Understanding Overinformativeness From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

The present study is an attemptive one on non-natural added information, i.e.overinformativeness in the interactional exchange, endeavoring to explain this linguisticphenomenon on the strength of linguistic adaptation theory, proposed by Jef. Verschueren.Some questions concerning this topic have been discussed, including what manipulationsand effects of the overinformativeness are demonstrated, how linguistic adaptation theoryexplains the overinformativeness, and how the overinformativeness interadapts to threeproperties and four angles of investigation within the scope of linguistic adaptation theory.The author regards Verschueren’s theory of linguistic making-choices as a theoreticalframework to explore how both language-internal and language-external choices explainthe overinformativeness, and to analyze how the adaptation regarding perlocutionary actsand interactional strategies take place in the overinformativeness.According to Verschueren, the study of pragmatics should be put one’s hand fromfunctional perspectives, that is, a general social, cultural and cognitive perspectives onlanguage use. Linguistic adaptation theory is originated and developed on the basis of hisnotion, a perspective on language. By virtue of present achievements in the field oflinguistics, it is believed that linguistic adaptation theory is a comparatively mature andcomplete theory, as well as a solid theoretical basis of this paper. The author dwells on theoverinformativeness and its related studies and fruits. In addition, pragmatics-relatedaspects, such as traditional notions and Verschueren’s functional perspective on pragmatics,are introduced in depth at the beginning of the study.For the sake of the status and significance of four investigating tasks within theadaptation, the author gives priority to these four aspects with adequate examples in regardto overinformativeness to explain the specific causes behind this phenomenon. The paperplaces special emphasis on language-internal and language-external choices with itsindividual theoretical pillar and concrete instances to analyze the overinformativeness,among which she touches upon linguistic functions, rhetorical meanings of language,perlocutionary acts, and interactional strategies from each fixed and clear domain to presentmore exquisite reasons for overinformativeness. An adaptability-motivated study of overinformativeness can provide a panoramic viewof this linguistic phenomenon in a dynamic fashion; more importantly, the extended visionof linguistic adaptation theory on the basis of the author’s observation will open a doortoward a fuller and wider space of applications to and explanations of theoverinformativeness.