A Study Of Mitigation In Golden Mediation From The Perspective Of Rapport Management Theory

Mitigation is a linguistic phenomenon,common but complex,in human communication.As a pragmatic strategy,mitigation plays an essential part in the social interaction.In previous studies,most researchers tend to probe into the relevant issues about mitigation in terms of politeness and face,while few scholars explore mitigation from the angle of interpersonal relationship.Furthermore,these studies primarily touch upon utterances concerning business negotiation,doctor-patient dialogue,teachers' classroom language and the like,while little attention is paid to mediation utterances.Based on this fact,this research will conduct an investigation of mitigation occurring in the mediated context from the view of the interpersonal relationship.This study regards mitigation as its research object and defines it as an anticipatory pragmatic strategy to reduce or avoid the unwelcome effect that a speech act has on hearers in advance,so as to promote the acceptance of utterances,construct a harmonious interpersonal relationship,etc.Besides,this research adopts a qualitative research methodology and collects its data from Golden Mediation,one popular domestic mediation programme for the present,based on Rapport Management Theory proposed by Spencer-Oatey.On the whole,this research focuses on the question as to what factors motivate mediators to employ what kind of linguistic strategies to fulfill what interpersonal pragmatic functions.To be specific,this study centers around three facets,namely the realizations of mitigation employed by mediators during the mediation,pragmatic motivation and interpersonal pragmatic functions.This research finds out that there are mainly six types of realizations of mitigation used by mediators in the process of mediation,namely hedges,generic reference,token agreement,supportive utterances(including preparatory utterances and explanatory utterances),conditionals and tag questions.In addition,after reading the data carefully,it is discovered that mediators usually use more than one type ofrealizations each time,in order to minimize the threat on the face and sociality rights of mediatees that mediators' speech acts cause as far as possible and thus develop a harmonious interpersonal relationship,which reflects the altruistic feature.Then this research maintains that the use of mitigation is driven by the rapport orientation held by mediators.In Spencer-Oatey's point of view,rapport orientation is one of the factors of influencing strategy use,which comprises four subcategories,namely rapport enhancement orientation,rapport maintenance orientation,rapport neglect orientation and rapport challenge orientation.In light of the fact that mitigation in this research is used to reduce or avoid the occurrence of negative effects that a certain speech act has on mediatees,render utterances more acceptable and then create a harmonious interpersonal relationship,the author makes an analysis on the rapport orientation of mitigation mainly from the rapport enhancement orientation and rapport maintenance orientation.Finally,with regard to interpersonal pragmatic functions of mitigation,this research unveils that mitigation performs six types of functions in the context,such as persuading mediatees,weakening the negative evaluation,avoiding the arbitrariness of utterances,strengthening the acceptability of utterances,showing the respect and shortening the social distance.What needs to be added is that each interpersonal pragmatic function can be achieved by multiple realizations of mitigation in the specific context,and vice versa.In conclusion,under the framework of interpersonal pragmatics,this research recasts the relevant issues of mitigation from the perspective of Rapport Management Theory,which,to some extent,deepens the understanding of mitigation in the mediated context.