On Tacit Agreement In Speech Communication Based On Adaptation Theory

Communication usually involves two or more people exchanging views, feelings, information through language or behavior expression. The purpose of communication is to establish a pleasant and agreeable relationship among the communicators. And to some extent, whether the communication can be successful depends on whether "Tacit" can be reached. Tacit is suggested indirectly or understood rather than said in words. An agreement is an arrangement, promise or contract made with somebody. Hence the writer defines Tacit Agreement as that both sides of communication comply with certain principles so that they can get smooth communication and accessible understanding. Adaptation Theory is unanimously considered to be a rather developed pragmatic theory; it is powerful in explaining language phenomena. Based on the property of this theory, the thesis carefully analyzes some examples excerpted from many different kinds of materials (such as essays, talk shows and dialogues in daily life, etc.) to examine how people choose proper words to communicate, on this account to prove that the Adaptation Theory has a strong power on achieving Tacit Agreement. On the whole, the article belongs to a qualitative study based on text corpus and an inquiry study in human interaction. Its theoretical framework is on the basis of Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory.In this research, the framework is arranged as below:The first chapter points out the purpose of research, language data, research methodology and structure of this thesis. The second chapter introduces linguistic study on communication at home and abroad. Accordingly, the writer finds that in previous research, most domestic scholars research communication from Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle and Speech Act theory, but few of them research communication from the perspective of Adaptation Theory and the foreign scholars use Adaptation Theory to study some specific fields, seldom of them research how to get successful communication from a macro perspective. So the writer gives a general introduction to Tacit Agreement, aiming at using this perspective to analyze successful communication. The third chapter is a description of theoretical framework, gives a general presentation for Verschueren’s Linguistic Adaptation Theory; explains the key notions of Adaptation Theory and introduces four Angles of investigation. The forth chapter is the adaptive analysis of Tacit Agreement:adaption to mental world (such as motivation, personality, belief and emotion), social world (such as social settings and culture, social status, interpersonal relationship and gender) and physical world (such as time and space). The fifth chapter is the end of the thesis, i.e. it is the conclusion, and here the writer concludes the findings and limitations of the whole research. In short, through the application of Adaptation Theory to analyze the examples of conversations, the writer finds the Adaptation Theory has a great help in communication and a strong power on tacit agreement. This thesis is a new attempt on using Adaptation Theory; it plays a role on communication.