Pragmatic Distance And Utterance Choices

Pragmatic Distance is a new concept developed by Wang Jianhua in 2001 in his study on Politeness. Pragmatic Distance is defined as the degree of intimacy between the participants revealed in a particular communicative event, and could be described by the degree of intimacy. The relation between linguistic politeness and pragmatic distance is clarified as Distance Principle of Politeness (王建华,2001) .The present study focuses on Pragmatic Distance. In daily life whenever a verbal exchange takes place, there is a particular pragmatic distance defined. Yet pragmatic distance is characterized by changeablity and negotiablity between the speaker and hearer. Pragmatic distance can be divided into two types: initial pragmatic distance and ongoing .pragmatic distance. Initial pragmatic distance refers to the intimacy degree that speaker and hearer respectively perceive before communication. On-going pragmatic distance refers to the intimacy degree both parties perceive according to the partner's utterance. In the thesis, we investigate how the speaker makes utterance choices with varying degrees of intention and consciousness to alter pragmatic distance, especially on the choices adopted to reduce pragmatic distance. In other words, we center on on-going pragmatic distance. This is a qualitative pragmatic analysis and the data are collected from literary works, daily conversation and linguistic works. The conceptual framework is established on the basis of Jef. Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory. In order to reduce pragmatic distance with the hearer, the speaker focuses on the hearer. In accordance with whether utterance costs the hearer, utterances to reduce pragmatic distance can be divided into three types: utterance benefits both the speaker and hearer; utterance benefits the hearer only and utterance benefits the speaker. On the basis of three types of utterance, the speaker should further choose linguistic forms or strategies to reduce pragmatic distance. The choices of certain utterance type and its components manifest the variability of language. Utterance choices reflect...