In this chapter, the findings on address forms and naming practices of three aboriginal groups are presented. The first part presents the address forms used for family members, non-relatives, and people with different social rank. In Taiwanese aboriginal society, names are used as address forms. In particular, kinship terms are the most common and age rather than social rank is a more crucial factor in the choice of using address forms. The use of kinship terms expresses solidarity and intimacy between interlocutors in the conversations. In addition, the function of kinship terms in Taiwanese aboriginal society also reveals the power difference among people of distinct age. The most powerful people are those elderly in the tribe. Furthermore, it’s noticeable that aboriginals use different address forms based on the level of formality of the situation.
The second part discusses the naming practices and meanings of names of three Taiwanese aboriginal groups. Most aboriginals are named after their family members or respectable people in the tribes. Specifically, primogeniture rule was found to be applicable to all three groups. In other words, the first-born child is named after his or her grandparents, and other children are named after the relatives. In addition, people of different gender obtain different names and women’s names are those refer to the nature. Therefore, aboriginal names have connotative and denotative meanings. To sum, address forms and names, which are elements of people’s daily lives, can reflect aboriginals’ different cultural backgrounds.
Chapter Five: Conclusion and Future Study
In the thesis, the use of address forms and naming practices of three aboriginal groups—
in particular, Amis, Bunun, and Seediq—was examined. As their history and languages have been studied by historicist and linguists; however, a comprehensive study on their
anthroponymic system and address forms have yet been explored in the literature. This paper will fill the research gap by examining these features in the three Taiwan aboriginal
languages, and in this way, also contribute to the preservation of the Taiwanese aboriginal cultures and languages. The results have presented the use of address forms within the family unit, the forms used to address non-relatives, and the forms used as linguistic codes to mark differential social or tribal status. In addition, the study revealed how foreign influences such as Chinese migration and Japanese colonization on the island have linguistic impact, if any, on these aboriginal groups. The results and findings provide answers to the four research questions set forth in the introduction.
In terms of the use of address forms in the reciprocal and non-reciprocal patterns among the three aboriginal groups, personal names, kinship terms (e.g., old brothers / sisters), nicknames, and terms of endearment are used to address friends and siblings. These terms denote the intimate relationship between speakers and addressees. On the other hand, kinship terms (e.g., father/ mother, male and female elderly), Chinese courtesy, job titles and tribal titles are used to address strangers, people accorded with higher tribal status (includes the chieftain), and people of different age and social ranks. Particularly, kinship terms and Chinese courtesy titles are used to address strangers and people of different age while job titles and tribal titles are used to address those who are accorded with higher tribal status and people of higher social ranks. Kinship terms are usually used in private settings and job /
tribal titles are used in formal situations. The difference between reciprocal and non-reciprocal pattern lies in the noticeable age gap and different social ranks of the addressees.
Based on the findings, factors such as age, social status and occupational status play important roles in the use of address forms among aboriginals. Most of aboriginals take age into consideration when addressing either aboriginals or non-aboriginals. The use of kinship terms referring to old brothers/ sisters and uncles / aunts indicates the age gap between speakers and addressees. Aboriginals address people who are not quite older than them as
‘old brothers/ sisters’ while they address people who are older than them by 10 years as
‘uncles / aunts.’ Therefore, age, rather than level of formality, is a crucial factor that determines the selection of address forms. However, in the case of addressing people of higher social ranks or tribal status, job titles and tribal titles are used instead of kinship terms.
Job titles and tribal titles express aboriginals’ respect to those who are accorded with higher social and tribal status.
With respect to the third research question, variations in the use of address forms were indeed found within the groups. Bunun doesn’t have specific address forms referring to uncles and aunts, kinship terms referring to father and mother are used to address their uncles and aunts. The uncle’s and aunt’s names follow kinship terms to avoid confusion. Thus, most address forms are gender-specific in Bunun. In Amis, the kinship term referring to old and young siblings are based on their birth order rather than their gender (cf. the term Kaka vs.
the term Safa). Moreover, since Amis male are categorized into different age groups, male and female Amis use different address forms to men. Moreover, Amis have strict social hierarchical system, and they have specific term (e.g., Tomok “chieftain”) to address their
leaders while Bunun and Seediq, those who don’t have strict social hierarchical system, use kinship terms to address people who are accorded higher tribal status. In Seediq, people use Chinese kinship terms to address their family members, particularly, to old siblings and uncles and aunts. Although they have traditional kinship terms to address their old siblings, Chinese kinship terms are preferred by old and young Seediq informants. The influence of the Chinese on Seediq address forms is notable.
Finally, among the name pools of three aboriginal groups, it’s observed that Amis names encode specific meanings while most of Bunun and Seediq names do not since their names are used to commemorate esteemed people including family members. In terms of Amis names, some of them encode child’s birth time and place and others denote nature (e.g., Lisin
“harvest festival” since she was born on August, the time when the harvest festival is held).
In addition, names that denote nature are neutral in which some of them are used for both men and women. In summary, since it’s a tight-knit community, most of aboriginal personal names are used to pass down the spirits of those respectful people and keep the family genealogy.
This thesis has noted some similarities between aboriginal and other cultures in terms of the use of address form and naming practice. However, there are also interesting salient differences, e.g., between aboriginal and Chinese cultures. For instance, aboriginals don’t have courtesy titles such as xian-sheng ‘Mr.’ and xiao-jie ‘Ms’ to address others. For aboriginals, the use of courtesy titles indicates that they treat addressees as strangers or outsiders. Instead, aboriginals prefer to use kinship terms to show their respect or deference to those they are unfamiliar with. The use of kinship terms expresses the intimate relationship between speakers and addressees. Relatedly, there are no specific terms to address people
with different marital status. In the Chinese culture, for example, people address married women as nu-shi ‘Ms.’ or tai-tai ‘Mrs.’ and unmarried women as xiao-jie ‘Miss’.
Nevertheless, in aboriginal cultures, aborigines still use kinship terms to address people with different marital status. Different kinship terms are employed based on the age of addressee.
Therefore, age rather than marital status is an important factor in the use of address forms in aboriginal society. Third, in terms of the naming practices of aborigines, most are named after those esteemed individuals and family members. Also, the primogeniture rule is applied to aboriginal naming practices. The first-born child is named after the grandparents and other children are named after other elderly or relatives.
However, some limitations of the study should also be noted. First, as mentioned in chapter three, most of the subjects of the research is young aboriginals aged from 26 to 19, the data they provided might not be enough and correct since they have limited knowledge of their languages and cultures. Those young informants can be considered to be bilinguals and the data they provided might be inconsistent with the official record due to their less
understanding of their languages. Furthermore, the number of informants of the study is too limited to give an in-depth analysis of the relation between these linguistic elements and aboriginal cultures. The collection of more data and the increase of more informants should be compiled for a better picture of Taiwanese aboriginal cultures.
Second, the data informants provided might be incorrect when they misunderstood questions. Informants may give referential forms instead of real address forms they use to those the addressees. Third, the present research only investigates three aboriginal groups—
Bunun, Amis, and Seediq. The findings of the research could help researchers to understand only three Taiwanese aboriginal cultures. Also, since the research investigated the use of
forms of address by young aboriginals to those who are older than them, the findings of the study is unidirectional. One suggestion for future study, then, may be that bidirectional use of forms of address should also be taken into consideration for the comparative study of the use of forms of address among people of different ages. Moreover, the study of other aboriginal languages, i.e., Paiwan, might lead to more insight into different usage of forms and address and naming practices in distinct cultures.
Take Paiwan for example. Paiwan is similar to Bunun in that there is also a general term for the elderly—Vuvu. Paiwan address form for a sibling could best be characterized as the most generic among that of the four groups. As observed previously, Paiwan elderly are addressed as Vuvu; there is no further distinction with respect to gender. As for the form of address to siblings, the Paiwan term is simply Kaka; there are no separate terms for brothers and sisters, of any birth order. In addition, there is no specific term to address people with either marital status or not. Instead, they only use gender terms such as Uqaljai (“man”) or Vavayan (“woman”) to refer to woman and man. In contrast, Paiwan and Amis have specific terms to address people with different social status. Paiwan, for example, categorizes people into one of the four classes: leader (Mamazangiljan), nobility (Mazanglj), warrior (Rakac), and civilian (Qaqetitan). Depending on the class in which the person belongs, the speaker will adopt the appropriate form to address that person. The word Mamazangiljan is itself also a courtesy title. However, as if the leader is of the same age as the addresser, given names may be used. The Paiwan informant further noted that the use of address forms between classes is only unidirectional. That is, only leaders are addressed with the title
(Mamazangiljan); all others will be addressed by their names.
As for the naming practices of Paiwan, Paiwan names are constructed by the
combination of first names, surnames, and house names. Their first names are inherited form either the eldest people of the family or other elderly people within their tribe. In particular, only the first-born child has the right to have the name of those elderly. This rule is also applied to the naming practice of Bunun and Seediq. However, it is noted that the house names are inherited by the first-born child while others have to leave their houses and build the new house name. Their house names represent people’s social hierarchies. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, since Paiwan categorized people into one of four classes, it is not permitted for people to have names belonging to those with higher social statuses. Therefore, informal observation about Paiwan shows that different cultures might have different usage of forms of address and naming practices. A suggestion for future study is to compile as much data as possible to acquire in-depth insight into Taiwanese aboriginal cultures.
Despite of the aforementioned limitations, the present study still provides an informative glimpse into the use of address forms and naming practices in the three aboriginal cultures. In so doing, it enriches our understanding of the aboriginal cultures and contributes to the
research on language and culture.
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