A Politeness Analysis Of Cao Cao's Uterrances

The Romance of Three Kingdoms is one of the four great classics in China,which was written in the late Yuan and early Ming years.Cao Cao,whom many researchers have paid attention to,is one of the most important characters with distinct character in The Romance of Three Kingdoms.By analyzing Cao Cao's utterance in The Romance of Three Kingdoms,we can not only understand the character of Cao Cao,but also extend the application scope of politeness strategy,and providing another angle to the analysis the literary works.Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been employed in this study.Based on Brown and Levinson's face theory,this thesis chooses Cao Cao's utterances from The Romance of Three Kingdoms as the research subject,and carries out the analysis of the politeness strategy of Cao Cao in The Romance of Three Kingdoms.First,152 pieces of Cao Cao's utterances have been collected and classified according to the politeness strategies put forward by Levinson and Brown.Then the data are analyzed in detail according to Cao Cao's different social status,finally this paper probes into the factor that influence Cao Cao's different choices of politeness strategies.This thesis comes up with three questions.Firstly,what are the principal politeness strategies Cao Cao adopts when communicating with people of different social positions? Secondly,how do the weighting variables influence the choice of Cao Cao's politeness strategies? Lastly,what is the relationship between Cao Cao's politeness strategies and his characters?The major findings have been classified as follows:1.Cao Cao usually adopts four politeness strategies,namely Bald-on-Record Strategy,Positive Politeness Strategy,Negative Politeness Strategy,and Off-Record Strategy.Among which positive politeness strategy is the principal strategy Cao Cao adopts.2.Three factors may influence Cao Cao's choices of strategy: relative power,social distance,absolute ranking of imposition.As a feudal lord,Relative power is the dominant factor that has the most influence on Cao's choices politeness strategies,and as political leader,social distance the dominant influencing factor.3.Cao Cao' s utterances reflect his personal character,and the politeness strategies he adopts are determined by his character.As a feudal lord,Cao Cao is brutal and bloodthirsty,he uses frequently bald-on-record strategy to command the army.Secondly,as a political leader,Cao Cao is ambitious and shows great respect to competent people,moreover,he is also suspicious and fraudulent in nature,he often chooses to use positive politeness strategy,and off-record politeness strategy to sweet-talk to the others and to show respect to others.Thirdly,as a head of the family,Cao Cao has the mood of love towards his son and on the other hand is also severe,he uses positive politeness strategies to praise his son,and bald-on-record politeness strategy to educate his son.