Aspects Of Address Forms In Chinese, English And Russian: A Comparative Study

Address forms are the most frequently used words in speech communication, and they are of great importance in interpersonal communication, particularly in cross-cultural interaction. Address forms embody diversified functions: from the viewpoint of communication, address forms embody the various relationships between interlocutors; from the angle of society, they reflect the development of society; from the viewpoint of culture, address forms in different languages reveal the cultural differences of different ethics; from the angle of pragmatics, people use address in line with different contexts, and various address forms with same speech function convey different social deictic information.As a system of symbolic signs, address forms, which provide us with vital scientific basis for the development of language and culture, have attracted attention and interest of many scholars to study them from various disciplines: semiotics, linguistics, anthropology, culturology, sociology, folklore and so on. However, address forms have not been adequately investigated from a cultural-pragmatic perspective, particularly in a comparative way with the aim to guide the interpersonal communication. Therefore, in this thesis a tentative comparison of address forms has been made from a cultural-pragmatic perspective in three languages: Chinese, English and Russian. An investigation of various kinds of meanings conveyed in address forms and the way they affect the use has also been carried out with the purpose to offer explanations associated with cultures in different languages.Through many years of teaching foreign languages (the author teaches Russian and English), the author of this thesis has noticed the significance of appropriate use of addressing in communication. There are many cases of communication failure caused by inappropriate use of address. Therefore, there is the need to carry out a comparative study on addressing of different languages with an attempt to guide interpersonalcommunication. Meanwhile, as Chinese is the author's native language, a special effort has been made to put forward proper pragmatic principle of addressing in Chinese. Observations on addressing in communication are from routine utterances, including utterances from movies, spontaneous utterances in routine life, letters by eminent person etc.Observation and investigation of address forms in this thesis demonstrate that different cultures have different ways of addressing and different ways of addressing reflect different culture values. Centered on Chinese, there are more differences than similarities in address forms between the Chinese and English or the Chinese and Russian address systems, but with comparison to the Chinese and English address systems, there are more similarities between the Chinese and Russian ones, for China and Russia share a characteristic of socio-cultural milieu in common: both of them are mostly patriarchal societies and clan is the kernel component of society. On the contrary, English-speaking countries are mostly not patriarchal societies, but religious societies, which is much different from China and Russia. Based on this, there are some common cultural values between China and Russia, namely closeness, solidarity, intimacy, modesty, order etc. that could be embodied by the use of address forms.The central idea of politeness in Chinese lies in denigrating self and respecting other, which has been well exemplified by the use of address forms in Chinese. Although people come to realize the significance of addressing in Chinese, there are not systematic principles to guide interpersonal communication. Therefore, according to the Politeness Principle of G. Leech, the author of this thesis tends to do this job and puts forward the Politeness Principle of Addressing in Chinese, consisting of six maxims. They are I. Tact Maxim, II. Generosity Maxim, III. Approbation Maxim, IV. Modesty Maxim, V. Order Maxim, VI. Sincerity and Solidarity Maxim. These maxims are helpful for people to guide their behavior and show their respec...