Pragmatic Research On Chinese And American Official Responses In Press Conferences Based On Conversational Implicature Theory

A press conference is a media coverage form where leaders at all levels, persons in charge, experts or scholars directly answer a reporter’s question. Questions and answers are issues needed to be understood and cared about or issues needed to be explained to the public. By asking a person in charge to make official comments on an event, a press conference will then be fixed by a question and answer record published.This research focuses on Chinese and American official responses in press conferences from the perspective of conversational implicature based upon responses to fictitious pragmatic presuppositions about issues of Asia Pacific region. Data of this research comes from the sensitive issues and hot spots of the Asia Pacific region in official press conferences of China and the United States in recent two years. Theoretical basis of this thesis is conversational implicature theory and fictitious pragmatic theory. Three research methods are used in this article, namely, literature research method, case study method and comparative study method. Through consulting the literature, we can understand the history of the research situation and we can get a better understanding of the theories related to this study. Through analysis of examples about this research, the views putforward by the author are supported and proved in this article. Through comparison, causes of the similarities and differences between Chinese and American official spokesmen’s response strategies could be found.The thesis studies the pragmatic strategies of Chinese and American spokesmen responding to questions with fictitious pragmatic presuppositions through analysis of a large number of examples. Through analysis of a lot of examples, pragmatic strategies adopted by Chinese and American spokesmen are analyzed. Different frequencies and different reasons behind these choices are the main focus. Results have shown that differences between ideologies and cultural factors hidden behind two countries affect their responses. Four strategies are more common, that is, cooperative strategy, evasive strategy, euphemism strategy and vague strategy. By comparing the number of strategies used in Chinese press conferences and American press conferences, we can draw the conclusion that in terms of cooperative strategy, spokesmen from both countries are willing to comply with this strategy and give a direct response for most questions. In terms of evasive strategy, spokesmen from both countries show great differences because Chinese culture pays more attention to the harmonious interpersonal relationship, thus covert evasive strategy was more frequently used, while the characteristic of American culture is self-centered, so the American spokesmen adopted more over evasive strategy. In terms of euphemism strategy, aims of euphemism used by Chinese spokesmen are to maintain and protect the face of others, while those of the American spokesmen are to maintain and protect the face of their own. In terms of vague strategy, Chinese spokesmen use a large number of degree, quantity, scope and other vagueness to express something more correctly, while the American spokesmen use vague language to reduce his responsibility for what he had answered. The findings have shown that different strategies mainly derive from different ideologies, cultural background and national interests. This study aims to promote communication between China and the United States and to promote study of official discourses, especially pragmatic research on press conferences through studying the role of discourse in interpersonal and international communication.