Anaphoric Choice in Social Context

This article investigates how speakers and hearers who are referentially clear are designated anaphorically in Mandarin face-to-face conversation. Although anaphoric production involves both structural and functional factors, it is proposed that functional demands, which include social needs and pragmatic requirements, are the crucial determinants that decide the surface manifestations of anaphoric substitutes. Morphologically those anaphoric forms that imply social connotations can be divided into two categories-simple forms (including nouns, pronouns, and zero form) and compound forms (deriving from the structures of ‘noun+pronoun’ and ‘pronoun+noun’). In the functional dimension, social distance that originates in power and solidarity is an impetus to evoke the need to display markedness in anaphoric representations, a feature that in turn determines whether pragmatic principles should be exploited or violated and which pragmatic strategies should be employed. In conclusion, it is suggested that social contribution to anaphoric production is more fundamental than pragmatic contribution. * Dr. Chan is an associate professor in the English Department at National Chengchi University. ** This paper is dedicated to Father Joseph H. Hsu, who led me into the world of sociolinguistics with inspiration and encouragement.