The Influence Of Context On The Choice Of Address Terms:

Address terms are widely used in daily communication, and many scholars from home and abroad have done many researches on address terms from various perspectives. This thesis chooses context as the theoretical framework and the addressing towards the two main characters Daiyu and Baoyu in the classic novel A Dream of Red Mansions as language material to study the influence of context on the choice of addressing terms.This thesis makes a collection of all the addressing towards Daiyu and Baoyu in this novel and lists two classifications of address terms through different criteria. The first criterion, relationship, classifies address terms into naming terms, kinship terms and social address terms and the second, emotion, classifies them into five kinds: honorific terms, self-abasing terms, terms for endearment, teasing and abusive terms.Whether the use of address terms is appropriate or not should be examined in concrete context. Various contextual factors, which include background factors and situational factors, influence the choice of addressing towards Baoyu and Daiyu. Background factors help people form their regular way of addressing others. As one of background factors, culture is deeply embedded in people's mind and guides their general way of addressing and behavior. And speakers tend to address people of a certain status group differently from others of another status group due to the status distance between them and such status distance naturally will lead them to form their own habitual ways of addressing. Situational factors, consisting of factors such as the personal relationship between participants in conversation, occasion, topic and the addresser's mood, lead people to address the same object differently from their regular way of addressing.This thesis focuses on the influence of contextual factors on the choice of address terms and tries to make people better understand and use address terms in concrete situations.