A Study Of Chinese Request Speech Communication

This study comes from the interpretation of the experience during request speechcommunication process. The core problem of solution is that：how do people meet theneeds of expressing "request others to perform something" by using language form.Previous researches about request speech acts didn’t find the core part of the discourseform’s meaning in the experience level of speech communication, namely,communicative intention. The words such as "Implication","ConversationalImplicature" have covered up the whole meaning of discourse form, which makes itimpossible to explain the differences among different discourse form on achieving thesame speech act. This paper attempts to fully explain the implementation process ofrequest communicative intention based on the request communicative intention.This paper consists of seven chapters and an epilogue.The first chapter is Introduction, which focuses on identifying research positions,ideas and values. We investigated the problem about “why people communicate?” onthe level of communicative experience. Speaking, as a speech act, its motivation comesfrom people’s demands. People can choose a variety of ways to meet the demands, andcommunicative intention generated when we can meet the demands by using languageform. The communicative intention is the motivation to speak, there is no reason tospeak without communicative intention. Therefore, the process of request speechcommunication represents that: in a certain communicative context, the requesterchooses some certain discourse forms to realize the process of request communicativeintention, which is also my paper’s researching standpoints. The implementationprocess of request communicative intention is the process that requester establishes therelationship between discourse form and communicative intention. This processspecific performance in these five areas as follows:"communicative intentions--realization conditions—realization approaches--discourse form--discourse meaning".These five areas are interconnected and perform in the entire process of requestcommunicative intention. The value of this study is that: In theory, it extracted the core meaning from the content of discourse form-request communicative intention, Whichis really based on the experiences of speech communication. The proposition ofcommunicative intention has many functions: firstly, it provides a theoretical basis forthe construction of sentence system; Secondly, it abstractly generalized a principle todetermine the connection between discourse form and request communicative intention,namely, the realization conditions of request communicative intention. What’s more, itsystematically explains the process between discourse form and requestcommunicative intention as a whole. In practice, it also provides a theoretical basis forcoming true of the functional approach of teaching Chinese as a foreign language(TCSL) and language skills proficiency.The second chapter is the review of related theories. It reorganized the relateddomestic and overseas theories. The domestic studies on request speechcommunication mainly focus on two aspects: sentence category and its transfer. Theoverseas studies mainly centers on the problem about “how to deduce implication fromliteral meaning”. Their researches both refer to discourse function, realizationcondition, implementation strategy and discourse meaning, which are our startingpoints.The third chapter focuses on the forms structure of request communicativeintention realization. The subject of language studies is speech communication, whichis the process that speaker choose certain discourse forms to perform communicativeintention in certain text. From the point of social behavior, the process of speechcommunication can be abstractly generalized to be speech communication pattern.Regarding this pattern as a whole, the constituents contain four parts: requestcommunicative intention, addressor and addressee, communicative context, anddiscourse form. Every constituent is based on speech communication pattern andcorrelates with each other, they are interdependent instead of independent. In thisrequest speech communication pattern, the implementation structure of itscommunicative intention is expressed as “requester requests respondent to enforcebehavior X”. The request behavior structure is that requester requests respondent, andthe request event structure is that A enforces behavior X.The fourth chapter concentrates on the realization conditions. In theimplementation process of request communicative intention, we abstractly generalizedthe conditions which requester needs to satisfy and conclude the realization conditions of request speech communication, respectively reflects request behavior structure,request event structure, requester requirements, respondent’s will or duty, respondent’sability, and the constituents of behavior X. The collection of all conditions are the onlyprinciple to judge whether a discourse form have performed request communicativeintention or not. It stores in people’s long-term memory as a whole.The fifth chapter discusses the implementation process of request speechcommunication, which works around how to build discourse form and requestcommunicative intention. Therefore, when a discourse form identifies any realizationcondition, it will activate all realization conditions, then it accords withimplementation standard of request communicative intention and finally performsrequest communicative intention. The process of “Indentify--activate” is the realizationmechanism of request communicative intention.In the process of request speechcommunication, requester should always follow implementation principle no matterhe/she chooses what kind of realization conditions or which way to identify realizationconditions. What’s more, requester needs to follow the Relevance Principle andAdaptability Principle when chooses the discourse form to identify the realizationconditions of request communicative intention. The principle of relevance means thediscourse form must be related to request communicative intention, and AdaptabilityPrinciple means requester should choose the discourse form which matchescommunication text of request communicative intention. Requester chooses theapproach of request communicative intention condition under the constraints ofselection principle. The realization approaches of request communicative intentionmainly contains two respects: one is direct approach, which identifies the realizationcondition of request communicative intention by using structured language element.The other one is indirect approach, which means the connection between discourseform and the realization condition of request communicative intention goes throughsome midst link, leaving certain spaces to communicative subject’s inference, whichare realized through pragmatic presupposition, related cognitive schema of commonexperience, and request form motivating selection structure.The sixth chapter discusses the discourse form of request speech communication.The realization process of request communicative intention is to choose somerealization approach to indentify the realization condition of request communicativeintention. According to different identifying subject, we divide realization types of request communicative intention into four kinds: intention realization, demandsrealization, ability realization, and wish realization. The discourse form of request ofspeech communication is the process to symbolize the realization types of requestcommunicative intention, in which this paper mainly studies the discourse formstructure of request communicative intention, including the appear condition andmeanings of every constituent.The seventh chapter studies the discourse meaning of request communicativeintention. Communicative intention meanings consist of request communicativeintention and social-cultural meaning. The request communicative intention is the coreof discourse meaning instead of whole. As one part of the request discourse meaning,social-cultural meaning is building in the process of realization condition of requestcommunicative intention.The eighth chapter is epilogue. It discusses research prospective and deficienciesof this paper.