The Forms And Functions Of Impoliteness In Chinese TV Program

Researchers whose early works are on "politeness" have provided a wealth of insight into the kinds of strategies for politeness. Brown and Levinson’s theory has attracted many followers and influenced the development of the study of politeness. As a common phenomenon of human communication, politeness has a great role in the linguistic study. However, there is not only polite utterance but also impolite utterance in real communication. Despite the fact that both politeness and impoliteness exist in communication, impoliteness has been largely ignored by most researchers or was seen as just the absence of politeness in previous studies. In recent years, some researchers have realized the importance of impoliteness in communication and attempted to study it.The present thesis, which is based on previous studies of impoliteness, attempts to probe into the phenomenon of impoliteness in Chinese communication with data taken from a TV program. Taking Culpeper’s Impoliteness Principle and Bousfield’s Impoliteness Principle as the theoretical foundation, the study tries to analyze the discourse in the TV program "You are the One" to reveal how people use the strategies of impoliteness. The aim of the study is to show the form and function of impoliteness in daily communication. The study consists of three parts:categorization of impoliteness, analysis of strategies used in the TV program to achieve impoliteness, and the functions of impolite utterances. Three types of impoliteness are found in this study:intentional threats to face, incidental threats to face and accidental threats to face. The impoliteness strategies are commonly deployed in TV program, including bald.on record impoliteness; positive impoliteness that covers snubbing, disassociating from the other, being uninterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic, seeking disagreement, doubt, and calling the other’s names; negative impoliteness which consists of hindering, interposing, and criticizing; off record impoliteness; and withholding politeness. Impoliteness in communication can be summarized as five functions:the role of showing power, negotiating relationships, entertaining, showing dissatisfaction and disagreement and showing intimacy.The data for analysis are4episodes of the program selected at random in2012and2013. The researcher watched these episodes repeatedly on the Internet and transcribed the utterances of4episodes in written forms to be the examples of the study. By exploring the impoliteness discourse in "You are the One", the study tries to enrich the study of impoliteness in China and contribute to a better understanding of such utterances. The findings are hoped to be of help to people to communicate more effectively.