礼貌原则视角下电影对白的会话含义分析——以电影《绿皮书》为例文献综述

 2021-12-30 08:12

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文献综述

1.Introduction1.1 Research backgroundThe research of politeness plays an important role in the field of Pragmatics. Since Lakoff (1973) first proposed the three principles of politeness, politeness has been studied for more than 40 years. The focus on the research model has changed from the classical etic politeness (Brown Leech, 1983) to the post-modern thematic politeness (Locher s politeness principles (1983, 2014) is a representative of the classical pragmatic language politeness research.Dialogue design in movies is an artistic redesign of oral language which has typical characteristics of oral language. The most important embodiment of the Politeness Principle we want to discuss is in oral expression.The movie－Green book, which wins the Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards, is adapted from the true story of a road trip through the southern US in the early 1960s. In the film, the black pianist Don Shirley hires the Italian-American Tony Vallelonga as an driver to guide him to performances from the North all the way to the South of America, but they are confronted with various problems because of Shirley's skin color. These problems lead them to build a special friendship.The time between late 1870s and 1960s was a very difficult period for black people in U.S. history. Jim Crow laws which allowed racial segregation were approved by many states of the countries. These laws made life and travel dangerous for African-Americans. They couldn't use certain hotels, restaurants, or even gas stations. They had to be indoors after sunset or they might go to jail. Even black celebrities had to follow the laws. In 1936, a black mail carrier named Victor H. Green made a list of friendly businesses in New York City. He published the list as a small book with a green cover. The Green Book helped African-Americans travel more safely. Then, in 1964, Jim Crow laws went away. The book went away, too.Due to the fact that the complexity of the background of that period of time shapes the richness of the characters from different classes and races, such as the noble white Americans, the well-educated black pianist, the uneducated and downtrodden black, the struggling Italian Americans and so on. Therefore, the languages people speak vary a lot, making the movie a good material to do research on.This paper aims to take Leechs politeness principles as a perspective to analyze the conversational implicature of dialogues of the movie Green Book which wins the 91st Academy Awards. 1.2 Need of the studyThe thesis has both practical and academic meanings. On the one hand, by analyzing the dialogues in the movie Green Book with Leechs six maxims, we can not only understand the advantages and limitations of Politeness Principle and its maxims more clearly, but also have more effective and polite communication by confirming to them in our social contact. In this way, it is of great importance to maintain our interpersonal relationship by obeying or by avoiding violating the Politeness Principle.On the other hand, this study can help us to understand and appreciate the characterization and the culture of the movie. The application of politeness principle in communication is not only determined by the language itself, but also related to the context and cultural characteristics encountered in actual communication. Ignoring these factors will seriously affect the smooth progress of communication. This paper selects a few classical dialogues in the movie, we can already understand the application of politeness principle in movie dialogues. Meanwhile, it also helps us to have a reverse thinking about the description of the characters' inner world characteristics.1.3 Research purposesThis study is dedicated to better understanding the times, history, culture, and society of America set up in the movie, and most importantly, the friendship beyond class and race between the main characters. In addition, This study aims to look into whether the Politeness Principle applies well to the movie dialogue in Green Book. In other words, the study is to find out if the dialogue between main characters obeys or violates the maxims of Politeness Principle, which can help to discover the merits and limitations of the Politeness Principle.Last but not least, the study is meant to look into the actual use of Politeness Principle in peoples daily communication, which gives advice to the maintaining of interpersonal relationship. 2.Literature reviewThis chapter gives a detailed explanation of the theoretical framework on which the present study is based, including the development and core maxims of Politeness Principle. Furthermore, this paper will comb out the research gaps of the previous studies and lead to this research. 2.1 Development of PolitenessIn recent years, many western scholars have made a series of theoretical analysis on politeness in English communication from the perspective of linguistics. American scholar Goffman (1967) postulates the face-to-face behavior in plays and first set up the model of politeness. He believes that the need for face is mutual and the safest way for a person not to lose face is not to hurt others' face.Lakoff (1973) eradicates the politeness principle which includes three maxims: dont impose; give each other room and space; take care of others feelings. She holds that politeness is the product of social development which helps reduce the friction in interpersonal communication (1975).Professor Brown (1978) proposes the problem of face and face threatening. He believes that face can be divided into positive face and negative face. The former refers to ones hope that his words and deeds can be affirmed and maintained in the process of communication, while the latter is meant to keep his language fluent and not be affected by the outside world. Therefore, language can be classified as the approval of maintaining face, the permission of vocabulary and the impoliteness and aggression of keeping one's own conversation smooth. American language philosopher Grice (1975) demonstrates the theory of conversational implicature and cooperative principle in Logic and Conversation, that is to say,communication is restricted by certain conditions. There is a certain tacit understanding between the speaker and the hearer. Both sides should follow one purpose, abide by one principle and cooperate with each other. The principle includes the following four criteria:(1)The maxim of quantity: Make your contribution as informative as required for the current purpose of the exchange. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.(2)The maxim of quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true.(3)The maxim of relation: Be relevant. (4)The maxim of manner: Avoid obscurity of expression, ambiguity. Be brief. Be orderly.However, in actual communication, people often fail to abide by these principles for the sake of being polite or other reasons and deliberately violate the cooperative principle, thus resulting in "conversational implicature", that is, utterance goes beyond the literal surface meaning. This requires the listener to infer the purpose of the speaker's intentional or flagrant violation of the cooperative principle and its "implied meaning" according to the context of the conversation at that time. However, after the theory of conversational implicature and cooperative principle are put forward, many scholars and experts begin to question it and postulate their own theories which includes Leechs Politeness Principle. Known as the land of etiquette, China has also formed a series of politeness principles with Chinese characters through history. Gu (1992) also puts forward five maxims of politeness to regulate Chinese language behavior.As we can see, with the passage of time, scholars' research on politeness has been developing and improving. Many scholars constantly put forward new theories and perspectives on the basis of their predecessors. Each theory has its advantages and disadvantages which need to be revised by following researchers. At the same time, different ethnics have different histories and cultures, which shapes its unique national characteristics. 2.2 Maxims of Politeness PrincipleBased on Grices Cooperative Principle, Leech (1983) elucidates politeness in his book Principles of Pragmatics. He Ziran and Ran Yongping (2012) holds that Politeness Principle can save Cooperative Principle.He holds the opinion that people sometimes disobey the CP maxims in order to express themselves politely in interaction with others. Therefore he puts forward the Politeness Principle and believes that it should be obeyed in communication. Leech claims that the CP is insufficient to explain the indirectness in conversation, and the PP can be seen not just as another principle to be added to the CP, but as its necessary complement, which rescue the CP from serious trouble (1983:80).Leechs PP could be stated as follow: other things being equal, minimize the expression of beliefs which are unfavorable to the hearer and at the same time (but less important) maximize the expression of beliefs which are favorable to the hearer (Leech,1983:81). The six maxims of PP that Leech sums up: (1) Tact Maxim (in impositives and commissives) (a)Minimize cost to other (b)Maximize benefit to other (2) Generosity Maxim (in impositives and commissives) (a)Minimize benefit to self (b)Maximize cost to self (3) Approbation Maxim (in expressives and assertives) (a)Minimize dispraise of other (b)Maximize praise of other (4) Modesty Maxim (in expressives and assertives) (a)Minimize praise of self (b)Maximize dispraise of self (5) Agreement Maxim (in assertives) (a)Minimize disagreement between self and other (b)Maximize agreement between self and other (6)Sympathy Maxim (in assertives) (a)Minimize antipathy between self and other (b)Maximize sympathy between self and other (Leech,1983:132)It should be noticed that self norm ally refers to the speaker, but other here is identified not only with the hearer,but also with the third party who may or may not presenting the speech situation because the speaker should also show politeness to him/her (Leech,1983:131).Leech (1983) claims that not all the six maxims are equally important. From the First maxim to the forth one, it appears that the Tact Maxim is a more powerful Constraint on conversational behavior than Generosity Maxim, and Approbation Maxim than Modesty Maxim. Hence, Leech contends that politeness is focused more strongly on other than oneself (Leech,1983:133). Moreover, Leech suggests that within each maxim, sub-maxim (a) seems to be more important than sub-maxim (b), which indicates that negative politeness (avoidance of discord)is more important than positive politeness (seeking concord).However, Leechs politeness principle also has some deficiencies. He (2000) assumes that the Maximize and Minimize are too extreme. Meanwhile, the maxims cant cover all the needs of polite language. Politeness itself is a concept with cultural particularity (Long, 2016). Accordingly, research on interpersonal relationships from the perspective of politeness can only be restricted in a limited temporal, spatial and cultural background. One expression may be regarded as impoliteness in the movie which was set up in the 1960s in America but normal in modern time. 2.3 Studies of movie dialogue based on Conversational ImplicatureZhao (2012) appreciates dialogues in a Chinese movie The Treatment from the perspective of Grices Conversational Implicature in her paper. She analyzes the formation and characteristics of through the classical dialogues in The Treatment. However, the interpretation of the speakers intentions and the effects produced by the speakers are not enough. Chen (2008) does an research on the implications of movie The Sound of Music. The author reveals the personalities of the main characters by virtue of the theory of Conversational Implicature. Although enumerating three clips of dialogues, the author chooses to retail the dialogues instead of referring directly, thus makes the analysis less vivid and less convincing. 2.4 Studies of movie dialogue based on Politeness PrincipleSome previous studies has already made use of politeness to appreciate movie dialogues and expressions. For example, Li (2015) has analyzed dialogues in Forrest Gump based on English politeness principles which only focuses on the use of euphemism and irony in the movie. Zheng (2011) studies the dialogues in The Bridges of Madison County with Leechs politeness principle and Browns Face-saving Theory (1987). She uses a series of theories on politeness to analyze the discourse which seems too broad. Therefore, in my opinion, theprevious studies are not so systematically well-organized.2.5 Research gapPrevious studies has only used either politeness principle or conversational implicature to interpret movie dialogues. Nevertheless, this paper combines politeness principle with conversational implicature to analyze movie dialogues. On the one hand, it clearly illustrates the connections between the two theories. On the other hand, it can help readers better understand the intentions and effects produced by the speaker when the speaker says something polite or impolite to the hearer. It is a good way to demonstrate the kinship or estrangement between the speaker and the hearer more clearly and vividly.In conclusion, this thesis fills in a research gap in this field to a certain extent with some academic value and practical significance.ReferencesAustin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Brown, P., Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universities in language usage. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Chen, R. (2001). Self-politeness: A proposal. Journal of pragmatics, 1, 87-106.Culpeper, J. (1996). Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of pragmatics, 3, 349-367.Eelen, G. (2001). A critique of politeness theories. Manchester: Northampton.Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole J. Morgan (Ed.). Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts, 41-58.Goffman,E. (1967) Interaction rituals: Essays in face-to-face behavior. New York: Anchor Books.Haugh, M. (2013). Im/politeness, social practice and the participation order. Journal of pragmatics, 9, 52-72.Haugh, M. (2018). Afterword: Theorizing (im)politeness. Journal of politeness research, 1, 153-165.Lakoff, R. (1973). The logic of politeness: Or minding your ps and qs. Papers from the ninth regional meeting of the Chicago linguistic society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Leech, G. (1977). Language and tact. Trier: Linguistic Agency University of Trier.Leech, G. (1983). The principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.Locher, M. A. (2015). Interpersonal pragmatics and its links to (im)politeness research.Journal of pragmatics, 12, 5-10.Long, C. (2016). 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