A Pragmatic Study Of Television News Programs In Dialect

This thesis is a pragmatic study of television news in dialect, which is all the rage at the time and is as much praised as criticized. It is the aim of this study to find answers to the following questions: What are the linguistic features of news in dialect? What are the advantages and disadvantages of news in dialect? How effective are dialectal news programs from the angle of pragmatics? What is the pragmatic mechanism behind the news broadcasts in dialect, and how are they adapted to the audience so as to achieve their communicative goal?The study is mainly based on a qualitative analysis rather than a quantitative one, with authentic data mostly collected from news in Wu dialect. After analyzing the data, we can see the specific style of dialect-adopted news in terms of diction, which is more informal and approachable. It differs from that of news in Putonghua in the following aspects: the preference for the use of onomatopoeic words, the conversion of idiomatic expressions into plain language, the repetition of some expressions with the same meanings, the adoption of specific local vocabulary, the preference to use questions in news lead, and the use of exclamatory and emotive words.Of all the approaches to television news in dialect, the pragmatic one is almost new. Enlightened by Jef Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, the author then intends to delve into the issue from a panoramic and dynamic perspective by taking into consideration linguistic, social, cultural, psychological and cognitive factors. The study finds that the reason why dialectal news programs receive praise is that they attempt to adapt to the mental, social and physical worlds of the audience, while at the same time the programs are challenged because they fail to adapt in terms of linguistic choice, audience circle and news coverage. In this study the latter is called'adaptive failure', which is a complement to Verschueren's Adaptation Theory in the opposite direction.An adaptive analysis of television news programs in dialect also highlights their pragmatic functions. The popularity in part lies in their shortening the pragmatic distance between news-tellers and viewers, enhancing communicative efficiency, and transmitting social and cultural information and additional messages.The thesis is just a preliminary study of the interpretative power of the Adaptation Theory used in dialectal news, thus further substantial researches are needed so that more light can be shed with regard to the issue in question.