On Perspective-taking In Referring To A Third Participant In Triadic Contexts

Address term, as a form of deixis, is an important research domain in pragmatics and sociolinguistics. Addressing a participant, present or not, involves the selection of perspective, which is both relation based and purpose driven. The past researches on address terms and perspective-taking have mainly been conducted in a prescriptive manner, which ignore the dynamic of language use and the subjectivity of the speaker; besides, those researches are limited to dyadic context, in which there are only one speaker and only one hearer, neglecting the influence of other participants in the communication. As a context-based and purpose-driven action the process of perspective-taking needs a re-study.This dissertation studies the perspective-taking process in referring to a side-participating relative, in triadic communications between relatives. All the data of triadic communication between relatives are collected from the first80chapters of the classic novel Hong Lou Meng. Based on the interaction model of triadic communication this thesis proposes the interaction model of perspective-taking in triadic communication. And then this thesis scrutinizes each type of data to explain the connection or separation purposes of speakers and how they achieve their purposes by selecting different perspectives.The analyzing process has validated and modified the interaction model of the perspective-taking in triadic communications. According to the analysis, perspective-taking is relation-based and purpose-driven; moreover, the selected perspective interacts with the relation to either maintain it or modify it.The significance of the study is twofold, at the theoretical level, it fulfills the triadic communication research by extending the area to address term studies and it improves the current address term studies; at the applied level, it provides a new model for the reading of relation and address terms in Hong Lou Meng and other novels as well...