A Study On The Kinship Terms Of Kinship

Jiexiu dialect belongs to Jinyang sub-group, Bingzhou group of Jin dialect, and it is the main language for communication of residents in Jiexiu as well as surrounding towns and villages. Dialect relative appellations are common words used for interpersonal communication in dialect areas, which have close relationship with social culture and traditional customs. This study takes the relative appellations of Jiexiu dialect as research object, investigates the awareness and usage as well as the social differences of dialect relative appellations among different investigation points (towns, northern countryside and southern countryside) and groups with different social characteristics (gender, age, educational level, occupation and urban & rural background) applying the sociolinguistics investigation method, analyzes the factors resulting in differences and predicts the development trend of dialect relative appellations.The investigation shows that, the general characteristics of awareness and usage of relative appellations in Jiexiu dialect are:high awareness rate and low usage rate, in addition, the awareness rate and usage rate of consanguinity relative appellations are higher than those of affinity relative appellations. According to the comparison among communities of different types, in terms of awareness rate and usage rate,urban communities are obviously lower than rural communities; and southern countryside are slightly lower than northern countryside. The comparison between ordinary residents and special groups shows that, the awareness rate and usage rate of ordinary residents are significantly higher than those of special groups; and civil servants are significantly higher than high-school students in awareness rate and usage rate.In terms of social differences:in gender, the awareness rate of females are higher than those of males, while the usage rate of males is higher than that of females and males use more traditional consanguinity and affinity relative appellations compared with females; in age, the awareness and usage of dialect relative appellations are positively correlated with age, which means that, the awareness rate and usage rate rise with age, with significant intergenerational difference; in educational level, the lowly-educated research objects are more inclined to use traditional consanguinity and affinity relative appellations compared with highly-educated objects; in urban & rural background, both the awareness rate and usage rate of rural investigated objects are higher than those of urban ones. In terms of the association among different social variables, the lowly-educated older investigated objects from countryside know and use traditional dialect relative appellations more than highly-educated younger ones from towns.Language attitude is an important internal factor affecting language use and language development. According to the investigation, the investigated objects think highly of the social status of dialect relative appellations; have the same expectation for the development prospect of Jiexiu dialect and its relative appellations, unanimously agreeing their continuous use; and think that Jiexiu dialect has the highest utility function. They have positive emotional identification and behavioral intention to mandarin while have positive emotional identification and negative behavioral intention to Jiexiu dialect. Most investigated objects have deep feelings for dialect, but their actual behavioral intention to dialect is not as positive as to mandarin. This condition will promote wider use and development of mandarin while dialect will also be retained at certain degree. Gender, age, educational level, urban and rural background, mandarin, school education, need for communication, fertility policy and traditional ideas are external factors affecting language use and language development. Living environment, communication range, communication group and family structure make male middle-aged rural investigated objects with low educational level are more inclined to use dialect relative appellations; while female young urban investigated objects with high educational level are more inclined to use common words. Promotion of mandarin, school education, need for communication, fertility policy and traditional ideas will make mandarin used more widely.Seen from the development trend, the relative appellations of Jiexiu dialect will be used for daily communication in a long term. Due to people’s need for communication, the dialect relative appellations will develop towards flexibility, simplification and generalization, some affinity relative appellations and senior words will be eliminated gradually, subordinate appellations will become more and difference in closeness of relationship will be weakened gradually. With the promotion of mandarin and growth of young people, the proportion of people speaking both Jiexiu dialect and mandarin will increase, while the expansion of applicable scope of mandarin relative appellations will inevitably lead to less use of dialect relative appellations.