The Realization Of Language Indirectness

This thesis is about the phenomenon of language indirectness in financial TVtalk show Interview with RuiChenggang. The interviewee produces indirectlanguage through the violation of Cooperative Principle·s four maxims and theadoption of the off-record strategies. The theoretical framework of this thesis isconstructed under Grice·s Cooperative Principle, Brown&Levinson·s Face Theoryand Verschueren·s Adaptation Theory. Under this framework, the author analyzes13videos of the interview, made a qualitative research on the indirect language producedby interviewee and tries to find out the inner motives of interviewee·s violation of CPand adoption of off-record strategies from the perspective of language adaptability.Research questions consist of the following:1. strategies the interviewee adoptedin order to produce indirect language;2. the means of realization of languageindirectness produced by interviewee;3. the inner motives of interviewee·s choosingindirect language.To conduct the research, the present thesis first starts with the means ofrealization of language indirectness. The interviewee produces indirect languagethrough the violation of CP maxims and the adoption of off-record strategies proposedby Brown&Levinson. There are many realizations of language indirectness withinwhich the relation maxim of CP is mostly violated since it is a very convenient wayfor interviewee to change the question focus. At the same time, the inner motive andgenerative mechanism of producing indirect language from the perspective oflanguage adaptability is studied in this thesis. The author finds that indirect languageproduction is the result of various language-external factors. Language users have tosatisfy certain communicative needs. It is the result of adapting to interviewee·smental world and social world: the adaptation to interviewee·s various emotions,motivations, universal politeness and interview settings.Cooperative Principle and Adaptation Theory are interwoven in this thesis so as to make a better understanding on language use phenomenon. It is the author·sintention and hope that this thesis will be of certain assistance to language users intheir adapting to contextual correlates and strategically using language to achieve aharmonious and smooth communication.