Lao (old) + surname: why do Chinese address non-old people with “old”?

4.2.1 Lao + surname by children to parents

Deviating from the conventional usage pattern of lao + surname, i.e. inapplicable for a young addresser to an elder, as claimed in Qiu’s (1990: 12) work, the following example shows how a son addresses his father using lao + surname (this father calls his son xiao ‘young’ + surname in return).

In example (3), Ma Linsheng begins by asking his son not to address him as “Daddy.” Even so, his son still calls him “Daddy,” which motivates Ma Linsheng to select “Lao Ma” for his son. As such, the son accepts “Lao Ma” as a deixis for his father. The marked use of lao + surname here achieves a relaxing adult- or peer-talk atmosphere, as evidenced by the sequential context, i.e. “he hated to spoil the buddy atmosphere he had built up so hard” and “He and his son had a meal like buddies.” Given this term of address, the addressee addresses the addresser, his son, by xiao + surname.

However, this marked use of lao + surname violates (or actually deviates from) the social norm for father–son interactions in Chinese contexts, thus causing unintended negative effects on each other, not to mention on onlookers. Consider example (4), where the father commands his son to abandon the father-like term of address.

The conversation in example (4) takes place after Ma Linsheng is asked to meet his son’s teacher for a talk. Ma Linsheng is blamed for inducing his son to read bad books. In addition, the son disobeys his father shortly after that talk. This prompts the father-and-son “negotiation” about the form of address.

4.2.2 Lao + surname between teenagers

Different from the conventional use of lao + surname to address elderly people, teenagers may address each other in this manner as a signal for maturity, as shown in example (5).

Tie Jun and Ma Rui are middle school students, and their parents divorced many years ago. Given Tie Jun’s mother and Ma Rui’s father are single again, these two boys decide to match them up. The first part of the conversation happens in Tie Jun’s home, where the two boys have arranged for Tie Jun’s mother to invite Ma Rui’s father to see if the two adults are a good match. After a brief introduction, the two teenagers leave for Ma Rui’s home so as to leave room for their parents. Notably, Tie Jun and Ma Rui make use of the address form “lao + surname,” “Lao Ma” and “Lao Tie” respectively. Thus, despite being young, they view themselves in this situation as being fully developed grown-ups who are competent enough to matchmake their parents. Therefore, they reflect this by addressing each other in this way. Referring to the author’s description, we can deduce the effects of this on the adults present: they initially see it as humorous and overstepping the boundaries. The second part of example (5) occurs at Ma Rui’s house, when their parents have finished spending time together and Ma Rui’s father has returned home. Tie Jun decides to go and ask his mother about the result. Then Ma Rui sees Tie Jun off at the gate of his apartment. They address each other by lao + surname. Now Ma Rui responds to this form of address with dislike, interpreting it as “precocity.”

4.2.3 Lao + surname for non-Chinese addressees

Even though lao + surname is by and large a China-specific deixis, the data shows that lao + surname is sometimes analogously applied to a non-Chinese person. Consider the following examples:

Lao Wai (outside/foreign) in example (6) refers to non-Chinese or “foreigners.” Here wai stands for waiguoren ‘foreigners’, so this serves merely as an ad-hoc “lao + surname” construction. Similar to (6), Lao + Ke in example (7) refers to former US president William J. Clinton, his surname being “克林顿” (Kelindun). Therefore, Ma Yun follows the Chinese addressing practice in calling the president Lao Ke, as if Ke were his surname and Lindun his given name (Chinese name pattern: surname + given name).

4.2.4 Lao + surname for a tool

In contrast to the above examples, human as a referent of lao + surname, the following example showcases how lao + surname refers to an instrument.

In example (8), Lao Lian refers to a farming tool. Considering that the addresser Huanghuang forgets the name of the instrument, he opts for the ad-hoc form of address as a parody of the “lao + surname” construction, adding to the laughter-evoking humor, evidenced by the subsequent “making all around laugh so.”

The above two marked uses, i.e. Lao Wai, Lao Lian, can be classified as the frequently-seen construction “lao + X” in interaction. Here, X covers a variety of word classes, including adj, V, etc., characterizing some ad-hoc uses. For example, “老改” (lao gai, lao + V) describes someone who constantly changes their mind, “老赖” (lao lai, lao + adj) refers to untrustworthy people (cf. lai otherwise serves as a surname), “老懒” (lao lan, lao + adj) refers to lazy people, and “老乐” (lao le, lao + adj/V) refers to happy people. Also, the surname in the “lao + surname” construction may consist of compounds like Ouyang and Sima. Notably, this corpus supplements literary works by providing various genres, like online and face-to-face discourse, thus contributing to the occurrence of lao + compounds, a new member of the lao + surname patterning.

Similar to the singularity feature of lao + surname as mentioned in Yan (1992), double-word surnames also occur in the lao construction, like “Lao Sima,” “Lao Zhuge,” and “Lao Dongfang.” We searched the Center for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) corpus and found an instance with “Lao Sima” referring to Sima Qian, who wrote Records of the Historian, the first chronological history of China.

As analyzed above, lao + surname can occur unmarkedly or markedly. In the former case, the deixis occurs to address old(er) Chinese, as a signal of respect, intimacy, or informality, as contextual clues vary. By contrast, in marked uses, lao + surname may occur to refer to a teenager (Chinese or non-Chinese), or even a tool. In addition to the above dataset-based results, based on Chinese people’s language habits there presumably exist other marked uses of lao + surname in everyday life. For example, students may address their course teachers or supervisors with lao + surname in their absence, although this would usually be considered rude in face-to-face address. In addition, lao + surname may occur among peers or youth in face-to-face interaction, and in son–parent interaction (more often than daughter–parent interaction).

4.2.5 Switching between Lao + surname and other address forms

Since this study primarily concerns the choice of address forms in interaction, we pay particular attention to how participants use lao + surname and whether they choose other forms of address for the same people. The data shows that, despite the overwhelming popularity of lao + surname, the speaker does not always use this construction to address the same addressee. Furthermore, the addressing practice lao + surname evolves with the plot development of the novels, the development of the participants’ relations, or a change in participants’ social status. As seen, the characters in literary works switch between lao + surname and other forms in addressing the same person. Specifically, when addresser and addressee enjoy a familiar friend-like partnership, lao + surname and other address forms could occur interchangeably. Please consider examples (9–10).

Example (9) takes place in Guan Qingbo’s house, where Guan Qingbo and his friends are playing cards for fun. Guan Qingbo has to answer the phone. His fellow player then reminds him of his turn by addressing him by his given name characterizing familiarity. By contrast, in her second utterance, she selects the address term “Lao Guan,” characterizing intimacy, to hurry him to take the turn. In addition, example (10) indicates how the character switches between lao + surname and other address terms in both directions, that is, from “Lao Guan” first to “Bro Guan [Elder Brother Guan],” and then to “Lao Guan.” Therefore, example (10) presents a full picture of the seesaw game of lao + surname and other forms of address in a given context. So, lao + surname can be used to refer to someone present, absent, old(er), young, and so on, in our data. The result is in line with what Dickey (1997: 256) claims, i.e. that it distinguishes the vocative from referential usage in studying the address system of a language. Consider example (11).

The above example consists of two parts with the ellipsis showing different conversation scenes. Lao + surname occurs once for absent reference, to lose out to “Bro Lu [Elder Brother Lu]” by the end, as a direct vocative. As analyzed above, Lin Daojing addressing Lu as Lao Lu signals her special respect, since the addressee is just over 20 years old. By contrast, “Bro Lu” exemplifies the generalized kinship term in address practice (Chen and Ren 2020: 1029), i.e. using a kinship term when addressing a non-kin person during daily social encounters. It mirrors the speaker’s viewing all patriotic students as a family, characteristic of the Chinese family culture (Chen 2019: 251).

Another interesting observation is that the appearance of lao + surname evolves from other address terms, implying certain specific meanings with reference to the development of the whole play. Please consider example (12).

In the play (of 3 acts, comprising 7 scenes), Ding Yiping works as the manager of Rongchang Iron Factory, a leading national enterprise, and a Member of Federation of Industry and Commerce, and Tang Ziming is the manager of another small iron factory. Tang needs to collaborate with Ding. Notably, while Ding keeps addressing Tang as “Lao Tang,” Tang addresses Ding with three different forms of address: “Manager Ding,” “Bro Ding [Elder Brother Ding],” and “Lao Ding,” a sign of different degrees of formality and different nuances and styles of esteem. Whereas “Manager Ding” represents formality and awe due to the association of the addressee’s title, “Lao Ding” is less formal and respectful, and “Bro Ding [Elder Brother Ding]” the least (or more casual and familiar).

The following example then illustrates how the speaker selects proper address terms according to the relationship between participants and the speech acts involved.

This conversion takes place between Deputy Director Zhang and Head of Office Division Cui, typically characterizing a superior to an inferior. It is interesting to find that while the superior–inferior deixis remains unchanged, i.e. “Lao Cui” invariably, the inferior–superior deixis does undergo shifts: “Director Zhang,” “Lao Zhang,” and “Director Zhang.” “Director Zhang” is title-honorific. Cui employs “Director Zhang” twice to highlight the addressee’s higher position or his respect for this, in line with the selection of other words within the respective utterances, i.e. “请示” and “下边” (inferior–superior deference). “Lao Zhang” as deixis relates to the advising (act) in the setting. As noted in the literature, an act of advising is potentially face-threatening due to a threat to the addressee’s negative face, i.e. threatening hearer’s action freedom (Brown and Levinson 1987: 82; Hinkel 1997: 5). This is particularly true or more so when an inferior gives his superior advice. That is why Cui performs the advising act only after several tries. In this sense, the inferior’s shift from the honorific address “Director Zhang” to “Lao Zhang” contributes to shortening their sociopragmatic distance, to the benefit of the upcoming advising act. In addition, the metapragmatic utterance “perhaps I am not the right man to say this” mirrors the speaker’s metapragmatic awareness of their identities and inferior–superior distance. Interestingly, owing to the characters’ use of Lao + surname, the author speaks of his characters likewise.

In addition to the above proper use of lao + surname, the data also shows some sociopragmatic failures, misuses of lao + surname, leading to misunderstanding or interaction breakdown, for example:

In this conversation, Gao Ping and Wang Xi are acquaintances and colleagues (working at the same factory). While Gao, around 20, son of the Director of Labor and Employment, is working at the planning department, Wang, over 40, is a team leader. Wang has been to the Security Office of the factory to sue Gao for his misbehavior toward Wang’s female inferior. Gao then comes to Wang’s office to complain. With regard to Gao addressing Wang Xi as “Lao Wang,” we can envisage it as a marked use of lao + surname, as the construction is used by a youth to an elder, by a worker to a leader, between two acquaintances. This conversation starts with Gao’s greeting “You are Lao Wang, right?” Here “Lao Wang” plus interjection ba in Chinese, due to homophonicity, may ambiguously suggest “Old Turtle” (老王八), a taboo (fig. old cuckold). That is why Wang rejects it by claiming mei ba (not ba as a marker for interrogativity). Taking other factors into consideration, like social distance, power, rights, obligations, etc., it is understandable for the addressee to pour his displeasure onto the speaker for his misuse of lao + surname.

Why, then, do all the marked uses of lao + surname occur, at times resulting in a sociopragmatic failure?