The Study Of Deception From Sociolinguistic Perspective

Human society is a mixture of truth and deception (short for DEC). Vrij in 2001 describes DEC as a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue. To some degree, we can not deny DEC has already permeated into every corner of our lives. Because of the guidance of moral values, most of the linguistic studies are limited to truthful statement instead of DEC. Besides, the pioneers of the research of DEC focus on ethnic, psychological and social psychological fields since 1940s and 1950s. Actually, the linguistic study of DEC is still on the infant stage. In addition, most of the studies from the linguistic perspective concentrate on the pragmatic, semantic or cross-cultural fields. The author here aims to explore DEC from the sociolinguistic perspective by combing the qualitative and quantitative method to ensure the validity and reliability of this research.Generally speaking, this thesis can be divided into three parts.Part 1 dealt with the definition of DEC. The author discussed and complemented the pioneers'definitions of DEC. Here, we should notice that the priority in defining DEC lies in intention.Part 2 concerned with the analysis of the relationship between Cooperative Principle, and DEC. The author pointed out that DEC does not necessarily mean the violation of the maxim of Quality. The violation of other maxims can also produce DEC. The violation of the maxim of Quality does not necessarily give rise to DEC and hyperbole, understatement, irony, metaphor or even humor are all the fruits. The author also found that all the four varieties of the violation of CP can result in DEC.Based on the theory of male and female differences in language and power and solidarity, the author explored the differences between the male and female in terms of DEC in the third part by adopting the method of questionnaire and introspection. At the very beginning, the author put forward the following hypotheses. (1) Generally speaking, the author assumed that females are more inclined to utter the deceptive speech to the addressee's advantages.(2) Both males and females are more inclined to utter DEC to those with high social power and confide the truth to those who share high solidarity with them.(3) Females are more inclined to utter DEC to those with high social power than men.After the author carrying out the research of questionnaires, the results prove the above hypotheses. Then the author also explored other differences of the manipulation of DEC between males and females and drew the following conclusions.(1) When facing a dilemma of revealing the truth or offending others, men are more inclined to divert the talk by bringing new topics. To some extent, we can see men are more sophisticated.(2) More women will sometimes play a trick on others by manipulating DEC than men.(3) In terms of the forgiveness to the dishonest ones, there are no great differences between males and females.The study of DEC is of much positive value to social communication. On the one hand, the studies of DEC in domestic are new; on the other hand, what has been done in the paper is just a tentative probe into it. More achievements in this area are expected.