（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）汉语“感谢”言语行为研究.pdf

45 论文独创性声明论文独创性声明 本人郑重声明： 所提交的学位论文是本人在导师的指导下进行的研究工作及 取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含其他个人或其他机构已 经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究作出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在 文中以明确方式标明。本人承担本声明的法律责任。 研究生签名： 日期： 论文使用授权声明论文使用授权声明 本人完全了解广西师范大学有关保留、 使用学位论文的规定。 广西师范大学、 中国科学技术信息研究所、清华大学论文合作部，有权保留本人所送交学位论文 的复印件和电子文档，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。本人电子 文档的内容和纸质论文的内容相一致。除在保密期内的保密论文外，允许论文被 查阅和借阅，可以公布（包括刊登）论文的全部或部分内容。论文的公布（包括 刊登）授权广西师范大学学位办办理。 研究生签名： 日期： 导 师签名： 日期： 4 acknowledgements before wrapping up the writing of this thesis, id like to express my thanks to all the faculty members in the college of foreign studies, guangxi normal university, who gave me systematic training in my english specialty and prepared me for the writing of this thesis. in the past three years, i have learned a lot from the excellent teachers here and the facilities here also helped me a lot in the learning process. my heart-felt gratitude should be extended to my tutor mr. shaozhong liu, who is kind and generous enough to spare some time for me during his busy daily work. when writing this thesis, mr. liu gives me a lot of precious advice in terms of content and structure. when i finished my first script, he patiently and scrutinizingly read it and helped me to better it. thanks a million, mr. liu, for your valuable advice and help. thanks should also be given to those who give me a hand in writing this thesis-the faculty who work in the reference room on ground five and my classmates, especially the former. the materials in the reference room are useful, but the people there are even more helpful. finally, id like to thank in advance everyone who reads this thesis. thanks for your attention and ill be always ready to take your advice. 5 汉语汉语“感谢感谢”言语行为研究言语行为研究 研究生：王丽媛 导师：刘绍忠 学科专业：外国语言学及应用语言学 研究方向：语用学 年级：2004 级 摘要 感谢是一种重要的交际活动，和道歉、命令、祝颂、许诺一样，与人们的日常生活密 切相关。感谢同时又是我们日常生活中发生频率很高的一种言语行为。正确地表达感谢有 着重要的社会价值。但是以前的研究文献中对感谢言语行为的研究较少。本研究对感谢言 语行为的语言结构和功能的研究属于一个新的尝试。 本文采用的是语料分析法。 这些语料包括口语的和书面的材料。 这些语料有三个来源： 一是来自中国现当代文学作品。选择不同地域、年龄和性别的作品可以使语料更具有代表 性和全面性。典型的汉语语料可以帮助分析汉语感谢言语行为的语言结构。第二个是来自 于一些典型的社交语境，如接受礼物和被表扬等。这一类语料可以帮助我们研究感谢策略 的使用。最后一类是媒介-报纸和网络。这类选择可以使语料具有时代性，收集起来也便 捷。 通过对收集到的感谢数据的分析，我们发现：1 ）感谢是一个复杂的过程。感谢的形 成过程包括两种-施恩行为所引发的感谢和非施恩行为所引发的感谢。2）感谢有三个层 面的结构：句子单位、词汇单位、会话单位。3）感谢策略体现为直接感谢和间接感谢两 种。汉文化是一种内陆文化。在中国，人们使用间接感谢策略要多于直接感谢策略。4） 感谢有四种基本的功能：感谢功能、拒绝功能、讽刺功能和关注功能。5）感谢行为受多 种因素影响。其中比较稳定的因素包括性别、国籍以及一些具体的语境如时间、地点等。 多种因素共同制约着每一个具体的感谢活动。主观因素将会影响整个感谢活动的过程。作 为一种客观因素，文化帮助着我们认识感谢这样的言语行为，同时也帮助我们恰当地表达 感谢。 本项研究研究，从理论上增进了我们有关感谢言语行为的知识，从实践上可以帮助我 们， 尤其是外国留学生恰当地表达汉语感谢， 建立一个良好的人际关系和和谐的社会氛围。 关键字：感谢；言语行为理论；语言结构 6 the speech act of “thanking” in chinese student: wang liyuan supervisor: liu shaozhong major: linguistics the speech act theory; linguistic structure 7 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 origin of the topic the speech act theory, an important theory in pragmatic research, focuses on the study of the realizations of speech acts such as requesting, suggesting, apologizing, refusing, and so on. but previous research document few studies on the speech act of thanking. in fact, saying thanks is very common in our daily life, and examining into how people express thanking properly is of great significance for understanding human communication. hence the topic of this paper. searle thinks that thanking is connected with a favorable act, in which the favor-receiver expresses his thanking. for bi (1996), thanking is an admission for peoples help and a polite act to promote interrelationship. for this thesis, thanking is a speech act in which people express their gratitude after receiving others favor. speech act of thanking is extremely common in our daily life. so it plays an important role in interpersonal relationship. in this paper, it will carry out a systematic research on thanking speech act; especially it will emphasize on linguistic structures and function categories of thanking. 1.2 significance of research doing this research has two important significances. in theory, doing this research can enrich the current research on this aspect. in practice, thanking speech act is very common in our daily life. to express thanking properly has an important social value. successful thanking expression can establish a good interpersonal relationship and a harmony social atmosphere. on the other hand, if we dont know how to express thanking properly, we may hurt the partners emotion and may cause a series of negative effect on the interpersonal relationship. so it is of significance to understand and command the speech act of thanking. 1.3 structure of the paper this paper is composed of eight parts. the first part is “introduction”, in which it mainly describes the origin, significance of doing research and the structure. the second part is “the speech act theory and thanking as a speech act”, which centers on the definition and the forming mechanism of thanking. the third part is “review the related literature”. it includes foreign and chinese review. the fourth part is “methods of study”. this paper adopts utterance-based approach of analysis method. the fifth chapter is “categories and linguistic structures of thanking”. this is a main study for this paper. i analyze the linguistic structures from several 8 aspects. the sixth part deals with the functions and strategies of thanking. you can learn how to use different strategies in different occasions. the seventh part dwells on some subjective and objective restriction factors, just like gender, self-cultivation and culture. and the last part is “conclusion”, including major findings, significance, limitations and recommendation. 9 chapter 2 the speech act theory and thanking as a speech act 2.1 the speech act theory a speech act is a unit of language that is produced in order to achieve a particular purpose, such as a refusal, question, reply, apology, complaint and command. it is an act that a speaker performs when making an utterance. the traditional linguistic theory thinks that language only can be used to express minds or state facts, so it only has descriptive function. but several modern linguistic schools have challenged this theory. in the 1950s, the oxford philosopher john l. austin proposed speech act theory. he thinks that “utterance” is the sentence that is applied in reality; “sentence” refers to an abstract unit without context in language system. in other words, saying is an act of utterance. his posthumous work entitled how to do things with words (1962) has an enormous impact on linguistic philosophy, and thereby on linguistics, especially in its pragmatic variant. in his lectures, austin defines speech act as all the things we do with words when we speak. for him, whenever people talk, there is an intention to change the current world state. in attempting to express them, people do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they perform actions via those utterances. in other words, when people refuse, complain, apologize or request, they are using utterances to perform a speech act. a speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication. and a speech act might contain just one word, as in “thanks!” to perform gratitude or several words or sentences: thank you for your sincere help. uttering the words generates the action. that is the essence of the speech act. according to austin (1962), a speaker will complete three kinds of acts simultaneously with one speech act in most cases; that is to say, three acts are performed in uttering a sentence: 1) locutionary act: “locutionary” refers to “uttering” itself, which is roughly equivalent to uttering a sentence with a certain sense and reference, to mean something. if a student says to the teacher like this, “its cold here”, the locutionary meaning would concentrate on the temperature of the classroom. 2) illocutionary act: “illocutionary”, that is performing an act by uttering something. the sentence “its cold here” above may be a request to turn up the heater. 3) perlocutionary act: “perlocutionary”, refers to the results or effects which is produced by the utterance in that given context. thus, if the above utterance leads to the action of turning up the heater in the room, the perlocutionary force of that utterance would be greater than if the request is ignored. the difference between illocutionary act and perlocutionary act is that the former one 10 expresses a literal meaning by uttering a sentence and the following one wants to express the addressees intention with literal meaning. if the hearer has understood the addressees intention, it brings a series of results and changes. this is the perlocutionary act. among the three acts, the illocutionary act arouses the linguists greatest interest, because it is identical to the speakers intention. how a speaker expresses his intention with utterance and how the hearer can understand the speakers intention become the focus linguistic study in communication. 2.2 indirect speech act searle further develops the speech act by forwarding the famous his indirect speech act theory. under this theory, he considers speech act within a universal phenomenon in human language: it is employed when one wants to say something but mean something else. and many of the strategies speakers use to achieve their goals in communication are indirect, that is we do not always say directly what we mean, but approach matters in a roundabout way. indirectness is dictated by social conventions and can vary from culture to culture. in british english, for example, unless we are angry or in an emergency situation, we would very rarely address someone with a direct command such as “get out of my way!” or “give me an apple”. we are more likely, if we want to succeed in our objectives, to approach the matter indirectly, e.g. “i wonder if i could just squeeze past you” or “could i have an apple?” or even “do you fancy an apple?” the less well we know someone, the less direct we are likely to be. so it is easy for one to notice that indirect speech acts are very popular in daily communication, indirectness is a universal phenomenon in all human languages we use, that is to say, people, on many occasions, prefer to use indirect speech acts rather than direct ones. deborah (1984:193) later reiterates by saying, “communication in any culture is a matter of indirectness. only a part of meaning resides in the words spoken; the largest part is communicated by hints, assumptions, and audience filling-in from context and prior experience.” while in direct speech acts, the speaker utters a sentence and means exactly and literally what he says. for example: 1 open the door! in uttering 1, the speaker may just intend to order the hearer to open the door. but indirect speech acts, i.e. speech acts in which “one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another” (searle, 1975:60), are not so simple for the hearer to interpret. the speakers intention is harder to recognize except those acts carrying with the obvious illocutionary force indicators (indicators which make clear in the surface structure of an utterance the intended 11 illocutionary force). for example: 2 i want you to open the door. 3 i suggest we go for a walk in the country. they are both utterances of stating, but actually the first functions as a request and the second as a suggestion. they are quite different from sentences like “its cold in here”, a statement which can be employed to express a request of closing the window or making a fire etc, because we can easily sense the illocutionary force from the wording of the two utterances which carry with them the illocutionary force indicators like “want somebody to do something” in 2 and “suggest” in 3. if the hearer understands english language, he may expend no effort to identify the illocutionary force and do, if he likes, what he is requested to do. but according to searles definition of indirect speech acts, the two sentences should also be included in the list of indirect speech acts, but actually in practice, they are not counted as indirect speech acts, they are just, if you like, pseudo-indirect speech acts. and in the following discussion, these utterances carrying with them clear illocutionary force indicators will not be counted as indirect speech acts. the hearers interpretation will be involved in bridging the gap between the literal meaning and the speaker meaning. for example: 4 a: lets go to the movies tonight. b: i have to study for an exam. in 4, bs responses are indirect speech acts. a may roughly interpret bs response this way: i know that studying for an exam normally takes a large amount of time relative to a single evening, and i know that going to the movies normally takes a large amount of time relative to a single evening, he probably has movies and study for an exam in one i know that he has said the consequence that he probably cannot consistently accept the actually refuses my offer indirectly by saying that. 5 a. can you pass the salt? b. would you be so kind to pass the salt? c. will you shut the door? d. did you forget to close the door? notice that all these sentences in 5 have the form of questions, and could be understood as questions. but the most likely intended speech act is actually a command, like “pass the salt!” or 12 “close the door!”. as for indirect speech acts, it seems that their intended speech act is performed by way of another speech act, e.g. a command is performed by a question, an assertion is performed by a question, etc. there is distinction between direct and indirect speech acts and the illocutionary acts of direct speech acts are obvious and easy to catch from the utterances, because in direct speech acts the speaker utters a sentence and means exactly and literally what he says, so the study of indirect speech acts is far more interesting. but the problem is: why are there indirect speeches acts to begin with? searle (1975:82) suggests that the main reason for indirect speech acts is politeness. searle leaves it unclear how this comes about. one possibility is that indirect speech acts often leave more choices to the hearer. for example, to inquire about whether the preparatory condition- for a request holds (as in 5) leaves the hearer more choices (e.g., he can understand it as a regular question) than the direct speech act (e.g., “pass me the salt”). although such definitions may make theoretical sense, assigning functions to sentences is actually somewhat problematic in that the apparent sentence meaning does not necessarily coincide with the speakers pragmatic intention, as when a person utters an apology sarcastically, or when a speech act is implicit, as in the request speaker, it is hot in here. 2.3 types of speech act despite problems in interpreting the true intentions of the efforts have been made to assign functions to speech acts according to a series of categories delineated by philosophers such as austin (1962) and searle (1969), illocutionary acts are classified according to five categories: 1) representatives: they are also called “assertives”. assertions often represent a subjective state of mind: the speaker who asserts a proposition as true does so in force of his or her belief. e.g., assert, affirm, report, conclude, state. 2) directives: these speech acts embody an effect on the part of the speaker to get the hearer to do something, to “direct” him or her towards some goal. e.g., suggest, request, command, order, ask. 3) expressives: as the word say, expresses an inner state of the speaker; the expression is essentially subjective and tells us nothing about the world. e.g., apologize, complain, thank, congratulate, deplore. 4) commissives: they operate a change in the word by means of creating an obligation. but this obligation is created in the speaker, not in the hearer. e.g., promise, swear, threat, pledge, guarantee. 5) declarations: they are declarations which “bring about some alternation in the status or 13 condition of the referred to object or object solely by virtue of the fact that the declaration has been successfully performed” (searle, 1977:37). e.g., declare, define, name, resign, nominate. since thanking refers that speaker express his gratitude after hearer does something good to the speaker, so according to searles opinion, it belongs to the expressive category. 2.4 thanking as a speech act thanking is a speech act in which people express their gratitude after receiving others favor. for example, when my friend gives me a birthday gift, i will say, “thanks, i appreciate it.” if i go to a big company for an interview and the boss decides to employ me, i may say something like “thank you for giving me that chance.” and when someone praises me for my excellent performance, i would say, “thanks, its very nice of you to say that.” while i basically agree with these perceptions, i hold that, just like apologizing, promising, thanking is a strategy to maintain normal interpersonal relationship, and as such, it can be analyzed from three aspects: 1) from the significance. it refers to an admission for peoples help and is a polite act to promote interrelationship. its a common linguistic speech act for keeping a harmony relationship. for example, 6 十分感谢，听了您的发言令我茅塞顿开，真是获益匪浅！ 7 谢谢你们的盛情款待。 2) from its categorical pattern. searle (1969) divides speech acts into five categories: representatives, directives, expressives, commissives, and declaratives. thanking refers that speaker express his gratitude after hearer does som