A Study Of Back-Appellation In Modern Chinese

The importance of Back-appellation hasn't been recognized by the researchers for a long time, as not only a kind of appellations, but also a specific reference phenomenon. I will further discuss the back-appellation phenomenon in modern Chinese from two major aspects-the static language performance and the dynamic performance, based on previous researches of the appellation, face-to-face addressing, and the reference. This topic will expand into six chapters as following.The first chapter briefly defines the object, purpose, and methods of this research, and reviews the previous studies of the appellation. In the past, the researchers always focused on how to define and classify the appellation terms and address terms, as well as the transformation of their meanings. They also addressed on the usage and pragmatic functions, the general rules and special expressions of the appellation terms or address terms from the dynamic perspective. Most of these studies centered upon the face-to-face addressing or the general appellation actions rather than systematic researches on the back-appellation. This dissertation will concentrate on the study of the back-appellation to describe and explain the relative phenomena.The appellation terms are reclassified in chapter two. Due to the defects of the previous semantic classifications, and the disconformities with the requirements of my research, I recategorize back-appellations from a functional point of view, based on the function of identity-projection. I also refer to its own semantic properties and corresponding syntactic structures of the back-appellation within the reclassification, in order to conform to the function of back-appellation, and support by the semantic and grammatical forms as well. In addition, I integrate the existing categories with my reclassification as the basis of the following study.The third chapter discusses the ways of back-appellation and its linguistic representations. According to the various identity-projection features of different back-appellation terms, I conclude two separate ways of back-appellations:direct reference and indirect reference. Based on the above classification, I summarize and describe the forms of back-appellations. The reason why these forms of back-appellation appear is related to their own characteristics and features. The terms, ways, and forms of back-appellation are closely linked.In chapter four, I analyze how to choose the ways of back-appellation from the speech act perspective. Back-appellation is a special example of reference, and it must follow the relevant rules when executing such actions. These rules help us to understand the conditions and causes that how the speakers make choices between the two ways, and I will further explain it concerning the function of identity-projection and pragmatic factors.Chapter five discusses how the speakers select the interrelated forms in the ways of direct or indirect references. Each of the ways contains various linguistic forms, which are corresponded to distinct reference-points and characteristics of referents. Due to the complex of the back-appellation and the limitation of writing space, I can only compare and analyze some of the interrelated forms from different ways of back-appellation. We can draw the conclusion that the general conditions which ensure smooth implementations of back-appellation restrict the choices of the ways of back-appellation.The last chapter summarizes the views of the whole dissertation, and points out the shortage of the article, as well as the direction which is worthy of continuously researching in the rest of my life.