A Force-dynamic Approach To Complimentary Speech Acts In Chinese

Complimentary speech acts refer to speech communication in which the speaker gives recognition,affirmation or compliments to the appearance,talent,possession and achievement of the recipient.As a common form of verbal interaction in our daily life,the topic of complimentary speech acts has been concerned by the academic community.Up to now,domestic and foreign scholars have studied complimentary speech acts from the aspects of pragmatics,cross-cultural contrastive analysis,conversation analysis and social psychology,but few scholars have explored the conceptual foundations and driving factors for the effective realization of complimentary speech acts from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.In view of this,this thesis mainly takes Mandarin Chinese complimentary speech acts as research data to explore the whole dynamic process of “saying something is doing something”.Based on the force-dynamic theory proposed by Talmy(2000)in cognitive semantics,this thesis discusses the complimentary speech acts in Chinese television programs in order to discuss and construct the force-dynamic patterns of action of different compliments’ illocutionary forces and find out the strategies to enhance the illocutionary force as well as the cognitive motivations behind them.This study selects different types of compliments as research data from the first and second seasons of Home with Kids,and the illocutionary forces of these compliments are analyzed through force-dynamic patterns.The action process of complimentary speech acts’ illocutionary force can be constructed through force-dynamic patterns in force dynamics.The interaction process of forces between different physical entities in force dynamics reveals the underlying cognitive mechanism behind the realization of “saying something is doing something”.Concretely speaking,the hearer is the Agonist and the speaker is the Antagonist.The illocutionary force of the Antagonist overcomes the latter’s intrinsic force tendency and make the latter do the expected action.The realization of “saying something is doing something” is the result of “FAnt > FAgo”.The major findings are summarized as follows: Firstly,the illocutionary force of different kinds of compliments can be analyzed by different types of force-dynamic patterns.From the perspective of force dynamics,the illocutionary force of explicit compliments acts like physical force in steady-state force-dynamic patterns.And the illocutionary force of implicit compliments works in much the same way as physical force in shifting in state of impingement patterns and shifting in balance of strength patterns.Secondly,the speakers adopt different strategies to enhance the illocutionary force so that the successful implementation of complimentary speech acts can be achieved.These strategies include adding the modifiers to the central words,using annotations of concrete words,and repeating the same lexical items or assembling a series of terms that are closely related semantically.Thirdly,we can explore the cognitive motivations behind these three strategies from the perspective of the theory of the scale image schema,the prototype theory and the quantity iconicity principle.In the scale image schema contained in speech acts,the central word with modifiers is in the upper middle position,and its illocutionary force can be enhanced.In the same category,the illocutionary force of speech acts containing lexical items whose connotation reflects the typical members can be enhanced.According to the quantity iconicity principle,the illocutionary force of speech acts with a large number of linguistic elements can be enhanced.This study theoretically verifies the explanatory power of cognitive semantic concepts in pragmatic communication and conforms to the research development trend of speech acts from pragmatics to cognition.In addition,this study combines force dynamics with complimentary speech acts,which not only expands the application scope of the former,but also provides a new perspective to the study of the latter.At the same time,this study provides theoretical support and practical enlightenment for us to conduct better social interaction,coordinate interpersonal relationships and formulate compliment strategies.