Tailoring language to social hierarchies: A pragmatic study on the salutation in Zeng Guofan’s Family Letters

Zepeng Wang, Haoming Li, Yansheng Mao and Li Zheng
Nanjing University | Harbin Engineering University

This paper presents a study examining the pragmatic strategies employed by Zeng Guofan in his renowned family letters to craft qici (启辞, ‘salutation’), as well as the potential relationship between social hierarchies and the specific wording used in these opening phrases. The study reveals that, across 1,449 letters containing salutations, Zeng Guofan deployed seven distinct patterns of salutation. Significant differences were observed in his use of third-person address terms, ticheng yu (提称语, ‘elevated address terms’), verbs, self-address terms, and expressions of good wishes and well-being, depending on the recipient of the letter. These variations suggest clear metapragmatic efforts to maintain respect and deference in his communications, providing evidence that certain patterns of polite salutations were shaped by the perceived social status between the addresser and the addressee in ancient China.

Publication history

Date received: 1 November 2024

Date accepted: 19 March 2025

Published online: 19 December 2025

Table of contents

The current study explores the pragmatic veins of qici (启辞, ‘salutation’) in Zeng Guofan’s Family Letters, a collection of late Qing correspondence deeply rooted in Confucian traditions. Recognized both as personal letters and a reflection of private communication in ancient China, these documents offer a valuable window into the sociocultural norms of the period, especially regarding politeness and interpersonal management. Although Zeng Guofan’s family letters have been widely examined — from his moral education philosophy (Peng 2017) to self-cultivation (Liu and Liu 2021) and organizational management (Wu and Jiang 2021) — their pragmatic features have received comparatively little attention. Aside from Kádár’s (2010a) analysis of pragmatic phenomena and House et al.’s (2023) focus on letter closings, few works investigate the complex politeness strategies within the letters.

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