摘要
语用缓和(mitigation)是一种常见的语用现象,涉及对格莱斯会话原则的违背以及非常规会话含意的产生,因此它是一个有趣的、值得深入研究的课题。语用缓和也是一种形式多样的语用策略,其目的是通过顺应各种语境因素及相关社会规约对话语内容和方式的制约,实现人际及交际功能。尽管如此,语用缓和现象没有得到足够的重视,体现在它的众多功能没有被发现,工作机制没有得到有力的解释。鉴于此,我们有必要对日常交际中的语用缓和现象进行多维度综合考察。本研究以中央电视台《实话实说》节目的转写文本为语料,采用定性研究方法,尝试回答以下问题:一、语用缓和有哪些策略?二、语用缓和受什么语境因素的制约?三、语用缓和可以实施什么功能?四、语用缓和的工作机制是什么?
本研究将语用缓和定义为说话人为了达到其交际目的而采取的弱化施为力度、减缓负面效果的策略。这是一个涉及双重标准的严式定义,一方面要求满足弱化施为力度的条件,另一方面要求能够淡化某个负面效果,只有这样才可称为语用缓和。与以往众多定义相比,严式定义可以分离出典型的语用缓和实例,使研究更趋系统,易于驾驭。严式定义的双重标准不必同时显现,多数情况下只显现一个标准,另一标准隐含其中。
受Austin(1962)言语行为三分法的启发,我们首先将语用缓和分为命题型缓和、施为用意型缓及成事效果型缓和。命题型缓和与施为用意型缓和直接作用于施为力度的弱化而间接导致负面效果的减缓,成事效果型缓和则直接作用于负面效果的减缓而间接表达施为力度的弱化。语用缓和是一个调整、优化交际双方权利、义务分配的动态过程,其结果必然是消除、淡化负面因素的影响,加强正面因素的作用,使交际走向成功。可见,凭借同步弱化的工作原理,施为力度的弱化导致负面效果的消除,从而满足严式定义的双重标准。通过对语料的分析,本研究发现施为力度弱化的方式或负面效果淡化的方式有一定的规律性,据此可将语用缓和进一步分为若干子类。例如命题型缓和下辖弱陈语、理据语、附加问句、模态词及主观语,其中弱陈语作用于命题内容的模糊性,其余的作用于说话人命题态度的不确定性;施为用意型缓和包括放弃申明语、自贬语、事实声称语及犹豫话语,其中放弃申明语最明确地表示放弃施为用意,余者次之;成事效果型缓和策略包括简单预测、显露担忧、认罚及劝阻,其中劝阻最直接体现说话人对成事效果的控制,余者次之。这些发现有助于克服以往研究偏重命题型缓和策略的局限,加深我们对语用缓和现象的认识与理解。
语言使用是不断做出语言选择以顺应语境因素变化的动态过程,语用缓和作为一种语言现象乃顺应权势、负面情感、争议、禁忌及价值理念等语境因素的结果。一方面,这些因素时常伴随着语用缓和现象的发生,说明他们之间有着某种自然的联系,甚至有些因素(例如负面情感)是语用缓和的直接作用对象。另一方面,许多社会规约要求说话人在面临以上因素时必须弱化己方话语力度,以维持人际、交际层面的语用均衡,否则说话人将被视为另类,遭到社会拒斥。这种利弊关系是说话人采取语用缓和以顺应社会规约的理据。再者,语用缓和常常以话语定性的形式出现,而定性标准常常是与这些因素相关的社会规约,这说明语用缓和是社会规约在语言现实中的折射,是社会规约即将被违背时的预防措施或事后补救措施。通过大量的例证分析,本研究发现不同的语境因素以其特有的方式制约语言交际,导致特定语用缓和策略的使用。譬如听话人的权势使他享有更多的话语权限,承担更多的话语义务,这就使得说话人采用附加问句、放弃申明语等策略限制自己的话语权限与义务;听话人的负面情感常常得到说话人的同情与理解,从而使说话人采用自贬语、放弃申明语及显露担忧等策略;争议迫使争议的一方尊重另一方的不同意见,导致他更多地使用主观语与模态词;禁忌是不容随意违背的,说话人应尽量避免它,如不然则需申明、致歉,因而说话人多采用放弃申明语或者自贬语;像谦虚、诚实与内敛等价值理念要求说话人采用主观语或放弃申明语以表明自己崇尚这些价值理念。本研究还发现,不同的访谈参与者使用语用缓和来顺应不同语境因素的制约。主持人主要以附加问句、放弃申明语来顺应嘉宾或客人的权势,以自贬、放弃申明、显露担忧来顺应客人的负面情感;嘉宾主要以主观语来顺应观点分歧与价值理念;现场观众主要顺应客人的负面情感及自身吐露心声的愿望,他们采用的策略多为主观语和事实声称语“实话实说”。
语用缓和的功能包括人际功能与交际功能。所谓人际功能是指语用缓和在维持、改善人际关系方面发挥的积极作用,交际功能指它对提高参与度与交际效果所产生的正面影响。在人际层面上,语用缓和发挥着维护形象、安抚情绪、增进感情的作用,在交际层面上可以实施邀约、话轮操控、说服等功能。大量的例证表明这些功能是不同的参与者以不同的缓和策略顺应不同语境因素制约的结果。譬如,形象维护功能是主持人或者嘉宾以自贬语、放弃申明语、主观语等策略顺应禁忌话题与价值理念的结果;情绪安抚功能集中体现于主持人以自贬语、放弃申明语及显露担忧等策略对客人负面情感的顺应;感情增进功能主要源于主持人以附加问句对客人拘谨心理的顺应;邀约功能则源于主持人以附加问句、放弃申明语等对嘉宾或客人的权势进行的顺应;话轮操控功能借助语用缓和的施为性、商讨性,特别是通过制造心理期待得以实施,体现现场观众对有限发言机会的顺应;说服功能是一切缓和策略旨在达到的终极交际目标。
综合诸方面的发现可以总结出如下规律。第一,由于主持人主要关心嘉宾和客人的参与度,而附加问句是实施邀约功能的主要手段,因此它成为主持人的专用缓和策略。第二,主观语“个人认为”主要为嘉宾所用,这是嘉宾之间意见差异很大但是他们力求互不干涉的结果,同时显示嘉宾意欲保持谦虚的姿态。第三,诸如“我认为”、“我有个观点”等主观语是观众喜用的策略,其动因是抢占发言的机会。第四,事实声明语“实话实说”是参与者通用的策略,原因可能是节目的成功已使它成为时尚。
语用缓和与移情有着密不可分的联系。一方面,缓和语在语义上与说话人的意图存在明显的反差(话不尽意、不关联、冗余、矛盾),这意味着说话人正站在听话人的角度替他道出心声,反映出说话人对听话人的情感趋同以及说话人的利他情怀,即说话人对听话人的移情。另一方面,说话人意识到己方施为用意不合时宜,但“明知不可言而言之”,旨在让听话人也能够对说话人移情,亦即站在说话人的角度看待事物,情感趋向说话人,对话语作有利于说话人的解读。两相结合构成说话人的移情意图。从元语用的角度看,说话人通过语用缓和明确地向说话人传递这个移情意图,希望听话人能识别并配合这个意图,以实现语用缓和的各项功能。通俗地说,说话人向听话人传递一个元语用信息,表明说话人在一般情况下或其他语境下会同意听话人的看法,但是在当前语境下他希望听话人能同意他的看法。换句话说,说话人利用语用缓和阻止听话人从自己的角度对话语作常规解读,同时敦促他从说话人的角度作移情解读。为了更好地揭示语用缓和的机制,本研究提出“移情顺应”的概念。顺应是以利己为取向的,移情是利他的,语用缓和则是利他、利己的综合体,因此移情顺应揭示了语用缓和先利他后利己、利他为手段利己为目的的本质。这个概念比较充分地解释了语用缓和策略的使用及其功能的实现。从策略的角度讲,语用缓和的使用是说话人移情顺应语境因素的结果,也就是说语用缓和反映出说话人在面临语境因素的制约时不仅要考虑如何达到自己的交际目的,还要考虑听话人对该因素的视角与情感。如果说话人只是顺应语境制约而不对听话人移情,鉴于顺应的利己取向,他可能会选择语用加强而不是语用缓和,可见非移情顺应不能解释语用缓和现象的发生。从另一个角度看,功能的实现是听话人移情顺应说话人缓和策略的结果,也就是说听话人要站在说话人的角度来看问题才有可能设身处地感受说话人的话语,才有可能相信他的话语或实现其他功能,可见移情顺应的作用也是明显的。如果听话人只顺应缓和策略而不对说话人移情,他可能受制于己方视角,不可能对话语作出有利于说话人的非常规解读,因而使语用缓和的功能无法实现。
总之,语用缓和是一种多维度现象与多功能语用策略,值得我们对它作全方位的深入研究。本研究从策略,语境制约、功能、机制等方面对语用缓和作了一些探索性的研究,其发现是有限的,可谓“冰山一角”。我们期待着更多的、更深入的研究成果问世。
Mitigation is a pervasive phenomenon of language use that inherits much theoretical importance from the indispensability of the illocutionary force of a speech act to doing things with words. It involves a breaching of the Gricean maxims of conversation and generates nonconventional implicatures, which makes it an interesting topic of research. Mitigation is also a pragmatic strategy which the speaker uses in various ways in adaptation of different contextual factors to perform diverse functions at the interpersonal and the communicative dimensions. Despite its importance, it has been understudied in that more attention has been given to classifying its strategies than to describing its functions and explaining its mechanism. As a partial response to such limitations, the present study aims to make an integrative study of mitigation in ordinary language use. Based on Chinese data obtained from television interview talks and adopting a qualitative research methodology, it attempts to answer the following questions: 1) what are the mitigating strategies? 2) what contextual factors constrain the use of mitigation? 3) what functions does mitigation perform? 4) what is the general mechanism of mitigation?
Mitigation is defined in the present study as a pragmatic strategy whereby the speaker reduces the illocutionary force of his speech act in order to soften an unpleasant effect that is detrimental to the achievement of his communicative goal. By illocutionary force is meant the justifiability of the speaker's illocution and the determination with which the speaker goes on record performing the illocution. By unpleasant effect is meant one of the perlocutionary sequels of the ensuing speech act. This definition involves two criteria, a reduction of the illocutionary force and a softening of an unpleasant effect, in comparison to previous definitions which take only one criterion. The adoption of this strict definition is justified to the extent to which it isolates prototypical instances of mitigation to the exclusion of peripheral cases and makes the present study more systematic and manageable. However, although both criteria are indispensable to the qualification of mitigation, the satisfactions of them do not have to be simultaneously manifested in the semantic meaning or the explicatures of the mitigator. In fact, in most cases only the satisfaction of one of them is made explicit while that of the other is left implicit and takes inference to be recovered.
Mitigation can be classified into propositional mitigation, illocutionary mitigation and perlocutionary mitigation. Propositional mitigation explicitly operates on illocutionary vagueness, illocutionary mitigation on illocutionary nonendorsement while perlocutionary mitigation works on the speaker's concern or control over a perlocutionary sequel. All these trigger off a negotiation or a reshuffling of rights and obligations between the speaker and the hearer, and, by the principle of synchronic weakening, succeed in softening a negative effect of the speech act that is detrimental to the achievement of the speaker's communicative goal. Through a detailed analysis of the data, the present study has found that there is sufficient regularity in the manner in which the illocutionary force is reduced or the unpleasant effect is softened to further classify mitigation into several subcategories. Thus, propositional mitigation subsumes under it strategies such as understaters, evidentials, tag questions, epistemic modals and subjectivizers, among which understaters work on propositional fuzziness while the others work on the uncertainty of the speaker's propositional attitude. Illocutionary mitigation incorporates disclaimers, deprecators, truth claimers and hesitators, among which disclaimers encode the speaker's illocutionary nonendorsement more explicitly than the others. Perlocutionary mitigation includes strategies such as simple anticipation, concern showing, penalty taking and direct dissuasion, among which direct dissuasion represents the most explicit effort of control. Such findings contribute to a better understanding of mitigation than is provided by earlier studies, which directed their attention overwhelmingly to propositional mitigation.
Like other phenomena of language use, mitigation is subject to the constraint of various contextual factors. It has been found that mitigation is interadaptable with powers, negative emotions, controversies, taboo topics and social values. These factors are highly relevant to the interview talks in which mitigation occurs, so there is self-evident correlation between the two. In addition, there are social norms related to these factors that require the speaker to mitigate his illocutionary force so as to be socially and communicatively rewarded rather than sanctioned. Mitigation is seen in this light as the result of linguistic adaptation to these factors and their corresponding norms. Moreover, when mitigation occurs, there is often a linguistic description of a social factor or the social norm related to it which constitutes the background for the use of mitigation and serves as the standard by which the illocution is characterized in the light suggested in the mitigator. In other words, the characterization is made with reference to the social norm. Thus, mitigation only makes sense when seen as a faithful representation of social norms, as an apology for a violation of the social norms and as an attempt to downplay the seriousness and the consequences of the violation. By analyzing examples extensively, the present study has found that different contextual factors constrain language use in their unique ways and are correlated with specific mitigating strategies. Thus, power in the hearer entitles him to more speaking rights and obligations and constrain the speaker into using tag questions and disclaimers typically to limit his own speaking rights and obligations. Negative emotions in the hearer call for the speaker's understanding and sympathy and constrain him into using deprecators, disclaimers and the strategy of concern showing predominantly. Controversies require the speaker to respect and acknowledge others' different views and lead the speaker to employ subjectivizers, epistemic modals more frequently than other strategies. Taboo topics motivate the speaker to use disclaimers to avoid violating them or to use deprecators to apologize for an inevitable violation. Social values such as modesty, honesty and restraint require the speaker to present himself as upholding these values by means of subjectivizers and disclaimers. It has also been found that these contextual factors are especially relevant to specific participants in the interview and lead to the clustering of different mitigating strategies around different participants. The host, for example, has to constantly adapt to the power in the guest or the honored guest and to the negative emotions in the guest, therefore his mitigating style is characterized by a combination of tag questions, deprecators and disclaimers. Controversy and the value of modesty are especially relevant to the honored guest, who overwhelmingly uses subjectivizers to adapt to the different views held by other honored guests and to present themselves as being modest. The guest has little to adapt to, his concern being to recount his experience or feelings as accurately as possible. The audience have only to adapt to the competition for the speaking floor and guest's negative emotions, so they mostly use subjectivizers to take and keep the floor and use the truth claimer "实话实说" to pacify the guest while making unreserved outpourings.
Mitigation is used to perform various functions in specific contexts in accordance with the speaker's communicative goal. Mitigating functions include interpersonal functions and communicative functions. Interpersonal functions refer to the contribution made by mitigation to the maintenance or improvement of the relationship between the speaker and the hearer while communicative functions refer to the role played by mitigation in heightening communicative involvement or effectiveness. At the interpersonal level, mitigation performs the functions of image management, pacification and solidarity building. At the communicative level, it performs the functions of invitations, floor manipulations and persuasions. Through a detailed analysis, the present study has found that these functions are regularly associated with specific participants who use different strategies to adapt to specific contextual constraints. Thus, image management is especially relevant to the host and the honored guests, who use deprecators, subjectivizers and disclaimers to adapt to social values and taboo topics to avoid being negatively evaluated. Pacifications are the result of the host's adaptation to the guest's negative emotions by means of concern showing and disclaimers. Solidarity building occurs between the host and the guest who feels ill at ease at the beginning of the interview. The inviting functions result from the host's adaptation to the guest's experience or negative emotions or to the honored guest's expertise by means of tag questions, disclaimers, and concern showing. Floor manipulations are realized due to the mitigator's performativity, negotiability and by creating psychological expectations in the hearer, mostly through the use of subjectivizers by the audience. Persuasions are the ultimate goal of communication aimed to be reached through all forms of mitigation.
Four patterns emerge from a summary of the findings concerning the mitigating strategies, the contextual constraints on mitigation and the mitigating functions. Firstly, tag questions are almost exclusively used by the host, who adapts to the power in the guest or the honored guest in order to perform inviting functions. This is consistent with the observation that the host is mainly concerned with securing a maximal degree of participation in the interview to make it run smoothly. Secondly, the subjectivizer "个人认为" is surprisingly monopolized by the honored guests whose power entitles them to speak more assertively. This is explained by one honored guest's empathic adaptation to the controversial views held by another in order not to impose and not to be imposed upon, as well as to appear modest. Thirdly, subjectivizers such as "我认为" and "我有个观点" are favored by the audience, who adapt to the strong competition for the speaking floor in order to seize and keep the floor. Fourthly, the truth claimer "实话实说" is favored by all participants partly because it justifies unreserved outpourings while mitigating resentment and partly because it has come into vogue due to the popularity of the TV program.
It has further been found that mitigation is inherently related to empathy. On the one hand, it involves an incongruence, such as underrepresentation, irrelevance, redundancy or contradiction, between the semantic meaning of the mitigator and the speaker's illocutionary intention. This semantic incongruence can only be reconciled by assuming that in the use of mitigation the speaker is taking the hearer's perspective, showing affective convergence to the hearer and being altruistic to him. On the other hand, despite being aware of the problematic nature of his illocution and despite his wish to empathize with the hearer, the speaker goes on record performing the illocution. This seeming irrationality can only be explained away by assuming that the speaker is bidding for the hearer's empathy on the ground of reciprocity. In other words, by the use of mitigation the speaker is also attempting to get the hearer to take his perspective, converge to his affect and make an altruistic interpretation of his utterance. These constitute the speaker's empathic intention in engaging in mitigated communication. Metapragmatically speaking, through the use of mitigation the speaker explicitly communicates his empathic intention to the hearer and hopes thereby to realize various mitigating functions. Mitigation conveys the metapragmatic message that in general or in other contexts the speaker would agree with the hearer, but in the present context he would expect the hearer to agree with him. In terms of interpretational constraints, the speaker discourages the hearer from making a conventional interpretation of the utterance but constrains him into making a novel and altruistic interpretation based on the adoption of the speaker's perspective.
In order to account for mitigation, the present study proposes the notion of empathic adaptation. Adaptation is egoistically oriented, empathy is altruistically oriented while mitigation is both altruistic and egoistic. Thus empathic adaptation captures the very nature of mitigation, namely that it is egoistic via being altruistic. The explanatory power of this notion is manifested in its account of the motivation of mitigating strategies and the realization of mitigating functions. On the one hand, the use of mitigation can be viewed as resulting from the speaker's empathic adaptation to various contextual constraints. That is, the speaker does not only have to take his communicative goal into account, but also has to adopt the hearer's perspective and affect with regard to the corresponding constraint. Given the egoistic orientation of adaptation, the speaker would probably opt for reinforcement rather than mitigation if he were not empathic with the hearer. Conversely, if the speaker empathizes with the hearer while adapting to the contextual constraint to reach his communicative goal, he will naturally choose mitigation as it takes care of both needs. On the other hand, the realization of mitigating functions can be viewed as resulting from the hearer's empathic adaptation to the speaker's mitigating strategy. If the hearer adapted to the speaker's use of mitigation, but were not empathic with the speaker, he would be stuck in his own perspective or preoccupied with his own affect, so much so that he would fail to see the speaker's perspective and mitigation would fail to realize its functions. But if he empathizes with the speaker while adapting to the speaker's use of mitigation, he will interpret the utterance in a way that is advantageous to the speaker. If and only if this happens can the mitigating functions be realized.
In sum, mitigation is a multidimensional and multifunctional phenomenon that takes a multiperspectival research paradigm to reveal its intricacies. The present study has explored the mitigating strategies, the contextual constraints on mitigation, the mitigating functions and the mechanism of mitigation, yet it is more extensive than intensive, more rudimentary than systematic and more tentative than conclusive. It has only revealed the tip of the iceberg, which awaits more penetrating studies to come.
引文
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