A Contrastive Study Of Request Strategy From The Perspective Of Generation

Human beings are social beings. The more developed society is, the more vulnerable they will be. Thus, people need mutual help and cooperation so as to survive in the fast-developing society. Therefore, request, as a speech act that expresses the attempts on the part of the speaker to get the hearer to do something, is indispensable in our daily life, which may also be the reason why it is always popular in pragmatic studies. Studies on request strategies are plentiful and fruitful, but the relation between request and age is seldom touched. This thesis, based on previous studies on request, adopts DCT (Discourse Completion Test) as instrument, empirically studies the similarities and differences of the use of request strategies employed by four Chinese generations, and gives a tentative interpretation of the results with a comprehensive approach combining the Face Theory and Interdiscourse Communication so as to crystallize the discourse styles of different generations and better the generational communication.The global structure of the thesis is arranged as follows:Chapter 1 offers the orientation of the title, the motivations, the aims, hypotheses and the structure of the thesis.Chapter 2 addresses an introduction to the theoretical background to the current study of requests, they are the theories about requests, including the concept and criteria of request, request segments, request strategy, and modifications of requests; the studies carried out by scholars at home and abroad, including theoretical findings, CCSARP, the study on request and age, and review of Chinese scholars'studies on requests. Chapter 3 elaborates on the methodology design of the study, including the goal, hypotheses and method of the study. 12 scenarios encompassing the basic categories of real discourse in our daily life are developed for 144 subjects selected considering their maturity, education, hometown, gender and profession, and divided into four generations, i.e. the Cultural Revolutionaries, the Restoring Generation, the Sandwich Generation and the Me Generation based on the impact of significant world and national events at transitional points in life cycle.Chapter 4 presents and analyses the results of the study, including the general situation of request strategies employed in Chinese, request strategies relating to such variables as social distance, social power (dominance), controllability, age and sex; and comparison of request modifications used by different generations.Chapter 5 summarizes the major findings and gives a tentative interpretation of the findings. The major findings are: the direct strategy is the most widely used strategy in Chinese; different variables do have great effect on the use of strategies by different generations, but the variation of choice of strategies is irregular in exact terms. In interpreting the findings, a comprehensive approach combining Face Theory and Interdiscourse Communication Theory is adopted and proved successful.Chapter 6 presents the conclusion and the limitations of the study.