A Comparative Study of the Sino-American Address Forms from an Intercultural Communication Perspective

This paper briefly states the important functions of the researches on the address forms and the relations between language cultures and address forms of Sino-America, and emphatically narrates the different usages in three aspects of general, positional and kinship address forms. Meanwhile it also analyzes the different cases and expatiates on the historical and cultural causes which lead to those differences from an intercultural communication perspective. In this article, through categorizing and comparing, the author distinguishes the cultural differences from different Chinese and American address forms, and concludes that the address forms are passed to the first message of the other side, right call will make verbal communication an important condition for a smooth, not appropriate address forms will make barriers for communication, give some undesirable impression and adversely affect the future exchanges.


Introduction
Culture and language are closely linked.Language is the carrier of culture, culture is reflected through language.Language is also one part of the culture, language contains profound cultural connotations.Culture transmission is one of the important characteristics of human language.Without cultural setting, language acquisition is out of the question, so it is well believed that language is culturally loaded, and has a strong influence on language, particularly on its social function and pragmatics in communication.Language is the presentation of culture.Without knowledge of culture, it is difficult to learn language well.Obviously, we intend to use culture in order to function in a particular society.Therefore, "culture is a system of symbol, and language is only one element of the symbolic system in this system in this network.And it is obviously that one should think of language in culture and not just of language and culture" (Chang, 2004).The address forms refer to verbal communication, in a speech at both ends of the speech event and by the speaker and listener, through certain channels (verbal, written or telecommunications) (Mo, 2008).So, the address forms are an essential part of people's language.A language called address forms system contains the language associated with specific cultural content (Chen, 1997).And address forms can reflect a vivid relationship between language and culture, and also show distinctive features of the nationality culture (Tang, 2004).Therefore, we can better know respective cultural concepts, values and principles of life in the Sino-America, and better understand the cultural differences of different language systems reflected by address forms in the two countries so as to reduce the phenomenon of pragmatic failure due to incorrect use of address forms in order to enhance cultural exchanges between the two countries.In this regard, the author will only discuss the different usages of the two countries' address forms from the three aspects of general address forms, positional address forms and kinship address forms, and analyze the different cultural factors of the address forms in the two countries in order to give rise to the Sino-US cultural exchanges and cross-culture that learners and researchers are interested in.

Differences in general address forms
General address form is one language form which is used by people to address each other in some speech communication forms.Addressing expressions can incarnate the cultural connotation of a language.They are considered as an important part of the social intercourse etiquettes with the functions of maintaining, strengthening and even establishing all kinds of interpersonal relationships.The choice of addressing expressions fully reflects the social relationships of power and equality among people.For the addresser and addressee, the change of addressing expressions embodies the change of their feelings and the change of close or distant relationships, when they meet each other for the first time.

The usage of general address forms in China
In China, general address forms have changed greatly as the social and political situation has altered.Last century, Chinese people met each other for the first time, common addressing language was called "Comrade" (Tongzhi), which was just replaced to use Mr., Miss etc. "Comrade" reflected the equal ideals and status of the Chinese people in the society at that time."Tongzhi" was originally used to address comrades with common ideals and beliefs in a revolution.It was not widely spread until the establishment of the People's Republic of China."Comrade" can be used alone to call someone, or with one's surname or title.For instance, someone's name was Wang Hongping, you might address him in this way: Tongzhi "Comrade" (title alone).Wang Tongzhi "Comrade Wang" (title and surname).Wang Hongping Tongzhi "Comrade Wang Hongping" (title and full name).At the same time, "Master"(shifu), was not only skilled worker, but also was widely used to indicate a member of that the working people were leading class and superiors who should be respected by the other people in the society, especially during the Culture Revolution of 1966-1976.Later, China carried out opening-up and reform policy to the foreign countries.Under the influence of the foreign cultures, the general address forms in China have been gradually changing since then.The use of "Comrade" (Tongzhi) has been sharply decreasing, which has been used in formal written lecture notes or formal conference term.As a matter of fact, "Tongzhi" is no longer widely used, especially among young people who begin to use "Tongzhi" as a synonym of gay."Master" (shifu) is still used to address an unknown person in the northern part of China.
Recently, such as teachers, nurses, doctors, and we often hear persons call them teachers as "Teacher (lao shi) + surname".In China, the teacher is not just a profession, but also a respectful and polite expression.Chinese culture has "a teacher for a day, life-long as a parent", if that person is called as a "teacher", it indicates that the person called is being respected by others, and embodies a polite relationship (Chen Yu, 2004, (7):75-76).The Chinese form of address "Comrade" is acceptable in English.But such saying as "Teacher Wang" and "Master Liu" are Chinese English or Chinglish, which are not acceptable in English.In recent years, with the continuous increasing in China's reform and opening up , people's ideology and traditional idea have had a huge change, especially in the use of address language, also gradually in line with international standards, both domestic and international exchanges, when people meet each other first or with strangers, the address forms are popular with "Mr." and "Miss".

The usage of general address forms in America
American names are written and spoken with the surname first and the given name last.So John Smith's surname is Smith, not John.In a formal setting, address man as "Mister" (abbreviated as "Mr."), married women as "Misses" (abbreviated as "Mrs.")."Miss" as "Ms" (abbreviated as "Ms.") is used for unmarried women, with the last name or surname.It also can be used together by a place name or an activity on behalf of women in an area or activity.The term "Miss" can not be used together Christian or first name, but an exception in the southern part of United States occurs.The local people have habits and the term "Miss" can be used with name together, such as Miss Lillian Smith.Especially in recent years, there is a call in the United States: people are not familiar with or do not know the woman, including older woman, begin to call her "Miss".This new phenomenon reflects the youthfulness that women like themselves forever, and the society hits on what they like (Du, 1999).These days many women prefer to be addressed using the abbreviations "Ms." or "M.", pronounced "miz".Its sound a bit likes a miss, but has been widely used, common in society media, public events and business letters.
In the United States, if people are very familiar with each other, they may call each other by his Christian name among colleagues, neighbors, students, for elders to youngers, higher chiefs to lower ones and so on.In this way, it seems friendly and casual, and even they can call elders or superiors by Christian names.This is not contemptuous, but rather reflects an equal relationship.In particular, Americans meet with each other sharing the name at first time, they often say: "Call me Bill / John ....."In the eyes of the Americans, so it seems natural kind (Yang, 1998).

Contrastive analysis of the example
In the United States, now people call each other by surnames, it has become more and more common.The two American young man and woman just knew each other for a little while, and then they would call each other by given names.It is very normal thing.But, in China, this phenomenon rarely occurs.If addressing each other by given names, it goes beyond people's general compliance with social norms.For example, one young woman's name was "Wang Chunli," and a young man "Zhao Zuping".Both of them knew each other quite well.The woman could be called "Chunli", the man could be named "Zuppin".At the time, other people often heard the forms of address like this and should think that their relationship was close, and they should be probably a pair of lovers.So, if an American male student in China, call Wang Chunli as "Chunli" according to the term and customs that used by the Americans.He will be misunderstood, and the Chinese woman often will feel embarrassed in this situation.Because one person calls another one by his given name in Chinese culture, it shows the two persons keep very close relations.And the heterosexual relations between two persons are intimate.The close kinship address forms are generally not used.But in the American culture, people address with surname, it does not necessarily mean that they have the friendship and respectfulness.They only use a relative terms for work and other needs, and sometimes the two people who do not like each other will take a surname for addressing.Conversely, if a Chinese student in the U.S. according to the Chinese customs used by full name to call the Americans, he or she would also have a communication barrier.In the United States, Americans rarely call each other by full names.One person uses full name to address another by full name, it means that he or she will change his or her own attitude on the other side, and will deteriorate their relations (Tao, 2003).
Due to these differences, Chinese often feel uncomfortable using an American's given name, it indicates too close relationship.Americans, on the other hand, may feel that if a Chinese insists on using his or her surname, it indicates an unwillingness to be friendly, and it maintains a gap between them.So the use of forms like Mr. Davis or Smith may be a Chinese form of compromise.With Davis, the use of the given name indicates friendliness, but the adding of the title indicates the respect they feel they ought to show.With Smith, the lack of a title indicates friendliness, but the use of the surname prevents it from sounding overly intimate.

The causes of different general address forms
In the general address forms, the titles refer to the form of nomenclature indicating a person's status or used as form of address or reference in China.The number of common social titles in Chinese is limited, but they are used broadly in social interactions and change diachronically with the development of times.From the perspective of diachronic linguistics, the usages of the common social titles, like Tongzhi, Shifu, Laoshi etc. and their diachronic changes are elaborated above the article.No doubt, the terms of general address forms were directly influenced by Chinese cultural tradition and social politics.American people addressing one's first name does not necessarily indicate friendship or respect.First names are required among people who work closely together, even though they may not like each other at all.First names may even be used to refer to public figures, contemptuously as well as admiringly.Ervin-Tripp (1972) has further elaborated that address forms existing in American English have been changed gradually in the direction of using first names between strangers and between people of asymmetrical age and status.The phenomenon is changed based on what the speech community has delivered manifestation of no difference in social status.Referring to data analysis, the reasons for this usage were that the use of first name was friendlier and simplified the interaction.It often happens that both participants to the interaction use first names reciprocally.Mutual FN is increasingly accepted between interlocutors in America.

Differences in Positional Address Forms
Positional address forms called by people as a language are to match a variety of functions.By addressing names such as, adding their working title and last name, people in different cultures make a variety of choices across the language form of address.Brend (1978) points out that cultural anthropologists have long been aware of differences across languages of forms of address and references.For instant, the foreigner or newcomer to a new community must quickly use the correct forms if he wishes to be inoffensive.In relation to this aspect, the attempt of this study has been made to discuss the impact of the interlocutor's social context, intimacy and distance on choice of forms of address in different cultures, especially people in America and China.

The usage of positional address forms in China
In China, people used to call someone job title between the upper and lower positions.Traditionally speaking, Chinese society is hierarchical in nature.In such a society, Li (Etiquette) is used as norms and means to maintain this hierarchical social order by differentiating the difference between the emperor and his subjects, father and his sons and daughters, brothers and obligations according to their position.In Chinese, terms of position are employed frequently, such as, Shu ji, bureau Head ,director or dean, standing committee, researcher, general or manager, professor, general engineer, technician, artist, similarly, the use of respectful titles-Chairman Jiang, Premier Zhou, Director Ma-to indicate people's influential status is typical of Chinese culture.For "Water flows downward, Man struggles upwards" of the people's social psychology, the Chinese also often make the official rank of "vice" characters to erase.In recent years, some of respectful address forms, "name with rank" are used more general kind.In general, there are some people with official ranks, whether higher and lower rank, they are desired to be called by their office titles so as to show their power and status.Caller wants to please callee to call his or her official title, it means that the caller recognized their power and status, to achieve the objective of respect.In the official title, it is also often upgraded to handle, that it is the "deputy" level, generally the "vice" called is omitted, the Deputy Mayor is said Mayor Li, Deputy Director Zhang is said Director Zhang.To the institutional management, clerk is being called as the chief officer, things will generally be done smoothly.

The usage of positional address forms in America
In informal situation, Americans will introduce each other by first name, without titles, and occasionally by just the last name.Excellency is a title given to the president or the chairman of a country, and a high-rank officer or a high official, and her husband or his wife, and also a person who holds a high position in the church.They are directly addressed as Your Excellency and are indirectly referred to as His Excellency or Her Excellency.We can add a position of the person who is addressed after this form of address, for instance, His Excellency the American Ambassador to China.At the same time, Professor and Doctor can be an academic title, which can be used as a form of address, for instance, Professor Johnson or Doctor Robertson."Professor" can be abbreviated as "Prof."Doctor, which is often abbreviated into Dr. can be a title referring to a medical doctor who has been trained in medical science, or an academic person who has received the highest university degree.
There is no inferiority or superiority of people with different positions.Legally all people have equal rights.As a weak sense of class and identity, interpersonal relations in American culture are less uncommunicative.Acquaintances meet regardless of seniority in the family and status, all people greet with equal "Hello" or "Hi".At the same time, grandchildren to grandparents, children to parents, students can address his teachers by name.Sometimes we may meet a person who has more then one title.If we want to address him or her with all his or her titles, we must be careful of the order.For example, there is a person named John Smith, who is a professor, a doctor and also a Sir.We may address him Professor, Doctor Sir John Smith.

Contrastive analysis of the example
With the continuous development of Sino-American relations and extensive cooperation in various fields growing, increasingly close personnel exchanges often occur because of improper title address forms, resulting in misunderstanding and misinformation.In the United States, university professors, can be called professor + last name or their academic titles "Doctor", you can also call his or her first name.In 1983, "People's Daily" (Overseas Edition) published an essay "On the call with respect for the intellectual and academic".The essay said that Davis, an American professor lectured in China for three months, went back to the U.S. When another Chinese-American professor asked his feelings on the trip to China, he gave his answer that "the Chinese people do not respect the intellectual and academic."Davis was a scientist with very high academic status.Since he got a PhD. for more than 30 years, he was used to being called "Doctor" and "professor" title.He said that in China, many people called him "Mr.Davis," he did not know that the people called him, he even told some of the Chinese people: "You can call me professor by formal way, or friendly call me Doctor.If you regarded me as a friend, you may call me by my nickname, but do not call me sir."Unfortunately, the listeners paid less attention to my view.The people still called him Mr. Davis.According to the American point of view, he sounded awkward, the Chinese people deliberately plaid down his feelings.So, he was so depressed for three months, he came back and concluded that "the Chinese do not respect the intellectual and academic."Thus, positional address forms in the actual cross-cultural exchange play an important role.
In the real life of the United States, people often in the company, office, or in informal exchanges with foreigners, say to the person in charge of their own company or office as "head", "boss", to indicate an upper and lower among relationship, rather than the upper or lower official titles called.Under the influence of American culture, young people in China also have a similar call, especially as the same institutions as the American institutions.

The causes of different positional address forms
Although every occupation is essential to the society, their social status evaluated by common people is not equal in China.To those holding official posts or those with high professional ranks, people prefer to address them with their positional or academic titles.In this way, the people identify their high status or academic ability and show the respect and admiration for them.But, in the United States, there is a mind "all men equal in front God", the Americans believe that God endow equal rights to each person and they can enjoy everything.Therefore, it is unnecessary to be self-disapproval in the society.In recent years, many American people tend to address others by their given names, even when meeting for the first time.This is especially common among Americans.This applies not only to people of the same age, but also of different ages and of different social status.It is not at all uncommon for a child to call a much older person Joe, Ben, Mary, etc., even including the child's parents or grandparents.Many college students call their professors by their given names.The professors do not regard this as a sign of disrespect, but rather, as an indication that they are considered affable.This, of course, runs quite counter to Chinese custom.One can imagine if a child were to call a grandparent by his or her given name, or a student to do the same in calling a teacher.

Differences in Kinship Address Forms
Kinship address forms often are used among family members.The kinship address forms have close meaning to be on intimate terms with the family members and relatives.If the communication parties are strangers, you'd better not using kinship address forms to call the other persons.Otherwise you will make people uncomfortable to be called or to misunderstand that you address the person intentionally in order to achieve a particular purpose.So, people should know how to use different kinship address forms in different countries, and then they can keep good friendship and good social relationship with the others in another country.

The usage of kinship address forms in China
Generally speaking, the kinship address forms are very complicated in China.The extension of kinship terms is a feature of Chinese culture.And the kinship terms for both the paternal and maternal sides in Chinese culture are different.Inside the families, the relations between the older and the younger, the senior and the junior, are very important.These relations contribute to a very complicated kin terms system (Chen, 1993).An elder brother is called "ge ge"' a little brother "di di", an elder sister "jie jie", and a little sister "mei mei".When there are several elder brothers, more subtle distinctions are made; "da ge" (first elder brother), "erg e" (second elder brother), and so on.Men's dominating status inside the family is reflected in the clear distinction made between relative on father's side and mother's side.Relatives of mother's side are considered to be less close and are addressed differently.For example, the male relatives on father's side are "bo fu" and "gu fu", those on mother's side are "jiu jiu" and "yi fu".These terms are equal to "uncle" in English.Moreover, there are different terms among cousins: the children of the father's brother are called "tang", and the children of the father's sister and the mother's brother or sister are called "biao".In contract, the English kin terms system is comparatively simple."Brother" or "sister" has no implication of age distinction."Uncle" and "Aunt" refer to all the collateral relatives of one's parent generation.
Traditionally, China is a patriarchy society in her long history.Furthermore, Chinese moral principles focus on the Close and the Distant.Inside and outside maternal relation is regarded as distant outside, otherwise, paternal relation is regulated in close and the inside.An unbalance phenomenon, therefore, widely exists in Chinese address forms: the words of male kinship are more delicate than female ones.For example, father's elder brother( bo bo), father's little brother(shu fu ), the former's wife(bo mu) , the latter's wife( shen shen ).Whereas mother's elder or little brother only has an expression of address forms in Chinese.And sisters on mother side and on father's side are equally called (gu gu) or (a yi) (no division of older or younger), which proves another tradition of Chinese society: regarding men as superior to women.In China, the kinship address forms are the language called by people in accordance with the clan (father or mother), blood (consanguinity) marriage (marriage relation) to determine a different address form.In China's real life, people often address to strangers who is in the elderly like fathers or grandparents and is worthy of respect, and call the other side as uncle, aunt or grandfather.It is not excessive.For neighborhood residents, people often use kinship address forms or relatives calls in an informal contact setting.In the Chinese cultural customs, people always think these address forms are acceptable and decent.However, when people actually call each other, they often use kinship address forms to call the other people before the labeled person's surnames or given names, such as Uncle Zhang (Zhang Dashu), Aunt Li (Li Dama), Brother Ronghua (Ronghua Big Brother),and so on.Relatives (or Kinship )Address forms are used for informal occasions.Therefore, on formal communication occasion some of the acquaintances should not be called with kinship address forms.For example, a person is both your neighbor and your teacher.The students in school should call him or her "teacher" who should not be called uncle or aunt.People think that the student is appropriate.But the Chinese custom of addressing members of one's family, relatives or close neighbors as "er ge", "san jie", "shi shao" "Wang Dabuo", etc. should not be carried over into English.In English, the given name alone, whether it will be for man or woman, would ordinarily be enough.The main exceptions are addressing of one's parents (Dad, Mom, Mum, or Mother), one's grandparents (Grandpa, Grandma) and sometimes older relatives (Aunt Mary or Uncle Joe).Notice that the given name, not the surname is used.Sometimes even with relatives, Americans may just use the given name and leave out the term of relationship.It should be mentioned that in English "Brother" or "Sister" would commonly be understood as referring to persons belonging to a Catholic group or some religious or professional society.

The usage of kinship address forms in America
In the United States, it is very simple for people to use kinship address forms.In the American English address forms, it is very ambiguous for people to call each other for their age, clan, blood, marriage.Elder brother and young brother are both called "brother", grandfather and maternal grandfather are also called "grandpa".As long as the male relatives are the peers of parents, they can be addressed " uncle" (the uncle instead of father's elder brother, uncle, mother's brother, husband of one's father's sister, husband of one's maternal aunt in Chinese language,), as long as the female can be an aunt ( instead of Chinese, aunt, aunt, aunt, aunt, aunt) (Tao, 2003).However, sometimes, American people express the kinship address forms in another way.That is, second cousin, uncle second cousin father's sons, male cousin, cousins, maternal male cousin, cousin father's sister's daughters, female cousin.
As for address forms of the children of their own brothers and sisters, the two sides of Sino-America are different.For example, Chinese people distinguish their brothers' sons and daughters with "nephew" and "niece".And then they can distinguish themselves sisters' sons and daughters with "nephew child" and "niece".But, American people may cover the nephew and the nephew children with "nephew" and cover the niece and the niece children with "niece" (Cheng, 2009).
At the same time, Americans like to call each other by surname.Needless to say, Equals between the elders and the younger, may call each other by their own given names.At the same time, juniors can address elders by given names, and the daughter-in-law, son-in-law can address her or his parents by their names.In their view, it is not only nothing inappropriate, but also shows the intimate relationships between them.

Contrastive analysis of the example
A Chinese person meet an unknown older woman or older man, he or she can call her "Auntie", "Ma'am," "Grandma" "Uncle" "Da Ba" "Grandpa".But in American culture, this is very inappropriate., The kinship address forms in the United States generally do not have the phenomenon of generalization, but people also do not want to use the generic terms to refer to their relatives.In 2000, the former President Clinton of the United States visited one kindergarten of Shanghai in China.When entering the kindergarten, President Clinton heard the voices from the kids, "Warmly welcome, Grandpa Clinton!"At that time, President Clinton looked unhappy for the form of address.Suddenly, one kid ran up to him and called him "Clinton!Clinton!" On the present occasion, the Chinese officials and kindergarteners felt nervous about the situation and didn't know how to deal with this trouble thing.In the eyes of the Chinese people, the kid was very impolite and crude by this form of address.But, at that time, President Clinton was very happy to hear that.And then he embraced the kid and kissed him tenderly (Yu, 2008).

The causes of different kinship address forms in Sino-America
In Chinese kinship address forms, the divisions of patriarchal and non-patriarchal clans, blood relation and marriage relation, elder-younger relation and seniority or in the clan, difference of paternal and maternal kinship terms reflect a basic feature of Chinese culture: clan.In solid and long-term patriarchal history, clan is the basic unit of the society structure.As Brown and Gilman (1968) state, the patriarchal-feudal society lasted for more than 2000 years in China and has profound influence on every aspects of social life.A patriarchal family is the microcosm of a society with rigid hierarchy of power.Such a sense of hierarchy is not so strong now, but the traces can still be found.And then the Chinese people like to address non-kin or stranger by kinship terms.In many situations, children are taught to use kinship terms to address to the old persons or to the close friends of their parents.In China, elderly people of peers can call young people's names.If young persons directly call names of the older persons in the peers, the younger persons will be considered inappropriate.If the younger calls the older name, he or she will be considered not to understand Chinese customs and traditions and will be unanimously condemned by all the people in the society.The old persons are always respected by every member in the society (Deng, 2001).However, the United States is an immigrant country which has a short history nearly for more than three hundred years.The American people think highly of the value "individualism".They respect the successor who lives independently, works hard and compete in the society by himself, not by his family members or any relatives.In daily communication, seniority order, age and interpersonal relation net are omitted.At the same time, the American people, especially old people dislike to be asked their ages, and to be excessively respected for their ages.

Conclusion
It is well known that address forms differ across languages, but they all nevertheless index status and social distance.Address form is in nature relational and thus a language variable that mirrors social and political reality.Meanwhile, cultures can differ in a variety of ways.The different cultural background will have definitely great influence on the specific usage of addressing language for different peoples.So, the addressing forms in China and America have many kinds of differences.Address forms are common phenomena in human verbal communication in daily life and universal across cultures.Different cultures may have different addressing forms, and different addressing forms may reveal different cultures.Knowing how to choose proper addressing forms is one of the major constituents of a speaker's communicative competence.
After such a comparison between Chinese and American English addressing expressions, this conclusion can be reached to find out the differences of the historical and cultural backgrounds which have caused those differences.Different nations have different history, culture and ideology.Having this information in minds, learners will realize address form vary from culture to culture and can have a better understanding on Chinese and American addressing expressions.We study and research on the rich language semantic content of the address forms between China and the United States, " we may not only know the respective cultural system, cultural outlook and cultural psychology, but also understand the functions of address forms construction and cultural heritage as a cultural communication (Dai, 1996)."It goes without saying, address forms are an important component part of the process in speech exchanges.In many cases, the address forms are passed to the first message of the other side, right call will make verbal communication an important condition for a smooth, not appropriate address forms will make barriers for communication, give some undesirable impression and adversely affect the future exchanges.Therefore, our in-depth understanding of China and the U.S. address forms and cultural differences between the two countries can continue to raise awareness across cultural communication competence and communication level, to promote mutual understanding between the two peoples, to better promote Sino-US cultural exchanges and personnel exchanges.
If you are introduced to somebody by first name, you can address him or her by first name the next time you meet.In the United States, people rarely address someone with title ,such as Principal, Secretary, Director.In addition to several functions relations that Ervin Tripp (1973) pointed out, with "Mr.", "Ms.", "Miss" for that, and people often are accustomed to address him by name.The heads of various agencies or organizations are called by title address forms as following: Ervin Tripp cited title address forms including: (Cardinal): Your Excellency (USA President): Mr. President (Priest): Father (+LN) Sister (+LN) (Nam): (Physician): Doctor (+LN) (Professor): Professor (+LN)