A Study Of The “Suggesting” Strategies In Dongxiang Language And Their Contrasts To Those In Lanzhou Dialect

The Dongxiang minority language(DML),used by Dongxiang nationality,is a kind of language with no written scripts.The language faces endangering and its vitality shows decreasing features.Therefore,the protection of DML proves imperative.The previous studies on the language are mostly carried out from the aspects of phonetics,lexicon and syntax.As for pragmatic studies,the existing efforts are mainly made recently by the research team in the Institute of Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics of the School of Foreign Languages and Literature of Lanzhou University.Those pragmatic studies have made contributions to understanding the communicative and behavioral manner of DML.Moreover,the studies recorded plenty of semi-natural language materials,which were helpful for inheritance of the endangered language.Based on the existing pragmatic studies of DML,this study develops investigations of the pragmatic features,such as the politeness strategies employed by Dongxiang males.Different from previous pragmatic studies in literature that deal with pragmatic issues in terms of eco-linguistics,this study discusses the issues from a perspective of socio-pragmatics.Besides,previous pragmatic studies in literature investigate several speech acts rather than suggestion,while this study focuses on the speech act of suggestion,and observes the politeness strategies in this speech act.Moreover,the previous studies investigate the pragmatic strategies of Dongxiang females,this study specializes in Dongxiang males' politeness strategies.Lastly,pragmatic studies in literature examine effects of personal and social variables(e.g.,age and power in greeting and parting;gender and severity of offense in apologizing)on pragmatic strategies,otherwise,this study probes into the effects of age and ranking of imposition on the politeness strategies in suggesting.This study employed a method of a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses.It included six steps: the situation design,role-play,transcription of the role-play,questionnaire design,pilot study,and large-scale questionnaire investigation.The participants involved in this study originated from Dongxiang Autonomous County(Guoyuan village and Suonan village)for DML,and Yuzhong County,Lanzhou City(Dingyuan village and Xiaokangying village)for LD.Since this study just observed the male's politeness strategies,I invited 280 male participants in total:140 DML speakers and 140 LD speakers,randomly selected with half young and half old for each.Each of the language participants were assigned into the young group(18-34)and the old group(55-75).As the final result of the questionnaires,I obtained120 sets of valid data for each of the languages.Based on data obtained,this study investigates the politeness strategies,showing concern,shortening distance,hedges and providing a reason,employed to mitigate the imposition of suggestions in this thesis.Since the research emphasis of this study is DML,to further investigate its pragmatic features,the LD is used as a reference to make the pragmatic features of DML more prominent.Thus,I aim to answer five questions:(1)What types of politeness strategies the DML male participants employ in giving suggestions?(2)Does age difference affect politenessstrategies in DML suggestions? If yes,how does it affect the strategies?(3)Does ranking of imposition affect the politeness strategies in DML suggestions? If yes,how does it affect the strategies?(4)What types of politeness strategies the LD male participants employ in giving suggestions?(5)What are the similarities and differences of politeness strategies between DML and LD suggestions?The results show that:(1)The DML participants employ four types of politeness strategies including showing concern,shortening distance,using hedges and providing a reason.(2)The age difference has effects on DML participants' choices of politeness strategies.When making suggestions to the older,Dongxiang older participants adopt more shortening distance strategies than the younger,while the younger participants use more showing concern strategies than the older.When making suggestions to the younger,Dongxiang younger participants employ more showing concern strategies than the older,while the older participants use more hedges than the younger.(3)The ranking of imposition affects DML participants' choices of politeness strategies.There exist two cases.When the power is stronger and social distance is looser,participants use more showing concern,shortening distance and reasons strategies in higher ranking of imposition than in lower ranking of imposition.When the power is weaker and the social distance is closer,participants employ more hedges in higher ranking of imposition than in lower ranking of imposition,while they use more showing concern and reasons strategies in lower ranking of imposition than in higher ranking of imposition.(4)The LD participants use the same types of politeness strategies as DML participants,but the frequency ofeach strategy is different.(5)Similarities and differences exist regarding the politeness strategies employed by DML and LD participants.As for the similarities,besides the same type of politeness strategies employed by DML and LD participants,both of them are affected by age difference and ranking of imposition.The differences between DML and LD participants' politeness strategies are in that they are affected differently by the two factors(age and ranking of imposition).To sum up,age and ranking of imposition affect DML participants' politeness strategies,and similarities and differences exist between DML and LD participants' strategies regarding these two factors.The similarities between them reveal that both DML and LD participants perceive suggestion speech act as a face-threatening act.Politeness strategies are used to mitigate the imposition of suggestions to make them more acceptable and maintain harmonious relationship.The differences illustrate the politeness norm distinctions between that DML and LD participants.The results show that DML participants seem to believe that euphemistically giving suggestions is stranger,and that being straightforward reflects a fraternal love between them.The differences also demonstrate the distinction in social and national characters underlying DML and LD communities societies;namely,DML male speakers with a higher status in their community,are self-centered,and LD male speakers are more likely to accept the concept of equality and the importance of harmony.