An Analysis Of The Semantic And Cultural Connotations Of Chinese Spouse Appellations

Couple appellation reflects one's social identity and status, and its development reflects the change of Chinese social system, ethics and values. Focused on the couple appellation, this paper first probes the diachronic characteristics of "Husband Appellation". "Wife Appellation" and "Qie Appellation"; Then based on the characteristics, it probes the couple appellation's word-formation, communicative principles, and last the influence of the traditional marriage concept and systems on the formation and development of couple appellation.Based on the historical development of Chinese vocabulary, this paper probes the specific characteristics of couple appellation from three stages-antiquity Chinese, late antiquity Chinese and modern Chinese. Couple appellation in antiquity Chinese presents four features:different functions internally and externally, clear social hierarchy, nickname starting to appear, and gradually transforming from monosyllable to complex syllable; in late antiquity Chinese, there appears a large amount of new appellations and they are emotionally distinguished; in modern Chinese, there exists a few traditional appellations in early time, and tKen some old appellations reemerge in communication, and new ways to call appear.To analyze the word-formation of couple appellation is the basis to understand how the meaning of word forms and changes. The formation of the basic words in couple appellation, the formation of the polysyllabic words in system, and the change of word's meaning are all restricted by the development law of language itself and the social background together. The language system itself is the internal cause, and the change of society and history is the external cause.The traditional marriage concept and systems also have much influence on couple appellation's formation and development. The "Monogamy" has decisive effect in the formation of "Di Appellation" and so does the "Houfei-Yingqie" in the formation of "Qie Appellation". This paper also discusses how the couple appellation changes in different marriage forms, including the "progressive tense" marriage, "divorce tense" marriage, the "continuing tense" marriage, and the "widowed tense" marriage, having emphasized the restrictive function of marriage concept, systems and some relevant customs.Appellation is the first step of communication. This paper also probes the communicative principles, including the hierarchy distinction, emotion and the respect-modesty under the traditional culture circumstance. In antiquity Chinese, deeply influenced by the patriarch system, the hierarchy distinction in traditional society is the main principle to guide people's appellation choice, and the emotion appears to be implicit. Nowadays, the emotion principle is obviously strengthened, and the hierarchy distinction is weakened or even disappears. The respect-modesty principle mainly presents as a kind of Chinese politeness, that's respecting others and being self-effacing, but it performs differently in ancient time and nowadays. Hierarchy distinction, emotion and the respect-modesty principle have dialectical relationship in communication, affecting and restricting mutually, and finally dominate people's appellation choices together.Couple appellation conveys abundant culture connotation. This paper combines language research with culture research, having outlined the couple appellation's development history from antiquity to modem time, so as to deepen people's rational understanding of the mutual relationship between language and culture in the whole progress.