| Person deixis plays a very important part and has great effects in daily life. Usingperson deixis correctly can reflect people’s communication ability in human society.Person deixis closely relates with place deixis, time deixis, discourse deixis and socialdeixis in the field of pragmatic research, among which person deixis occupies the coreplace. Person deixis concerns the encoding of the role of participants in the speechevent in which the utterance is delivered. Connecting with person or object, persondeixis shows the relation among speaker, hearer and person who relates with theconversation through person pronouns covertly or overtly. The classification of persondeixis is different from the first person pronoun, the second person pronoun and thethird person pronoun in the traditional way. Person desixis consists of person pronounsand nominal phrases that encode the identification of person who participates in theutterance and that play a very important role. Nominal phrases include depreciatoryterms, honorific forms, kinship terms and occupational titles etc. It will have a goodcommunicative effect by using nominal phrases that encode the identification of personwho participate in the utterance correctly. Otherwise, the communication will not go onsmoothly and can not reach the aim of communication.In recent years, many scholars have made a great amount of researches fromdifferent angles and different ways in studying person deixis, for example,J·Lyons(1977), Charles J·Fillmore(1977), S·C·Levinson(1983), Lv Shuxiang (1985), HeZiran(1988), and He Zhaoxiong(1989) have made much progress in this field. However,such researches are still lack of sufficient systems and theories. Many of theseresearches about person deixis are made from the respect of semantic differentiation,functional differences and pragmatic principles, which do not touch the further reasonof why people use person deixis and the deeper reason is closely related with thecontextual correlates, the structural objects, the dynamics of contexts and the salienceof the adaptation process.The Adaptation Theory is a relatively new theory in the field of pragmatics. The“adaptation” theory first appeared in Pragmatics as a Theory of Linguistic Adaptation written by the secretary general from the International Pragmatics Association, JefVerschueren in1987and he made further development and research in UnderstandingPragmatics published in1999. Different from the traditional pragmatic theory which isdone by British and American scholars who regard pragmatics as a science of languageor a cross-science of subject which mainly do the research from the angle of society orcognition but failure to solve the problems of vague boundary and large range existingin pragmatics, Jef Verschueren states that “using language must consist of thecontinuous making of the linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously, forlanguage-internal and for language external reasons”(1999:55). He assumes the idea ofpragmatics as a general functional perspective on language, which means to take intoaccount of the full complexity of its relation between human beings and society,language and culture. It is very necessary to observe and study language in acomprehensive way that combines with its cognitive, social and cultural functioning.This thesis attempts to study to characteristics of person deixis used in A Dream inRed Mansions in the first forty chapters within the theoretical framework of theAdaptation Theory in order to study the purpose and deep reason for using persondeixis in dynamic communicative context. The words and phrases that are used in thenovel A Dream in Red Mansions are quite popular and common among people in theeighteenth century society, which take language used by every walks in the society intoconsideration. There are four big families in this novel and a lot of kinship terms arequite complicated, involving the relatives and the servants to their masters. It is of greatbenefit to study the contemporary language dynamically through study the words andphrases in the novel A Dream in Red Mansions. As far as large amount of charactersconcerns in this novel, this thesis regards the kinship terms as its main research object.This thesis makes an attempt to study person deixis in A Dream in Red Mansions inlight of the Adaptation Theory in the respect of linguistic reality, social convention andpsycho motivation.It has been almost twenty years since the Adaptation Theory was introduced intoChina. Many scholars at home have applied this theory in many fields, such as,translation, literature, cross-cultural communication, pragmatic strategy, code transaction, second language leaning and teaching, who have made a great deal ofstudies and progress, among which it is applied in wide range in the field of translation.The choice of language should adapt with the dynamic process of adaptability whichvaries according to different context, different language structure, different object oflanguage user, and different cultural background in order to meet the need ofcommunication as much as possible. It is difficult to solve the problem of the pragmatictransaction in person pronouns and nominal phrases that encode the identification ofthe person in the utterance. Realizing grammatical transaction of person deixis in bothChinese and English and clear meaning and reasonable logic in different languagesthrough person deixis in special context and pragmatic practice is quite necessary andimportant. As a “cultural novel”, A Dream in Red Mansions embodies rich culturewhich is totally different from foreign literature. The person deixis in this novel can notbe only studied in way of culture or social status. In such background, the study methodand strategy from the angle of adaptability are of great importance and necessity. Thisthesis aims to study the characteristics of person deixis in the first forty chapters in thenovel A Dream in Red Mansions, and makes a research in the application of persondeixis in light of the Adaptation Theory. |
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