The Synchronic Usage And Diachronic Evolution Of Chinese Words Of Thanks And Apology

Thanking and apology are the most important polite speech acts except greeting and parting.There are a lot of thanking or apology expressions(TAE)in modern Chinese(including Mandarin and Chinese dialects),such as the idioms or words with the function to thank or apologize.They can be categorized on the basis of the pragmatic strategies these expressions concern.Across-linguistically,the pragmatic strategies that are involved in using thanking expressions are stating a favors'granting(S1),expressing one's feelings(E),apologizing(A),owing success to the listener(O),praising(Pi),promising not to offend the listener again(P2),blaming(B),showing solicitude for the listener(S2),giving good wishes to the listener(G),etc.The pragmatic strategies that are involved in using apology expressions are stating an offense(S1),expressing one's guilty feelings(Ei),declaring to be responsible for the offense concemed(D),asking the listener to excuse oneself(A),offering compensation(O),explaining for one's offense(E2),urging the listener not to be angry,showing solicitude for the listener(S2),etc.The thanking words can be divided into five kinds,i.e.the kinds E,A,O,P1.The apologying words can be divided into five kinds,i.e.the kinds S1,Ei,D,O,E2.On the basis of exploring the development and the related change of the 34 thanking verbs and 30 apology verbs in Chinese,this paper shows that the thanking/apology verbs in modern Chinese tend to lexicalize from the thanking formulae or a part thereof The lexicalizational motivation is the thanking/apology expressions' renovation or social variation.Due to being used often,TAEs' phonetics or forms reduce,their illocutionary force will get weaker,which makes the speaker attempts to put degree adverbials before TAEs or combine one TAE with another,so as to strengthen illocutionary force.Thus,the new TAEs containing a degree adverbial or two old TAEs,or its constituent(s)will lexicalize.The frequent using of an indirect thanking or apology strategy gives rise to the ellipsis or moving to a specific place of TAEs' constituents,which causes the key part of TAE change into a verb by syntactic reanalysis and semantic re-construal.The syntactic reanalysis leads to the part's grammar category shift.For example,Cankui(??)changed from an adjective to a verb,Zuiguo(??)changed from a noun to a verb,and Dezui(??)changed from a intransitive verb to a transitive verb.After syntactic reanalysis and semantic re-construal,the variant expanded from one kind of context to another,such as from specific works to general works,from letters genre to other written genres.As a result,it was put in lexicon as a word.Many language phenomena in Chinese,Japanese,and so on,including polysemy,semantic change,sharing a common response or paralanguage,shows that there is a close contact between thanking and apology.The sincerity condition of thanking is similar to the one of apology.In many cases,the speaker who is thanking is ashamed for not deserving the favour given by the listener;the speaker who is apologizing is ashamed for offending the listener.So in those languages such as Chinese,Japanese,etc.,that are the mother tongues of those nations with reserved character,an apology expression(AE)can be used to thank,which is responsible for the polysemy,semantic change concerned and AE's sharing a common response or paralanguage with a thanking expression(TE).Those languages such as Chinese,Japanese,etc.favor the strategies to thank or apologize indirectly,such as S1,E,B,and so on,which causes the S1-pattern,the E-pattern TAE,the B-pattern indirect thanking or apology formulae,or the constituent therof liable to lexicalization to a verb meaning 'thank' or'apology'.The frequent uses of indirect thanking strategies give rise to blurred borderline between thanking and other speech acts such as apology,praising,promise,blaming,wish,etc.The frequent uses of indirect apology strategies give rise to blurred borderline between apology and other speech acts such as blaming,asking,explaining,wish,etc.The habit of thanking or apologizing before asking someone to do something,results in multi-functionality of Dezui(??),Zuiguo(??),Shengshou(??),Nanwei(??).They have the use of thanking/apology and the use of asking.