A Speech Act Theoretical Analysis Of Refusals And Refusal Strategies In A Dream Of Red Mansions

Refusal speech act is frequently used in our daily communication and improper refusal can threaten other’s face, thus refusal turns out to be an important matter in our everyday life. Therefore, whether the refusal is conducted appropriately has involvement with the successful communication and the harmonious relationship between people. Taking Speech Act Theory as theoretical framework, the thesis uses refusal speech acts in the novel A Dream of Red Mansions as examples to analyze at length refusal speech act.With the prosperous development of linguistics recently, more and more scholars have turned their attention to an interdisciplinary subject:Literary Pragmatics, borrowing pragmatic theory to conduct literature research and deepening pragmatic research through literature data. This thesis chooses the English version of the novel A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang as research data and conducts a comprehensive research on refusal speech act.According to whether the interlocutor expresses his communicative intention through literal meaning of his utterances directly, refusal speech acts can be classified into direct refusal speech act and indirect refusal speech act. This thesis illustrates refusal speech acts in A Dream of Red Mansions from two perspectives: direct refusal speech act and indirect refusal speech act. After examining the refusal speech acts in the novel A Dream of Red Mansions, the author holds the view that five forms of speech act to achieve the goal of refusal can be drawn, which are refusal realization by representative speech act, refusal realization by directive speech act, refusal realization by commissive speech act, refusal realization by expressive speech act and refusal realization by declarative speech act. Besides, the situation of paralleling two or more kinds of refusal forms can be found in one refusal speech act. Thirdly, a total of11refusal strategies can be concluded from the materials, which are criticizing, educating, suggesting, thanking, explaining, joking, apologizing, delaying, avoiding, excusing and consulting.A systematic analysis of refusal speech act is of great theoretical and practical significance. Firstly, investigating literary works from the perspective of Literary Pragmatics widens research range of pragmatics. Secondly, a profound research on refusal speech act is helpful for people to deepen their understanding and master the proper refusal strategies and finally to achieve the smooth and successful communication.