A Pragmatic Study On Verbal Impoliteness In Chinese TV Series

Politeness,as a social value promoted to maintain social harmony,has enjoyed great popularity among social members,and,accordingly,fruitful outcomes of politeness study have been achieved in academic fields by various scholars both abroad and;at home.However,impoliteness,the counterpart of politeness,considered to have blocked interpersonal communication and undermined social stability,was more or less ignored.The imbalance and conceptual bias of this phenomenon hasn’t changed until researchers realized the universality of impoliteness and its strategic employment in achieving communicative goals.Pragmatists represented by Culpeper and Bousfield have made strenuous efforts and achieve significantly in impoliteness study.Based on Bousfield’s impoliteness model and his dynamic study of impoliteness at discourse level,this thesis makes an attempt to analyze the data collected from Chinese TV series My Wife is Queen.By transcribing the data,the study is conducted to explore the impoliteness output strategies and the dynamic development of impoliteness across discourse,namely,its triggering,responses and termination.Special attention is also paid to the study of the impoliteness concerning the third party to enrich the impoliteness theory.Finally,a pragmatic study is carried out to analyze the positive functions of impoliteness in My Wife is Queen for a better understanding of impoliteness and TV series.By analyzing the data transcribed from TV series My Wife is Queen,the impoliteness output strategies,the triggering,response options,and termination formats proposed by Bousfield are testified.In addition,it is found in our data that using rhetorical device of exaggeration can be regarded as a sub-strategy of off-record impoliteness strategy.Furthermore,impoliteness strategies concerning the third party are proposed.That is,impoliteness towards the hearer can be realized by quoting the third party’s words;the speaker can threaten the third party’s face(present in the immediate context)in a direct or indirect way;the impoliteness towards the third party(absent in the immediate context)can be realized through negative evaluation.Finally,the thesis points out that impoliteness,tactfully used,can work effectively to release negative emotions promote interpersonal intimacy,entertain,and reflect personal characteristics.