A Contrastive Study Of Address Forms Between Chinese And English

As one of the most important aspects of language, research of address forms is an attractive topic in both sociolinguistic and pragmatic field. Since every language has its own address forms and particular address system, it is of vital importance to grasp their appropriate usage in communication, especially in intercultural communication in order to prevent making mistakes and arousing misunderstandings between the interlocutors. Therefore, investigation into this linguistic phenomenon and probe into the complicated usage of them are of practical importance.Address forms are considered as salient indicator of status relationship among speakers. Instead of acting in a static or stable way, usage of address forms takes high flexibility and is closely related to the development of society, history, custom, social values and social structures in verbal communication in daily life and universal across different cultures. Thus, the dynamic use of address forms becomes the target of this thesis. Being related to the dramatic social change, it is evitable to relate the sociopragmatic functions of address forms. In this thesis, the illocutionary function and interpersonal function are clearly revealed with the examples from the sitcoms. Based on the pervious research and study, this part adds some new functions to the illocutionary function, for example, declarative function, representative function and commissive function, which can be treated as the creative part of the whole thesis. Besides the dynamic usage of them, the other important aspect of the thesis touches upon the practical usage of address forms. The usage summarized in this thesis is highly scientific which is also based on the examples sorted out.This present thesis is organized in the following chapters: Chapter One introduces the basic knowledge about address forms and its development. Chapter Two reviews the literature works and the theoretical foundations in this field together with the purpose and significance of the present study. The third chapter gives a comprehensive summary of address forms which includes the definition, its pragmatic features and classifications to lay a foundation for the further study in the next chapter. Based on the examples from two influential English and Chinese sitcoms in Chapter Three, the next chapter gives a full contrastive study of the sociopragmatic functions of address forms from two different perspectives and lists the examples out corresponding with certain functions. The choices of address forms in a specific context are also discussed. The fifth chapter is the most important part of all. Based on the classifications in Chapter Three, this chapter pays special attention to differences in usages between Chinese and English address forms and gives a repertoire of the practical usage of address forms in Chinese and English. Besides highlighting the author's findings, the last chapter concludes the thesis by pointing out the limitations of the present study and making suggestions for further study as well.