A Study Of Japanese Refusal Expression From The Perspective Of Pragmatics—Based On The Cooperative Principle And The Politeness Principle

This paper focus on the refusal speech act and selects teleplays which can more natural reflect Japanese as objects, chooses “refusal” conversations as research materials, and analyzes Japanese refusal expressions under the guidance of the Cooperation Principle and Politeness Principle from pragmatics perspective.Some conclusions can be obtained as follows:According to Cooperation Principle when people want to refuse somebody or something,they provide appropriate information to express the true refuse intentions, and their words related to the topic, with a crisp refused way. That is, when people face others’ “request,“invitation and “recommend”, they choose direct refusal expressions to indicate their refused intention according to Cooperation Principle. The direct refusal expressions such as “Don’t want go”, “ can not do” and “no” etc convey strongly refused meaning, lack concern for others, easy to damage the other’s face, and fail in politeness. The direct refusal expressions are used between tootsies in the case of the general. On the contrary, people often choose indirect refusal expression to make other people understand his refused intentions if the people is not closed to each other or under the formal occasion. Sometimes people deliberately violate Cooperation Principle and do not directly refuse because they consider politeness.According to Politeness Principle, people use indirect refusal expressions to politely express their refused intension to make the session in a harmonious atmosphere, in order to better maintain good relationships. Follow the “Tact Maxim” and “Generosity Maxim”, so that keeping others are damaged as little as possible, less to make their own benefit, when you want to refuse others, you may stand on other’s points and more consider other’s positions. Follow the “Agreement Maxim” and “Sympathy Maxim”, so that reaching an agreement with others and seek sympathy of feelings, use indirect refusal expressions to express an indirect denial euphemism meaning, maintain good relationships with others.All in all, Cooperation Principle and Politeness Principle are belong to the scope of humanrhetoric.Cooperation Principle can clearly convey the information and Politeness Principle keep the convey of language to be smooth. If people can reasonably apply Cooperation Principle and Politeness Principle, they will smoothly communicate with other people in daily life.