A Study Of Address Terms In The Family From The Sociopragmatic Perspective

Address terms, as an important component of daily life, play an increasingly important role in the interaction of modern society. According to different criterions, we can divide them into different categories. They can be used as a word or phrase to address others directly, or to show the relationship between the interlocutors by written or spoken forms. Address term is not only a grammatical unit, but also a pragmatic unit for social interaction. Thus, we need to understand it from both grammatical and pragmatic perspectives. The story in The Family set during the transition period of new and old age, and the collision of modern consciousness and traditional culture during May the Fourth Movement. Thus, the use of address terms in this literary work also shows the feature of exchange between the new and old ones. Ba Jin, the master of modern Chinese literature, was born in a bureaucratic landlord family, and he was influenced by the traditional culture since the childhood. So, his work, The Family, also shows various relations with Chinese traditional culture. Thus, this paper roots in the address terms in The Family, and adopts a sociopragmatic view to analyze the constraining factors in the use of address terms and the social cultural connotations they reflect.By detailed analysis of the address terms in The Family, this paper addresses the following research questions.1) What are the types of address terms in The Family?2) What are the restricting factors on the choice of address terms in The Family?3) What is the social cultural connotation of address terms?From sociopragmatic perspective by Brown and Levinson’s Face-saving Theory and “Power” and “Solidarity” promoted by Brown and Gilman, this paper finds:(1) The address terms in The Family can be mainly divided into kinship terms, social terms and appellation terms.(2) The dominant restricting factors on the choice of address terms in The Family are power, solidarity, face saving strategy, and register and so on.(3) In the beginning of 20 th century, the two different ideologies, modern and traditional culture, conflicted fiercely in all fields in the society, and the collapse in the feudal family also reflected the transformation of Chinese social culture.Through the change of the Gao Family, this work hints the change process of Chinese traditional culture and thus enjoys a deep significance on Chinese traditional social culture which is reflected to a large extent by the use of address terms in the novel.