A Sociolinguistic Research Of The Extensive Use Of Modern Chinese Social Address Terms

Address terms are an essential part of human language. They refer to the terms which people use to address the men they are talking to. These terms can be mainly divided into two types:kinship terms and social address terms. In real communication, the usage of the two types of address terms is extended. This thesis aims to study the extensive use of Chinese social address terms from the sociolinguistic perspective.The present research not only lists a brief review of the development in address terms studies, but also provides a clear definition and classification of Chinese social address terms. This research sets forth to explore the principles of using Chinese social address terms, the general patterns of extensively used social address terms, and the way how they are influenced by social factors.The research is based on the data collected from the TV series We Get Married. Except for the transcriptions of this TV series, the spontaneous conversations of Chinese adults are also observed as data. Altogether 150 instances of extensively used social address terms are transcribed from the TV series, and 35 instances from the natural observation of the common extensive use in daily communication. Quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis are used to study the data.In this thesis, social address terms in Chinese and their extensive use are described and some of the main social address terms are listed. It is shown that there are a great number of social address terms in modern Chinese used extensively. Then the use principles and general patterns of the extensive use of Chinese social address terms are put forward. The result of the analysis of the research ensures some opinions in the previous studies.According to the extensive use of social address terms in Chinese verbal language, the use patterns are concluded as:1) adding prefix Lao; 2) omitting "Fu (vice) " in title as address terms; 3) adding anaphors such as Zhe (this), Na (that), Zhexie (these), Naxie (those), Mou (certain), etc. Under the guidance of these patterns, the extensive use of Chinese social address terms becomes more subtle. The research also discusses the influence of main social factors, such as gender, age, social status, educational level and degree of intimacy.This thesis can contribute to later studies on social address terms and its related topics. In addition, it can give a hand to people for understanding Chinese social address terms clearly, and using them freely. What’s more, for translation and foreign language teaching, it also has great significance.