Cross-culturally Comparative Study Of The Systems Of Female Address Forms In Chinese And English

Address forms is one of the most talked- about areas in the fields of sociolinguistics and cross-cultural communication studies in recent years. As respect to the female address forms, it concerns the question of the relationship between language and sex which let it get another piece of significance. The present thesis attempts to make a comparative study on female address forms in Chinese and English to explore the similarities and differences of these two female appellation systems and their respective contribution in the location and maintenance of women in a disadvantageous position in each society by means of analysis, illustration, exemplification, comparison, and summarizing.The system of address forms is an important part of the language by which people identify each other or themselves so as to play their roles properly. Appellation is not only the most systemic and direct reflection of social interpersonal relationships, but also a reflection of many factors such as social, culture, economic, political and so on which we can have a peep at the overall interpersonal relationships in a society or even all aspects of a community's social life. As a special part of a language, address forms and culture are closely connected. On the one hand, it is a mirror which reflects the culture phenomenon of a society; on the other hand, culture can determine or influence the practical use of addressing terms in a society.This paper compares the system of female address forms in Chinese and English from the following three subcategories: (1) Names. (2) Kinship terms. (3) Social addressing forms. After a detailed presentation of the systems of female address forms in Chinese and English, the thesis compares the similarities and differences in these two systems. Through a description of women's position and roles in Chinese and western culture ideologies, the thesis has found out that either in Western societies or in Chinese society, women were second-citizenship and subordinate to men. Women's granted place was at home, and their roles were housewives. This social reality and cultural ideology have been reflected in language systems. Sexism exists in female address forms, which can be seen from large amount of asymmetrical sexism markedness in the system of female address forms. The phenomena of asymmetry have been presented in three aspects: form markedness, semantic markedness and distribution markedness. With regard to the causes of the asymmetry of sexism markedness in female appellation systems, besides social and cultural ideology factors, the unbalanced development of language system also attributes to it.On the other hand, as Chinese culture and the Western culture have different origins and have developed quite differently, naturally, their influence on address terms in Chinese and English varied too. The cultural orientation in China is Confucianism, whose core idea is ren and li, and whose ultimate goal is to achieve ideal manhood and harmonious relationship. However, in Western countries, the cultural orientation is the western religion and philosophy, in which individualism, equality and freedom are highly valued. The Chinese lay great emphasis on collectivism while westerners highly value individualism. In accordance, female appellations in Chinese and in English have showed different characteristics. As respect to female kin terms, Chinese female kinship terms have strong specificity while English female kinship terms have strong generality, with the former outnumbering the latter greatly. As respect to social address forms, Chinese female social address terms are rich, complicate, concrete and specific while the English female address terms are much less, simpler and general...