Linguistic Choices As Adaptation To Power

The present study focuses on how speakers employ different linguistic forms or communicative strategies to adapt to power in Chinese verbal communication. This is a qualitative pragmatic analysis based on the data collected from literary works, TV series and daily conversation. The conceptual framework is constructed on Jef Verschueren's (1999) Linguistic Adaptation Theory. The present study is concerned with the variability, adaptability and negotiability of linguistic choices as adaptation to institutional and contextual power for the achievement of a successful communication.Power relations, considered to be a main parameter in deciding the choices of linguistic forms and communicative strategies, change from situation to situation, and as a dynamic relationship rather than static one. As a speaker's power comes from various sources: rank, age, gender, expertise, money, knowledge and so on, and which source of power is the deciding one in our determination of linguistic choices depends on the situation.Language may reveal or reflect the power behind it. Language is a symbolic resource that speakers use to influence and control others. We shall consider how power is negotiated through everyday conversation and understand power as a dynamic, relational and consensus concept.The choice of linguistic forms occurs at all possible levels of linguistic structure, while the concept of communicative strategies means that communication is explicitly maneuvered by communicators and directed by communicative goals and purposes. Communication is intentional, thoughtful and manipulated. The concept ofcommunication strategies should be understood as the tactics that an individualemploys to maintain a positive relationship with his/her conversational partner so as to benefit from that relationship and to achieve his/her own communicative goals. Such strategies could be defined as strategies employing power sources. The purpose of the present study is to examine the influence of power relation on linguistic choices and to discover how communicators use certain communicative strategies and choose linguistic forms to adapt to different types of power. Furthermore, this study reveals the cultural factors and motivations lying behind these linguistic choices.