An Adaptation Study Of Banter

Banter is an artful use of language in our daily communication. People useuntrue or exaggerated words to express their communicative intentions indirectly.Banter helps create relaxing atmosphere, shortens the mental distance between people,and coordinates the interpersonal relationship. We can never ignore banter. However,the research on banter is not so sufficient, most of which focuses on the definition,features, classifications of banter, and Banter Principle.Banter occurs in certain communicative context. Thus the utterance andinterpretation of banter should take the factor “context” into consideration. Since thenotion “context” was put forward by Malinowski (1923), it has become an essentialdefinition in linguistic studies. Verschueren (2000. pp.55-56) points out that to uselanguage is to choose language. The process of language choosing is actually theprocess of dynamic adaptation between context and language. Based on the formerstudies, this thesis attempts to make an analysis of banter by using dynamic contextualadaptation of Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory as theoretic framework.All the data analyzed in the thesis come from A Dream of Red Mansions. Asone of the four Chinese classical novels, this classical novel has a great artisticachievement in language, which even can represent the peak of Chinese classicalnovels. There is lots of banter in A Dream of Red Mansions, which adds color to thenovel. The banter not only makes the story vivid, but also deepens its theme.This thesis tries to conduct an adaptation analysis on banter in A Dream of RedMansions. It aims to explore how the characters in the novel adapt to the contextualcorrelates including the mental, social and physical world when using banter. Basedon the analysis of banter uttered by the characters, the thesis intends to figure out thepragmatic conditions of banter and how banter is used as strategies in communication.This thesis conducts a dynamically contextual adaptation analysis of banter in ADream of Red Mansions in the light of Adaptation Theory. The findings are asfollows:1) The characters in the novel take account of the influences of the dynamic context when using banter. So banter is employed to adapt to the contextual correlates,including the mental, social and physical world;2) On the basis of the analysis ofbanter from the adaptation perspective, the thesis finds out the pragmatic conditionsof banter: banter is uttered in a free and relaxing communicative atmosphere; banter isuttered by people of older age or from a higher social status to tease people ofyounger age or from a lower status (or uttered and interpreted between people ofsimilar age or from the same social status); the form of banter shall be informal.3)The thesis find that banter can be used to: resolve conflicts, help the utterer gainbenefits, express what are hard to express in serious conversations, and create apleasant atmosphere.