A Study On Speech Act Of Congratulation In Modern Chinese

The research object of this paper is the speech act of congratulation in contemporary Chinese.The speech act of congratulation is one of expression speech acts proposed by Searle,which aims to express the speaker’s psychological state of an objective situation.The speech act of congratulation is a communicative activity in which the speaker expresses congratulatory intention,conveys pleasant emotions,affirms and praises,and finally arouses the listener’s positive emotional feelings when an event occurs that is related to the listener and in the interest of the listener.It is a polite speech act to establish and maintain good interpersonal relations.This paper is divided into five parts.The first part is the introduction,which clarifies the research object of the article.On the basis of summarizing the achievements of theoretical and applied research closely related to congratulations speech act by scholars at home and abroad,it further explores the internal mechanism and expression mode of congratulations speech act.The second part is the analysis of the essential characteristics of congratulatory speech act,including three aspects: preparatory conditions,behavioral intention and constituent elements.And classification of congratulatory speech acts from three perspectives: language form,applicable scene and event nature.Finally,by comparing congratulatory speech acts and congratulatory speech acts,it is found that there are differences between them in the aspects of triggering events,behavioral intention and expression forms.The state,nature and necessity of triggering events,as well as the effective way of behavioral intention are the key to distinguish the speech of congratulation and wish.The third part describes and analyzes the expression mode of congratulations in detail.Starting from the process of intention generation and realization,this paper explores the generation path of congratulatory speech act expression mode,and thus divides it into two types: core and accompanying expression mode.The former includes a complete mode in which such structural elements as “Congratulatory Party+Congratulatory Action+Recipient+Congratulatory Event” appear,and a simple mode in which “Congratulatory Action” is an essential element and other optional elements are added.accompanying expression mode include three categories:explaining the cause,strengthening sincerity and enhancing income.The fourth part explores the pragmatic characteristics of congratulatory speech act.This paper analyzes the differences between the core expression modes of congratulation based on the typical congratulatory expressions.In the congratulatory direct form,there are differences in the level of illocutionary force and the degree of interpersonal identification within the congratulatory performatives.There are differences in the formal degree and subjective modality between the congratulatory performatives and the variant performatives.Compared with the direct congratulatory form,the indirect congratulatory form has special pragmatic effects in terms of politeness and interpersonal distance.The fifth part analyzes the textual structure of congratulatory letters.It is found that the generation process from congratulatory speech act to congratulatory letter style is driven by behavioral intention,the requirement of interpersonal relationship and the mode of communication.Compared with the congratulatory discourse in conversation,the paper summarizes the prominent features of the congratulatory style in behavioral structure,linguistic expression and pragmatic function,including formality,formality and richness.The structural elements of congratulatory discourse include behavior and event.The basic structure of congratulatory discourse is“congratulatory behavior + core event”,and the extended structure is to add“evaluation behavior + background event/prospect event” and “prospect behavior +prospect event” on this basis.