Apragmatic Study Of Defense Speechacts Of The Spokesman At Press Conference

The study of press conference language has long been one of the major topics inlinguistics. Linguists are mainly concerned with its euphemism, refusal and complimentfrom the perspective of Relevance Theory and Discourse Analysis. Few studies analyzeDefense Speech Act of the spokesman at press conference. Hoping to deepen ourunderstanding of DSA, the present study attempts to make a pragmatic study of DefenseSpeech Acts at press conference.Based on Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Leech’s Politeness Principle and Brown&Levinson’s Face Theory, this thesis analyzes Defense Speech Act of the spokesman at thepress conference by integrating quantitative and qualitative methods. First, from therhetorical and the syntactical perspective, the author concludes that understatement,periphrases, euphemism, metaphor, future tense, negative sentence and unclear or specificreferent are the most frequently used devices in the performance of DSA at pressconference. Second, in the light of Cooperative Principle, it is found that all the violationsof CP in performing DSA are deliberate to reduce the influence of Face-Threatening Acts.Under some circumstances, the spokesman strictly follows CP in order to avoid thepotential risk of face-threatening. Third, the present study also finds that the criterion toevaluate the politeness of DSA is to see whether the FTAs of the journalist hit the red lineof the spokesman’s party’s interests. If the question hits the red line, the spokesman wouldchoose to perform DSA even this is impolite. Politeness Principle becomes invalid. If thequestion does not hit the red line, the spokesman would follow PP to perform DSA. DSA ispolite. At last, the present study gets some new findings compared with previous studies.Wen Bing (2010) believes that DSA always occurs with Threatening-Turn in pairs. But wefind that the spokesman would violate CP to perform DSA which means that the spokesmansometimes consciously neglects some questions for the sake of national interests. Therefore,the author concludes that DSA does not always occur with T-Turn in pairs.The thesis is of great significance to the study of DSA. It will help us to deepen our understanding of DSA, enlighten our future study of DSA at different contexts. Also, thisstudy will enhance the spokesman’s awareness of DSA, and may thus improve thepracticability of DSA. The present study is therefore of both practical and theoreticalsignificance.