On Utterance Politeness And Pragmatic Distance

Pragmatic distance is a new concept developed by Wang Jianhua in2001in his study on politeness. Pragmatic distance is defined as the degree of intimacy between the participants revealed in a particular communicative event, and could be described by the degree of intimacy. Pragmatic distance is characterized by changeability and negotiability between the speaker and the hearer. Pragmatic distance can be divided into two types:initial pragmatic distance and ongoing pragmatic distance. Initial pragmatic distance refers to the intimacy degree that speaker and hearer respectively perceive before communication. On-going pragmatic distance refers to the intimacy degree both parties perceive based on the partner’s utterance. The relation between linguistic politeness and pragmatic distance is clarified as Distance Principle of Politeness by Wang Jianhua (2001). The linguistic expression is a signal of pragmatic distance between participants and pragmatic distance between participants is the determinant of politeness at the utterance level.Politeness is divided into two types:utterance politeness and linguistic politeness. The present study focuses on pragmatic distance and utterance politeness. In daily life, whenever a verbal exchange takes place, there is a particular pragmatic distance defined. In this dissertation, the relationship between pragmatic distance and utterance politeness is investigated with examples from Desperate Housewives and the framework of this dissertation is established on the basis of Wang’s theories of pragmatic distance. We can find that utterance politeness and pragmatic distance complement each other. The pragmatic distance determines utterance politeness. If the speaker’s linguistic form is appropriate to pragmatic distance they perceive respectively, it is polite in utterance level. Thus utterance politeness is created; while if the speaker’s linguistic form is inappropriate to pragmatic distance they perceive respectively, it is impolite in utterance level. Thus utterance impoliteness is created. Utterance politeness reflects pragmatic distance. Participants can maintain or alter pragmatic distance between them by employing certain linguistic means.The study gives people a general idea on utterance politeness and pragmatic distance which can help people have a better way to express their ideas and thoughts. It also shows a new research on utterance politeness which will supply some information for further studies.