A Contrastive Analysis Of Address Forms In Thunderstorm And Major Barbara-Towards A Socio-Pragmatic Perspective

The research of address forms has long been paid attention to by scholars from home and abroad. However, most of the research was limited in the field of sociolinguistics, and address forms were described statically. Since the address forms are used with various dynamic extra-linguistic functions, study of address forms from pragmatic point of view inserts vitality into this research field. This paper, therefore, tries to approach the subject matter from a socio-pragmatic perspective, looking at both static and dynamic behaviors of address forms. In other words, not only the structure of address forms, but also the factors restricting choices, the shift of address forms, and their pragmatic effects in particular context are taken into consideration. This is done mainly through a contrastive study of address forms between English and Chinese after their sociq-pragmatic forces and functions are analyzed in the two plays, Thunderstorm and Major Barbara. And some tentative translation strategies are proposed.The main conclusion drawn from the research consists of that the use and shift of address forms are affected by variety of socio-pragmatic factors and socio-pragmatic functions of address forms should be interpreted according to specific context. Therefore, dynamic equivalence in translation of address forms could be achieved only on the basis of specific socio-pragmatic meanings. As for pragmatic untranslatability, those pragmatic meanings should be maintained as far as possible to express the original meaning more appropriately. The innovative point of the paper is the combination of static method and dynamic method, that is, a socio-pragmatic analysis of address forms in plays. Such method helps to further reveal the nature of the language phenomenon.