（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）言语交际中的刻意曲解.pdf

中南民族大学硕士学位论文 iii 摘摘 要要 本文旨在从语用学角度对言语交际中出现的刻意曲解现象进行定性研究。其研究重 点主要集中在刻意曲解现象在语言使用的不同层面的表现形式及其语用机制和动机。 刻意曲解是在言语交际中发生在谈话者之间的一种标记性语用现象。 虽然听者实际 上完全明白说话者的交际意图，但是为了某些语用动机却刻意曲解说话者的意思。与因 听者的语言、认知或语用能力的欠缺或不足而产生的无意误解这一无标记语用现象不 同，刻意曲解是一种有计划的语用策略，基于听话者较强的语言、认知或者语用能力。 刻意曲解可在由 brown milroy, 1984) secondly, as pointed out by many scholars, it is the hearer who should be responsible for misunderstanding. stratos (1981: 20), for example, uses the term “misunderstanding” to refer to the failure of a hearer to understand a speakers utterance, i.e. the hearers failure to recognize what the speaker intends to convey. thomas (1983) also believes that misunderstanding arises from the inability on the part of the hearer to recognize the force of the speakers utterance. humphreys-jones (1986) clearly points out that misunderstanding occurs when a hearer fails to correctly understand the proposition expressed in the speakers utterance. yus (1999a, 1999b) interprets misunderstanding within the framework of the relevance theory and regards it as (a) the addressees inability to select one interpretation, among all the possible interpretations that a stimulus can have in a context, which is intended to communicate by the addresser; and (b) the addressees inability to process optimally relevant contextual information that the socio-cultural environment exudes, as it were, without any prior intentionality in its communication. thirdly, according to hinnenkamp (1999), misunderstanding is treated as an event with a particular sequential structure. he claims that a misunderstanding in a talk exchange is not simply a diffuse mismatching of alleged intention failure, but it is a sequence, a short or quite extended one, 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 9 even open-ended one where a mismatching is retrospectively negotiated and most often repaired. misunderstandings have a beginning and an ending. we can see that misunderstanding is not a clear-cut notion but a product of repair and negotiation. because misunderstanding has to be monitored and negotiated interactionally, it should be recognized as a continuum. lastly, in the opinion of mctear (2) the instrument to make fun. he points out that there are three results of decoding, namely, explaining, misunderstanding and misinterpreting. misunderstanding and misinterpretation are deviant or mistaken decoding. misunderstanding happens unintentionally whereas misinterpretation intentionally through which the decoder can achieve certain communicative goals. he also points out that those puns and ambiguous sentences are easily to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. (p.324-324) zhou liquan (2001) and wang jianping (1989) are another two prominent chinese scholars who have studied misinterpretation from the perspective of language form. in his book, a theory for the proper way of thinking and successful communication, zhou liquan (2001) points out that “there are different understanding degrees. the extent of the individuals comprehension or interpretation proficiency is also different.” (p. 539) according to him, deliberate 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 13 misinterpretation is the highest degree of understanding and it is often considered as successful communication. zhou considers deliberate misinterpretation is the deviation made by the hearer on purpose. wang jianping (1989) distinguishes four types of ambiguous understandings in the conversation in his book the art in linguistic communicationlogical functions of context. among which the fourth type, say, the hearer or reader makes use of the context and intentionally misinterprets the intended meaning of speaker or writer so as to meet his own needs, is what we call deliberate misinterpretation. although zhou and wang do not present us an explicit concept of deliberate misinterpretation, their distinctions of similar related phenomena provide some references for the future researches on the clarification of the concept and nature of deliberate misinterpretation. 2.3.3 deliberate misinterpretation interpreted by adaptation theory in her doctoral dissertation “deliberate misinterpretation as a pragmatic strategy in verbal communication”, shen zhiqi (2004) presents a clear definition of deliberate misinterpretation under the framework of adaptation theory, in which the prerequisites of deliberate misinterpretation are discussed, namely, mutuality of beliefs, and consistency of searching for relevance and the triggers in the first speakers utterances. besides, ways employed by the second speaker to deliberately misinterpret the first speakers intended meaning are introduced and the functions of means are summarized. another researcher, wang sa (2006), does a qualitative study on deliberate misinterpretation applied in traditional chinese cross talk under the guidance of verscherens (1999) adaptation theory and tries to explore the triggers for a speaker in the cross-talk program to deliberately misinterpret the other speakers utterance, how a speaker in the cross-talk program deliberately misinterprets the other speakers utterances and the functions for a speaker to deliberately misinterpret the other speakers utterances. 2.3.4 deliberate misinterpretation interpreted by relevance theory yu yangs paper (2007), entitled with “a relevance-theoretic study of deliberate misinterpretation”, with sperber (2) three ways of realization of dmi: obscuring the ostension in s1s utterance, adding the implicated premise to change contextual assumption and choosing the inappropriate relevant interpretations. from the above introduction, it can be seen that there are some inadequacies in the previous studies on deliberate misinterpretation. firstly, only a comparatively small number of scholars have made specific studies on this linguistic and pragmatic phenomenon. secondly, while studying deliberate misinterpretation, most scholars in the logic field pay more attention to the presenting form of language than the pragmatic aspects of this phenomenon. they focus their studies on distinguishing various kinds of language phenomena related to misinterpretation such as misunderstanding, misleading and ambiguity, and on the contrast between misunderstanding and deliberate misinterpretation. thirdly, the limited researches on the triggering conditions, operation mechanisms and pragmatic effects of deliberate misinterpretation are done only from a single theoretical perspective and none of them has made a comprehensive exploration into its specific representations at different linguistic or non-linguistic levels and its pragmatic apparatuses and motivations. 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 15 chapter 3 pragmatic apparatuses for deliberate misinterpretation 3.1 brown it is simply opposite to the term “positive”. 3.1.1 positive face positive face refers to our need to be accepted and liked by others and our need to feel that our social group shares common goals. positive face reflects peoples desire to be liked, approved of, respected and appreciated by others. positive politeness is orientated to preserving the positive face of other people. when we use positive politeness we use speech strategies that emphasize our solidarity with the hearer, such as informal pronunciation, shared dialect or slang expressions, nicknames, more frequent reference to speaker and hearer as we, the requests which are less indirect. 3.1.2 negative face negative face refers to our right of independence of action and our need not to be imposed on by others. negative face shows peoples wish not to be impeded or imposed by others. negative politeness is orientated to preserving the negative face of other people. this is much more likely if there is a social distance between the speaker and the hearer. when we use negative politeness, we use speech strategies that emphasize our deference for the hearer. deliberate misinterpretation in verbal communication 16 nicknames, slang and informal pronunciation tend to be avoided and requests tend to be more indirect and impersonal, often involving could you or could i ask you to or even referring to the hearer in the third person, as in students are asked not to put their essays in the staff room. negative politeness also involves more frequent use of other mitigating devices, expressions that soften the blow, like please, possibly, might, im sorry but.etc. brown (ii) acts threatening to the hearers positive face: complaining, criticizing, disagreeing; (iii) acts threatening to the speakers negative face: accepting an offer, accepting thanks, promising unwillingly; (iv) acts threatening to the speakers positive face: apologizing, accepting compliments, confessing. (brown (iv) do the fta on-record with negative politeness: the expression of distance oriented 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 17 to negative face; (v) do not do the fta. because of its close connection with interpersonal and social relationship, “face” is of particular importance in the discussion of deliberate misinterpretation used in verbal communication. the gain and loss in face resulting from this perspective reflect power relations and other social aspects. 3.2 leechs politeness principle another important contribution to politeness studies is made by leech, the founder of politeness principle (pp for short). leech (1983) argues that the gricean framework itself cannot give a sufficient explanation of why people so often convey their meaning indirectly and why people do not always observe the cooperative principle (cp for short). therefore, leech (1983) puts forward his politeness principle to rescue the cp from this serious trouble. generally speaking, politeness principle can be stated in such a way: other things being equal, minimize the expression of impolite beliefs and maximize the expression of polite beliefs. (leech, 1983: 80) leech also relates illocutionary acts more precisely to the kinds of politeness with which they are associated. in leechs (1983) principle of pragmatics, he relates conversational principles to two kinds of rhetoric: interpersonal rhetoric and textual rhetoric. politeness principle belongs to the category of interpersonal rhetoric, which, according to leech, is brought out to “rescue” cooperative principle proposed by grice (1975), because cooperative principle can not explain the dilemma that people fail to fulfill cooperative principle while at the same time observing it. (1983: 80) centering on the relationship between self and other, leech analyses politeness by the use of maxims and proposes six maxims of politeness principle: tact maxim: a. minimize cost to other b. maximize benefit to other generosity maxim: a. minimize benefit to self b. maximize cost to self deliberate misinterpretation in verbal communication 18 approbation maxim: a. minimize dispraise of other b. maximize praise of other modesty maxim: a. minimize praise of self b. maximize dispraise of self agreement maxim: a. minimize disagreement between self and other b. maximize agreement between self and other sympathy maxim: a. minimize antipathy between self and other b. maximize sympathy between self and other (leech, 1983:132) from the statement of politeness maxims we can see that leechs pp concerns a relationship between two participants, self and other. “self” is normally identified with the speaker while “other” refers not only to the hearer, but also to the third parties designated by third-person pronouns because speakers also show politeness to those who may not be involved in the conversation. according to leech, not all the maxims are equally important, “politeness is focused more strongly on other than on self”. (leech, 1983: 133) within each maxim, the sub-maxim (a) is more important than sub-maxim (b); alternatively speaking, negative politeness (avoidance of discord) is more important than positive politeness (seeking concord). leechs (1983) theory on politeness is more detailed and reasonable, so it is still frequently used in the current linguistic researches. among his six maxims, the third, forth and fifth are most useful in explaining the phenomenon of deliberate misinterpretation happening in conversation. 3.3 sperber second, there is the information that the first layer of information has been intentionally pointed out”. (sperber seen from the hearers point of view, communication means inference, making inference of the speakers communicative intention from the linguistic information newly presented through the speakers utterance as well as the contextual information. hence, a complete characterization of communication, by adding these two sides together, is that it is ostensive-inferential. ostensive-inferential communication is defined as follows: “the communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions.” (sperber (b) the system of sounds in a particular language, especially at a particular point in its development. phonology, according to hu zhuanglin (2001) and dai weidong (2002), is the study of the system of sounds of a particular languages; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication. so far as its nature suggests, phonology is the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language. namely, it describes how sounds form systems and function to convey meaning. deliberate misinterpretation at phonological level, therefore, refers to that the second speaker (usually the hearer) deliberately misinterprets the first speakers utterance meaning by taking advantage of certain words that share the same or similar phonological properties. this could be illustrated as follows: (3) 凤姐儿笑道： “有什么事这么要紧？”探春笑道： “我们起了个诗社，头以社就 不齐全，众人脸软，所以就乱了例了。我想必得你去做个监社御史史 ，贴面无私才好。 再四妹妹为画园子，用的东西那般不全，回了老太太，老太太说只怕后头楼底下还有剩 下的， 找一找。 若有呢拿出来； 若没有， 叫人买去。 ” 凤姐儿笑道： “我又不会做什么湿湿 咧干的，叫我吃东西去倒会。 ”探春笑道： “你不会做，也不用你做；你只监察着我 们里头有偷安惰情的，该怎么罚他就是了。 ”凤姐儿笑道： “你们别哄我了，我早猜着了， 那里是请我去做监察御史史？分明叫了我去做个进钱的铜商罢咧。你们弄什么社，必 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 23 是要轮流着做东道儿。你们的钱不够花，想出这个法子来勾了我去，好和我要钱。可是 这个主意不是？”说的众人都笑道： “你猜着了！ ” whats up? inquired lady feng with a laugh. is it so urgent? some time ago, tan chun proceeded laughingly, we started a rhyming club; but the first meeting was not quite a success. every one of us proved so soft-hearted! the rules therefore were set at naught. so i cant help thinking that we must enlist your services as president of the society and superintendent; for what is needed to make the thing turn out well is firmness and no favour. the next matter is: cousin quarta explained to our worthy ancestor that the requisites for painting the picture of the garden were short of one thing and another, and she said: that there must still be, she fancied, in the lower story of the back loft some articles, remaining over from previous years, and that we should go and look for them. that if there be any, they should be taken out, but that in the event of their being none, some one should be commissioned to go and purchase a supply of them. im not up to doing anything wet or dry, (play on word shih, verses), lady feng laughed, and would you have me, pray, come and gorge? you may, its possible, not be up to any of these things, tan chun replied, but we dont expect you to do anything! all we want you for is to see whether there be among us any remiss or lazy, and to decide how they should be punished, thats all. you shouldnt try and play your tricks upon me! lady feng smiled, i can see through your little game! is it that you wish me to act as president and superintendent? no! its as clear as day that your object is that i should play the part of that copper merchant, who put in contributions in hard cash. you have, at every meeting you hold, to each take turn and pay the piper; but, as your funds are not sufficient, youve invented this plan to come and inveigle me into your club, in order to wheedle money out of me! this must be your little conspiracy! these words evoked general laughter. youve guessed right! they exclaimed. (dream of the red chamber) wang xifeng (lady feng) is a clever and sharp-sighted woman in the novel dream in red chambers and it is her nature not to make any improper or rash assertions before she really knows what the speakers goal is. and in chinese, there are many words that share the deliberate misinterpretation in verbal communication 24 same or similar pronunciations but have different meanings. in this dialogue, 史 and 湿 have the same phonological feature, both can be described as shi. the only difference between the two is the tone. therefore, wang xifeng deliberately chooses “湿” and indirectly asks for further information. by this way, wang xifeng successfully validates her prediction and gets yingchuns real intention. the same choice of deliberate misinterpretation can be seen from example (4): (4) 贾琏陪笑道： “见老太太玩牌，不敢惊动，不过叫媳妇出来问问。 ”贾母道： “就 忙到这一时！等他家去，你问他多少问不得？那一遭儿你这么小心来？这又不知是来做 耳报神的，也不知是来做探子的，鬼鬼祟祟，倒吓我一跳。什么好下流种子！你媳妇和 我玩牌呢，还有半日的空儿，你家去再和那赵二家的商量治你媳妇去罢！ ”说着众人都 笑了。鸳鸯笑道： “鲍鲍二家的，老祖宗又拉上赵二家的去了。 ” 贾母也笑道： “可不？我那里记得什么抱抱 着背着的。提起这些事来，不由 我不生气。” i saw that you were playing at cards, dear ancestor, chia lien explained with a strained laugh, and i didnt venture to come and disturb you. i therefore simply meant to call my wife out to find out from her. is it anything so very urgent that you had to say it this very moment? old lady chia continued. had you waited until she had gone home, couldnt you have asked her any amount of questions you may have liked? when have