Chapter One:Aspects of address theory 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Basic concepts and terminology 5
1.3 Classifications of address forms 11
1.4 The scope of the present study 14
Notes 15
Chapter Two:Literature Review 17
2.1 Address forms in languages other than Chinese 17
2.1.1 Roger and Albert Gilman 17
2.1.2 Roger Brown and Marguerite Ford 20
2.1.3 Susan Ervin-Tripp 22
2.1.4 Friedrike Braun 25
2.2 Address forms in Chinese 27
2.2.1 Chao Yuan Ren 28
2.2.2 Zhu Wanjin 29
2.2.3 Fang Heng 31
2.2.4 Hu Mingyang 32
2.2.5 Chen Songcen 33
2.2.6 Chen Jianmin 35
2.2.7 Chen Yueming 35
2.2.8 Li Mingjie 37
2.2.9 Tian Huigang 38
2.3 The significance of the present study 40
Notes: 43
Chapter Three:Theoretical Frame-work 44
3.1 Language,thought and culture 44
3.1.1 What is culture 44
3.1.2 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 46
3.1.3 Language and culture 51
3.2 Speech act theories 52
3.3 The ethnography of communication 54
3.4 Communication competence 60
Chapter Four: Methodological Consid-erations 66
4.1 Interviewing informants on the basis of a ques-tionnaire 66
4.1.1 Interviews 66
4.1.2 Questionnaires 67
4.2 Questionnaires in our present research of address 72
forms 72
4.2.1 Advantages 72
4.2.2 Disadvantages 74
5.1 Experiment under English circumstances 77
Chapter Five:Main Experiment 77
5.1.1 Method 78
5.1.2 Informants 78
5.1.3 Procedure 79
5.2 Experiment under Chinese circumstances 80
5.2.1 Method 80
5.2.2 Informants 81
5.2.3 Procedure 82
Chapter Six:Data Collection and A-nalysis 83
6.1 Methodology 83
6.2 Data collection 86
6.3 Data analysis 87
6.3.1 Analysis of English corpus 87
6.3.1.1.2 Prof./Dr.+(LN) 89
6.3.1.1 Variants of AFs in English corpus 89
6.3.1.1.1 Title+LN 89
6.3.1.1.3 First Name 90
6.3.1.1.4 ？AF 91
6.3.1.2 Factors and their importance in choo-sing proper address forms 92
6.3.1.2.1 Age 93
6.3.1.2.2 Gender 95
6.3.1.2.3 Occasion 97
6.3.1.2.4 Rank 97
6.3.2 Analysis of Chinese corpus 98
6.3.2.1 Variants of address forms in Chinese corpus 98
6.3.2.1.1 (LN+)Laoshi 99
6.3.2.1.2 (LN+)academic title 99
6.3.2.1.4 address form 101
6.3.2.1.3 (LN+)occupational title 101
6.3.2.2 Factors and their importance in choo-sing proper AFs 102
6.3.2.2.1 Age 103
6.3.2.2.2 Gender 104
6.3.2.2.3 Occasion 104
6.3.2.2.4 Rank 105
6.3.2.3 The ways Chinese students address their 105
foreign teacher 105
Notes 107
Chapter Seven General Discussion 108
7.1 The similarities and dissimilarities of address forms in English and Chinese language 108
7.1.1 Similarities of address forms in English and Chinese Language 108
7.1.1.1 Post titles are used as address forms in both languages 108
7.1.1.2 Zero address form is used in both lan-guages 109
7.1.1.3 Both English and Chinese address sys-tems follow a universal feature of language-politeness formulas 111
7.1.2 The dissimilarities of address forms in both English and Chinese languages 113
7.1.2.1 The order of address forms in both lan-guages is different 113
7.1.2.2 The different use of academic or post ti-tles 114
7.1.2.3 The use of FN in both languages 116
7.2 The analysis of pragmatic functions of social AFs 117
in English and Chinese languages 117
7.2.1 Similarities 117
7.2.1.1 Address forms serve to establish a cer-tain relationship between the addresser and addressee 117
7.2.1.2 The use of address form is usually the starting point of a speech communication 119
7.2.1.3 THe function of illocutionary force of ad-dress forms 120
7.2.1.3.1 Directives 121
7.2.1.3.2 Expressives 122
7.2.2.1 Social address forms in English are much simpler than that of Chinese both in addressing and classification 125
7.2.2 Dissimilarities 125
7.2.2.2 No sexism in Chinese address forms in student community 126
7.3 Phenomenon of pragmatic failure in Chinese lan-guage 128
7.3.1 Sociolinguistic relativity 128
7.3.2 Sociolinguistic diversity and pragmatic fail-ure 129
7.4 The extended use oflaoshi in Chinese address systems 133
Notes 134
Chapter Eight:Conclusion 138
8.1 General conclusion 138
8.2 Limitations and prospects 140
Bibliography 142
Appendix Ⅰ 155
Appendix Ⅱ 159