Author(s)

Zhuoda Dao^1*, Doudou Wang², Jiacheng Wang³, Mei Zhai⁴, Mengkun Jiang⁵

¹School of Literature and Journalism, Yantai University, Yantai, China.
²School of Fashion, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Beijing, China.
³Graduate School of Humanities, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
⁴College of Education Science, Jilin Normal University, Siping, China.
⁵School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China.

To understand Chinese language and culture, it is essential to explore how Chinese people explain the Chinese characters in their names when introducing themselves. From the perspective of interpersonal communication, this paper generates a set of fictitious Chinese names and, after 533 tests, preliminarily summarizes five strategies used by Chinese people to explain the Chinese characters in their names, namely: 1) wording or phrasing, 2) constructing or reconstructing, 3) composing or decomposing, 4) indicating or transferring, and 5) acting or performing. According to the paper, Chinese people will decide which strategy to adopt when interpreting Chinese characters, depending on the specific relationship and occasion, to ensure communication accuracy. The less interpersonal closeness becomes, the more communicative stability is sought in people’s strategies.

Chinese Character, Communicative Stability, Interpersonal Communication

Dao, Z. , Wang, D. , Wang, J. , Zhai, M. and Jiang, M. (2022) Communicative Stability and Interpersonal Closeness: On Explanation of Chinese Characters in Chinese Person’s Names. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 10, 7-15. doi: 10.4236/jss.2022.1013002.