Mock Impoliteness:Its Pragmatic Motivations And Features

In studies on communication,researchers pay considerable attention to genuine politeness and impoliteness but ignore mock impoliteness.According to Haugh & Bousfield's(2012)definition,“mock impoliteness in interaction involves evaluations of talk or conduct that are potentially open to evaluation as impolite by at least one of the participants in interaction,and/or as non-impolite by at least two participants…This potential slippage between evaluations of the talk or conduct as non-impolite and impolite is what lies at the very heart,we argue,of mock impoliteness.”(Haugh & Bousfield,2012: 1103)Haugh &Bousfield argue that mock impoliteness belongs to non-impoliteness.More specifically,non-impoliteness refers to an “allowable offence”(Haugh & Bousfield,2012: 1103),which means that participants orient such offence as being in line with the current context and as being relationship supportive.On the surface,mock impoliteness seems to have a negative impact on relations,but this negative effect does not come true in real communication.This thesis,based on rapport management theory proposed by Spencer-Oatey(2008),explores the pragmatic motivations and features of mock impoliteness in the process of managing rapport.Rapport management theory includes three core concepts: face,sociality rights and obligations and interactional goals.Based on different rapport orientations,pragmatic conventions,etc.,participants use appropriate rapport management strategies to manage relations in communication.Reviewing previous researches,this study finds that most of the researchers focus on specific social actions or practices,such as jocular mockery and jocular abuse or pay attention to the differentiation between mock impoliteness and genuine impoliteness.However,the rationale behind this phenomenon still remains unclear.To address this insufficiency,two research questions are proposed:(1)Participants use language to manage rapport in communication,then what are thepragmatic motivations of mock impoliteness in the dynamic process of managing rapport?(2)What are the pragmatic features of mock impoliteness when it is used to manage rapport?This study collects data from English films and television shows to explore the roles and characteristics of mock impoliteness in interpersonal relationships management in English.In order to address the first research question,this thesis analyzes a series of extracts and finds that when participants choose mock impoliteness,the pragmatic motivations can be divided into three aspects in terms of rapport management theory:(1)to preserve face;(2)to preserve sociality rights and obligations;(3)to achieve interactional goals.The first two aspects can be analyzed from three different perspectives: the addresser,the addressee and other participants.The third aspect,namely,interactional goals includes two parts: to maintain or enhance interpersonal relationships,and to cover up challenge in interpersonal relationships.During the process of analyzing,this study finds that there are three pragmatic features of mock impoliteness.First,there is inconsistency between rapport management strategies and their influencing factors.Second,interactional goals of mock impoliteness are superficial,that is to say,the superficial goals seem to damage interpersonal relationships by threatening face or rights,but in fact,the true goals aim to preserve addresser's or other participants' face or rights,thereby maintaining or enhancing relationships.Third,mock impoliteness is intentional manipulation.That is to say,participants consciously use mock impoliteness to achieve some specific interactional goals.This thesis enhances the knowledge about mock impoliteness in managing interpersonal relations,and hopes to provide some helpful opinions for future research.