论文-姓氏和称谓语习俗的对比

论文-姓氏和称谓语习俗的对比集美大学学士学位论文汉英姓氏和称谓语的习俗对比A Comparison of names and forms of addressBetween Chinese and English师范学院外语系英语教育专业九九级李毅懿指导教师: 肖云萍2003年4月Outline:IntroductionI. Surname1. Chinese surname1.1H istory1.2S ources2. English surname2.1 History2.2 Sources3. A comparison between Chinese surnames and English surnames3.1 History3.2 Hereditary surname3.3 Compound surname3.4 SourcesII. Given name1.Chinese given name1.1P ersonal names are related tohistorical events.1.2P ersonal names are related tothe date of birth.1.3P ersonal names are related tothe place of birth.1.4P ersonal names are related tothe others.2. English given name2.1 The first type are religious names.2.2 Plant, especially flower, names are popular among femaleEnglish speakers.2.3 There are weapon names in English.2.4 It seems that English speakers are particularly fond of pikes as personal names.3. A comparison between Chinese surnames and English surnames3.1 English babies may be named after influential figures.3.2 We can hardly find personalnames in English that are relatedto historical events,which are quite common amongthe Chinese people.3.3 We can hardly find personalnames in English related to thedate of birth. But in Chinesethese names are also popular.3.4 Whatever in Chinese namingsystem or in English namingsystem, names have theirdistinction according to the sex.3.5 The sequence of Chinesename and English name.III. Forma of address1.Kinship terms2.General terms3.Title termsConclusion摘要：姓名是社会上人们籍以相互区别的标志，不同的国家，不同的语言，有着不同的姓氏习俗和称谓体系。

本文讨论了汉英姓氏的历史渊源以及称谓语的异同点，这可以避免跨文化交际中的陷阱，达到有效的交际。

关键词：姓氏习俗，称谓语，异同点，文化差异。

Abstract:They are a sign for people to distinguish each other in the society. Different country, different language engender the different naming habits. In this essay, we talk about the naming habits between Chinese and English. Naming habits have a deep relationship with the social background and the historical culture. Whether we are using the right form of names will make a direct effect on the cross—culture communication. Key Words:Naming habits, vocatives, differences, culture differencesTable of contents:Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………I.Surname …………………………………………………………………………………1.Chinesesurname ……………………………………………………………………2.Englishsurname ……………………………………………………………………3.A comparison between Chinesesurnames and English surnames …………………II. Given Name ……………………………………………………………………………1.Chinese givenname …………………………………………………………………2.English givenname …………………………………………………………………3.A comparison between Chinesegiven name and English given name ……………III. Forms of Address1.Kinshipterms ………………………………………………………………………2.Generalterms ………………………………………………………………………3.Titleterms …………………………………………………………………………Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………References ………………………………………………………………………………Introduction:Names refer to the words that someone is called or known by. Names include given names,surnames, full names, with or without a title, and nicknames or pet names. Chinese names consists of surname plus given name with surnames put first whereas English names have surnames coming first .Vocatives are used to address others attention. They are an indispensable part of everyday conversation. In the following, we would like to discuss the source of surname, naming habits and forms of address in both languages.I.Surname1. Chinese surname1.1 HistoryThe convention of bearing a surname in Chinese can be traced to“伏羲氏”，“正姓氏别婚姻”，soChinese surname has a history of at least 5000 years. The present“姓” is actually the combination of “姓”and “氏”。

From the ancient times to the early period of Chin “姓”and “氏” are two different concept. Originally, “姓” is the symbol of a tribe, it derives from the matriarchy.It is used identify the maternal relationship.Therefore, we can find “女” in the formative part of the character “姓”,and also many other characters of surnames, such as “姚，姒，姬，姜，妫”. As time elapsed, with the growing of population, one tribe subdivided into several branches, with each branch having its own symbol,that’s “氏”.During the Warring Period, people usually used “姓” instead of “氏”. Gradu ally the divide between “姓” and “氏” became vague, and two combined into one concept, that is the present surname.1.2 SourcesChinese surnames were drawn mainly from the following sources. 1.2.1 Ancestor’s titles conferred after they died, such as “庄”王，“哀”公.1.2.2 Ancestor’s noble titles, such as 王, 公, 侯.1.2.3 Ancestor’s offical titles, such as 司马, 司徒, 帅, 尉, 司空.1.2.4 Ancestor’s character orgiven name, 郑国的公子“偃”, 字“子游”, his son’s surname was“游”.1.2.5 The kingdoms their ancestor founded, such as 齐, 鲁, 秦, 晋.1.2.6 The place they lived, such as 西门, 南宫.1.2.7 The occupation, such as 陶、卜、巫、商、乐.1.2.8 Ancestor’s totem, such asthe animals or naturalphenomena their ancestorsworshipped “云, 龙, 熊, 牛,马, 羊, 鹿”.The Chinesepeople have been accustomedto the expression “百家姓”,even though more 100surnames can be founded inChinese. According to 《新编千家姓》edited by ,there are 3017surnames including the twocharacters surnames. Anotherbook《中国字符》published in台湾, there are 6363 surnamesincluding single, two characters,three characters, fourcharacters surnames.Generally speaking, it is said tobe about 3000 Chinesesurnames, mostly are singleand two characters, three andfour characters are rare, suchas朱可浑,步六孤, 候莫陈, 井疆六氏, 自死独膊, 爱新觉罗.2. English surname2.1. HistoryThe history of the names inEnglish is only several hundred years, people in ancient England had only first names. The names of the Anglo-Saxons are quite simple, mostly was composedof a common word such as Firth and Snelgar. It was not until the 10th century that the practiceof bearing surname was introduced, to be more specific, in the year of 1066 when the Normans invaded England, they brought with them the convention of surnames,during the 500 yearsafterwards, that was up to about 1500s Englishmen formed their own surname system.2.2. SourcesEnglish surnames were draw from anumber of sources.2.2.1 Some came from the occupationsFor example: Cook means a person who cooks or prepares food.Forester means a person who looks after a forest.Chandler means a person who sells candles.Taylor means a tailor who makes clothes.2.2.2 Some came from the place identity: derives their surnames from the place or thegeographical feature of the place they lived.For example: Norman, Moor, Hall, Chesterfield, Wood, Hill, Lake, Brook, Bush.2.2.3 Some came from the family relationship identity.As with Robertson for the son of Robert. In Scotland instead of adding “-son” to the end, “Mac-” or “Mc-” was placed at the beginning with the same meaning, such as Donald’s son became Donaldson in England, but MacDonald in Scotland. The Irish version of this device was to add “O-” before the name, so that the son of Patrick became known as O’Patrick. Other wa ys in which family relationships came to be woven into family names can be seen in Watkins (the kin of Watt) and Thomas(Tom’s).2.2.4 Some came from thepersonal characteristics.Many surnames had their origin in nichnames expressing some personal characteristics, such as Small, Long, Wise, Short, Little, Moody, Fox, Brown, Young.The local people address the newcomers by the place they come from, such as Scot, Wallace, Newcomb, Strange, Travel.2.2.5 Some came from the legal status, such as Freeman.2.2.6 Some came from absurd ideas, they created a different new surname, such as an Americanstudent, his name is “William Yoguess”, it’s from the words “you guess”.It has been said that there aremore than 35000 surnames adopted by English speakers. English native speakers also have compound surnames and double surnames, such as Lloyd-Jones, Bartle-Smith. There are two reasons for double surnames. One is to avoid repetitions, have the same surname as others. The other can be traced to the law concerning property inheritage, it required that males had priority over the females in inheritage. If there were nomales in the family, then the female can inherit the property under the condition of combining the surnames of the female’s father and that of her husband with a hyphen betweenthe two surnames. The double surname drives from the Women’s Liberation Movement, more and more women tend to retain their surname and adding their husband’s surname after it. Form the above, we can see that originally the surname (both Chinese and English) had implication, indicate something like family relationship and so on. Gradually they lost the original indication, and became a simple symbol..3 A comparison between Chinese surnames and English surnames3.1 The history of Chinese surname is much longer than thatof English surname with Chinese surname bearing a history of 5000 years whereas English surname only has 500 years.3.2 As we know, whatever in England or in china, people’s family name is hereditary, children always use father’s surname. But in china, after woman get married, she can still keep her surname, sometimes add her husband’s surname before her own surname; But in English speaking country, after woman get married, she should change her own surname into her husband’s surname, this kind of custom was kept till now.3.3 In both Chinese and English,there is two character surname, such as “上官、诸葛、司马、孟仲、公孙、欧阳、西门 (i)Chinese, “Lloyed-Jones, Bartle-Smith” in English.But in Chinese surnames, except the one character surname and two character surname, there still are there character surname and four character surname, such as “朱可浑、步六孤、候莫陈”and “井疆六氏、自死独膊、爱新觉罗”. But this phenomenon seems not appeared in English surnames. 3.4 In both Chinese and English, they use occupation and place identity as their surnames.In China, people also use ancestor’s totem and ancestor’skingdom as their surnames.However, people from Englishspeaking country use the legalstatus and the physiographicalfeature of the place they lived astheir surnames.II.Given Name1. Chinese given nameChinese given names can give allsorts of information about aperson. They may, for example,give clues about where and whenthe person was born. Or theymay tell us something aboutfamily relationships, ethnic group,parents’ expectation for theirchildren, sex, value or evenpersonal characteristics.1.1 Personal names are related to historical events.According to a survey done recently there are in Beijing alone more than ten thousand people bearing the name “国庆”. Many people who are about 45 years of age are called “援朝” or even “抗美”. According to another survey, “红” is the most popular Chinese character entering personal names from June, 1966 to October, 1976. Apparently, “红” is associated w ith “The great Cultural Revolution” in those ten years in particular and revolution in general.1.2 Personal names are related to the date of birth.“春”, “夏”, “秋”, “冬”, the names of four seasons , can all be assigned as personal names to those who are born in one of those seasons. “谷雨”, “芒种”, “立秋”, “小雪”, can also become personal names of the rural Chinese to whom the 24 divisions of a year are important. Interestingly, there are even people who were named “五一”, “六一” or “九一” because they were born in one of these days. 1.3 Personal names are related to the place of birth.“京生”, “沪生”, “晋生”, “鲁生”, (literally, born in Beijing, Shanghai, Shanxi, or Shandong repectively) are likely to beassigned to the children from mobile families.The same is true for “榕”(Fuzhou), “宁”(Nanjing), “蓉”(Chengdu), “蕙”(Guangzhou), “渝”(Chongqing) that are frequently found in personal names in Chinese. These names are linguistic manifestations of “一方水土养一方人”, a cultural theme in China.1.4 Personal names are related to the others.The terms representing natural phenomena, such as “冰”,“雪”,“霜”,“云”, the geographical terms like “峰”, “岳”, “江”, “泊”, “海”, “涛” and many others, plant names like“松”, “竹”, “柳”, “杨” and, of course, the flower names such as “梅”,“菊”, “莲”, “桂”, represent the natural environment in which human beings exist and can often be found in Chinese personal names, too.In fact, the personal names in Chinese cited above draw a comprehensive picture of the environment in which the Chinese. Obviously, Chinese personal names are strongly influenced by Chinese environmentalistic culture.2. English given nameFour types of personal names are quite common among Englishspeakers.2.1 The first type are religious names.The following names, for example, are associated with Christianity which is foreign to most of the Chinese people. These names remind us of the close relationship of the Western life-style to Christianity. Such as Christian, Eliot, Godwin, Joseph.2.2 Plant, especially flower, names are popular among female English speakers. And weknow that many Chinese females bear flower names, too. Flowers are beauty embodied. And it is a human nature to love beauty. It is only natural for human beings,especially females, to love flowers and flower names. Such as Camellia, Daisy, Evelyn, Flora, Heather, Ivy.2.3 There are weapon names in English, which are borne by more makes than females.Many ancient English speakers were soldiers to whom weapons were indispensable. Suchas Barry, Edgar, Gerald, Oscar, Giles, Brenda.2.4 It seems that English speakers are particularly fond of pikes as personal names. Names related to knowledge, authority, fame are also quite common in English. Such asAbraham, Arthur, Benjamin,Edmund, Guy, Henry.3. A comparison between Chinese given name and English given name3.1 English babies may be named after influential figures. For example, “John” and “Jane” which are both religious names and many influential figures in the Western historybear these names, including St. John, an early disciple of Christ and one of the 12 Apostles and John Bull, England personified. “Lincoln”, is apparently after Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the country. English babies may be named after their grandparents or other relatives toshow respect or to honor them. This practice was, however, absent from traditional Chinese culture which was characterized by a clearly delineated stratified society in which the names of one’s relatives one or two generations above or officials or other influential figures were taboos to the ordinary Chinese. 3.2 We can hardly find personal names in English that are related to historical events, which are quite common among the Chinese people. For example, “国庆”.,“援朝”, “抗美”, “三运”, “红”等.3.3 We can hardly find personal names in English related to the date of birth. But in Chinesethese names are also popular, “春”, “夏”, “秋”, “冬”, “谷雨”, “芒种”, “立秋”, “小雪”, “五一”, “六一” or “九一” all can be used as one’s personal name.3.4 Whatever in Chinese naming system or in English naming system, names have their distinction according to the sex. We can also see the resemblance of names’symbolism in Chinese and English. For example, girls’name always embody the character of smart, elegant, virtuous, lovely and so on. Opposite to these, boys’name embody the character of strong, staunch, brave and so on. And in English speaking country, femalefirst names tend to be longer than male names in terms of the number of syllables. Men are much more likely to have monosyllabic first names (Bob, Jim, Frank, John) and much less likely to have 3 or more syllables (Christopher and Nicholas). In contrast there are few female first names of only one syllable (Ann, May) and many trisyllabic or longer ( Katherine, Elizabeth, Amanda).3.5 The sequence of Chinese name is that surname is in the front of given name. On the contrast, in English speaking country, people put the given name at first and then is familyname. If there are more than onegiven name, people sequence thename according to the First name,second name, third name…III. Forms of AddressVocatives are used to addressothers to draw their attention.They are an indispensable part ofeveryday conventions. Theyinclude names, standardappellatives, terms foroccupations, epithets, kinshipterm and so on. In the following,we would like to make acomparison of kinship terms,general terms and title termsbetween Chinese and English.1. Kinship terms.As we know, here in China kin terms are not only used within one’s own family but also to other people. For example, a child may call a policeman 警察叔叔(police uncle), a young street peddler may address a middle-aged female customer as 大姐(elderly sister), and between close friends, especially among females, kin terms are also often heard, such as周姐, 李姐(surname + elderly sister). So we may said that in Chinese culture kin terms are widely used to address known and unknown people. The appropriate use of kin terms may reflect a person’spoliteness, respectfulness, and friendliness. However, in Britain kin terms are not use to the same extent. Instead they are mainly confined to family members, though some families still keep the tradition of having children use kin terns when addressing adults who are close neighbours and family friends.For example, children are expected to call an old lady 奶奶(Granny) and call a male adult who is older than his father 伯伯(Elder Uncle). The appropriate and extended use of kin terms according to age is taken as reflecting good manners. However, if this convention isapplied during a conversation between Chinese and English native speakers, misunderstanding can occur since the latter do not use kin terms so extensively. Also, they tend to view age as a relatively private thing, especially among females, and they don’t want to be regarded as old.2. General termsGeneral terms not distinguish between title and occupation, it can used to address all kind of people.“Sir”and “Madam”. These two are polite ways of addressing a man or a woman, and areusually used only by someone who id providing a service. For example, a shop assistant to a customer or a policeman to a member of the public as in “Can I help you, Madam?”Sir can be followed by the first name, but it do not followed by surname. If used in the former case, that means that person has noble titles, such as Sir John White or Sir John, but never Sir White. Madam is mainly followed by surname or title, such as Madam Smith, Madam President, Madam Chairman.Lady. Lady often used at the beginning of a speech“Ladies and Gentlemen”, another using is toaddress noble female, adopt the pattern “Lady + surname”or the wife or daughter of a noble man or somebody who has high social status, such as Lady Wilson.Mr. And Mrs. Mr. Comes from Mister (Master), Mrs. From Mistress, they can be followed by surname or the whole name, usually not followed by given name, used to address people who have no title or you don’t know his/her title. Mr. Can also plus the title, occupation, sports and so on. Such as Mr. Baseball. Mrs. Used to address married woman, followed by her husband’s surname or the full name after the marriage.3. Title terms.English names may be preceded by a title. Such as president, prime minister, governor, mayor, doctor, judge, lawyer, and professor. Please note that in English titles normally precede surnames rather than given names and“title + surname”vocatives are normally used in formal situation. In informal situations English speakers tend to address others by using their given names. It is quite common for students to call their professor “Tom”, “Catherine”, or “George”.In Chinese the terms that can beused as titles are numerous. “部长”, “局长”, “处长”, “校长”, “主任”, “老师”, “教授”, “工程师”, “经理”, “会计”, “铁匠”, “木匠”and many others can also be used as titles or independent vocatives. The two terms “同志”and “师傅”can particularly function as titles and can be used either independently to address strange or in combination with names to address people we know. But not all of their translation equivalents in English can be used in vocatives. Comrade and Master are never used in the same way as their translation equivalents are used in Chinese. In English termsof office and occupation are seldom, if ever, used in vocatives. We should remember that in English only a small set of terms can be used as titles. Director Black, account Smith, teacher Jones are not accepted as appropriate forms of address. Many Chinese title can be used in combination with the addressee’s given name, surname or full name. For example, “林同志”, “德清同志”, “林德清同志”are all acceptable forms of address, even though the addressee’s emotional reaction to them might be different. In contrast, the small set of English titles are normally used in combinationwith the addressee’s surname.“Mr. Tom”, “Mrs. Jane”or“Miss Helen”are notacceptable forms of address inEnglish.Conclusion:Above all the analysis, we can see that surnames, given names and forms of address area part of language, and also a unalienable part of daily conversation. They play a very important role in the intercultural communication.Intercultural communication is communication among people who are from different culture, such as American, British and Chinese culture. In ordinary life, wecommunicate all the time. Nobody can live without communication. We are related closed to others in a human society, and all of us exchange information and influences among ourselves in society. Also it is noticeable that we gain a lot of information and influences through television, radio, newspaper, publications and other kinds of mass media. That is to say, to live in a human society is to have something to do with every kind of information source, and in such a society it is inevitable to be in communication with and to exercise influence over one another. So when people communicate with one another and they are in different cultures from。