政治语篇中面子威胁行为作为语用策略的顺应性研究
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摘要
近年来语言研究者对礼貌问题给予了极大的重视,然而不礼貌作为礼貌的对立体却很少获得关注。在众多的礼貌理论中,布朗和列文森1978年提出的面子理论最具影响力。他们把“面子”定义为每个理性的成年社会成员意欲为自己争取的公共的自我形象。如果说话人的言语行为本质上威胁到听话人的面子,就是一种FTA(face-threatening act),即面子威胁行为。当不可避免要使用FTA时,说话人需要对言语进行缓和调控,以减轻对听话人的冒犯,进而向对方表示礼貌。这就意味着在交际中双方应尽量避免未加缓和的FTA的出现。但是,虽然被视为不礼貌行为,言语交际中的非缓和型FTA却并不少见。即便是政治演讲、议会辩论、新闻发布会等诸如此类的政治语篇中它也是广为存在。
     在政治语篇中,为了达到一定的交际目的,缓和型FTA以及非缓和型FTA都是政治家们常用的语用策略。尽管如此,这一语言现象却几乎没有得到专门研究。并且,前人关于礼貌和不礼貌的理论研究或多或少地存在一定的不足之处,对FTA现象也不能完全做出令人满意的诠释。维索尔伦在《语用学新解》中提出的语言顺应论(the Adaptation Theory)独辟蹊径,将语言使用过程中的认知、社会和文化因素融为一体,因而对语言选择(包括语言形式的选择和策略的选择)具有强大的解释力。鉴此,本论文拟以维索尔伦的语言顺应论为理论框架,对政治语篇中关于FTA的语用策略进行较为全面的综观分析。
     在顺应论的观照下,本论文采用定性方法对书面和口头语料进行了分析。这些语料主要来自于政府官方网站和公开出版的权威性刊物,其可信度得到了极大的保证。在理论和语料的双重驱动下,通过解决如下三个待研究问题而达到了本研究的目的:1)使用非缓和型FTA是否是一种语用策略?2)政治语篇中选择FTA的缓和策略和非缓和策略的机制和动机是什么?3)FTA的语用策略在政治语篇中是怎么具体实现的?
     就第一个问题而言,在顺应论的观照下,通过对礼貌和不礼貌的重新审视,可以发现,无论缓和型FTA还是非缓和型FTA都是有效的语用策略。事实上,它们都是对于不同语境进行动态顺应的产物,而具体选择哪种FTA策略则取决于政治家特定的交际目的。
     语言选择的顺应性解答了第二个问题。研究发现,政治语篇中FTA语用策略选择的机制和动机受到了政治语言选择的固有要求的限制,即政治家在进行语言选择时,应极有意识地对各种交际语境因素进行动态顺应。这些语境因素包括语言使用者、心理世界、社交世界、以及物理世界。需要指出的是,在实际的交际中,上述因素往往相互交织相互影响,而不是独立存在。
     对第三个问题的解答实质上就是对政治语篇中FTA的语用策略作进一步的子策略应用分析。本研究分别对缓和策略和非缓和策略进行了详细的子策略分析,从而为政治语篇中说话人选择礼貌话语和不礼貌话语呈现了可能的语言表达方式,并在一定程度上为更好地理解政治话语意图提供了理论依据和实际帮助。
Politeness has proved to be a universal topic for language researchers in recent years, while impoliteness, as its opposite, receives rather scant attention. Among abundant politeness theories, the Face Theory put forward by Brown and Levinson (1978) stands out as the most influential. They define“face”as the public self-image that all rational adult members in society possess. They argue that if a demand or an intrusion needs to be made on another person’s public self-image or autonomy, it is a potential face-threatening act (FTA). When posed with the problem of performing an FTA, speakers are supposed to perform it with redressive action to lessen the degree of offence to the hearer, thus achieving politeness. It means that unmitigated FTAs should always be avoided. Though deemed as behaviours of impoliteness, unmitigated FTAs frequently appear in communication. It is true of political discourse which refers to a special kind of register including political speeches, parliament debates, press conferences and so on.
     In political discourse, politicians do perform both mitigated and strategic unmitigated FTAs to achieve communicative goals. Despite it, little work has been done to account for such a phenomenon. Besides, the previous theories of politeness and impoliteness more or less fail to make a satisfactory explanation of FTAs. From a rather new perspective, Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory (AT) integrates cognitive, social and cultural elements into investigation, so it is invested with a strong explanatory power to illuminate linguistic choice not only linguistically but also strategically. Considering it, this thesis aims to make a relatively comprehensive investigation on pragmatic strategies concerning FTAs in political discourse with the AT as the theoretical framework.
     In the light of the AT, this study, methodologically speaking, relies on the qualitative analysis of the data both in written and oral forms, which are mainly accessed through official governmental websites and published books with great authority. Theory-driven and data-driven, the present study has achieved some findings through answering the three research questions: (1) Is it a pragmatic strategy to perform unmitigated FTAs? (2) What are the mechanisms and motivations behind the choice of mitigation and non-mitigation strategies concerning FTAs in political discourse? (3) How are pragmatic strategies concerning FTAs realized in concrete political contexts?
     As to the first question, in the light of the AT, the study shows that both mitigated and unmitigated FTAs are effective pragmatic strategies as a result of dynamic adaptation to different contexts by reexamining politeness and impoliteness. Whether to adopt mitigation or non-mitigation depends on politicians’communicative goals.
     With regard to the second question, it is found that the mechanisms and motivations behind the choice of mitigation and non-mitigation strategies concerning FTAs in political discourse lie in the innate demand of politicians’linguistic choice-making for dynamic adaptation to various communicative contextual correlates with high consciousness. Such correlates involve the roles of language users, the mental world, the social world, and the physical world, which are always interwoven in actual interaction instead of being independent from one another.
     As far as the third question is concerned, a generalization on the sub-strategies has been made respectively on the mitigation strategy and the non-mitigation strategy in political discourse. In such a case, the speaker is provided with possible linguistic expressions to produce polite utterances and strategically impolite utterances. Meanwhile it also facilitates a better understanding of politicians’intentions behind the choice of a specific strategy.
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