（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）中美“劝说”言语行为的对比研究.pdf

iv 中美“劝说”言语行为的对比研究 中美“劝说”言语行为的对比研究 研究生：唐 霞 导 师：刘绍忠 教授(博士) 年 级：2004 级 专 业：外国语言学及应用语言学 方 向：语用学 摘要 摘要 自 austin 和 searle 先后提出各自的言语行为理论以来，学者们已对言语行为中的“请求” 、 “道歉” 、 “称赞” 、 “拒绝”等做过较为详尽的研究，但对“劝说”的研究相对较少，而且学者们多采用心理学、社会学、 大众传媒等角度，从语言学，特别是语用学的角度研究很少，从汉语，以及英汉对比的角度研究劝说则更少。 本文从语用和跨文化两个角度对中美“劝说”言语行为策略进行了对比。 50 个中国人和50个美国人参加了本次调查研究。 数据全部采用了语篇补全测试(dct)问卷调查的方式获得。问卷共包括五个情景。根据收集的数据，本文区分了四种劝说类型，重点分析当面劝说，提出了八劝说策略，并就中国人和美国人在这些情景中对劝说策略的使用情况进行了详述。 研究表明，中美劝说策略的选择既有相同之处，又明显差异。这些情景中，中美都不倾向使用“沉默”和“背后劝说” ，而在“退出策略” ， “当面劝说” ，和“其他的”选择上差别较大。中国人使用频率最高的是“当面劝说” ，美国人在一些情景总使用频率最高的是“当面劝说” ，而在另外一些情景中很少使用劝说。而在“当面劝说”策略中，中美都倾向“奖励” ，而“惩罚” 、 “专业知识”和“借口”使用较少。从整体上看中国人使用最高的是奖励策略，美国人使用频率最多的是请求策略。中国人使用的策略要多于美国人。研究还发现由于文化差异，中美在劝说语境的选择上存在区别。同一语境，在中国是典型的劝说语境，在美国不存在劝说或很少使用劝说。 以上这些发现，对增进人们的劝说言语行为知识，对跨文化交际和英语、汉语二语教学都有积极的启示。 关键词：关键词：劝说; 言语行为; 语用; 文化; 策略 v a contrastive study of the speech act of persuasion in chinese and american english author: tang xia supervisor: prof. / dr liu shaozhong grade: 2004 major: linguistics and applied linguistics concentration: pragmatics abstract since austin and searle establish their speech act theory, researchers have investigated such speech acts as apologies, complaints, refusals, promises, and so on in detail, except the speech act of persuasion. plus, most studies are conducted from such perspectives as psychology, sociology, mass media，and so on, few adopting the linguistic perspective, not to say pragmatics. systematical research on chinese persuasion are even fewer, not to say a contrastive study between chinese and american english. this thesis studies persuasion in china and america from the perspectives of pragmatics and cross-cultural comparison. in all, 50 chinese and 50 americans participate in the study. the data are collected using a discourse completion test (dct). the questionnaire includes five situations. from the collected data, i identify four types of persuasion, and focus on analyzing face-to-face persuasion. i also detect eight strategies in face-to-face persuasion, and examine them in the five situations. the study evidences that there exist similarities and differences in persuasion strategies in china and america; that across the five situations, neither group is prone to non-verbal persuasion and non-face-to-face persuasion, though the two groups sharply differ in the strategies of option out, face-to-face persuasion and others; that the most frequently used strategy by chinese is face-to-face persuasion, while americans are prone to use face-to-face persuasion in some situation, and others and option out in other situations; that in face-to-face persuasion, both groups are prone to adopt rewarding activity, while punishing activity, expertise and the applying of excuse are seldom used. as a whole, the most frequently used face-to-face persuasion strategy by the chinese is rewarding activity, while americans request; and the chinese use much more strategies than americans. in addition, the study also finds out that both vigroups differ in the choice of situations, namely one situation typical to the chinese may not exist or be seldom used by the americans. all the above findings may help enrich our knowledge about the speech act of persuasion, and is of great implications to cross-cultural communication, and english teaching and leaning. key words: persuasion speech act pragmatics culture strategy iii acknowledgements i am grateful to my supervisor, dr. liu shaozhong, who introduced me into the field of pragmatics with his inspiring lectures. he put me in the right track of the current research and provided me with different sources of information and great encouragement. during the whole process of my thesis writing, from the selection of the topic, material collection, questionnaire designing, drafting, to reviewing and polishing of the thesis, he gave me valuable advice. my very sincere and special thanks go to him for his kindness and patience in guiding me. without his guidance, i could never have finished this thesis. i am also grateful to all the other professors at the college of foreign studies, guangxi normal university. thanks to them for their enlightening instructions. a special acknowledgement should be also given to my friends, classmates who help me collect material, and those college students, friends and classmates who responded to my questionnaire. finally, i must thank my families for their endless love and support. without their support, my dissertation would not have come out. 1 chapter one introduction while scholars at both home and abroad show great interest in the contrastive studies of speech acts such as apologies, complaints, refusals, promises, and so on, this thesis focuses on the speech act of persuasion. we offer an introduction to persuasion as a speech act, significance and purpose of doing the research, objective, and organization of the thesis in this chapter. 1.1 persuasion as a speech act in how to do things with words, austin (1962) presents his idea that to say something is itself a kind of doing, which challenges the logic positivists view of meaning that places truth conditions as center to language understanding. according to austin, a speech act is performed when a speaker (s) makes an utterance to a hearer (h) in certain context. he distinguishes three aspects of speech act: locutionary act-saying something in the full sense of “say”; illocutionary act-an act performed in saying something and identified by the explicit performance; and perlocutionary act-the act performed by or as a result of saying. for example, “darling, today is sunday!” said a wife to her husband who worked day and night (he ziran & ran yongping, 2002). the locutionary act is the saying of the sentence. the illocutionary act is the persuasion to have a rest that day. the perlocutionary act is that the husband had a day break. with the words “darling, today is sunday!” the wife performed a persuasion to let her husband stop working for a day. searle (1969) further develops this theory with his improved classification of illocutionary acts and emphasizes intention and indirectness. as he considers, the basic and minimal unit of linguistic communication is the illocutionary act, not as has generally been supposed, is the symbol or word or sentence, or even the token of the symbol or word or sentence (he zhaoxiong, 2003: 238). the production of the sentence token under certain conditions is the illocutionary act and vice versa, any speech act must be performed through sentence (or utterance). the process of linguistic communication is in fact composed by a sequence of illocutionary acts. so speech acts are one of the functions of sentence meaning (he zhaoxiong, 1999). based on austins classifications, searle proposed a five-category classification of illocutionary acts: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declaratives. searles another contribution-indirect speech act theory, will be discussed in the chapter three. a typical persuasion pattern is to say something like “i persuade you to drink a glass of milk every day, because it riches in organic calcium” with a statement, argument and solution. however, the speech act of persuasion realization is far more complex. following the 2introduction and statement of facts, selecting a strategy and style appropriate to the relationship and situation is the heart of the process of persuasion. besides, persuasion can be performed through such forms as providing information, making statements, making promises, asking questions, requesting, condoling, and so on, with different purposes under different conditions. for example, “if you go shopping with me, ill buy you a pair of shoes.” this is a persuasion through a promise. persuasion as a speech act has different pragmatic forces which serves different functions. according to hollingworths (1972) popular view of persuasion, the fundamental tasks of persuasion are that maintaining attention, holding interest, creating an impression, instilling conviction and providing direction. besides, it can be used to build relationships with audience members-a primary goal for persuaders today; resolve conflicts, show politeness, show care, establish public image, so on and so forth. however, the speech act of persuasion, as a member of language family, is inevitably influenced by culture. take persuasion functioning as politeness for example, we repeat inviting our guests to help themselves with more food at chinese table which turns out to be persuasions, because we think it impolite not to do so. however, such persuasions always cause pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication. they are seldom performed by americans under such conditions. they may feel awkward when encounter situations like these. because we are used to chinese way of invitation at table, many chinese always make themselves hungry at american tables. based on the fact that persuasion as a speech act has its inner pragmatic forces and cultural differences in strategies and situations, the author launched this study. plus, different cultures have different means of manifesting politeness that is a very important strategy in performing persuasion, which is another attraction for the author to do the present study. 1.2 significance and purpose of studying persuasion simply put, persuasion as a speech act is a desire to change others ideas and attitudes by words aiming at gaining others actions with understanding. it is an important communicative tool for us to succeed in social interaction. however, as a daily practice, persuasion seems spontaneous. it always happens at very low level of awareness. so its necessary to rise peoples awareness of persuasion. and, as a part of culture, such a practice is cognitively significant in understanding the structure and the essence of a society and culture. the academic exploration of persuasion is significant at least due to following reasons: first, persuasive messages pervade the world we live in. we cannot avoid persuading and being persuaded. so its necessary for us to have a good command of strategies and techniques of persuasion. persuasions surround us with attempts to influence us to feel, to think, to act. also, 3we seek to gain support for our goals through persuading. you may have such experiences: advertisers always talked you into buying; your families tried to get you back home as early as possible for the spring festival; your roommates persuaded you to go downtown with them when you were ready to hit your book. you are persuaded all the time. also, you perform persuasion as often as being persuaded. you persuade your parents, spouse and children at home, your boss, colleagues in the company and various people whom you interact with outwards. persuasion runs through every aspect of our society. second, persuasion serves various important functions. mastering super persuasion techniques means gaining the key to success. if you want your bosses to adopt your suggestions; want your subordinates to obey your arrangements; want your friends to accept your ideas; want to change your opponents attitudes; want others to purchase your commodity, you need wonderful techniques and proper persuasion styles to help you reach your goals. mastering flexible persuasive techniques appropriate to the relation and situation, you can perform remarkably in your job; talk cheerfully and humorously with friends; express endless love with honey words to your sweetheart; raise to the occasion when faced your boss; make vividly and powerful speeches in the public. as we step into 21st century, persuasion is becoming a key point for us to establish harmonious relationship with others more and more. third, there are some strategies behind the typical pattern of the speech act of persuasion. in todays world, persuaders have developed sophisticated ways of communication to us. we receive persuasion, usually, being unaware of being persuaded. persuaders who dont develop sophisticated way to perform persuasion are hard to succeed. therefore, it is essential for us to be trained in persuasion: not only to become a more effective persuader, but also a more critical judge of social influence attempts. it can help both persuaders and persuadees improve their communicative competence. fourth, with todays accelerated development of globalization, cross-cultural communic- ation has become an irresistible trend. along with the development of cross-cultural communication, cultural clashes and conflicts arising out of differences in values and philosophy among people with different cultural backgrounds, or out of different goals, objectives, limited resources or turf battles, occur more frequently than it was before. they can be resolved through many ways, but persuasion is often the best. on the other hand, influenced by culture, differences exist in persuasion strategies. so a contrastive study is necessary, and urgent. however, the contrastive studies on persuasion in chinese and american english are fragmentary. besides, the combination of intercultural pragmatics and contrastive studies between english and chinese is one of the present trends of pragmatic studies. this thesis focuses on a pragmatic analysis of the speech act of persuasion and contrastive 4study of differences and similarities in persuasion strategies under the same conditions between chinese and americans. then a cultural analysis is offered to help explain the existed differences and similarities. the investigation is carried to further understand persuasion and help select appropriate strategy to perform persuasion in daily interaction and cross-cultural communication. the findings of present study also contribute to english teaching and learning and help both learners of english as foreign language and chinese as foreign language to realize how to do things with “persuasion”. on the basis of the above study, this thesis attempts to answer the following questions: 1. whatre persuasion and the speech act of persuasion? and what are the realizations of the speech act of persuasion besides the typical pattern, like “i persuade you to”? 2. how can we understand the speech act of persuasion from the pragmatic and cultural perspective? 3. what are the strategies used in this speech act? 4. what are the differences and similarities in persuasion strategies used by the chinese and americans to issue a speech act of persuasion? 5. are the findings useful to language teaching and learning, as well as to further understanding of persuasion? i hope that this study will be able to increase the readers knowledge on persuasion and persuasion styles, and get aware of their strengths and biases in effective and ethical persuasion; help develop a situational approach towards the study of culture, for a systematic description of persuasion with socio-cultural factors taking into account will tend to better comprehension of the structure of a certain society and culture; help both english as a foreign language learners and chinese as a foreign language learners enhance their pragmatic and cross-cultural awareness, improve their competence and learning proficiency and boost the maintenance and improvement of human relations between chinese and americans. 1.3 organization of the thesis this thesis is divided into six chapters. its organized as follows: chapter one offers an introduction to the research on persuasion including persuasion as a speech act, significance and purpose of the research, objective and organization of the thesis. chapter two is a literature review on persuasion studies, trying to present readers with a general idea about studies in the past. it begins with previous studies of persuasions, including persuasion in rhetoric, contemporary perspectives on persuasion, studies of persuasion in ancient china and modern times then defines and classifies persuasion from different perspectives and introduces some useful persuasion strategies. finally several other closely related terms 5including coercion, suggestion and other related speech acts are discussed to help understand persuasion better. chapter three does a pragmatic analysis on the speech act of persuasion. a general analysis on the relationship between persuasion and pragmatics is given first. then studies from the cooperative principle, politeness theory and indirect speech act theory are presented. chapter four offers some research questions and describes the subjects participating in the study, instruments for carrying our research, two facets of persuasion and persuasion strategies used in this study; offers a data analysis. chapter five provides a cultural analysis on persuasion as speech act, trying to explain the similarities and differences in performing the speech act of persuasion between the two groups, by means of discussing the relationship between persuasion and culture, and dominant american and chinese cultural patterns. chapter six makes a conclusion on present study including findings of the study, implications of the findings, limitations, and suggestions for the future study. 6 chapter two literature review on persuasion studies as the title suggests, this chapter is concerned with persuasion studies in history. it includes an overview on studies of persuasion, definitions, classifications, strategies and other related terms. 2.1 previous studies of persuasion: an overview persuasion has been studied for thousands of years, beginning with the early greeks. aristotle developed the first scientific approach to persuasion. since then, numerous books have been written, spanning oratory, language, identification and mass media. this section reviews the history of persuasion scholarship, offering an overview of major trends and the distinctive features of contemporary research on persuasion. we shall begin our survey from its origins in ancient greece, or rhetoric as it was then called, which is the art of persuasi