THE LEXICON OF THE THEMATIC SECTION "HUMAN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY" IN THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CONCEPT OF "YIN-YANG"
Abstract
The embodiment of the concept of yin and yang can be seen everywhere in our life. This article describes the embodiment of the yin and yang concept in the alternation of the four seasons. Starting from the winter solstice until spring and summer, the chill air is gradually decreasing, the warm days are increasing, and the climate is gradually changing from cold to hot, which is the process of “yin declining and yang growing”; starting from summer until autumn and winter, the hot air is gradually disappearing, while the cold air is increasing, and the climate is gradually getting colder and colder, which is the process of " yin declining and yang growing". Hence it leads to the formation of the yin and yang concept in the farming industry and to the reflection of it on the level of language unites (words). In the early days, when people were still in the primitive farming era, they began to observe various phenomena in nature, such as the sunrise and sunset, the waxing and waning of the moon, the heat and cold of the season, the temperature of the weather, the glory of the vegetation, parts of the world as well as the symmetry of the flora and fauna and so on. It is quite precisely because in the farming time all these natural environments had a huge impact on people’s harvest and lives. The yin and yang concept exactly explains the change of the four seasons. The change of the four seasons has a great connection with the farming harvest. Therefore, the concept of yin and yang is widely used in the farming industry and objectified in correspondent lexical unites in the Chinese language. Through the analysis of the vocabulary related to agriculture, it can be seen, that the concept of the opposition was generally formed in the early days of human beings and was a very important way of thinking in the early stage of human beings` living. The concept of yin and yang reflects the idea of opposition and unity. In the same way, another important concept mentioned in the article is unity. It was also formed during these agricultural productive activities which are very closed to people’s lives. The relationship between the various aspects of agricultural activities, its own characteristics, and the connection with the external environment are very important parts of the unity of opposites. Accordingly, it can be seen that the things are not completely unconnected, as well as in the language terms, and all aspects of life are inseparable from the concept of the unity of opposites.
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