Abstract: The present study focuses on the contrastive usage, function and cognitive viewpoint of the different forms of kinship terms between Japanese and Chinese with regard to self-directing, addressee directing and reference directing.It is found that the Chinese viewpoint is mainly related to the language form, but has little to do with the pragmatic context.The bare noun reflects a borrowable viewpoint, the direct combination form has a parallel viewpoint, and the form with ‘de’implies an intersecting viewpoint.However, the Japanese viewpoint is related to the pragmatic context, but not to the language form.The self-directing and addressee directing are borrowable viewpoints, while the reference directing is an intersecting viewpoint.The cognitive motivation of viewpoint selection is subjectivity and intersubjectivity.The direct combination form of self-directing and addressee directing shows significant intersubjectivity in Chinese.The honorific expression in Japanese is a marked form of intersubjectivity, which is most obvious in reference directing.