A Contrastive Study Of Address Phenomenon In English And Chinese

Address phenomenon is important as well as frequent in social interactions. Appropriate address behavior is crucial for effective communication and successful maintenance of interpersonal relationships. Normally, address behavior is governed by politeness phenomenon which is culturally bound. This thesis attempts to draw a cross-cultural comparison of address phenomenon between Chinese and English from pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives. It also goes beneath the surface and explores the cultural differences in value systems and philosophical sources of differences in these aspects. I have based my research first on earlier studies of address forms carried out by linguists such as Brown & Ford, Ervin-Tripp, Zhao, Scotton & Zhu, on politeness theories proposed by Brown & Levinson, Leech and Gu, and then on my own observations and investigations from the daily interaction between Chinese in real life situations, Through the analysis of some practical problems in the use of address forms in interethnic communication, the need for further cross-cultural studies in linguistic routines and politeness is emphasized.The intended contributions of this research will be: (1) helping people develop a fuller understanding of the meanings of the address terms, and of the polite intention in social contacts so as to reduce misunderstandings in social communication; (2) facilitating cross-cultural communication by indicating cultural differences in value systems; (3) advancing the suggestion that asan important component of communicative competence, knowledge about cultural implication such as forms and meanings of the address terms should be equally stressed in teaching or learning Chinese or English as the second or foreign language.The thesis consists of five parts:The first part provides an introduction to address phenomenon and discusses the rationale of the present study.The second part discusses the social functions of address behavior and social factors that affect the choice of address forms from sociolinguistic and pragmatic perspectives. It reviews studies of address phenomenon as speech acts and linguistic routines of politeness. Brown & Levinson's model of politeness for address use in social contexts is presented. Ervin-Tripp's and Zhu's frameworks are used to identify the kinds of factors that govern the use of address forms in English and Chinese.The third part compares and contrasts the address forms in the two languages. It demonstrates that while the functions of address use and factors of address choice are the same, the linguistic possibilities to express them are quite distinct.The fourth part focuses on their respective cultural background in terms of politeness principles and explores their philosophical sources.At last, based upon the analysis of some practical problems in the use of address terms in interethnic communication, the practical meaning of the research in cross-cultural communication is discussed and then a conclusion is followed.