A Study Of The Switch Of Address Forms In Textual Conversations

As a very important speech communicative component, address forms play a very important role in the society as people are getting closer in communicative activities. Address forms are not only used to convey information, but also to establish people's relationship. Serving as a grammatical unit in language system, address forms also possess the social meaning as a pragmatic unit. The use of address forms is not static but dynamic due to the change of the time, the setting and other factors. People will switch the address forms to realize their communicative goals. Therefore, address forms appear to be dynamic in some cases. This study mainly investigates the dynamic process of address forms and the pragmatic functions they express.The present study is based on a few English novels and dramas. The examples with the switch of address forms are related to answer the following three questions:(1) What patterns of the switch of address forms are used in the conversation?(2) Does the switch of address forms frequently happen in conversations?(3) What are the pragmatic functions of the switch of address forms?The analysis of the examples reveals the following findings:Firstly, based on the research of T form and V form by Brown and Gilman, the types of address forms can be classified into formal ones and informal ones. Based on this classification, the models of address forms can be generalized into three kinds:the formal to informal way, the informal to formal way and the dynamic changing continuum way. Secondly, the famous drama Pygmalion written by Gorge Bernard Shaw is analyzed to show the types of address forms, the frequency and distribution of each type. It is found that the switch of address forms frequently happens in the text conversation. Thirdly, through many examples from literary works, the pragmatic functions of the switch of address forms are analyzed, which aims to show the different functions compared with the ones of static address forms.The above findings indicate that the switch of address forms is a very important language phenomenon in people's communication. Through the study of the switch of address forms and their pragmatic functions, we can enrich the study of address forms in the field of sociolinguistics and pragmatics. The significance and the value of the present study lies in showing how to make further researches and related researches of the switch of address forms.