On Impoliteness Events

Impoliteness, as one of the most frequent linguistic phenomena, has arousedmuch attention and interest of linguistic scholars and researchers. On the basis ofrelated theories, linguists collect corpus from different sources: daily conversation,films and TV programs, literature works, net chatting, etc., which infuses new energyinto the study of impoliteness. Yet taking Chinese instances from TV entertainmentprogram as the corpus is still a new try.The thesis collects the Chinese impoliteness events from the entertainment datingshow If You Are the One in Jiangsu TV channel as the data. Totally152short videosconcerned with impoliteness events are collected, ranging from Oct.23,2010to Sep.7,2013, and732impoliteness comments are taken from the forum of If You Are theOne. Qualitative methodology is applied here. Rapport Management Theory andImpoliteness Theory are employed as the theoretical framework to analyze thegeneration of face management, sociality right management, the strategies ofimpoliteness, and the positive functions of impoliteness events in If You Are the One.The thesis focuses on the following five questions:(1) Which kind of offence inrapport management appears most frequently in If You Are the One?(2) What are thecharacteristics of affective impoliteness events in the forum?(3) How doescreativeness strengthen the effect of entertaining impoliteness events?(4) What effectdoes power have on institutional impoliteness events?(5) Are there any other positivefunctions of impoliteness events besides what Culpeper (2011) has found?It was found that (1) offence of quality face in If You Are the One isoverwhelmingly the most important type of face offence in rapport management;(2)insult and irony are mainly deployed to attack the single ladies in affectiveimpoliteness events in the forum; affective impoliteness can supervise the programand improves its quality；(3) there are various forms of creativity includingpersonalized negative assertions, repetition, emphasis, irony, taboo word, and threat,all of which are used to strengthen the effect of entertainment in entertaining impoliteness events in If You Are the One;(4) the host makes use of his power toexploit the target’s weakness so as to entertain the audience;(5) three other positivefunctions of impoliteness events are found besides what Culpeper (2011) hasarticulated. They are normalized impoliteness, value-oriented impoliteness, andsupervisory impoliteness. Normalized impoliteness contains language normalizationand program normalization in If You Are the One. Value-oriented impoliteness is usedby the host to give the single ladies or the single men correct value guidance.Supervisory impoliteness is often seen in the forum of If You Are the One, which cansupervise the program and improve its quality.Theoretically speaking, the result of the research has certain theoretical referencefor the study of impoliteness events. On one hand, the characteristics of affectiveimpoliteness and the creative forms of entertaining impoliteness are theoreticalverification and complement of Culpeper’s (2011) theory of positive functions ofimpoliteness events. On the other hand, normalized impoliteness, value-orientatedimpoliteness, and supervisory impoliteness can enrich the connotation of positivefunctions of impoliteness events.Practically speaking, the analytical conclusions are of much help in stimulatingthe audience to have a better understanding of the reasons and positive functions ofsuch impoliteness events.