A Study On Conversational Implicature Of C-E Tautologies: A Perspective Of Intercultural Pragmatics

Tautology has been a controversial topic in the field of rhetoric, philosophy, logic and even linguistics,because tautological utterances are thought to convey no real information. Yet, the use of tautologies is pervasive in our natural language, so this thesis focuses on the typical form of tautology X be X and a tentative study has been conducted on understanding conversational implicatures of Chinese and English tautologies in our natural language from the perspective of intercultural pragmatics.It is explored, at first, that tautology in Chinese and English has been used as a pragmatic strategy and implies conversational implicatures. In most cases an interlocutor will employ a tautological utterance to express his or her ideas or intentions in an indirect way so that tautology has such functions as conciseness, politeness and implicity and so on. According to Grice's Conversational Implicature Theory, this thesis discovers that the maxims of quality and manner are also violated besides the maxim of quantity while the cooperative principle and the maxim of relation are always observed in the use of tautologies. In the process of probing into conversational implicatures of tautologies, two categories are distinguished: generalized conversational implicatures and particularized conversational implicatures. What they are different from others is that conversational implicatures of tautologies all blatantly flout the maxims. Generalized conversational implicatures of tautologies in this thesis refer to those that are connected with syntactic structures, pragmatic rules of using tautologies and can be independent of contexts; those that must be dependent on specific contexts belong to particularized conversational implicatures. As far as generalized conversational implicatures of C-E tautologies are concerned, they share some GCIs with different expressive ways; furthermore, Chinese tautologies possess a wider range in use, more colorful meanings in implicature and more dependence on language structure in understanding them, which shows that the structures and implicatures of C-E tautologies are language-specific to a degree. The interpretation of PCIs about C-E tautologies is mainly conducted in dominant Chinese or American cultural context. Due to the differences of cultural value orientations in cross-cultural contexts, the same tautological utterance will be interpreted differently, which indicates that PCIs of C-E tautologies are of nationality. It needs to point out that the division of generalized conversational implicatures and particularized conversational implicatures is not absolute, and they are interchangeable with the degree of the dependence of contexts.The originalities of the thesis are shown in the following three aspects: (1) A new perspective. It is from the perspective of intercultural pragmatics that this thesis conducts the interpretation of conversational implicatures of C-E tautologies, which is a breakthrough of previous studies confined in the same culture; (2) A relatively systematic study. Previous scholars put emphasis on the study of PCIs of C-E tautologies while a relatively systematic and comprehensive analysis can be seen in this thesis, including both GCIs and PCIs of C-E tautologies which are categorized to the author's knowledge; (3) A unique method. It is unique how different PCIs of the same tautological utterance are interpreted from multiple dimensions of value orientations in intercultural contexts.Nowadays, with the increase of intercultural communication, such study will help communicators use language tactfully and effectively, improve mutual understanding and enhance intercultural communication competence, which deserves our great attention.