A Research On Pragmatic Empathy In Desperation Housewives Based On Adaptation Theory

Empathy is a common phenomenon in our daily life, it intends to realize the purpose ofemotional convergence between the two communicating parties, to shorten the psychologicaldistance between each other, build a harmonious interpersonal relationship. In resent years,‘empathy’ has been studied by a lot of scholars from many different perspectives as a kind ofphenomenon, such as psychology, aesthetics, philosophy and so on.Pragmatic empathy is a kind of pragmatic phenomenon which is for the purpose ofseeking the ideal communicative effect in daily life. Pragmatic empathy plays an extremelysignificant role in social communication. In interpersonal communication, empathy largelyreflects the emotional and psychological convergence between the two communicatingparties. Research of pragmatic empathy has guiding significance and practical significance forEnglish teaching and cross-cultural interpersonal communication.This thesis aims to study pragmatic empathy in the TV series Desperation Housewiveswithin the framework of adaptation theory. Adaptation theory is proposed by Verschureren inhis masterpiece Understanding Pragmatics(1999). Since then it has been employed byresearchers at home and abroad as the theoretical framework to study linguistic phenomenasuch as vague words, euphemism, deception, indirect speech and so on. The thesis attempts tofind answers to the research questions below:1. What kinds of strategies are used to realizethe pragmatic empathy in the TV series Desperate Housewives?2.What functions doespragmatic empathy have for interpersonal communication?Data analysis reveals the following findings:1. There are four ways used in realizingpragmatic empathy: deixis, interruptions, euphemisms, vague words and expressions;2. As apragmatic strategy, pragmatic empathy is the outcome of linguistic choices made by languageusers with different degrees of salience in order to achieve the communicative goals. Thislinguistic choice-making process is a dynamic adaptation process, in which the choice-making has to adapt to the communicative context, among which the utterer and interpreter’ mentalworld, social world, and physical world are the main elements. Pragmatic empathy can servethe following functions: a. Enhancing the acceptability of utterances; b. Establishing theharmonious communicative atmosphere; c. Improving Communications.