Pragmatic Study Of Chinese Verbal Gift-giving Episodes

Gift-giving is a common phenomenon in human society.Since ancient times China had been claiming itself as “the state of rite”.In fact,gift-giving is always the focus of research in the academic fields such as anthropology,sociology or social psychology.However,in the field of pragmatics,theresearch of itis scanty.This thesis attempts to investigate how the verbal gift-giving episodes are co-constructed and negotiatedin the Chinese culture by adopting a post-modern/discursive approach to politenessand Chinese indigenous theory---Gu Yueguo's(1992)politeness theory.The data of this research were collected through observation sheets and the author's field notes.This researchreveals that1)Inthe Chinese gift-giving speech episodes,the linguistic sequences like offer-ritual refusal,offer-rejection,offer-initial acceptance,complimenting-downplaying,complimenting-acceptance,and non-verbalization of giftfrequentlyoccur.Among them,theoffer-initial acceptance sequence occupying 47.0%,tops the ratings,and thecomplimenting-downplaying(3.5%)and the offer-rejection(3.5%)occurwith the lowest frequency;2)Situations,age and social distance are very important factors in the interlocutors' choices ofthe linguistic sequences;3)The principle of sincerity cannot explain well the linguistic sequences like offer-ritual refusal and complimenting-downplaying;the principle of balance cannot only explain offer-ritual refusal and complimenting-downplaying,but also theother sequences as well;4)Politeness,unfolded in the co-construction of the verbal gift-giving episodes,is subject to the evaluation of the conversational participants.The study may not only enrich people's understanding of gift givingintheChinese culture,but also enrich the studies within the field of pragmatics and especially the post-modern/discursive approach to politeness.Further,it may enlighten those who engage in cross-cultural communication and the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language.