A Study On The Speech Act Of Invitation In Chinese

This paper attempts to conduct a descriptive study on the realization of invitations in Chinese context from a pragmatic perspective, referring to the framework provided by American linguists Wolfson. Statistics based on a systematic investigation are applied for the first time to analyze the realization of the speech act of invitation and the effect of social variables on the realization in Chinese context. This study adopts a qualitative combined with quantitative approach. Data is collected by the instruments of observation sheets, interviews and questionnaires among altogether 180 university students of different majors in three universities.To widen the scope of speech act studies, language units under analysis in this study include two levels: first, a conversational level, i.e., the interactive sequential structures of invitations, and second, a sentential level, i.e, invitational patterns including pre-invitations which initiate invitational conversations, core invitation act as well as responding strategies that follow the initial core invitation act. In addition, the social variables affecting the realization of invitations is also concerned. In analyzing the data, the theoretical framework of Brown and Levinson's face theory and Leech's politeness is adopted.The paper consists of five chapters. First a brief introduction to the present study is presented. Then the related politeness theories covering the theoretical background of the study are reviewed with a discussion of definitions of invitation and the relation between politeness and invitation. Chapter 3 is ascribed to dealing with aims of the study and methodological problems focusing on research methods and procedures of the investigation. In Chapter 4, detailed data analysis is presented. The results show that there are two general sequential patterns of invitations in Chinese context. One main point should be pointed out is that the complex structure in accordance with an inviting/declining-inviting/declining-inviting/accepting sequential pattern documented in earlier studies in fact lacks completeness and thoroughness in shaping Chinese characteristics of invitations despite its prevalence. Chinese young people more prefer the interactive sequential pattern: the single structure in accordance with aninviting/accepting pattern. In the sentential analysis, five semantic formula of inviting strategies are summarized and the explicit and direct way of extending invitation is preferred, but responding strategies demonstrates a much more far-reaching complexity and irregularity than invitational patterns do. Besides, the three variables considered in this study all have significant influence on the realization of invitations, and social distance plays a more significant role. At last, a conclusion is drawn and some limitations in the present study are mentioned with some proposals of further research.