The Impoliteness Strategies In Doctor-Patient Conversations In House M.D.

Politeness and impoliteness are two common linguistic phenomena in human communication.In verbal communication,usually harmonious language users often use polite words as much as possible to express themselves,achieving the expected communicative purpose.Politeness,a linguistic phenomenon,has always been paid close attention to by a great deal of linguists and scholars,especially since Brown and Levinson(1978)put forward the politeness principle.However,impoliteness,which has been regarded as the breach of the politeness principle as well as the pragmatic failure in communication,has not been given due attention.Until 1996 Culpeper carried out a deep study on impoliteness,domestic and foreign scholars began to study impoliteness as an independent language phenomenon.Therefore,the present study attempts to explore the verbal impoliteness behaviors in doctor-patient conversations,the factors leading to the differences of impoliteness behaviors between doctors and patients and its pragmatic functions of verbal impoliteness behaviors,based on Culpeper's impoliteness theory framework,and taking House M.D.,a hot American medical drama reflecting the reality,as the research object.And the study can reveal the essential characteristics of this phenomenon,enhance mutual understanding between doctors and patients,promote the harmonious relationship between doctors and patients,and richen the research on impoliteness theory.The findings show that: 1)The five superstrategies proposed by Culpeper are all realized in the study.But three of output strategies for positive impoliteness and negative impoliteness have not been realized in the present study,that is,“Use inappropriate identity markers”,“Use obscure or secretive language” and “Explicitly associate H with negative aspect”.Besides,six output strategies are newly found in the present study,that is,“Criticize”,“Challenges”,“Shout to the other loudly”,“Doubt”,“Attack the other's relatives” and “Hinder/Block”.2)The impoliteness strategies employed by doctors and patients are different.Verbal impoliteness behaviors used by doctors occur more frequently than those used by patients.3)The main factors leading to the differences between doctors and patients in the employment of impoliteness strategies are the unequal power and status between doctors and patients.4)There are three main pragmatic functions of impoliteness strategies employed by doctors and patients,namely,affective function,institutional function and coercive function.