Sociopragmatic Functions And Translation Strategies Of Address Forms

Address forms are easily observed in people's daily utterances. They play a significant role in the smooth development of a whole communication process. Therefore, many researches on address forms are made, which are largely from the sociolinguistic point of view. However, this thesis presents a study of address forms from sociopragmatic perspective, i.e., sociopragmatic functions and translation strategies of address forms. In Chinese and English addressing systems, there are various address forms, which have similarities and differences. Therefore, to some extent, this thesis is a comparative study of address forms in both Chinese and English languages.Brown & Gilman put forward the power and solidarity, which reflect role relationship and social distance respectively. It is further proved by Brown & Ford's study. Then Ervin-Tripp's research gives us the idea that a changed address form may reflect a changing interpersonal relationship. These scholars shed light on the interpersonal function of address forms. At the same time, Austin's speech act theory helps make people clear that address forms perform the functions of directives and expressives. They are the category of illocutionary function, which along with the interpersonal function constitutes the sociopragmatic functions of address forms.The differences between Chinese and English address forms and the illocutionary function they perform bring difficulties to the translation of certain address forms. Thus, the theory of pragmatic equivalence is introduced to serve as a guide to the rendering. Upon that, four strategies are suggested, which include translation by using an address form of the similar meaning, by paraphrasing, by transferring and by omitting. It is hoped that the strategies are of great help to efficiently convey the information in original text and give target readers a best possible impression appropriate to that of the original. Meanwhile, this study of address forms is believed to provide some implications for foreign language teaching.