The Cognitive Function Perspective Of Semantic Generalization Of Chinese Intimacy Terms

Chinese intimate address terms,as a significant component of appellation,are common but indispensable in interpersonal interactions.Due to the factors such as time,region,gender,occupation,identity,social culture,and usage habits,many intimate address terms have a tendency to semantic expansions in the process of communication: New senses emerge and addresses can be used among different groups.This is generally known as semantic generalizations in linguistics.Great concerns have arisen,especially to the scholars in Pragmatics and Social Linguistics.They try to explore the factors that initiate semantic generalizations from perspective of social culture and social structure,which greatly promote the discussions and applications on address terms and their semantic generalizations.However,two deficiencies exist: The scope of study and the perspective of the study.Most studies focus on the semantic generalizations of kinship address terms and social address terms,and few intensive and systematic studies are concerned with the process of semantic generalizations;on the other hand,existing studies on the motivations that initiate semantic generalizations of Chinese intimate address terms mainly adopt the perspective of sociology,and there is a lack of studies from the view of social culture and cognition.Combined with the theory of register,particular tenor in Systemic Functional Linguistics and the theory of Conceptual Metaphor,this thesis focuses on eight Chinese intimate address terms that can be used to address people face to face and tend to be colloquial in daily interaction:???,??,??,??,??,???,???,???,and they are categorized into familial intimate address terms and“?+××”intimate address terms.Firstly,it describes the semantic generalizations of these intimate address terms,categorizing the general trend of these generalizations,and then it explores the cognitive-functional motivations of these semantic generalizations in groups.The data employed in the thesis are collected from the Center for Chinese Linguistics PKU(CCL)corpus,Online Corpus,literary works of different periods and also the dictionary of Chinese Appellation and also daily dialogues.The thesis refreshes the evolutionary process of semantic generalizations on the basis of numerous data collection,analyzes and then summarizes the characteristics in the process.The present study has mainly achieved three findings.Firstly,the semantic generalizations of intimate address terms are not accidental,but the inevitable results of time and language development,which are influenced and restricted by factors such as social culture and cognition.According to the statistics and analysis on the evolutionary process of the 8 intimate address terms,the thesis finds that all these intimate address terms expand their meanings in various times and developmental stages.In addition,four characteristics are obtained in the process of their semantic generalizations: the enrichment of semantic meanings,the expansions of address objects,the extension of the scope of application and the selectivity.Secondly,the semantic generalizations of intimate address terms are influenced by tenor of discourse,particularly the three variables of power,contact and affective involvement.On general,“?+××” intimate address terms are more frequently used in the situations where relatively equal power,frequent contact and higher affective involvement exist.However,the use of familial intimate address terms becomes different in accordance with the development of time and language: The unequal power,the decrease of contact frequency and the lower affection that is committed in interactions tend to generate higher use frequency of familial intimate address terms.The reason is that these intimate address terms no longer own the conceptual meanings as seniority,relatives,old and young in the using process.Instead,they have lost or will lose their relationship in power(as the superior-subordinate relationship),and have the tendency towards equal power in interactions.Thirdly,conceptually,metaphor can also lead to the semantic generalizations of intimate address terms.In conceptual metaphor,semantic generalizations are generated by the similarities of the intimate address terms in different stages,specifically when speakers tend to project the semantic value of address terms to more groups of hearers,contributing to the semantic generalizations of intimate address terms.The concept of tenor makes a social-cultural analysis of semantic generalizations of intimate address terms,and metaphor offer a cognitive interpretation,hence providing a comprehensive and complementary study.