A Sociolinguistic Approach To The Use Of Ni And Nin In Modern Chinese

The study of the second person pronouns used as address terms in daily communication is one major subject in sociolinguistic studies. Since Brown and Gilman published their research work about the second person pronouns in some European languages in 1960, many scholars have studied the use of the pronominal address terms in different languages, including the Chinese personal pronouns你ni ("you") and您nin ("you"). In their pioneering work, Brown and Gilman proposed the sociolinguistic terms power semantic and solidarity semantic for the first time, which govern the choice of the pronominal forms.This thesis conducts a research about the choice of你ni ("you") and您nin ("you") in modern Chinese, which is determined by some social factors, like age, gender, educational level and so on. Besides, such pronominal usages in different specific situations are also examined. We first analyze the collected data from the questionnaire to get the general figures that reflect the pronominal choice, and then some instances obtained from the informants in the interview are used to show the specific usages of different individuals in different situations.A conclusion is found through the research about the changing style of你ni ("you") and您nin ("you")-the choice of pronominal forms reveals the social identities of the participants and the development and characters of the Chinese society and culture as well.