An Study Of Pragmatic Empathy In American Commencement Speech From The Perspective Of Linguistic Adaptation Theory

Based on Jef · Verschueren's linguistic adaptation theory,this paper analyzes the pragmatic empathy phenomenon in American Commencement Speech.Pragmatic empathy originated from the German word “Einfahling”,and it was firstly put forward by R Fischer(Robert Vischeer)in German aesthetics in the late 19 th century,and then was systematized and theorized by Ripps(Theodor Lipps).Empathy,which originally referred to the penetration of emotion,has transcended the field of aesthetics,such as sociology,psycholinguistics,cross-cultural communication,and linguistics.Japanese linguist Kono(Susumu Kuno)firstly applied the empathy to the study of functional syntax in linguistics.Then,Chinese linguist He Ziran(1991)firstly turned the empathy study to the field of linguistics,and put forward the concept of pragmatic empathy.He believed that empathy refers to: “verbal communication is emotionally the same as each other,can understand the intention of the other.” On the one hand,the speaker stands from the angle of the other to convey the message;On the other hand,the another puts himself in a position to understand the purpose of the speaker's speech and decode the message.Besides,empathy,as a very important language strategy,is often used by speakers as an important means to convey feelings in graduation speeches.The speaker is required to use pragmatic empathy from the audience point of view and to think about problems to achieve persuasion or language communication.This study will aim to explore the generation mechanism of pragmatic empathy in oral speech.Based on the analysis of previous studies,this paper attempts to use Jef ·Verschueren's theory of linguistic adaptation and the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods.According to the 2018 US News of American universities,the author selected ten speeches from the top 20 universities,and the speaker was unified as president.The purpose of this study is to answer the following three questions:<1>What are the realization forms of pragmatic empathy in American commencement speech?<2>What is the adaption mechanism of pragmatic empathy in American commencement speech?<3>What pragmatic functions does pragmatic empathy produce in American commencement speech?The study shows that the pragmatic empathy is the result of the speakers' conscious language selection.The author finds that the pragmatic empathy is mainly focused on three aspects: one is the first plural pronoun,the second is the second plural pronoun,and the third is the quotations,including the famous sayings and story.Besides,this study also make a detailed analysis of communicative context in American commencement speech and finds out that pragmatic empathy is a dynamic process of adapting to the psychological world,the social world and the physical world,the adaptation of mental world mainly is focused on the politeness to satisfy the communicator's desires and needs,as for the social world,it mainly shows that establishing the common social background with the graduates,lastly,as for the physical world,it mainly refers to the spatial adaptation and temporal adaptation.Moreover,based on the adaptation to the communicative context,this study also expounds the function of pragmatic empathy,and discuss the two major functions,One is the use of pragmatic function shows respect and politeness to the graduates and another one is to create a harmonious relationship between the speaker and listener.Finally,it is of great significance to study the phenomenon of pragmatic empathy in American college graduation speeches by using the theory of linguistic adaptation.In theory,this paper not only expands its application scope and research perspective.From the practical point of view,it is of great significance to promote the improvement of intercultural communicative competence,to help both sides to build a harmonious communication atmosphere and to achieve the purpose of communication.