A Study Of Indirect Refusal Speech Based On Optimality Relevance Theory

Indirect refusal speech act is that the speaker implements a certain refusal act by using another illocutionary act. Though many researchers have studied refusal speech acts profoundly, which mainly focus on the classification of refusal strategies and the different use of refusal strategies in cross-cultural communications, researches on the production and interpretation mechanism of indirect refusal speeches are rare. Based on these shortcomings, this thesis makes a tentative research on the production and interpretation mechanism of indirect refusal acts under a new constructed model, bidirectional Optimality Relevance Theory(ORT) model.When mentioning ORT, we will inevitably involve in Speech Act Theory. Speech Act Theory regards language as a phenomenon of behavior, which belongs to behavioral science. Moreover, the studies that Austin and Searle have made are mostly part of behaviorism and socio-psychology. Thus, this thesis holds the idea that the term “refusal speech act” which extends to a too broad scope is not a suitable one for this thesis. Besides, because of personal limitation and paper-length, this thesis only concentrates on refusal speeches other than body languages and silence. According to the reasons listed, this thesis chooses the term “refusal speech”. One thing that has to be noted here is that several aspects of refusals have been made by Beebe et al.(1990), Liao & Bresnahan(1996), Ma Yuelan(1999, 2000) and so on, and they divide refusals into four categories: refusals to requests, refusals to invitations, refusals to orders and refusals to advices. Whereas this thesis only searches on refusals to requests because of the paper-length constrained.Optimality Theory(OT), as a main theory of phonetics in 1990 s, uses Generation(GEN) and Evaluation(EVAL) as two important mechanisms in producing the optimal output. However, this kind of model overemphasizes the objectivity of constraints in evaluating the optimal output without giving specific pragmatic processing method. Also, in regard to the explanation of pragmatic inferences, the weak version and the strong version that Blutner(2000) states bothhave their own disadvantages. The listed terms all lead OT to over-focus on objective constraints. While lacking a systematic and specific standard in processing the interpretation of utterances and vagueness in some key terms, Relevance Theory(RT) is considered as inaccurate in that it involves too much subjective factors. Based on these defects, Yang Zi(2008) in Fudan University has integrated these two theories to build an Optimality-based inferential model for relevance-theoretic(ROIM) to explain verbal communication. However, in this model, Yang Zi attempts to degrade the speaker’s intention, which is a key factor in interpreting utterances, to construct a unidirectional ORT model from the hearer’s perspective.Based on Yang Zi’s Optimality-based inferential model for relevance-theoretic(ROIM), this thesis makes a tentative trial to build a bidirectional ORT model by integrating Blutner’s bidirectional OT and Sperber & Wilson’s RT to analyze the production procedure of the speaker’s utterance and the interpretation procedure of the hearer. The operative mechanism is as follows: Based on Cooperation Principle(CP), the hearer makes an indirect refusal response, and the indirect refusal intention of the speaker is put into the GEN as the input. In the GEN, multiple candidates based on the speaker’s cognitive context and related refusal strategies can be generated. This thesis mainly borrows Yang Zi’s idea of stipulating constraints in GEN to evaluate the candidates that can make a difference to the contextual effects. Then the accordant candidates go into the EVAL, where many constraints like Polite Principle(PP), social and cultural relations and greater relevance will evaluate these candidates again. Until the hearer recognizes the speaker’s real intention through relevance does this optimal output be produced and does the whole process stop.Based on previous studies, this thesis tries to analyze the production and interpretation process of indirect refusals under newly constructed bidirectional ORT model. And this thesis adopts qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze the indirect refusals to requests extracted from the soap opera Desperate Housewives. During this analysis process, the major findings of this thesis are: the accessibility of contextual as a constraint in GEN affecting contextual assumptions is in proportion tothe frequency use of the information, and it also has something with the time of retrieving the stored information in the cognitive context, that is to say, the nearer the invoked time of the information is, the easier evoked it will be, vice verse. The process of utterance production and interpretation is not only a process of optimal but also a process of seeking for optimal relevance, which is also influenced by the communicators’ social relations. Last but not least, this thesis also holds that the process of the production and interpretation of optimal utterance is a process of seeking for the optimal relevance between cognitive effects produced by the accessibility of contextual assumption and the hearer.