A Contrastive Study Of Chinese-English Social Address Terms Under Intercultural Communication Perspective

As is known to all that language is an indispensable part of culture. On one hand, language reflects culture as a mirror, on the other hand, culture influences and creates the formation and development of language. And address forms are apparently a part of language which states many aspects of life or society, playing an important role in maintaining and keeping social relationships between people. Generally speaking, in accordance with the usage scope of address form, it can be divided into two categories, that is, kinship address forms and social address forms. In the intercultural communication, different cultures have a deep influence on the choice and employment of social address forms as well as other factors, for instance, the social status of speakers, their professions, age, gender, educational background, religion, emotion and motivation and so on.Therefore, it is really crucial for smoothing the intercultural communication to master how to use them appropriately in right place at right time. Under the perspective of intercultural communication,this thesis will not only contrast the differences of Chinese-English social address forms but also explicit the reasons form the viewpoint of sociolinguistics theories and cultural roots. What is more, the social address forms are dynamic not static with the development of social economy and science. It is reasonable for us to keep an eye for the changes of them in order to enhance our intercultural communication awareness,improve our intercultural communication competence and decrease the obstacles when people from different cultures communication with each other.