Abstract: The concept of “zhishi ”(指事,one of the six categories of Chinese characters) was defined as “shierkeshi,chaerjianyi”(视而可识，察而见意),referring to distinguish and know the meaning by observing the Chinese characters.Here,“shi” (识)has been understood as “to know”,causing semantic repetition and divergence.In fact,“shi” (识) should be interpreted as “distinguish”;“shierkeshi”(视而可识) refers that we can distinguish a set of related characters from their forms,and“chaerjianyi”(察而见意) refers that we can know the meanings by observing the Chinese characters carefully.If we can understand these,both the scope and the classification of the self-explanatory characters will be more definite.

Key words: zhishi (self-explanatory characters), distinguish, related characters