A Study Of The Strategies Of Impoliteness In Chinese And Their Positive Functions

In recent years,“impoliteness” has become a hot topic in the field of linguistic research abroad and at home.Scholars abroad have conducted a number of studies on impoliteness from such perspectives as pragmatics,cognition and sociolinguistics.Compared with the researches abroad,few has been made at home,especially on the strategies of impoliteness in Chinese and their positive functions.With qualitative approach,the impoliteness model constructed by Bousfield and the face theory proposed by Brown and Levinson are applied to analyze the impolite utterances in the Chinese sitcom The LOHAS Family to discuss the strategies of impoliteness in Chinese and their positive functions.The study finds:(1)The output strategies of impoliteness in Chinese are consistent with Bousfield's output strategies of impoliteness,including eleven on-record strategies of impoliteness such as “snub”,“exclude the other from an activity”,“use inappropriate identity markers” and so on and two off-record strategies such as “sarcasm” and withholding politeness”.Besides,three on-record strategies of impoliteness,which are “using prosody”,“changing the topic” and “imitating other's words”,are discovered in Chinese.(2)The response strategies of impoliteness in Chinese are also consistent with Bousfield's response strategies of impoliteness.As for responding,impoliteness can be accepted and countered through using the strategies like “apology” and “agreement” and applying the “offensive” and “defensive” strategies respectively.Among them,“apology” and “agreement” are newly discovered strategies in Chinese.(3)Strategies of impoliteness in Chinese can generate such positive functions as “causing humor”,“showing intimacy” and “praising others”.Through exploring the strategies of impoliteness in Chinese and their positive functions,the thesis broadens the research of impoliteness in Chinese and contributes to better understanding the application of strategies of impoliteness.