| The Ordinary World is a one-million-word novel written by one of the most renowned Chinese realist writers Lu Yao.The novel reflects the historical changes in the rural areas of the northwest China,records the youngsters’ life struggles in the early days of reform and opening up,and praises the protagonist’s spirit of hardworking in the face of hardships.Lu Yao obtained The Third Mao Dun Literature Award for its extensive and far-reaching social influences.Impoliteness has always been marginalized in pragmatics field.Although there have been many new features and perspectives in pragmatic research in recent years,the impoliteness phenomenon in the Chinese context has not attracted enough attention from researchers,especially the application of impoliteness theory to the study of Chinese literary works.Based on Bousfield’s(2008)impoliteness framework,this study makes a qualitative analysis of the exchanges among characters in The Ordinary World and explores the impoliteness phenomena and its pragmatic functions,including the usage of impoliteness strategies,the responding response strategies,and the pragmatic functions of each impolite utterance.The main findings of the present study are:(1)Bousfield’s(2008)impoliteness framework is suitable for analyzing the impolite phenomena in this novel,and the characters mainly deploy twelve impoliteness strategies,among which the most frequently used one is Challenges;(2)The impoliteness response strategies in this study mainly include acceptance,offensive strategies,and defensive strategies,of which are offering an account,pleading with kinship,showing one’s stance;(3)There are three pragmatic functions of impoliteness: impoliteness as power identity construction,impoliteness as moral denunciation and impoliteness as a cultural index.The impolite discourses in the novel are to construct the authoritative identity of the speakers as a patriarch;to demean others for their immoral misconduct and to reflect the regional culture characteristics. |
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