The Contrastive Study Of Modern Chinese, English, Japanese Kinship Terms

Kinship term is such an appellation as refers to the relationship between the familiar number and oneself,focusing on the oneself.Kinship term, an indispensable part of verbal communication, is clearly highlighted in address system of a language. Chinese,English and Japanese have their unique kinship system,among which only a few share the same semantic elements.In this thesis,to begin with,I attempt to provide a brief outline of the theoretical development in kinship term studies,make a comparative study on differences among Chinese,English and Japanese kinship terms in four chapters and define social meaning in relation to literal meaning in the context of address systems with a view illustrating the communicative utility of kinship terms in non-kin interactions.From the research we can find that,in contrast to English and Japanese kin term system,there are more specific kinship terms and fictive kin terms in Chinese.In succession, I state the main cultural causes of these differences. In the end,I attempt a study on Chinese teaching about the extensive uses of kinship terms to International Students from English-Speaking or Japanese-Speaking countries by designing a questionnaire--an investigation of the use of "da"+kinship term.The present study will,hopefully act as a springboard for Chinese teaching on kinship terms for England and Japan,especially the extensive use of kinship terms in verbal communication.It is of both theoretical and practical significance to launch an explicit study on them.Kinship terms and their extensive uses as an important part of verbal communication,can fully reflect the cultural differences among distinct language kinship systems.We should acquaint ourselves the three kinship systems of Chinese,English and Japanese,which plays an active part in cross-cultural teaching.