A Study On The Realization Strategy Of Pragmatic Empathy From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Empathy,as a common phenomenon in interpersonal communication,means the infiltration of emotion.He Ziran is the first person who applies empathy to pragmatics and puts forward the concept of “pragmatic empathy”.Pragmatic empathy is a pragmatic phenomenon which aims to shorten the psychological distance and build a harmonious interpersonal relationship between the speaker and the hearer to achieve the purpose of the communication.Therefore,it is very important in our daily life.According to the Adaptation Theory,language use is a continuous and dynamic process of making language choices to adapt to the context.So,pragmatic empathy is the outcome of the language choices and the process of adaptation to different contexts.On the basis of the Adaptation Theory,the thesis takes ten American Presidential Inaugural Addresses as the study material to analyze the language in the Addresses and find out the realization strategy of the pragmatic empathy.Briefly,the functions of empathy are also analyzed.Through the research,the paper finds the strategy of achieving the pragmatic is choosing proper language to adapt to the hearer's mental world,social world and physical world.Firstly,the empathetic words “we/our”,“will” and the consideration of the hearers' psychological needs can do better to adapt to the mental world of the hearers and achieve the pragmatic empathy.Secondly,the consideration of the social value,religion and the persuasiveness of the Address can help to adapt to the hearers' social world and achieve the pragmatic empathy.Thirdly,the proper uses of the time and space can adapt to the physical world of the hearers and achieve the pragmatic empathy.Based on the analysis,it is clear that pragmatic empathy has the functions of narrowing the psychological distance,enhancing the acceptability,establishing the harmonious atmosphere and helping to achieve the communicative goal in the process of communication.Of course,there are more strategies,which have not been mentioned in this thesis,to achieve the pragmatic empathy.Therefore,at the end of the research,the limitations of the present study and the suggestions for the further study are put forward.