A Discourse Analysis On Politeness Theories Of Professional Female Image In Chicklit Fictions

A chick lit novel,as a literary genre,has received worldwide attention since its publication.There have been an increasing number of studies and analyses over heroines’personalities from the perspective of feminism.Pragmatics,a component of linguistics,may also serve as a useful tool in literature analyses.Especially,the study of politeness strategies that the characters employ may provide an opportunity to deepen the understanding of conversational implicature,thus helping readers have a better understanding of the characters.This interdisciplinary study of linguistics and literature which mainly takes the bulk of the dialogues between female characters as data is based on Politeness Theory put forward by Brown and Levinson(1987).The purpose of the research is to study the traits of professional female characters more profoundly and explore the feasibility of applying pragmatic knowledge to literature appreciation.The first two chapters give a literature review of Chick-lit,demonstrating a specific introduction of The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada,and also the surveys of them home and abroad and will be focused on the need for the theoretical approaches to how to construct politeness strategy of Brown and Levinson.The body part has three chapters,dealing with the analyses on the characterization of three women characters,namely Andrea,Miranda and Nanny in these two classic novels by observing the different Politeness Strategies these women characters have implemented.The result of the study indicates that the characters in the novels take different politeness strategies to save the addressee’s face in light of different situations.However,the seemingly polite words implicitly express their true feelings and intentions.The analyses of dialogues provide a better understanding of the characterization of the heroine Andrea,Miranda,and Nanny in these two novels.The results also illustrate the effectiveness and significance of applying politeness strategy to literary research.