Multi-angular Comparative Analysis On Chinese And English Kinship Terms

Kinship which remains the principal source of our closest ties with others is so important in social organization,so kinship terms are a universal feature of languages. The concept of kinship terms are frequently used in the anthropological and linguistic methods in order to identify the system and structure of words. However,kinship term systems vary across languages and nations,revealing different political,economic historyand cultural backgrounds under which they develop.Therefore,the study of differentces between kinship term systems in various languages will help us get a better understanding of the characteristic of languages.It is also helpful to some extent in foreign language learning and translation practice.Moreover,the comparative study will help smooth away the difficulties in mutual understanding when such kinship terms are involved in intercultural communication.Most of the previous researches in this field confine it to one particular language,or only compare and analyze different language from culture angular. Address forms,though not a new topic in academic research,are still worth studying for their importance in the practical use. On the basis of the former researches-mainly static analysis,the paper develops an analysis of the kinship terms from the semantics,pragmatics and perspective of the relationship between language and culture.So the technique of comparison and contrast is used throughout the whole thesis to compare and analyze Chinese and English kinship term systems from multi-angular.There are four parts in this paper.The first part introduces the definitions and classification of adderss forms,reviews the theoretical achievements of adderss forms by Western and Chinese scholars;In order to find the differences between the Chinese and English kinship terms,the author makes a new and arduous attempt to compare the system in second part;The third part and forth part employ the technique of semantic componential analysis and discuss the same points and different points of the prag matics in comparing the two languages.At the same time,the author make a brief summary to examine the causes of those differences after every parts in this thesis.In our conclusion,there are some similarities and differences existing between English and Chineses kinship terms. Factors which influence the choice of kinship terms(age, gender or occasion)are different in both English and Chinese languages.The paper finally comes to another conclusion:in order to achieve meaningful and successful communication cross-culturally,one has to acquire both linguistic and cultural knowledges.