| Consoling speech act, as a fairly common and inevitable linguistic phenomenon, plays anindispensable role in social interaction. Over the past few years, many studies concerningconsoling speech act have been conducted from various perspectives. And among theseprevious studies, Speech Act Theory and Politeness Theory are mainly adopted. However, likeother types of speech acts, consoling speech act inevitably involves the attitude and the stanceof the comforter, so this study aims to explore the role of appraisal sources in Englishconsoling speech act within a totally new theoretical approach, namely, the AppraisalFramework proposed by James R. Martin.Enlightened by the previous endeavors on consoling speech act, a systematic andcomprehensive analysis of consoling speech act in English will be conducted qualitatively andquantitatively. Based on the data collected from TV series Desperate Housewives, this studyattempts to explore the felicity conditions of performing consoling speech act, strategiesemployed in English consoling speech act and the Appraisal resources used to realizeconsoling, in order to make us better understand the nature of consoling speech act and learn toconduct it more successfully.The present dissertation is composed of six chapters. Chapter1is a general introductionof this study, which starts with a brief account of the research background, as well as researchquestions to be addressed. And then it outlines the study significance, with a final statement ofthe layout of this thesis.Chapter2illustrates previous researches on consoling speech act. It first makes anoverview of consoling definitions. After that, we turn to another strand of this study, previousstudies on consoling at home and abroad are reviewed respectively.Chapter3highlights the theoretical framework of this study, which involves Austin’sSpeech Act Theory, Searle’s Speech Act Theory and James Martin’s Appraisal Framework.Chapter4elaborates on research procedure and method. It first presents the data collection.And then it focuses on the research method. Finally, it highlights data analysis procedure ofthis thesis.Chapter5analyzes collected data in detail. It first describes four felicity conditions thatshould be followed for consoling speech act:(1) Content condition;(2) Preparatory condition;(3) Sincerity condition;(4) Essential condition. It then analyzes strategies adopted in English consoling. Based on the data analysis, it is demonstrated that there are three kinds of strategies:emotion-centered consoling strategy, problem-centered consoling strategy, and mixtureconsoling strategy. It is also found that the main Appraisal resources employed to realizeconsoling include: Unhappiness; Reaction; Valuation; Lowering and Softening. This mayresult from the fact that the Americans intend to conduct consoling directly and explicitly. Alsoit is suggested that consoling use may be influenced by culture, circumstance, and motivation.Chapter6summarizes the major findings of this dissertation and points out theimplications of this study. Furthermore, the limitations of this study are illustrated. Finally, itsuggests directions for future research on consoling speech act.Two contributions of this consoling study are as follows:In the first place, this study activates and applies a new approach to consoling speech act.As an entirely new endeavor to study consoling speech act, the Appraisal Framework isadopted in this study to explore the realization of consoling. This exploration develops theapplication of the Appraisal Framework.Secondly, the present study of consoling speech act is of great sociological and practicalsignificance. Felicity conditions of consoling speech act can make us better understand thenature of it. Grasping the consoling strategies and analyzing the realization of consolingthrough Appraisal resources would help us to console others more properly and effectively inour daily life. In a word, it is indispensable to maintain the social unity and stability. |
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