The Pragmatic Analysis Of White Lies-Based On The Adaptation Theory

Almost in every culture, honesty is highly valued. Telling the truth is normally considered to be a good thing. This is true for those malicious lies which benefit oneself at the cost of others’interests while it is not true for white lies. A white lie, as a common linguistic phenomenon, is deeply rooted in social life.The study of white lies belongs to the category of lies’study that involves many fields such as psychology, ethics and linguistics. Previous studies of lying are fruitful to some extent in their own fields. But most of them just highlight different aspects of lying based on their different research objectives and methodologies. The process of a white lie involves cognitive, social, cultural and mental factors and it is a dynamic process which is often triggered in the constantly changing context.Therefore this thesis attempts to use Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory to analyze the phenomenon of white lies, trying to reveal the essence and mechanism of white lies. The Adaptation Theory is a theory to consider the pragmatic issues from the perspective of social, cognitive and mental factors, so it will give a more convincing explanation of white lies.First, the author proposes a definition of the white lie, that is, a white lie is intended to deceive the addressee with benign motive and often cause beneficial or at least harmless to the addressee. Then three features of white lies can be shown in this definition, that is, deceptive, intention, harmlessness.Second, this thesis is intended to use Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory to analyze the essence of white lies. The white lie is the outcome of choice-making and it is the result of linguistic adaptation. The white lie is used to adjust to the physical, social and mental world; it is the outcome of the speakers continuously choice-making from a variable range of strategies to achieve certain communicative goals with strong consciousness or salience. Then the author describes and analyzes the choice process of white lies in the actual language use. Moreover, the author analyzes how different factors exert influence on people’s choice of white lies.These factors include social distance, social status, social expectation, emotion, intention, personality and so on.Last, this thesis is to summarize the pragmatic functions of white lies. Since white lies and human life are closely linked, the pragmatic functions of white lies should arouse our enough attention. The Adaptation Theory studies how language functions in the lives of human beings. Then what function that white lies can have in the lives of human beings? There are five main pragmatic functions of white lies that will be illustrated in this thesis:the interpersonal function, the emotional function, the face-saving theory, the comfort function and the encouragement function.The author expects to make a further study of white lies and to help people use it wisely and properly, hence to improve their communicative competence. Moreover, people using the white lie is to make their utterance adapt to context and help them realize their specific communicative purposes as a way to guarantee their successful communication.