A Pragmatic Study Of University Students’ Ostensible Invitation

Traditionally, researchers have focused themselves on the ideal, flawless use of language. However, the non-serious use of language does commonly exist in our life. In Chinese, ostensible invitation is a common phenomenon and also a communicative strategy used in daily conversation. It plays a unique role in social life. Therefore, systematic studies of ostensible invitation can not only enrich the study of this subject, but also provide hints for better communication and social harmony.On the basis of the achievements in the existing studies on both English and Chinese ostensible invitations, this study tries to explore the phenomenon from a more extensive perspective through analyzing the Chinese ostensible invitations within the Chinese context.The present study mainly aims to make a qualitative and quantitative analysis of ostensible invitation in Chinese. Through a collection of examples, the properties for distinguishing ostensible invitations from genuine ones are identified. For a speech act to be appropriately performed, certain conditions must be satisfied. Yet for the ostensible invitation, these conditions are violated. Though defective, this speech act is successfully performed. So it is analyzed how this speech act is successfully performed by violating the felicity conditions. Six strategies used by the inviter to indicate his ostensible intentions are analyzed in detail with typical examples. And the pragmatic purposes are also analyzed in the thesis.From the analysis of the data, we find that though male and female university students show some similarities in extending ostensible invitation, they present more differences. The similarities can be summarized as follows:firstly, dining is the common topic for both genders. Next, both male and female students prefer to extend ostensible invitation to the addressee who has high solidarity with him/her and seldom extend such invitations when there is low solidarity. Besides, the main pragmatic purpose for both genders is to show politeness. Gender differences can be concluded as follows:firstly, female students have a wider range of topics compared with male students and prefer more polite and tender words and expressions. Secondly, female students use more ostensible invitations to show sympathy and politeness, while males use more of them to control conversations. Thirdly, female students show higher sensitivity to social variables. Last but not least, females use more types of ostensible invitation strategy. These differences indicate that female students show more advantages in language performance and more politeness in social interaction.The research has both theoretical and practical significances. Through the analysis of ostensible invitation, theories of Speech Act, especially theories of ostensible speech act in Chinese culture and environment, can be enriched. Besides, the findings of this thesis may have significance and enlightenment for college students in cross gender communication. Also, the findings of this thesis may have practical significance and guidance for foreign students to acquire Chinese and increase the efficiency of social intercourse.