On Impoliteness As Entertainment From An Interactional Approach

The Impolite phenomenon has long been considered as a cause of social discord. Andinitially it was only regarded as a kind of Pragmatic failure. It is in recent years that somescholars have begun to notice the importance of impoliteness, and have conducted researcheson impolite phenomena from different angles. Studies have shown that impoliteness not onlycan be used as a strategy, but also can produce some positive effects in particular contexts.This paper makes an attempt to analyze impoliteness in Chinese daily conversations asentertainment from an interactional approach. Based on the data collected from a Chinesedrama, the analysis is carried out from three aspects: first, what types of impoliteness arefunctioning as entertainment? Second, how impoliteness as entertainment is manifested?Third, why could impoliteness produce an entertaining effect?The study shows that impoliteness as entertainment does exist in Chinese social culturalinteraction. Based on the data analysis, it proves that firstly, impoliteness that functions asentertainment also results from many ways in verbal communication, for instance, causedeither by inappropriate or appropriate behavior, either being sincere or insincere, and eitherbeing intentional or unintentional; secondly, the responses to impoliteness as entertainmentcan be realized by different methods, which can be generalized as passive response and activeresponse; thirdly, the ending of impoliteness functioning as entertainment can beaccomplished by either one-party-submission or two-side-compromise, either withdrawal orstand-off. Additionally, in terms of the manifestation of impoliteness as entertainment, itinvolves the speaker, the hearer and the third-party. In other words, the speaker’s way ofexpression and his or her dramatic attitudinal change, the hearer’s way of response and his orher dramatic status change, as well as the third-party’s reaction prove to be significantelements in impoliteness as entertainment. Following the analysis of those elements ininteraction, the present study provides a comprehensive account of why impoliteness cangenerate entertaining function from an interactional approach. There are two factors, bothpsychological and contextual, which are tentative causes. To be specific, on the one hand,individuals would be impolite in order to reflect funny and humorous personality, or takeadvantage of impoliteness as entertainment to adjust interpersonal relationships. On the otherhand, context also plays a crucial role in this process. Certain linguistic contexts, such asphonological context, lexical context and grammatical context, and extra-linguistic contexts,namely, knowledge background, cultural background, interpersonal factors and etc., areclosely associated with the entertaining function of impoliteness in verbal interaction. This study not only introduces a new research perspective, but also adds to ourunderstanding of impoliteness in verbal interaction.