A Pragmatic Analysis Of The Conversations Between Mothers-in-Law And Daughters-in-Law In Chinese Context

The relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law is one of the most important family relations in China. It is a marital production of the relationship between mothers and sons and the relationship between wives and men. It is not as imitate as couples and as the same as the kinship between mothers and sons. So the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law is the most delicate and the easiest one to have problems.The relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law is always hot from ancient times to nowadays. The literary works using the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law as their themes and the literary criticism related to the theme of these literary works are the main research styles. Besides, there are papers to search for the social and historical origins of the Chinese relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law from social perspective; there are papers to explore the psychological reasons resulted in the conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law and its special characteristics from psychological perspective; there are papers to discuss the ethical problems from ethical perspective, ect. However, most researches only try in the surface level without a systematic study. What's more, the researches on the linguistic characteristics in the talks between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are only a few from linguistic or pragmatic perspective.This thesis tries to analyze the talks between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in Chinese context from pragmatic perspective and to list the linguistic characteristics of lexical devices, syntactic devices and politeness strategies. The aims are to list the linguistic characteristics in the talks between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in Chinese context and to explore the ways to use certain politeness strategies to improve their relationship. The linguistic characteristics in the talks between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in Chinese context in two periods, that is, the feudal society and the modern society, are compared to show the changes of the linguistic characteristics with the development of times. This thesis is a qualitative research based on the data. The data are mainly from literary works and TV plays.The results of this thesis show that the talks between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law present the following linguistic characteristics:they use honorifics or imitate addresses to build their relationship in lexical devices; they use exclamatory sentences in syntactic devices; they use off-record politeness strategies to avoid FTAs, like giving hints or association clues, using metaphors, understatement, being ironic, using rhetorical questions; they use positive politeness strategies to build a good relationship between them, like avoiding disagreement and seeking agreement. The differences of the linguistic characteristics of the talks between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in feudal society and modern society are more obvious than the similarities, which is mainly influenced by the changes of the social ceremonies.The analysis of the linguistic characteristics between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law from pragmatic perspective does not only reflect some uniqueness of the Chinese relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in Chinese context, but offers some linguistic strategies to build a good relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. It is also hoped that this thesis will shed light on the analysis of other family relations, that is, the analysis of other family relations from pragmatic approach.