중국 상하이 대학생들의 호칭어 사용 실태 조사

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the tendency of people to select terms of address for males and females with whom they are not acquainted. For the purposes of this study, a survey was conducted on university students in Shanghai, China. This study analyzed and researched language materials that reflected the habits of contemporary language culture to examine the characteristics of Chinese terms of address among people of different ages and social status. We found that the terms of address used most frequently by university students in Shanghai were “爷爷 (yeye)” for elderly men, “叔叔 (shushu)” for middle-aged men, “帅哥 (shuɑiɡe)” for young men, “奶奶 (nɑinɑi)” for elderly women, “阿姨 (ɑyi)” for middle-aged women, and “姐姐 (jiejie)” for young women. Of these, the terms “爷爷 (yeye),” “叔叔 (shushu),” “奶奶 (nɑinɑi),” and “阿姨 (ɑyi)” were used more frequently than “帅哥 (shuɑiɡe)” and “姐姐 (jiejie).” In terms of address for young men and women, “哥哥 (ɡeɡe),” “美女 (meinü),” and “小姐 (xiɑojie)” were used as frequently as “帅哥 (shuɑiɡe)” and “姐姐 (jiejie),” which formed the largest share of terms of address for young people. This indicated that the terms of address used for elderly and middle-aged people were limited to a few items, whereas those for young people were distributed somewhat more evenly. In addition, we also found that some terms of address were influenced by gender variables. These examples include “美女 (meinü),” “阿姨 (ɑyi),” and “老爷爷 (lɑoyeye),” for which there were relatively large preferential differences, depending on the gender of the speaker.