A Study Of Wang Xifeng's Addressing Forms From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Balance Hypothesis

Addressing forms play an important role in interpersonal communication. Using the correct addressing forms will, to some degree, pave the way for the success of communication. Many scholars from home and abroad do a lot of researches on addressing forms. However, most of the researches were limited in the field of sociolinguistics. Thus the research on addressing forms from the pragmatic perspective enriches the study of addressing forms.Wang Xifeng is one of the most outstanding persons who are good at dealing with people in the famous Chinese classic work A Dream of Red Mansions. In order to meet her communicative needs, she chooses her addressing forms properly according to the time, space, the person's identity and so on. Previous researches on Wang Xifeng mainly focus on her language, her personality and so on. There's a few research on her addressing forms, and the thesis tries to study Wang's addressing forms on the basis of Pragmatic Balance Hypothesis.According to pragmatic balance hypothesis, in interpersonal communication, in order to meet his/her communicative needs (N for short), the speaker must make pragmatic efforts by mobilizing several kinds of pragmatic resources so as to achieve the success of communication. And the effect of the communication is called pragmatic force (F for short). That is to say, when people have low needs in the communication, they make less pragmatic efforts and mobilize less pragmatic resources. On the contrary, when people have high needs, they have to make more pragmatic efforts and mobilize more pragmatic resources. One part of pragmatic efforts is addressing form. The thesis tries to study how Wang Xifeng changes her addressing forms according to her communicative needs. Pragmatic balance hypothesis divides people's communication into three kinds.Firstly, when a speaker gets the expected pragmatic effects, his/her communication is balanced, namely N=F. Secondly, when a speaker obtains not only the expected pragmatic force but also extra force, his/her communication is positively imbalanced, namely N<F. Thirdly, when a speaker doesn't get the expected pragmatic effect, his/her communication is negatively imbalanced, namely N>F.In the novel, Wang Xifeng's addressing forms can be divided into two kinds. One kind of her addressing forms is mainly used to handle the household. In this situation, her communicative needs are not obvious, and this kind of addressing forms is not studied in the thesis. The other kind of addressing forms is used to handle the relationships. These addressing forms reflect Wang Xifeng's great communicative needs, which are the focus of the present research.The thesis collects 33 addressing forms used by Wang Xifeng, which obviously reveals her communicative needs. These 33 addressing forms are divided into 2 groups according to the extent whether or not Wang Xifeng's communicative needs are easily to achieve. One group reflects Wang Xifeng's low communicative needs, and the other group reflects her high communicative needs. Through these 33 examples, the thesis analyzes how Wang Xifeng adjusts her addressing forms according to her communicative needs. The thesis also analyzes what pragmatic effects she achieves. Through the analysis, the author finds that when Wang Xifeng's communicative needs are low, she tends to use simple addressing forms. When her communicative needs are relatively high, she tends to use complex addressing forms and mobilize other pragmatic resources such as advising, threatening and other speech acts. At last, Wang Xifeng meets her communicative needs successfully.In addition, the pragmatic effects Wang obtains are also different because of her different communicative needs. When she has low communicative needs, she gets two pragmatic effects, namely N=F, N<F. When she has high communicative needs, she also gets the above two pragmatic effects by mobilizing more pragmatic resources. It should be pointed out that when Wang's communicative needs are high, her communication is negatively imbalanced, namely N>F. At this time, by changing the addressing forms and adding other speech acts such as threatening, advising, Wang successfully meets her communicative needs, and she changes the situation of N>F into the situation of N=F or into the situation of N<F.The thesis attaches importance to the impact of the addressing forms in the communication, and it has some value on the interpersonal communication. Yet Wang Xifeng is a figure in a novel, the research is limited by its literary language to a certain extent.