Reflections On Principles Of Verbal Communication In Harmonious Circumstances And Their Implications For Teaching Speech

This thesis aims at enhancing harmony of verbal communication (VC) through probing into existing principles of VC that are most necessary to harmonious circumstances. On the basis of previous relevant studies, and through studies of concepts like cooperativeness, politeness, face and harmony, it is expected to deepen the understanding of the terms and exert a subtle influence on the using of them and enhance harmony of VC. This thesis continues to reason out other principles of VC proving to be the most adaptive to harmonious circumstances. Then, it draws implications for teaching speech from these principles. Finally, the author generalizes the harmony principle from these principles. The harmony principle has a super-ordinate principle which says "To achieve harmony of VC, participants maintain harmonious mentalities in VC". It has six maxims: "To achieve harmony of VC, participants maintain harmonious mentalities of: being benevolent; being cooperative; being polite; managing to maintain face of both sides; trying to make VC pleasant and both sides willing to communicate; raising intercultural awareness, tolerating and respecting cultural differences."The thesis constructs a terrace for the comprehensive study of the integration of harmony and VC by reasoning out the harmony principle. However, factors influencing VC are multiplex; and it is complicated work to achieve harmony of VC, which involves many elements such as human mentalities, language and culture.Furthermore, there exist great and various differences in standards of evaluation of harmony with its relevant dimensions in different cultures and different times. Hence, this study is only a limited tiny part of an iceberg—the integration of VC and harmony.The whole thesis consists of seven chapters.Chapter 1 is Introduction, raising the topic, pointing out the purpose and significance of the study, putting forward research questions, and introducing research methods and the organization of the whole thesis.Chapter 2 is Literature Review, focusing on the studies of Grice's Cooperative Principle and Leech's Politeness Principle and politeness phenomena in a broad sense home and abroad.Chapter 3 is Theories towards VC and main existing principles of VC, focusing on Grice's Cooperative Principle and Leech's Politeness Principle and other principles which are presumed to be necessary and adaptive to harmonious circumstances.Chapter 4 is Reflections on principles of VC in harmonious circumstances. It first gets to the bottom of the definition of "harmonious circumstances" and the meanings of the term "harmony", then probes into harmonious elements within linguistic systems and their implications for harmony of VC. Finally, the author rethinks Grice's Cooperative Principle and Leech's Politeness Principle and other principles and draws implications, from which and many other angles of view (mainly the essence of "harmony") other principles presumed necessary to VC in harmonious circumstances are reasoned out.Chapter 5 is Implications of principles of VC in harmonious circumstances for teaching speech. The conclusion is drawn that human mentalities that determine interpersonal harmony are crucial factors to harmony of VC.Chapter 6 is Discussion. This chapter first discusses the advantageous and disadvantageous factors of the principles of VC in harmonious circumstances. Then, the principles of VC in harmonious circumstances are summed up and the harmony principle is generalized from them.Chapter 7 is Conclusion, summing up the contents of the whole thesis, giving answers to all the questions raised in Section 1.3. Then it points out the limitations of the study, and gives suggestions for further research.