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Australian Journal of Linguistics 10 (1990), 61-88. Printed in Australia.
Yongyi Wu
1. INTRODUCTION
This paperi focuses on the vocative usages of kinship terms amongst non-
kin, not referring to their designative usages (vocative kinship terms are
those used in face-to-face address while designatives are those used to
refer to someone else). In many languages, kinship terms are only used to
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1
I would like to express my appreciation to Dr D. Bradley and Dr H. Chappell for
their valuable comments and suggestions on the drafts of this paper.
YONGYI WU
Shlfu 'master' is another term which was very popular during the ten
years of the Great Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), while xiansheng
'mister' and xitiojie 'miss' are also alternatives (Chao 1956; DeFrancis
1975; Fang & Heng 1983), which have been revived following the Open
Policy of the Chinese government since 1978 although they almost
disappeared from public life after Liberation in 1949.
If speaker and addressee are acquaintances or friends, the speaker may
use title alone or title + surname as well as Iho 'old' and xifto 'little' +
surname or simply the given name for address (Chao 1956; Fang & Heng
1983). For example:
2
The data are collected from written materials including short stories, novels,
textbooks and magazines, the titles of which are given in the references, and from
films, T.V.programs and actual speech among Chinese people which I wrote down
after hearing them.
3
Tngzh 'comrade' which was widely used is being less used these days after
xinsheng 'Mister' and xiojie 'Miss' have been revived in public life.
62
KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
Besides the address forms above, significantly there are also many
kinship terms in Chinese which can be used to address non-kin, both
strangers and acquaintances:
(3) (An exchange between a girl who is a street cleaner and an old
woman)
G: Lao nainai, bu yong jian le, w6 sao bal
old grandma, not need pick-up PART, I sweep PART
'Old grandma, don't bother to pick them up. Let me sweep!'
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YONGYI WU
B: Yd, ta shenr ya, kuai wii li zud,
oh his aunt PART, quickly room inside sit-down
'Oh, his aunt, come in and sit down,'
Examples (3), (4) and (5) show us how two persons choose different
kinship terms to address each other according to age and sex.
Nevertheless, not all kinship terms can be used to address non-kin.
China has had several thousand years of feudal history. Family and
kinship relations always occupied a very important place in social life.
This has been inherited and has become a part of cultural tradition today.
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Within a family, everyone had and still has his/her proper place in order
of age and sex. This would be called zhtmg ydu ydu xii 'There is an order
between senior and junior' and ndn nti ydu bid 'There are differences
between man and woman'. A rigid hierarchy was one of the
characteristics of the family. It is also not surprising then that paternal
and maternal relatives had different degrees of social importance. A
woman lost her status in her own family after she got married, which
originally was lower than her brothers' in her own parents' eyes (sons are
far more important than daughters), and she had hardly any status in her
husband's family before she bore a son. She was regarded in her
husband's family as a waildirtn, a person from another place. By
consequence, the relatives of her own family had a lesser degree of
importance than those of her husband's family. These social facts are
reflected in the language, especially in the Chinese kinship term system,
and make it very complicated. For example, in Chinese, there are specific
terms for one's elder brother gege and younger brother didi; for one's
elder sister jiijie and younger sister meimei; for one's father's elder
brother bdbo and younger brother shushu. For one's father's
elder/younger sister, there is however no differentiation with only gugu
or guma; similarly for both one's mother's elder/younger brother jiiijiu
and for one's mother's elder/younger sister yi or ayl or yltria there is no
distinction made. Their spouses, of course, have corresponding terms.
Hence the terms for one's father's sisters, mother's brothers and sisters
are not differentiated for age. The possible explanation for this is that
one's father's sisters belong/will belong to their husbands' families as soon
as they get married. Since they move out of their own family and become
wdirin 'persons belonging to other families' or 'outsiders', the family
hierarchy is thus not strictly applied to them in terms of a fine
differentiation. As I have explained above, mothers are always wdildiren
'persons from another place', so the relatives of one's mother's family are
also less imporant than those of one's father's family. There are also no
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KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
specific terms for them in terms of age. Nor do the spouses of one's
father's sisters or one's mother's brothers and sisters have any age
differentiation. But this does not mean there is no way to differentiate
their age. The numerals 'first', 'second', 'third' etc. can precede these
terms to show this meaning.
The following are simplified and revised tables of vocative kinship
terms based on the tables of Chao (1956) and Li (1987). The main reasons
for the revision are, first, in Li's tables, vocatives and designatives are not
distinguished and some of them are no longer used in spoken language in
mainland China, while others in current usage are not included; second,
many changes in usage of some of the vocatives have happened since
1949. Some old-fashioned usages have disappeared while some new usages
have arisen. For example, some designatives in Chao's tables are now
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widely used as vocatives, e.g. bdfil 'father's elder brother', shenzi 'wife of
father's younger brother', xibngdi 'younger brother', dimii 'younger
sister-in-law' (in Chao's tables, dimei is a designative because a woman
was not supposed to meet her husband's elder brother or elder male
cousin according to Chinese feudal tradition, consequently there was no
vocative for her, but Chao says, 'In modern families, where there is no
such limitation, the elder brother or male cousin will call his younger
brother's or cousin's wife dimei...' (1956: 230). In today's China, the use
of dimei as a vocative is widespread and can not be considered an
innovation.
In Chao's tables, daughter-in-law, wife of nephew (both wife of
brother's son and sister's son) would be addressed as shaonainai while
one's own wife would be addressed as taitai (before 1949, usually servants
called their mistress taitai, sometimes the husband in a family with high
social status or an intellectual's family would call his own wife taitai and
their friends used the form of surname of husband + taitai 'to address
her'). But now in mainland China, these usages have disappeared. There
are no specific vocatives for daughter-in-law and wife of nephew. They
can be addressed by the prefix xiao 'little' + surname or by the given
name or sometimes by pet name. A husband uses the given name or pet
name and the like to address his own wife.
The designatives meifu 'younger brother-in-law', irzi 'son', guinti
'daughter' and gicye 'son-in-law' and so on can sometimes now be heard as
vocatives; while zhizi 'brother's son' and zhintt 'brother's daughter' are
merely used as vocatives to address non-kin.
In Mandarin Chinese, mu 'mother' is more literary than ma 'mother'.
This explains why juma 'wife of mother's brother' is now used as a
vocative in spoken language instead oijilmu as the vocative according to
Chao. The new vocative forms guma. 'father's sister' and yima 'mother's
sister' have also come into use (in Chao's tables, there are no such
vocatives: gumft and yimU are both learned terms used in epistolary style
65
YONGYI WU
or in scientific descriptions).
The main purpose of this paper is not to discuss the usages of vocative
kinship terms amongst kinsfolk but the usages amongst non-kin. In the
tables below, all kinship terms with an asterisk can be used to address
non-kin although they have different distributions: some of them are used
for strangers, some for acquaintances and some can be used for both
situations. They also show different patterns of usage and frequency. In
some situations, the different patterns show different degrees of
familiarity in terms of the personal relations between speaker and
addressee.
TABLE 1: FATHER'S FAMILY
1. great-grandfather Sioyiye*
2. great-grandmother honbxnm.*
3. grandfather
4
yeye*, gonggong*
4. grandmother n&inai*,p6po*5
4
In Chao's tables, some kinship terms are marked with a 'dial' for 'dialectal', e.g.
gnggong and ppo. He explains (1956:230), 'the alternative forms marked
"dial(ectal)", though not used in Peiping, are current in more southerly dialects,
sometimes representing a wider usage than the "standard" forms. This is one of the
few features of the Peiping dialect which has not attained national status.' This is
quite true. But nowadays, some of them or some usages of them have already
entered Mandarin Chinese. Dialectal terms gnggong and ppo as vocatives used to
address non-kin, have spread in Mandarin Chinese. For example, a child would
address an elderly man lo gnggong 'old grandfather' and an elderly woman lo
ppo.
5
gnggong and ppo have another meaning 'husband's father' and 'husband's
mother' besides the meaning 'grandfather' and 'grandmother'.
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KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
1. father bdba,die*
2. mother ma*, mama*, nidng
6
In Chinese, gun and gniang , both have two meanings, one means 'girl', the
other 'daughter' (esp. in spoken language). The second meaning belongs to the
system of kinship terms while the first does not. In China, it is impolite for young
men, especially strangers to address young girls by gun or gniang. However,
people of the older generation can use these two terms to address young girls
because they treat them asif they were their daughters. This is exemplified by (3).
But elderly men still run a risk if they do so because young girls, especially in urban
areas, may not like to be treated like this.
67
YONGYI WTJ
There are several patterns of address for strangers which I will discuss
below. The first is:
(8) (A male teenager asks an elderly man to buy his pears in syrup)
T: Loo bd, ydo chl li ma?
old uncle, want eat pear INTERROG
'Old uncle, would you like to eat pears?'
QJng zud qlng zud. Li&ng mdo qidn yi wan.
please sit, please sit. two ten-cent money one bowl
'Please sit down. Twenty cents for a bowl.'
Not all kinship terms (with an asterisk in the tables above) could be
prefixed by lao because Ifto, as I have explained above, is a prefix
expressing deference to seniors (here, social status is not a crucial factor
because the two sides of communication are strangers). Some possible
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KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
7
Literally, loyye and loninai mean 'great-grandfather' and 'great-grandmother',
but they may be analysed in another way, that is, prefix lo 'old' + yye
'grandfather' and lo 'old' + ninai 'grandmother'. In the non-kinship usage, the
second analysis appears to be used. Thus, only three generations of kinship terms
can be used to address non-kin, not four generations.
69
YONGYI WU
means 'eldest' or 'first', e.g. ddge 'eldest brother', ddjie 'eldest sister',
ddsao 'wife of eldest brother', ddshu 'father's first younger brother',
ddshenr 'wife of father's first younger brother'. Numerals can be
substituted for it, for example, irge 'second elder brother', sanjie 'third
elder sister', sisao 'wife of fourth elder brother' and so on:
terms, e.g. in ddbd 'father's elder brother', ddye 'father's elder brother',
ddma 'wife of father's elder brother', ddnidng 'wife of father's elder
brother'. In this case, father's second elder brother would be called er
('second') ddye while wife of father's third elder brother is called son
('third') ddnidng (the latter is an example from Xidnddi Hdnyti. Cidian
[Modern Chinese Dictionary] 1986:199), though father's first elder
brother and wife of father's first elder brother cannot be addressed as
*ddddye/*ddddbd or *ddddmdl*ddddnidng because, as a morpheme, the
original meaning 'eldest' of da is still fixed in ddye, ddbd and ddnidng,
ddma. The possible combinations are as follows:
(11) (An elderly woman who has left her key in her house and feels
very worried is talking to her neighbors. At this moment an
unknown young man comes by and consoles her.)
M: Ddnidng, nin bii zhdoji,
elder aunt you not worry,
(12) A woman about thirty years old meets her former lover who
71
YONGYI WU
is over forty years old after more than ten years' separation)
W: Dage, gen ril dating ge rin.
elder brother, PRE you ask-about CLF person,
M: A, nl shi Fengxian?
oh you are Fengxian
'Oh, are you Fengxian?'
Example (12) is interesting. At first, the woman who asks for the help of
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that man, addresses him as dage, treating him as a stranger. After she has
recognised him, she changes dage into Muchun ge (Given name + kinship
term), which is a pattern for addressing acquaintances. This will be
discussed below.
8
Xiojie 'miss' is a specific term used to address unmarried non-kin females. It is
composed of two morphemes xio 'little' and ji 'elder sister', which correspond to
the third pattern although it is not used to address family members.
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KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
(14) Xiao miimei, bit yao kit,
little younger sister, not want cry,
wb dai ril qil zhao ril mama,
I take you go find you mother
hao ma?
good INTERROG
'Little younger sister, don't cry, I'll take you to find your
mother, OK?'
In the family, didi and miimei are younger persons of one's own
generation. However, among strangers, adults often use xiao didi and xiao
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miimei to address children while children may call them shushu, ayi,
ytye, nainai although there probably is a difference of one or even two
generations between them. This is due to the fact that indication of a
person's seniority is viewed as a compliment in China (cf. Chao 1956:
223). Older people are generally shown great respect. So sometimes,
when someone addresses a stranger using kinship terms, he may choose
kinship terms reflecting a somewhat greater age than the real situation.
Although children belong to the younger generation, people can
deliberately raise their generation up to their own generation in order to
show politeness and respect.
(15) (An exchange between a little girl and a young man in the
theatre)
G: Shushu, rilmen Hang ge tai gao,
uncle, you-PL two CLF too tall,
wb hi miimei tai U.
I and younger sister too short.
Nlmen zud zai wdmen qidnbianr,
you-PL sit in we in-front
73
YONGYI WU
G: Xiixie, shushu
Thank uncle
'Thank you, uncle.'
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A: NI duodd le?
you how-old PART
'How old are you?'
B: Wo qi sui le.
I seven year PART
'I am seven years old.'
(17) (A young man who wants to have a puncture in his bike tyre
mended at a cheap price talks to a young repairman)
M: Ldi, germen, chou zhi yan.
come elder brother smoke CLF tobacco
'Come on, elder brother, have a smoke!'
jiejie ke.
quench thirst
'No? Would you like a bottle of orange juice to quench your
thirst?'
R: Xiexie, bH he
thank not drink
'No, thanks.'
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KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
/So and da. Acquaintance is the first selector at the entrance into the
system of kinship address forms. The patterns of address forms are
different for acquaintances and strangers. "Generation" selectors refer to
the difference of age: senior, the same generation or junior. Care must be
taken with xiaodidi 'little younger brother' and xiaomiimei 'little younger
sister', which are used to address children although their original semantic
meanings refer to one's own generation. In one generation, the boundary
between age groups becomes very vague and ambiguous. For example,
choosing bdbo 'father's elder brother' or shushu 'father's younger
brother' to address a person who looks like one's father's generation just
depends on one's personal intuition or habit. All the items in the outcomes
are possible alternatives.
75
YONGYI WU
laoycyc
(ljfo) dlye
(llfo) g
gonggong
bobo
d^bo
d^shti
shUshu
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laonainai
(l;fo) d;!niang
+Mn!e (l)fo) popo
d^rria
drishenr
System- fAcquainiancc! +Scnior I
entrance. Generation!
iSfoqc"
d"ai;c
Table 5 +Mslc
Generation
laosaozi
diisao
dijic
+Ma)c|
T '+
xiaomiimci
gUniang
guTnii
76
KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
(20) (An elderly man asks a young man to draw a portrait for him)
Y: Sun bd, wo ke hud bit hao,
Sun uncle, I EMPH draw not good,
xing ma?
alright INTERROG
'Hey older sister Li, may I ask a favour of you?'
As we can see, there cannot be two laos in one expression and also da
cannot be preceded by lao if there is a surname in the expression, which
means lao + surname + dd + kinship term is a possible combination, but
lao + surname + lao + dd + kinship term is impossible.
The functions of surname or given name (discussed below) here, are
not only to express that the speaker knows the addressee, but also to
establish the identity of the addressee: you are not my kin.
78
KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
ba wb dang wairin le?
PRE I be/serve-as stranger PART
'Old elder brother Guiting, why do you suddenly treat me as a
stranger?'
There are three points which I want to discuss here. The first one
concerns the fact that this pattern is generally used to address persons of
one's own generation, but rarely anyone of the older generation because
in face-to-face address, using the given name of someone of the older
generation is impolite and discouraged in China. However, the pattern
surname + KINSHIP TERM doesn't have this restriction. The second
point is that if the kinship term is preceded by a surname or a given name,
the prefix lao before that term should be omitted. Laoge 'old elder
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brother', laobd 'old uncle', laodie 'old father' seem to be exceptions (see
examples 22 and 24) for which no explanation can be found. Compared
with lao, da can still be preceded by a surname (see the discussion above)
or given name. The third point is that using given name + KINSHIP
TERM to address an acquaintance is more friendly and intimate than
using surname + KINSHIP TERM. Without a surname or given name, da
+ KINSHIP TERM can also be used to address an acquaintance whereas
lao + KINSHIP TERM is less used.
(25) (Aunt Wang's son is going to marry, his colleagues come to his
home to celebrate)
C: Wdng dama, gei nin daoxi Idi le,
Wang aunt, PRE you congratulate come PART
'Aunt Wang, we've come to congratulate you.'
xinldngguan ne?
groom INTERROG
'Where is the groom?'
chi xltdng.
eat wedding-sweets
79
YONGYI WU
(28) (An elderly woman talks to a young girl who is a close friend of
her daughter)
W: Guniang, ril riar bu shufii?
daughter, you where not well
(29) (An exchange between a young man and a young girl who is a
close friend of his younger sister Afang)
G: Yd, ddge, nin then ydnggbng a!
oh eldest brother, you very hardworking PART
'Oh, eldest brother, you're very hardworking!'
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YONGYI WU
B: Yd, ta shenr ya, kudi wii li zud,
oh, his aunt PART, quick room inside sit
'Oh, his aunt, come in and sit down,
TABLE 5:
FLOW CHART OF THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP
ADDRESS FORMS FOR ACQUAINTANCES
dW
Ifcdie
gongong
btfbo
d'ashiT
shushu
nainai
popo ,
dpniang
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laolao
bomfi
dash&r
shynr
ayi
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YONGYI WU
In a Chinese family, a wife sometimes calls her husband hdizi ta. bd/die
'child his/her father' or Xiaohu ta ba "Xiaohu his/her father' {Xiaohu is a
pet name for their child). Similarly, a husband would call his wife hdizi ta
ma/nidng 'child his/her mother', using the same pattern, after they have a
child. Here a pronoun ta 'his/her' implies that 'you are not my
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father/mother but you are our child's father/mother'. One's wife can also
imitate her child's usage to call her husband's brother (ta) san shu
'(his/her) third uncle' to show her respect for him. This usage also exists
among non-kin. If a person wants to show deference to another person of
his/her same generation, he/she can use the pattern 'ta 'his/her' +
KINSHIP TERM OF THE SENIOR GENERATION' when the addressee
has a child. This is the case in example (31) above, repeated here for the
reader's convenience:
(34) (Li An's father talks to his neighbour, a man of the same
generation)
F: Ta shu, zhe hdizi he duo le,
his uncle, this child drink much Particle,
'His uncle, this child has drunk too much,
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KINSHIP ADDRESS FORMS IN MANDARIN CHINESE
which I call the social extension of kinship address forms, also has some
restrictions. As I have mentioned above, not all kinship terms can be used.
The number of possible alternatives is less than those used among family
members and relatives. The interesting point here is that the kinship terms
of the mother's family are hardly used to address nonrelatives with the
exception of ayi 'mother's sister' which has a very high frequency. It
seems that people in contemporary Chinese society still attach more
importance to the relatives on the paternal side than to those on the
maternal side. This, I believe, comes from the feudal tradition of China
and also shows the characteristics of a patriarchal society. In addition, you
may notice that the address forms of the female spouses on the paternal
side, for example danidng 'wife of father's elder brother', shenr 'wife of
father's younger brother', shozi 'wife of elder brother' can be used to
address non-kin while the address forms of the male spouses on the
paternal side, for example guju 'husband of father's sister', jiefu 'husband
of elder sister', meifu 'husband of younger sister', can not. This also
reflects a traditional Chinese cultural belief whereby women upon
marriage no longer belong to their own family but to their new family
which is their husband's family. They thus become wdir^n 'outsiders' of
their own family.
Senior address forms used to address non-relatives are more numerous
than those of juniors. The reason is that vocatives of younger members of
the family are less in number than those of seniors because of the "power"
semantic meaning. Seniors can use many different kinds of given names
or pet names for juniors (Brown & Gilman 1960), conversely those of
junior status cannot. Hence, kinship vocatives are asymmetrical. As
mentioned above, in China, the aged are held in great respect. Therefore,
choosing senior kinship terms to address non-relatives, both known and
unknown, can show one's respect and politeness for them.
I propose two hypotheses in order to explain the reason and the
purpose of using kinship address forms to address non-kin:
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YONGYI WU
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