Choice Making And Adaptation

Intertextuality refers to relationships among texts. As a basic feature of text, it has been taken into investigation by literary critics and discourse analysts for a long time. Making a general survey of these studies, it is found that most of them have been done to describe the manifestation of intertextuality. However, few researches have been made to probe into its generation. PAIANJINGSHI, as a type of TV legal program with the extremely high audience rating, has many intertextual elements which harmoniously co-exist. For the sake of elucidating the generation of intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI, this paper attempts to make a tentative study on it in terms of the Perspective View of Pragmatics.The key theoretical goal of this thesis is to inquire into the generative mechanism of intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI. A qualitative method adopted in this research is on the basis of the chosen data from PAIANJINGSHI which belongs to TV legal programs. The theoretical basis emerges from Jef Verschueren's the Perspective View of Pragmatics, involving language, society, culture and cognition, which states that language use is the process of making linguistic choices and the language user can make linguistic choices continuously due to the properties of language consisting of variability, negotiability and adaptability. Variability defines the range of possibilities from which choices can be made. Negotiability indicates that all the linguistic choices are made with the guidance of highly flexible principles and strategies. Adaptability can make the language user select the negotiable linguistic choices from the range of possibilities for the communicative aim.Intertextuality, as a linguistic phenomenon, is the result of language users'linguistic choice making. Firstly, variability of language is the precondition of the generation of intertextuality. Moreover, intertextuality is generated in the dynamic process of negotiation in which linguistic choices made by language users should adapt to contextual factors so as to fulfill the communicative needs. To be specific, we make a comprehensive interpretation of the generation of intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI in terms of the three aspects as follows: first, intertextuality is generated because linguistic choices made by the text producer in the text production should adapt to context factors which consist of the communicative context and the linguistic context. The communicative context relates to the adaptation to the mental world like the text producer/interpreter's desires, motivations or intentions; the adaptation to the social world including culture and other social dimensions; the adaptation to the physical world involving time and space; the linguistic context refers to the adaptation to discourse topic, sequencing and cohesion. Second, intertextuality is the product of the dynamic process of negotiation. In the text production the producer has to make the continuous negotiation so that linguistic choices adapt to contextual factors. Thus, the generation of intertextuality is realized in the dynamic process of negotiation. Third, the generation of intertextuality certainly concerns the psychological motivation of the language user. Intertextuality, as the result of the linguistic choices making, is not made by the text producer with the same degree of consciousness. Some are made unconsciously, but others are made with the definite motivation. Finally, it can be concluded that intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI is the product of adaptation to the dynamic process of negotiation in which linguistic choices made by language users with the degree of consciousness should adapt to contextual factors (communicative context and linguistic context).This thesis is incorporated into five chapters:Chapter One is an overall introduction. First, it introduces the rationale and research questions of this paper on the basis of the research background, and then methodology and data collection are illustrated. Lastly, the research significance is exposed.Chapter Two is literature review. Synchronically, we discuss the origins of intertextuality. Diachronically, we give a brief review on the previous studies on intertextuality in linguistics. Then, we summarize the limitations of the previous studies.Chapter Three is theoretical framework developed from the Perspective View of Pragmatics proposed by Jef Verschueren. First, we briefly interpret the Perspective View of Pragmatics and some key terms, and give an introduction of intertextuality and the classification of it in this paper. Then, we posit the theoretical framework of this paper, aiming at disclosing that variability is the precondition of the generation of intertextuality and intertextuality is generated in the dynamic process of negotiation in which linguistic choices made by language users with the degree of consciousness should adapt to contextual factors for the sake of the communicative needs.Chapter Four is the interpretation of intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI. Firstly, we give a qualitative analysis of intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI and demonstrate its manifestation in accordance with specific intertextuality and generic intertextuality. Secondly, in the light of the manifestation, we make a comprehensive interpretation of the generative mechanism of intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI with the guidance of the theoretical framework. Finally, it can be found that intertextuality in PAIANJINGSHI is the product of adaptation to the dynamic process of negotiation in which linguistic choices made by language users with the degree of consciousness should adapt to contextual factors.In Chapter Five, the conclusion points out the major findings, the limitations and the implications of the research.