A Study On Address Forms From The Perspective Of Rapport Management Theory

As an unavoidable part in interpersonal communication,address form can not only convey illocutionary meanings and indicate original relations,but also manage interpersonal relations by means of threatening or enhancing interlocutors' face and sociality rights.Many scholars have studied address forms from pragmatic and social pragmatic perspectives,while the interpersonal pragmatic study about address forms under the serious hierarchy is still being researched.So,on the basis of rapport management theory and with a British TV series Dowton Abbey as the data,this paper aims to analyze how people of different ranks use address forms to manage relationships under the serious hierarchy.Spencer's(2007)rapport management theory focuses on face and sociality rights,there are four main parts:quality face,identity face,equity rights and association rights.And the study of interpersonal relationship management is underway from two aspects:individual and collective.From the perspective of rapport management theory,address form is considered as a language strategy used to manage interpersonal relations by means of managing face and sociality rights.According to the strict hierarchy in the TV series,the paper takes power as the center and tries to study two questions,1 What types of address forms are used by people of different ranks to construct,maintain,enhance or threaten social relationships by means of managing face and sociality rights?2 In what aspects does the theory of rapport management influence the option of address forms?In this thesis,both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted.According to the organization and analysis about the dialogues,statistics about address forms in the play are compiled and address forms are summed up and classified in the paper.On the basis of the data,there are four kinds of interpersonal relations,they are servant relations,master-servant relations,kinship relations and social relations.According to these four kinds of interpersonal relations,statistics about the distribution of address forms used to threaten or enhance face and sociality rights are compiled and then some explanations about how people of different ranks use address forms to manage interpersonal relationships are presented.The research shows that in these four kinds of relations,people of different ranks can be influenced by power,rapport orientation and message contents,and they always choose different kinds of address forms to threaten,maintain or enhance interpersonal relations by means of threatening or enhancing addressee's quality face,identity face,equity rights and association rights.There are two main significances about this paper.First is the theoretical significance,the previous studies about address forms focus on pragmatic and sociopragmatic studies.However,in this dissertation,Spencer's(2007)rapport management theory is used as the theoretical framework to study how people use address forms as language strategies to manage relations from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics,it emphasizes the function of address forms during the process of dynamic relation work.The research can provide a new theoretical angle of view for the study of address forms.Second is the practical significance.A British TV series,Downton Abbey is selected as the data which is used to analyze how people of different social ranks manage relationships through the option of address forms in strict hierarchy.So the research can help people to know the function of address forms in managing interpersonal relations in hierarchical society.