Intersubjectivity Of Chinese Honorifics In The Scholars

Politeness is the foundation of maintaining social order and the presupposition of human cooperation (Gumperz, cited in Brown and Levinson,1978[1987]). As an important component of Chinese politeness, honorifics play an important role in interpersonal communication and are paid much attention to by scholars in different periods. The introduction to and classification of honorifics (Hong Chengyu,1998. Jian Zhaoqin.2008and Cao Chan,2012), and the contradistinction between Chinese honorific system and its counterparts (Luo Guozhong,1998, Liu Jia,2008and Song Jixian,2011), such as Japanese honorific system, are primarily involved as far as the research on Chinese honorifics is concerned. With the establishment and development of modern linguistic theories, scholars attempt to investigate Chinese honorifics from the perspectives of sociolinguistics (Chen Yuan.1983. Guo Xi,2004, Yang Yonglin,2004) and pragmatics (Gu Yueguo,1992).Subjectivity plays an important part in analyzing the formation and construal of meaning. Language not only expresses subjectivity but intersubjectivity as well. Intersubjectivity is the derivative of subjectivity and Chinese honorifics embody evident intersubjective characteristics. Intersubjectivity has become the research focus of Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics and Discourse Analysis in recent years. The relative research on intersubjectivity, however, seems inadequate and the research on intersubjectivity of Chinese honorifics is even less. Thus there exists large room for exploration of honorific intersubjectivity in Chinese. The thesis is to explore intersubjectivity of Chinese honorifics from the perspective of Bakhtin’s dialogism.Bakhtin’s linguistic outlook is mainly reflected in his translinguistic theories, which are collected in his book named as Marxism and Philosophy of Language. Language carnival theory, language genre theory and dialogism are three branches of Bakhtin’s translinguistics while dialogism is the essence of translinguistics. Bakhtin’s dialogism refers to two or more than two interacting voices in utterances and verbal relations are constructed by such interacting voices, such as, relations of assent and exception, affirmation and negation, retention and exertion, judgment and supplement, and inquiring and response. One of the most incisive viewpoints is that meaning is produced in two or more than two interlocutions. The interactive relationship between the addresser and the addressee can be embodied by any discourse and the meaning of discourse is expressed in such interactive relationship.For Bakhtin, dialogue is not only the intrinsic quality of language but that of human existence. Existence implies interlocutory communication. Bakhtin regards the existence of other(s) as the precondition of human existence, claiming the awareness of any man is not isolated but lies in the connection with other(s) awareness. In addition, the necessity of difference in interlocutory relations is emphasized in Bakhtin’s dialogism. The emphasis of difference is to acknowledge and respect other(s) in nature. Bakhtin’s elementary cognition of language is mainly represented in two aspects. Firstly, language embodies social, historical and ideological characteristics. And secondly, language is incomplete and open-ending.Bakhtin’s insights to human existence are reflected in his dialogism entailing profound humanistic ideas. It is within the literary field as pertaining mainly to the novel that Bakhtin develops his idea of dialogism and "heteroglossia". Bakhtin’s dialogism is widely regarded as interdisciplinary thought and applied to areas of humanities. However, as far as the research on intersubjectivity is concerned, dialogism has not become a common analytic tool. Thus Bakhtin’s dialogism can be a new perspective of exploring intersubjectivity.Based on honorifics and utterances in The Scholars, the present thesis primarily investigates two questions from the perspective of Bakhtin’s dialogism:how intersubjectivity is embodied by honorifics in The Scholars, and how intersubjectivity of honorifics in The Scholars is dynamically maintained in discourse.According to our analysis of honorifics in The Scholars, intersubjectivity can be displayed by honorifics in diverse ways and intersubjectivity of honorifics can be dynamically maintained in discourse.The present study is both theoretically and practically significant. The research on intersubjectivity of Chinese honorifics is largely enlightening not only for extending the research areas of Bakhtin’s dialogism but promoting interpersonal communication and enhancing teaching Chinese as a foreign language.