With the development and change of contemporary society, Chinese social addressing terms tend to diversify. A survey of the use of social addressing terms in Xi’an under Verschueren’s linguistic adaptation theory shows that the use of social addressing terms is varying, consultative and adaptive. In face of varying social addressing terms, social members make contextadapting choices depending upon the flexibility of form and function of addressing terms. As a result of adaptation, the society of Xi’an both enjoys its characteristic social addressing terms, such as the dialectal term “nüzi”, and uses “meinü” and “shuaige” under the influence of Guangdong dialect and “tongzhi”, “laoban” and “shifu” commonly used throughout the country.

language variation; social addressing terms; Verschueren; linguistic adaptation theory