Kinship address: Socializing young children in Taiwan

Recent scholarship on language socialization, Chinese kinship, and studies of personal address suggests that personal and familial identities are constructed through common everyday interactions. Based upon data collected from ethnographic interviews and participant‐observation, this study suggests that kinship address is one way that young children in Taiwan are socialized into these identities. This study also suggests that the meaning system or folk theory associated with the practice of kinship address can be readily articulated by caregivers, and that the folk theory supports this practice. Finally, these data suggest that identities of person and family are creatively and fluidly constructed.