Address terms are central to the negotiation of social identity

interpersonal distance

and politeness. In Lao She's

Teahouse

a landmark modern Chinese drama

they also carry the historical texture of Beijing life and make visible the unequal relations among shopkeepers

bannermen

officials

brokers

and ordinary customers. Their translation

therefore

cannot be reduced to lexical substitution. This article examines the rendering of representative address terms in Ying Ruocheng's English translation of

Teahouse

from a cross-cultural pragmatic perspective. Drawing on close textual reading

it considers occupational titles

honorifics containing

ye

solidarity-oriented collective terms

and fictive-kinship terms. The analysis shows that the English translation moves flexibly among functional rendering

contextual reformulation

lexical regularization

and selective omission. Rather than reproducing every formal distinction in the Chinese system

it prioritizes the interpersonal work that an address term performs in a particular dramatic exchange: displaying deference

softening confrontation

claiming solidarity

or signalling hierarchy. The article argues that this pragmatic orientation is especially important in drama translation

where cultural intelligibility must be balanced against speakability and immediate audience comprehensi

on. The findings offer a small-scale case study of how culturally embedded interpersonal meanings may be mediated in the English translation of Chinese literature.