Abstract：Appellation is the word which people use when they greet each other in the process of communication, which plays a decisive role in our daily life. In general, appellation can be divided into kinship appellation and social appellation, and the latter is more active. Nowadays most students can not communicate with others smoothly, and one of the reasons is that they can not use social appellation freely. This study applies the theoretical framework of power and solidarity, takes 246 students from Henan Polytechnic University and The University of Portsmouth as the investigation subjects, and adopts questionnaires, observations, and recordings as main tools. With SPSS statistics, the author analyses the characteristics of college students' social appellation mainly from the composition and the source, and probes into the factors that affect college students' use of social appellation, such as gender, major, grade, etc. College students' social appellation is a linguistic phenomenon as well as a social and cultural one, which not only plays an important role in social etiquette, but also has some social and cultural research value. So the in-depth researches can reflect the widespread use of social appellation, promote language and social interaction, and regulate the language policies which have far-reaching reference value and practical significance in language study.

Keyword：college students;social appellation;sociolinguistics;power and solidarity;