A Tentative Study On Classification And Motivation Of Indirect Use Of Language From The Perspective Of Rhetorical Principle

Indirect use of language is a common phenomenon in daily communication which means the speaker intended to say something indirectly. Researches on indirect use of language are many. Great scholars Austin, Searle, Grice and so on who have given some classic explanations of indirect use of language from mismatch between form and function, different illocutionary acts or implied meaning in the conversation have explained much on how indirect use of language was produced. However, they didn't explain why people should do this. Functional linguistics believes form is not important as if we analyze utterance into words and phrases all utterances are composed by same linguistic form. Analyzing motivations behind these utterances can help us to understand utterances' production and meaning better. And in Leech's rhetorical principle, utterance in conversation was regulated by certain principles in order to achieve the pragmatic goal. People speak indirectly in order to be more polite, decent, economy, interesting and so on. Rhetorical use of language not only includes simile, metaphor, irony and so on such rhetoric, but also includes any modifies of language in order to make a decent and successful communication. This study tries to illustrate indirect use of language from the angle of rhetorical principles and gives a classification of indirect use of language and motivations behind indirect use of language with large number of examples.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one presents a general introduction to the research, and it includes the definition, rationale, objective, data collection and research method of this study. Chapter two provides a review of the relevant literature of the previous studies on indirect use of language. Part one reviews Austin's contribution to Speech Act Theory. Part two reviews Searle's contribution to Indirect Speech Acts and part three is Grice's theory of Conversational Implicature. Chapter three lays down the theoretical background of the research which includes basic concepts of Pragmatics and Rhetoric, Halliday's Functional Grammar theory and Leech's Rhetoric Principle theory. Chapter four analyzes indirect use of language with examples and classifies indirect use of language into three types including convention, figure of speech and conversational implicarure. Chapter five is the main content of our study which analyzes motivations of indirect use of language. Textual motivation which intends to make the utterance itself more effective and interesting mainly includes economy motivation, aesthetics motivation and variability-oriented motivation. Interpersonal motivation which intends to make the communication more harmony or decent mainly includes politeness motivation, irony motivation and understatement motivation. Chapter six concludes major findings in this study and puts forward limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.