” (bitch), “妓” (prostitute) , “妖” (demon) , etc., Even some words with neutral meanings show sex discrimination , such as “安” (safe) , implying a woman staying at home and not going out , “妥” (appropriate) implying a woman grasped in a man’s hand . Of the Western words a single letter bears no meaning, but of the Chinese words, a character has in itself an actual meaning; And phrases, sentences and articles composed of meaningful characters can make their contents more rich and effective.
