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Kinship Rules And Kinship Terms

Decent Essays

According to Ide (1989: 229), kinship terms could be used by interlocutors as an effective strategy to express politeness. Brown and Levison (1987) also have the same opinion, noting that kinship terms could be used as politeness markers because they constitute “in-group identity markers”. In Vietnamese daily communication, kinship terms are not only restricted within the framework of nuclear families, such as “bố mẹ” (parents), “anh” (elder brother), “chị” (elder sister), but also varies in a very complicated list based on different criteria. According to Le (2013), there are several factors that interlocutors must base on to decide appropriate kinship terms, such as age, gender, social status, intimacy and acquaintance. However, within the family context, the hierarchical position is the most important factor determining which kinship terms will be used by interlocutors. There are two kinds of kinship terms used by Vietnamese people both inside and outside family context based on paternal and maternal kin. On the one hand, paternal kinship terms used for people relating to father’s relatives, such as “ông nội” (paternal grandfather), “bà nội” (paternal grandmother), “chú” (father’s younger brother), “bác” (father’s elder brother/sister), “cô” (father’s younger sister), “thím” (father’s younger brother’s wife). On the other hand, maternal kinship terms used for people relating mother’s relatives, such as “ông ngoại” (maternal grandfather), “bà ngoại” (maternal grandmother),

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