A Pragmatic Study Of Jocular Mockery As Face Management In Interpersonal Communication

Jocular mockery as a special kind of teasing has been widely studied in Englishspeaking contexts.However,how jocular mockery is related to face management has been neglected in the past studies.Face management is a matter of rapport management in the way that jocular mockery as a strategy can influence interpersonal relationship.Therefore,this thesis is intended to conduct a pragmatic study of jocular mockery as face management in Chinese interpersonal communication.In the light of Rapport Management Theory,based on the data from a Chinese TV show Back to the Field,this qualitative study is conducted to address three questions by means of conversation analysis.First,what are the possible factors that may trigger jocular mockery in interpersonal communication? Second,how is jocular mockery realized as face management in interpersonal communication? Third,what pragmatic functions can jocular mockery fulfill in interpersonal communication?The findings are given as follows:First,the possible factors for triggering jocular mockery are violating sociality rights and obligations in relation to quality face and social face.Quality face refers to age,appearance,personality and ability and social face is connected with social status,financial position and professional skills.Violating sociality rights and obligations means violating equality rights and association rights and thereby quality face and social face are frightened.Second,jocular mockery is realized as face management in the interactions between the speaker’s initiation and the hearer’s response.Jocular mockery can be initiated by means of unconventional word selections in illocutionary domain and responded by ways of accepting,rejecting and ignoring.Through these interactions,it is demonstrated that the initiation of a jocular mockery and the response to it is a process of face management.Third,jocular mockery functions as rapport management to influence interpersonal relationship positively as rapport enhancement and negatively as rapport challenge.Rapport enhancement is achieved by saving the face of speakers or recipients,creating amusement and shortening psychological relation,while rapport challenge is realized by threatening the face of speakers or recipients,creating embarrassment and widening psychological distance.To conclude,theoretically,it enriches to some extent the past studies by discovering that jocular mockery not only functions as threatening face but also as enhancing face in Chinese interpersonal communication,and practically,it can offer some insights into jocular mockery as a strategy to manage face in social interaction.