A Study Of The Address Term Choices In Campus Communication

Linguists are becoming more and more aware of the presence of language in real life,which means they have transcended their research scope oflanguage forms,and focused more on the actual use of language especially in society.As an aspect of language in use in society,research on address terms has been long attracting sociolinguists in China and abroad.As dynamic and flexible as other performances of languages,address terms are widely used and complicated in society.In the transformations of address terms,various changes can be seen with the development of society,meaning that address terms are with characteristics of times but still keep some stable expressions that are continuously used in recent years and different cultures.Address terms,broadly speaking,can be classified into kinship terms and social address terms,and the later have been simple called by researchers as address terms.In this thesis,the address terms mainly refer to the social address terms.It is obviously seen that many speech communities have their use of address terms whose rules can be routinely obeyed by speakers.Besides,speakers also have cognition,including the attitudes towards the choice and use of address terms.As modern young men,college students living on campus are so active,eager to follow new trends,and keen on varying the choice of language forms to meet their communicative needs such as signaling group membership,achieve personal goals,and so on.Of all the use of language,the choice of address terms is the most commonly seen as a typical way preferred by college students.The research subject of this thesis is undergraduates in Jilin Normal University.It mainly focuses on the choice of address terms in campus communication,and it aims to find patterns of the choice of address terms such as who will use what address terms to whom in different situations and why they use the address terms.Besides the pattern of the choice of address terms,the author also tries to explore the problems caused by an inappropriate choice of address termsand then puts forward some suggestions.Students participating in the research are freshmen,sophomores,junior and senior ones,and male and female students are all involved in the research without objective selection of the researcher.The thesis takes questionnaire,interview and observation,and combining qualitative and quantitative studies,and the study results have been roundly concluded.The investigation of the address terms in Jilin Normal University has shown that students have formed addressing patterns.Addressing peers have a variety of choices,but the sequence of the popularity of address terms is pet name/nickname,first name,full name and some other terms of address such as“dear(亲爱的)”,“beauty(美女)”and“baby(宝)”.The popularity of address terms for teachers and teaching supporting staff is“last name+teacher”and“teacher”,and only for those who they are intimated and in informal context will students use pet name/nickname.In terms of the address logistic staff,the order of preference of address terms is fictive kinship terms,“last name+teacher”,and“teacher”only.The thesis has taken social factors put forward by the foreign researchers into consideration,including age,gender,closeness,context,and topic.These factors all play roles in the choice of address terms.Besides,one innovative factor—communication tool,i.e.,face-to-face on campus and on We Chat,has added to be tested,showing the influence on students’choice of address terms for peers but little influence the choice of address terms for teachers,teaching-supporting staff,and logistic staff.Besides the patterns of the choice of address terms,the researcher also discovers problems caused by inappropriate use of address terms,such as using derogatory terms to address peers.Based on research and under the guidance of sociolinguistic theories,the last part of the thesis presents suggestions for proper use of address terms in order to cultivate a more civilized and harmonious campus environment.