Exploring Understanding Of Politeness Utterances With The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Politeness, as a social phenomenon, has been a productive area in pragmatics as well as in sociolinguistics. Traditionally, studies on politeness utterances mainly focus on four approaches:the social-norm view; the conversational-maxim view; the face-saving view; and the conversational-contract view. However, these studies pay close attention to the social cultural factors. Politeness is defined as a form or strategy. Besides, researches on politeness usually illustrate politeness utterances from the aspect of speakers; less attention is paid to the hearers who are the receiver of the politeness utterances. It was not until the late nineties last century that politeness utterances began to be studied from the Relevance Theory based on the cognitive pragmatics, which although brought controversy, also made encouraging progress. Compared with previous studies, The Relevance Theory is more universal and powerful in accounting of politeness utterances. Based on ostensive-inferential communication and dynamic cognitive context, politeness utterances will be discussed through document study and information collection. The production and interpretation of politeness utterances will be analyzed from Relevance Theory to prove that the successful communication of politeness utterances not only depends on speakers, but also related with the interpretation of hearers. Thus, the new approach to study politeness utterances will be suggested in this thesis.