A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Vocatives

Vocatives are inseparable parts of human's verbalcommunication. With vocatives, one can not only call the attentionof the addressee, but also show the relationship between them f'power or solidarity. In a certain degree, vocatives in a language arekind of linguistic routines of politeness which reflect the customsand conventions of the speech community. VOcatives are emotionalreflectors which express the speaker's feelings, attitUde or intentions.Since l960s some linguists have noticed the social and culturalcharacteristics of a language in vocatives. Now quite a number oflinguists have made further studies on the subject in the field oflanguage acquisition, pragmatics and foreign language teaching. In' this thesis the author makes a detailed analysis on similarities infunctions of English and Chinese vocatives and differences incharacteristics, and probes the problems most Chinese stlldents havein using English vocatives.The thesis consists of seven parts, including the introductionand the conclusion. The introduction tells the readers why the authorhas chosen this subject.Chapter One reinterPrets the definition and types and forms ofvocatives, and briefly introduces the research methods employed inthis thesis and the data collections.Chapter Two discusses the functions of vocatives in the field oflinguistic routines of politeness. In such 1inguistic routines asgreetings or partings, vocatives usually occur in adjacency pairs andcan be used as politeness strategies or politeness intensifiers forcertain purPoses in communications. Most Chinese address termscan be used alone as polite greetings, but English address terms arel l lonly the begirmings of information exchange.Chapter Three explores essentially the social functions,pragmatic functions and stylistic functions of vocatives in Englishand Chinese. Vocatives are a kind of 'social mirrors' which reflectthe changing social relationships between speakers, and in a certain' period the appearance or popularity or disappearance of a vocativeterm in a speech community could reflect the changes in society andpeople's mind.From pragmatic point of vieW vocatives can convey a certainpragmatic power, folly illustrated in illocutionary acts andconversational implicatures.In literary works vocatives mainly express the characters'feelings to others in certain situations, and indicate thecontradictions among characters and the development of the p1ot.Chapter Four examines the differences of English and Chinesevocatives. Language is the symbolic representaion of culture.Influenced by their different cultures, Chinese vocatives are muchmore complicated, whereas English vocatives are rather simple.ChaPter Five deals with the problems most Chinese studentshave in using English vocatives, and some suggestions are offered toforeign language teaching in China.The conclusion is the retrospect and prospect of the wholethesis, in which the author summarized the thesis and pointed outthat the subject of vocatives is 'underexplored' (Levinson l983 f7l ).