Commonality and Relativity in Address-Reference Term Usages

Abstract

Hierarchical and solidarity interpersonal relationships exist in any society, but the extent to which they are associated with the native speaker's socio-cultural and linguistic sensitivity varies from language to language. The aim of this paper is to observe the function and interaction of power and solidarity .that underlie the usages of address and reference (hereafter, A-R) terms in American English (hereafter, AE), Japanese (hereafter, J), and Korean (hereafter, K). While discussing various common aspects of the three languages in section 2, we will observe in section 3 cross-cultural relativity in the use of A-R terms.