A Pragmatic Study Of Sentence-final Particles In The Representatives Of Cantonese

This is a pragmatic study of sentence-final particles(hereafter SFPs) in mediation interactions from the perspective of pragmatics as a linguistic regulation theory(LRT) proposed by Huo Yongshou(2004). The study aims at probing into how and why mediators utilize SFPs in the representatives of Cantonese such as “k?33”(嘅),“l?55”( 呢), “a33”( 啊), “w???”( ?) to regulate their interactions and maintain their social or interpersonal harmony. It tries to answer the following three questions:1. What SFPs do the mediators use in stating their viewpoints?2. What pragmatic functions do these SFPs carry out in the representatives of Cantonese?3. Why do the mediators utilize these SFPs to achieve their communication intentions?As a theory of linguistic regulation, LRT interprets how people employ language to regulate their social behavior, and thus maintain or enhance their social harmony involved therein. According to the theory, human interpersonal harmony is characterized by two general tendencies, harmony and conflict, which are composed of a scale. Language use as a form of this behavior performs to maintain a tension between the two ends. Occurring directly from the performance of speech acts, the conflicts are interactional---speech acts are considered in this theory as moves that consist of activity interactions. Since an activity interaction brings out along three dimensions---social, physical and psychological, conflicts are assumed to function on these three dimensions. Being metapragmatically aware that these conflicts are likely to threaten the progression of their activity interactions and the normal state of harmony, interlocutors employ linguistic devices to defuse or weaken them alongthese dimensions.This study analyzes how mediators use SFPs in the representatives of Cantonese as a means of linguistic regulation along the social dimension, which is motivated by the social conflicts. In the interactions, social conflicts of this kind often arise when the representative brings about a threat to the positive or negative face of the clients.In addition, social conflicts also relate to the mediators’ intentions. In order to defuse or avoid the possible conflicts, the mediators utilize SFPs in the representatives as a means of linguistic regulation to regulate their social behavior and manage or maintain harmony of different kinds involved therein, thus achieve their communicative intentions in the end.Based on LRT and Searle’s classification of speech acts, the study analyzed a corpus of 18 SFPs which were used 741 times in 185 dialogues collected from the mediation program The Peacemaker(HéShìL?o) from Guangdong TV Public Channel.From the analysis, it is found that the reason why mediators mobilize SFPs to regulate their illocutionary force is mainly because of the possible social conflicts. In order to avoid them, the mediators mostly utilize SFPs to mitigate or enhance the force of the representatives of their own. Meanwhile, their social behaviors are also regulated in the course of mediation. In this way, it places the interpersonal relationship and social interactions between the speaker and the hearer in a balanced state, so that it can manage or maintain the progression of the interaction and finally achieve their interactional intentions.With the conceptual framework of LRT, the author claims that SFPs in the representatives of Cantonese can be considered as a means of linguistic regulation and a pragmatic strategy. They function to regulate an activity interaction by mitigating or reinforcing the illocutionary force of speech acts so as to defuse or avoid possible social conflicts therein.