【作者】 马晓菲；

【导师】 赵英玲；

【作者基本信息】 东北师范大学 ， 外国语言学及应用语言学， 2007， 硕士

【摘要】 作为人际交往中的一个重要组成部分,礼貌理论一直是语用学关注的话题之一。在上个世纪,西方的语用学专家和学者做了大量的研究工作,为礼貌现象的研究打下了坚实的基础。其中有关礼貌现象最有权威、最具说服力的理论是布朗和列文森(Brown and Levinson)提出的“面子理论”以及利奇(Leech)提出的“礼貌原则”。随后中国也有一些学者对礼貌现象进行了广泛深入的研究,其中值得一提的是顾曰国,他提出了一套具有中国特色的“礼貌准则”。拒绝是日常生活中使用频率比较高的言语行为,并且是一种“本质上威胁请求者正面子的威胁行为”。由于拒绝通常威胁被拒绝者的面子,因此人们在实施这一行为时常常要考虑礼貌问题,用一些礼貌策略来减缓对对方面子的威胁。本论文旨在通过比较美语和汉语中拒绝策略的异同,对其中所反映出来的礼貌现象进行语用对比分析,其分析是借助于一系列的礼貌原理实现的。以拒绝这一言语行为作为研究视点来探讨美语和汉语中所体现出来的礼貌的异同,是此论文的独到之处:通过与具体的言语行为—语用拒绝—的结合来研究礼貌现象。对语用拒绝的分析是通过收集对比一系列语料实现的。本文以中国非英语专业大学生和美国大学生作为受试对象,以语篇补全测试问卷(DCT)为语料收集方法,由于拒绝言语行为涉及给予、请求、邀请、建议等诸多方面,本研究拟以“请求”为引发情景做深入研究,以社会地位作为变量,在前人相关研究的基础之上更加系统科学的设计了从属于3个不同类别(拒绝者相对社会地位分别为高、低和平等)的5个情景。研究采用Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltze(1990)对构成拒绝言语行为的语义结构的分类和跨文化研究框架,以受试对象在这五个情景中的不同反应作为研究资料,对拒绝策略进行对比,进而从礼貌层面上对其差异加以分析。本文从三个方面来剖析两组的异同:一、从总体上比较两组使用的直接拒绝策略和间接策略的异同;二、按照语义模式的顺序和频率来观察两组在每一个情景中选择拒绝策略的异同;三、研究这两组因被拒绝者社会地位的影响而产生的说话者策略选择的异同。经过统计、分析数据,结果表明了这两组在以上三个层面对于拒绝策略的使用存在相似之处,也存在着明显差异。两组受试者均倾向于使用间接拒绝策略,但间接程度存在差异。汉语受试者在拒绝时比英语受试者更多地回避直接拒绝策略,对被拒绝者的相对地位差异敏感,主要体现在礼貌标记语的使用频率、提供的拒绝理由的具体程度、称呼语的使用频率等方面。在语义结构的选择和内容表达上,汉、英受试者也表现出明显的文化差异和偏好,例如汉语受试者更多地采用提供别的办法和推迟策略来缓解拒绝言语行为对被拒绝者面子的威胁;而英语受试者大多采用愿望、原则等方法来削减拒绝对被拒绝者面子的威胁。最后,作者发现尽管礼貌是存在于各种语言和文化中的普遍现象,但礼貌不仅在不同的语言中有不同的实现方式,而礼貌的这种跨文化差异主要源于各种文化的语用差异,而语用原则与该文化的价值取向密切相关。就文化层面而言,中国礼貌准则中的谦虚原则是中国集体主义传统的体现,而非自我贬低准则体现了西方个人主义和宣扬个性的文化本质。简言之,把对拒绝策略和对礼貌的研究结合起来,并深入到社会、文化价值层面探求其根本原因是本论文的一点创新。更多还原

【Abstract】 As an essential part of interpersonal interaction, politeness theories have always been a major concern for pragmatics. In the past century, the western pragmatics experts and scholars conducted enormous research and laid a solid foundation for the research on politeness phenomenon, among which the most well-known is the face theory formulated by Brown and Levinson and the Politeness Principle proposed by Leech. Following these researches a few Chinese scholars carried out extensive research on politeness phenomenon as well, among whom Gu Yueguo deserves our special attention. He proposed the Four Norms to account for the unique characteristics of Chinese politeness.Politeness can be expressed verbally and non-verbally, but in this study, only linguistic politeness is discussed; that is, the ways people express politeness verbally through refusal speech acts. Since Goffman’s (1967) work, politeness has become one of the most active areas of research in language use.As a Face-Threatening-Act, refusal is frequently employed in our daily life. Due to its face-threatening nature, interlocutors have to take politeness into consideration and use some politeness strategies to mitigate its threat to the refusee’s face.This thesis is to examine cross-cultural politeness phenomena reflected in refusal strategies in American English and Chinese in terms of similarities and dissimilarities and to seek explanations in virtue of related politeness theories and cultural values. Politeness appears to be a prevalent concept in human interactions, and to date studies pertaining to this have appeared in the literature from various perspectives. The present paper follows the trend of politeness study. Its novel point is to study politeness in connection with refusal strategies, i.e., to explore politeness through a contrastive study of refusal speech acts in American English and Chinese. Data were collected from a DCT that comprised of responses to five scenarios of three types (higher status, lower status and equal status) designed for Chinese and American college students. They were required to fill in their responses when refusing and then their respective refusal strategies were derived and analyzed. As the speech act of refusal is rather complicated, with offers, invitations, requests and suggestions involved, the researcher chose one of them, that is, refusal to requests as focus.In this study, the similarities and differences between the two groups are investigated from three levels: (1) direct and indirect refusal patterns used by the two groups; (2) the order and frequency of semantic formulas used in each situation were coded to investigate the strategies employed by the two groups; (3) influence of social status and social distance on the adoption of semantic formulas. Data proved that despite similarities, there were significant differences in strategies use between the two groups. The two groups seemed to have a preference for indirect strategies in most cases in the speech act of refusal. Nevertheless, in contrast to the NEs, the NCs made more efforts to avoid employing direct refusals and showed more sensitivity to the relative status of their interlocutors by using politeness markers and providing more or less specific reasons. In addition, cultural difference is evident in their preference for certain semantic formulas and the content conveyed. For instance, the NCS demonstrated more favor than the NEs for certain strategies such as postponement and offering alternatives while the NEs exhibited preference for principle, wish and statement of positive opinions.Different cultures have different perceptions and interpretations of appropriateness and politeness, and the analysis of face-saving strategies will undoubtedly shed light on the underlying sociolinguistic values of different culture. The ways that politeness is manifested reflect the modest nature of the Oriental peoples and the non-self-denigrative nature of the Westerners, which in turn are respective reflections of collective- and individual-oriented cultural values.So the significance of the present study lies in the fact that it goes further to the depth of seeking reasons for the differences in adopting refusal strategies from the perspective of different sociocultural values. Differences on politeness phenomena reflected in refusal strategies are ascribed to cultural values, thus proposing a trinity of refusal strategies, politeness and cultural values, which is an innovative attempt of the present study.更多还原