A Contrastive Study Of Address Terms In China And Japan

The form of address as a symbol of communication between people,often used to refer to oneself or address each other.The addressing terms is very complex,including self-address,address each other or address others.In different countries,ethnic groups and cultural circles,people use different terms of address.And as times change,so does the addressing terms.Chinese and Japanese,which have a variety of addressing terms,the characteristics and differences of their languages in terms of address are worthy of further study.At present,the studies on addressing terms are mostly belongs to theoretical research or questionnaire survey,which mainly refer to relatives.But there are few studies on the addressing terms of lovers or couples.The characteristics and influencing factors of the addressing terms of lovers or couples are hardly affected by the factors as relationship or hierarchy,which remain to be studied and solved.And most of studies on address terms of couples in Chinese and Japanese have put their focuses on vocabularies,neglecting the importance of study on sentences.Not to mention the deficient studies on address terms of lovers.Therefore,this paper furthers its former precedents with three approaches.Firstly,it broadens its object as address terms between lovers and couples adopted from 48 Chinese and Japanese TV dramas.These address terms can be divided into the following eight categories:1.Address terms;2.term of endearment;3.Professional title;4.Kinship address;5.The second personal pronoun of address terms;6.Interjection of address terms;7.Compound address terms;8.Others.Secondly,this paper discusses the vocative use and pronominal use of address terms between lovers and couples in Chinese and Japanese.Thirdly,this paper also explores factors influencing the usage of address terms between lovers and couples in Chinese and Japanese.Consequently,this paper draws the following conclusions.On the form:①The categories of address terms;term of endearment;kinship address in Chinese are more than those in Japanese,while the categories of the second personal pronouns in Japanese are more than those in Chinese.② Kinship address is used between lovers in Chinese rather than in Japanese.③ Address terms,related to"family name",shows the flexible quality of the position of "family name",while it in Japanese suggests the quality of independence.In the Address terms concerning "first name" in both languages,"first name" both has the quality of independence and positional flexibility.However,"reduplicated word" only exists in Chinese while not available in Japanese.d.Address terms in Chinese can either follow the prefixes or followed by suffixes,that only can be followed by suffixes in Japanese.At the usage:Address terms;term of endearment;Professional title;Kinship address in Chinese can be used in vocative cases,and address terms of the second personal pronouns "you" is employed as pronoun.Address terms of interjection can only be used in vocative cases.However,Address terms,Kinship address and address terms of interjection possess both quality of vocative case and pronouns in Japanese,and address terms of interjection reflect the function as same as it in Chinese,which only be used to express vocative case.For influencing factors:①Among address terms between lovers and couples in Chinese,the most distinctive difference of gender happens in the name of addressing terms.Nevertheless,the factors in Japanese are address terms of the second personal pronouns and interjection;②From the perspective of the categories of secondary classification,the categories of address terms used by male are more than those by female,but in Japanese,the number is similar between the two genders;③ From the perspective of the categories of primary classification and frequency of use,the usage of address terms in Chinese is more affected by the property of speakers,while it is more influenced by the relationship between speakers and listeners in Japanese;④Kinship address used between Chinese lovers and couples are determined by the relationships between the couple which set as abscissa while those in Japanese by the child which set as ordinate;⑤ The address terms between lovers and couples in Chinese are affected by the occasion and topic of conversation.while the address terms of lovers or couples in Japanese are influenced by whether a child or someone else is present.However,the address terms between lovers and couples both in Chinese and Japanese are influenced by the topic of conversation as well as the cognition of listener.