Kin terms跨文化交际.ppt

Kinship Terms Kinship terms are “category words by means of which an individual is taught to recognize the significant groupings in the social structure into which he is born”. All kinship term systems have such factors as sex, age, generation, blood and marriage in their society. Chinese Kinship Terms----Highly descriptive Chinese relatives appellations are many, specific and strict, and relatives of different branches, ages, generations, genders and relations have different appellations. Western Kinship Terms----Highly recapitulative Western families are usually small families, children will establish their own families after growing up, and the situation of several generations living in a big family is rarely seen. Therefore, they do not have special appellations for relatives older than the grandfather or younger than the grandson, do not have specific appellations for collateral relatives, and do not care much about appellations of marriage relatives. A comparison between Englishand Chinese kinship terms Numbers of kinship terms English: 13 basic kinship terms; adding qualifying words, prefixes, suffixes and phrases, “grand-, great; -in-law; first, second” Chinese: much richer and complicated. more than 100 kin terms Calling relatives by names According to Chinese customs, the elder can call the younger by names, but the younger must not call the elder by names and must call them by appellations, such as grandpa, grandma, dad and mom. Calling relatives by names However, in the West, the younger can also call the elder by appellations or directly by names. Of the same generation, people also are not used to calling each other by appellations but often call each other by names or nick names, such as John-Johnny, and Robert-Rob . In their opinion, calling relatives by names could show they have close and good relations. Simulating relative appellations Simulating relative appellations means using relative appellations on non-rel