A Pragmatic Study Of Mobile-Phone Short Messages

Tele-communication through mobile phone short messages (SMs) is one of the most popular means of communication in recent years, which has great influence on people's life and business, accordingly, it has attracted more and more people's attention. However, the research of SMs language is a new topic in the linguistic field. Although the studies in China are more than those abroad, the theories are fewer and the practice of research remains at the stage of the simple perceptual collections, classifications and superficially analysis, especially there are still theoretical blanks to fill about the adaptation of SMs to contexts.Therefore, the present study focuses on communication by short messages and a conceptual network is constructed on the basis of Jef Verschueren's linguistic Adaptation Theory (2000). This thesis adopts a qualitative research method based on data analysis. It aims to test whether the adaptation theory can well explain SMs language, i.e. whether SMs possess the property of adaptability of communication, and also to give a full account of the process of communication by SMs.On the basis of the Linguistic Adaptation Theory and the fresh data which are collected from the real communication between me and my instructors, my friends and my family members, this thesis analyzes the reasons for the short message users' choice makings and finds that these choice-makings are the results of adaptation to such context as the mental world which includes the multitude-followed mentality, the mentality of pursuing the individuality and the fashion, the desire of shortening the mental distance, the desire of relaxation, the mentality of pursuing the high efficiency of communication, etc, the social world which includes social conventions, the converged culture, modern communicative habits and new policies, etc. ,the physical world which includes space of the mobile phone and the time of SMs, etc., and language contexts which refer to the linguistic codes and genres of Chinese texts, etc. After that, the present study gets the conclusion that the SMS possesses the property of adaptability.Also the data collected for this study are analyzed systematically, and the pragmatic functions of short messages fall into general communicative functions and special communicative functions. The application of short messages can transmit information and express feelings. Meanwhile, much attention has been paid to the special communicative functions that short messages can eliminate embarrassment, promote status and keep psychological balance. In the author's opinion, short messages can help better the interrelationship among people, improve the working efficiency and establish a harmonious society in a broader sense. In a word, the present research is of both theoretical and practical significance.