The Study Of The Complaining Speech Acts In Pygmalion

"Pygmalion" is one of the masterpieces of modern British realist playwright George Bernard Shaw. It is also an outstanding comedy in the world’s literature treasury. "Pygmalion" was once remade into a popular movie. Literary critics, film critics, ordinary actors and common people have different point of views toward the work. Over the years, many scholars have conducted various studies of "Pygmalion" from aspects of literature and translation, such as personality, language features, dialogue translation and so on. Only a few scholars have studied it from the perspective of linguistics, especially pragmatics. At present, there is little research about the characters’ speech acts especially the complaint language.This thesis attempts to study the main character’s complaints in "Pygmalion" with Politeness Principle, Face Theory and Face Threatening Act theory as its theoretical framework. Taking each character’s direct complaints and indirect complaints as clues, this thesis analyzes the realization modes of these two kinds of complaints of the main characters in detail. Through the analysis it is found out that the direct complaints the main characters use are below the level of reproach, expression of annoyance or disapproval, explicit complaint, accusation and warning, immediate threat; and their indirect complaints include straightforward condemnation, hint, expressing doubt and warning. Then taking different sentence patterns as clues, this thesis analyzes the sentence patterns of the characters’ complaints. It is discovered that the sentence patterns of their complaints cover declarative sentence, interrogative sentence, imperative sentence and exclamatory sentence. At last, this thesis also studies the factors affecting the implementation of these characters’ complaints. And it is found out that the factors that affect the implementation of these characters’ complaints include social status, social distance, expectations, temperament, level of education, the extent of damages suffered by the speaker.Studying the characters’ complaints in Pygmalion from the perspective of speech acts not only helps readers get a deeper understanding of the language features, the characters’ personalities and theme in Pygmalion, but also develops a new research perspective for studies of this work. Besides, using Politeness Principle, Face Theory and Face Threatening Act theory in pragmatics to analyze complaints in literary works will not only promote cross- branch study in the discipline, but also enrich and develop the application of Speech Act Theory. Therefore, this study has some significance.