| Criticism like compliment, apology, request and other speech act is widely employed in verbal communication. However, the existing studies on criticism at home and abroad are far from being sufficient. The present research makes a special study centered on Criticism in speech communication from the pragmatic perspective with Verschueren's linguistic adaptation theory as the theoretical foundation to investigate the variability, adaptability of Criticism.Criticism as a communicative strategy chiefly depends on those right linguistic means chosen by speakers to meet the communicative needs. Based on data analysis, the study categorizes Criticism into two types: strategic criticism and non-strategic criticism. The former is expressed by using strategic and linguistic formal possibilities. What's more, each type includes specific sub-linguistic means. The latter is practiced with the allowance of the situation. Thus, the variability of Criticism is mainly indicated through the option of sub linguistic means.What linguistic means are chosen by the speaker is one aspect of the present research, and the second aspect of it is the motivation of the speakers' choice of Criticism in actual verbal interaction. It is found out that the adoption of Criticism by the speaker is the realization of adaptation to various contextual factors. The concrete adaptation process is divided into two types: self-directed adaptation and other-directed adaptation. The former is the adaptation to the contextual factors related to the speaker, including the adaptation to the social relations, social power, social conventions, psychological motivations of maintaining relationships, of shortening the emotional distance, of extricating oneself from embarrassment, of respecting others, of pacification, of illumination, of reminding and of encouragement and emotions of the speaker; the latter is the adaptation to the contextual factors connected with the hearer, including the presences in the speech situation. What has been discussed above contributes to an analysis of the adaptability of Criticism. |
