Verbal Impoliteness Of On-Campus Chinese Undergraduates: Perspective Of Rapport Management

Politeness has always been one of the focuses of study in the field of pragmatics. Scholars in this field have conducted their researches from different perspectives and have helped modify politeness theory. However, people rarely notice the necessity to carry out a study on impoliteness, which occurs quite often in daily communication. This research compensates for the research of impoliteness.This research, with Spencer-Oatey's Rapport Management theory as the theoretical foundation, open questionnaire as the instrument and students in 7 cities as the representatives, conducts a comprehensive investigation of verbal impoliteness of on-campus undergraduates in China, hoping to find out the common characteristics of their impoliteness. The research questions of this thesis are summarized as:1) Which kind of impoliteness makes on-campus undergraduates feel most offensive?2) Is there any gender difference in offence types?3) Is there any regional difference in offence types?Based on Rapport Management framework, the author designs a questionnaire and data in this paper are from 700 subjects who are from Guangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu, Beijing, Xi'an and Shenyang. In order to find out whether there is gender difference or regional difference of impoliteness among on-campus undergraduates, this research selects equal amount of subjects per region, including 50 male students and 50 female students. After categorizing and summarizing the data based on Rapport Management framework, the research analyzes the collected data with SPSS 13.0. Chi-square tests and a one-way ANOVA analysis are made to explore the general characteristics and differences of impoliteness of on-campus Chinese undergraduates. To ensure the validity of the questionnaire, this thesis also makes a piloting test in the first stage.The research reveals that besides the four kinds of impoliteness which are derived from Rapport Management theory, there are other two minor categories of verbal impoliteness among on-campus Chinese undergraduates. One relates to curse, and the other relates to personal abuse. Among all the six types of verbal impoliteness, offence of quality face makes on-campus Chinese undergraduates feel most offensive, followed by equity rights. On-campus undergraduates value their equity rights and their quality face may be accounted for the influence of Confucianism and possibly the one-child family planning policy. Moreover, there are gender and regional differences in offence types between male and female on-campus Chinese undergraduates. Male undergraduates pay more attention to their identity face and curse words, while female undergraduates care more about their association rights, which dues to the differences of psychological characteristics, social divisions of labor and social expectations between males and females. As for the regional differences of impoliteness, students from the South value their equity rights while students from the North value their identity face and association rights. This may dues to the differences of economic development, culture and historical background between South and North, and also relates to the differences of personality between southern and northern people.This research provides a theoretical basis for studies of the improvement of quality cultivation of college students and also has some implications on teaching. Teachers should teach students to assess themselves comprehensively and correctly, to evaluate their advantages and disadvantages reasonably, to respect each other and learn from each other. Moreover, teachers should pay particular attention to providing fair opportunities for students to show themselves.