To transform old words into new words is a very efficient mode of word derivation in contemporary Chinese, which mainly involves the transformation of word form and the transformation of meaning. In the process of transforming the old words language users have created a lot of new words that are very novel in form or meaning based on the relationship between Chinese characters in terms of sound, shape and meaning or the structural features of Chinese characters. This paper lists more than 130 new appellations including sound-based words, form-based words, meaning-based words and words produced by changing the structure of Chinese characters, names the ways how old words transform into new words as JieYinFuXing, XieYinFuYi, BieJieFuYi, FanBeiFuYi, GaiZiBianXing and describes the transformation process of these words. These lexical phenomenons reflect some language psychology such as pursuing new differences, playing jokes and mental association. They have some impacts on the lexical system of contemporary Chinese as they open up new ways for the generation and change of contemporary Chinese words, they supplement the word-making methods and lead to some unconventional combinations in contemporary Chinese lexis. This paper intends to further clarify the important role of Chinese characters in word creation and word development, and deepen the understanding of Chinese Character study and contemporary Chinese lexicology.

Despite numerous errors already revealed in Shuo Wen Jie Zi by Xu Shen in Eastern Han dynasty, it is still considered to be an important literature in Chinese character studies. This study utilizes tools, such as mathematical functions, set and logic, to look into Shuo Wen Jie Zi from a new perspective. Through this approach, one can get a macro-scale tendency or trend. At the same time, one can pin-point numerous micro-scale errors. This study firstly defines functions that constitute the framework, and then processes the entire data set within Shuo Wen Jie Zi, addressing the topics associated with it.

The widely accepted understanding that a Chinese character has three factors, i.e., form, sound and meaning, takes sound and meaning into the account of the Chinese Graphology; this has too broad a scope. On the other hand, the view that “Chinese Graphology is in essence the study of the graphic shape” is too narrow. From my observation, Chinese characters have three properties of their own: shape, constitution and function. To start from here may in necessity attain three branches of it, that is, the study of Chinese graphic constitution and the study of Chinese graphic functions, each forming a system of its own. These three systems do not stand in parallel, nor in layers, but three independent and not severed planes of the noumenon of Chinese characters. In other words, they constitute what the Chinese Graphology should concern. This may be termed “the Three-Plane Theory of Chinese Graphology”. A dozen years of researches of ours have proved that this theory, and the study of Chinese graphic function in particular, have both important theoretical and wide-reaching practical values.

For a long time, Chinese characters have been considered merely as a tool for recording the spoken language. However, in certain contexts, Chinese characters can also convey trans-glossematic information, e.g. information incompatible with the character that is used to record its glosseme can be conveyed by some component of the character or simply by the form of the character; information that is not within the semantic category of the corresponding glosseme can be conveyed by an altered character. In fact, Chinese characters, consisting of a set of plane symbols, function as a self-contained whole, which work well with the Chinese language and keep their own features at the same time. Because of this trans-glossematic communication function, Chinese characters are not a mere copy of the Chinese language. On the contrary, they can convey messages on their own when needed. This trans-glossematic function is determined by the origin and structural features of Chinese characters. In the very beginning, the lack of correspondence between characters and glossemes, as well as the principle of representing an object by a character form that resembles it, influenced the way people understood and used the characters. The structural feature of Chinese characters, i.e. the planar composition of the characters, has rendered the alternation of characters and the separation of components possible. Therefore, there are a diversity of ways to express meaning with Chinese characters: by using just the form of a character, piecing or separating components, re-analyzing characters, adding or reducing strokes, moving strokes, or altering character forms. Expression through the use of character forms and structures is a special rhetorical device. Here we call it the rhetoric of Chinese characters.

In the process of using Chinese characters, there are appearances that semantic of characters used in context are different from the glyphs. The chinese writing system makes use of the ideographic elastic category to adjustoriginalpictophonetic characters and maintains effectively its own ideographic features.