| This dissertation is a pragmatic contrastive study of Defense Speech Act (DSA) between Chinese and English based on the Illocutionary Act Theory. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative approaches are adopted to contrast DSA in Chinese and English and describe their differences and similarities. Drawing on several relevant theories from Social Psychology and Pragmatics and based on the analysis of 1167 examples of DSA from our corpora containing 7 Chinese and English modern dramas, a cognitive model for the performance and interpretation of the DSA involving is proposed. The major analyses and findings are as follows:Firstly, we have integrated Searle's Illocutionary Act Theory and worked out a set of crucial criteria for the identification of DSA.Secondly, a qualitative study has been conducted on DSA with the newly integrated Illocutionary Act Theory, including 1) the differentiation between speech acts and speech act verbs; 2) proposing a Speech Act Identification Model and applying it to the identification of DSA; 3) proposing the definition of DSA; 4) summarizing and illustrating DSA's three characteristics, namely, semantic dependence, pragmatic indirectness and syntactical diversity; 5) classifying the form, function and strategy of DSA based on the three aspects of turn-structure, orientation center and mode of performance respectively.Thirdly, a quantitative contrastive analysis has been conducted on Chinese and English DSA based on both translationally equivalent data and register-equivalent data. The major findings are as follows: 1) The differences between the source languages and the target languages are insignificant except in the use of idiom. 2) In the three steps of DSA's performance sequence, English tends to use more Alerters than Chinese does, whereas the sequence types of the source languages and target languages are basically same. 3) In terms of the factors that influence the pragmatic strategy intensity of DSA, the ranking from high to low in Chinese is social distance > gender > relative power > TD orientation > age, whereas the ranking in English is social distance > gender > age > relative power > topic imposition. 4) Among the performative approaches, only the difference in using simile between Chinese and English dramas is significant. 5) The percentage rankings of all the lexical and syntactical means used in performing DSA between Chinese and English are same. The top 4 most frequently used rhetorical means in both languages are irony, repetition, metaphor and idiom with a minor difference in their ranking; the top 3 most frequently used pragmatic strategies in both languages are performing rebuttal, explaining and threat-interrupting; and the top 4 most frequently used indirect speech acts in both languages are complaint, revelation, assertion and challenge. Major differences have been found in the heavier use of criticism in Chinese and that of curse, promise and joke in English. 6) The 3 steps in DSA's performing sequence in both languages account for a certain amount of percentage with universal characteristics, in which Head Acts are the most frequently used but not compulsive. In both languages, Head Acts and Supportive Moves enjoy pretty much the same percentage, but English tends to use more Alerters than Chinese does. In terms of the type of DSA's performing sequence, both languages share the same top 2 percentage: Head Acts alone and Head Acts + Supportive Moves, the former accounting for an absolute dominance; in terms of relative frequency, the most frequently used approach in both languages is the Head Act, besides which English tends to use more Alerters whereas Chinese tends to use more Supportive Moves.Finally, a Cognitive Model for DSA's performance has been proposed by integrating three Social Psychological theories—Interrelationship States, Group and Attitude as well as one Pragmatic theory—Language Adaptation Theory, and 4 pragmatic functions of DSA have been summarized.
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