The Cultural Rethinking of Multidimensional Comparison between English and Chinese Lexicons—The Case of Word Families Containing “rén (人)” Morphemes

Based on Cultural Cognitive Linguistics, this paper investigates word families containing the morpheme “ren” (人rén). Through multidimensional comparisons of word formation, semantic features, and socio-cultural connotations, it reveals the deep-seated differences in English and Chinese lexical systems and their underlying cultural-cognitive motivations. It is found that the Chinese word system with “human being” as its core is highly productive and regular, reflecting the Eastern comprehensive thinking and group-oriented view, while English relies on the derivation and recombination of multi-origin roots, reflecting the Western analytical thinking and individualistic tradition. At the semantic level, Chinese builds a hierarchical semantic field through the fixed pattern of “modifier + person”, whereas English is characterized by multiple etymologies and a decentralized semantic structure. This study provides theoretical support for cross-cultural communication and language teaching from a cognitive perspective, and emphasizes the need to pay attention to the cultural rationale behind vocabulary in language teaching.