A Pragmatic Study On Address Forms

As a sensitive communicative component, the address forms play an important role in the speech communication. And usually their usage takes highly flexibility, rather than acts in a static or stable way. Therefore, two kinds of usages can be distinguished as the dynamic using and the stable using. Moreover, the former is the object of this research, which means that the interlocutor intentionally chooses a specific address form as a communicative strategy for the sake of achieving certain communicative purpose.This thesis is a pragmatic analysis on the address forms' dynamic using. Methodologically speaking, it belongs to a qualitative study based on the data. The theoretical framework of the present research is constructed on Jef Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory (2000) and the semantics of power and solidarity, which are proposed by Roger Brown & Albert Gilman in 1960.This thesis consists of three research questions: 1) why do people choose specific address forms in a dynamic way as a communicative strategy? 2) how does the address forms' dynamic using realize? 3) what pragmatic functions does the address forms' dynamic using achieve?As a strategy of communication, the address forms' dynamic using is a process of a highly conscious and purposeful linguistic behavior. Through careful observation of the data, we find that in certain context specific address forms are chosen to adapt to various contextual factors. The research findings indicate that the address forms are used to adjust to mental world, social world and physical world. In a word, the address forms' dynamic using is the result of linguistic adaptation, and then the first question is explained.On the basis of the V-T distinction of the second-person pronoun, an extended conception is adopted in this thesis, they are V-forms and T-forms...