A Socio-cognitive Study On Chinese Impoliteness Constructions

Linguistic impoliteness is a newly appeared subject in the domain ofsociopragmatics. Its birth is based on the “conceptual bias” and imbalanceddevelopment in politeness study. The tenet of the early research on linguisticimppoliteness is to build an impoliteness framework which is parallel but opposite toBrown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness. The purpose of the impolitenessframework is to work on communicative strategies aiming at attacking one’sinterlocutor and causing disharmony. Meanwhile, it attempts to verify the correlation ofimpoliteness to contextual factors by analyzing inherent impoliteness and mockimpoliteness and to testify the normal stance of impoliteness in such contexts as armytraining and literary drama. Inherent impoliteness is thus the key to the growth andfull-fledged study of impoliteness research. In effect, from the seminal article written byCulpeper in1996to the book-column work in2011, the understanding of inherentimpoliteness has changed drastically. Sociocognitivelly rooted model has taken theplace of the early model which views inherent impoliteness as the conjunction of actand context. Sociocognitive model views linguistic impoliteness both as biologicalreflexes and cognitive appraisal rather than mere linguistic strategies. The discovery ofconventionalised formulaic impoliteness proves to be a step forward in impolitenessresearch itself as well as a beginning of the impoliteness construction study.Construction, a symbolic unit of form and meaning, is a unit of storage based on itsusage. As basic unit of language system,“construction” represents important situationconcerning human experience. The negative emotional system, reflecting humannegative affection, conceives important human experience. We believe that all thoseconstructions which reflect negative attitude towards specific behaviours occurring inspecific contexts can be viewed as “impoliteness construction”. Conventionalizedimpoliteness formula, the formation of which is the entrenchment of negative attitudeonto linguistic structures in a pragmatic conventionalized way, should be considered asone kind of impoliteness constructions. Therefore, we believe that impolitenessconstruction is a symbolic unit which is the storge of such conventionalized informationas negative emotional attitude and negative emotional meaning through subjectificationand intersubjectification. In order to have a better understanding of what inherent impoliteness is, this thesis attempts to make an adequate description and explanation ofimpoliteness constructions in Chinese language by adopting frequency calculation andcase studies of A Dream of Red Mansions from the perspective of socio-cognition withthe framework of Construction Grammar theory, Markendess theory, SemanticGrammar theory and Socio-cognitive theory. The research has the following findings:Firstly, impoliteness constructions may appear at lexical, syntactic and discoursallevels. Impoliteness constructions at lexical level may be divided into five categoriesbased on swearing themes, which include “God-heaven-ghost-devil”,“sex”,“animaland object”,“disease and death”,“low identity and immorality”. At syntactic level,impoliteness constructions are revealed in the form of reference and mood.“ni zhe+NP”(you+this+NP),“wo ba+ni zhe+NP”(I+give+you+this),“hao ge+NP”(what+a+NP) are the typical constructions of reference, while “shui jiao ni+VP”(who+let+you+NP),“shen me+X”(what+X),“lian+NP+ye/dou+VP”(even+NP+VP),“dou shi+NP”(It is because of+NP) are the main construction types at thelevel of syntax. At discoursal level, impoliteness discourse makers may formimpoliteness constructions which reflect the negative attitudes towards the propositionalcontent and thus causing threatening to other face.“pei”(Pah),“ni+qiao qiao”(look),“he ku lai”(It’s not worth a quarrel) and “su yu”(common sayings) are the mainimpoliteness constructions at discoursal level. Secondly, the impoliteness constructionis a big family. Each family has a stereotypical construction and its members sharesome resemblance. As for constructions at lexical level, morphemes, words, compoundsand idioms together form a whole collection of swearing constructions. At syntacticlevel, the resemblance of construction members lies in their inheritance andmetaphorical extension with their variants against the main construction. Patterns of“lexicalization, exclamation, markedness and constructionization” are dynamicallydemonstrated at discoursal level. The internal structures of common sayings (su yu) arein the form of logic calculus concerning semantic sameness and oppositeness withinsemantic categories and semantic associations across semantic categories. Thirdly,impoliteness constructions and their construction meanings have close connection withspecific social culture and social cognition. The impoliteness constructions in A Dreamof Red Mansions are affected greatly by the social ideology of Confucianism, withswearing markedness at lexical level and contrastive association at common saying (suyu) constructions. NP and VP at syntactic level are greatly influenced by the traditionalsocial ideology of Confucianism. Cognitively speaking, impoliteness constructions in A Dream of Red Mansions are reflections of common cognitive principles of human mind,which include the principles of iconicity, economic principles and the concepts offamily resemblance, etc. Conceptual space, cognitive prominence, subjectivity,intersubjectivity and metaphorical extensions are the main mechanisms of impolitenessconstructions. Fourthly, impoliteness constructions are dynamic. Research shows thatimpoliteness constructions in A Dream of Red Mansions are important components inChinese impoliteness construction system, which depicts the common features ofmodern Chinese impoliteness constructions. It is predicted from our commonconceptions that some constructions in A Dream of Red Mansions are seldom used incurrent mandarin Chinese, such as “xiao tizi”(little hussy, little flirt),“wo ba+ni zhe+NP”(I+give+you+this),“he ku lai”(It’s not worth a quarrel), some are at thebeginning of growth, such as “ta ma de”(fuck),“hao ni ge”(good+you+a), whilesome constructions are still widely used and still gain popularity nowadays, for example,“ni zhe+NP”(you+this+NP),“dou shi+NP”(It’s because of NP) and most majorityof constructions of common sayings. Of course, the diachronic change of impolitenessconstructions should be verified with diachronic data and this is the topic we plan to doin the future research.