A Pragmatic Study On Mock Impoliteness In Tucao Discourse

With further studies on(im)politeness in recent years,a commonly seen but special type of discourse received much concern from scholars.It appears to be impolite on the surface but polite instead,which is called mock impoliteness.However,most researches on mock impoliteness are lack of deep exploring due to late and immature development and need to be dug further.Tucao,as a type of discourse going viral on the internet in an era of social media,has got its role in the language and gradually become the cultural landscape for its unique characteristics and effects achieved.After a range of gramaticalization,tucao is more defined as intentional impoliteness in a playful way.In tucao discourse,how the participants achieve interpersonal harmony while offending each other through tucao is worth discussing.This paper examines an under-researched phenomenon of mock impoliteness in the discourse of tucao under the context of Chinese variety show.Within the theoretical framework of Helen Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management theory,the research aims to explore the realization of mock impoliteness in tucao discourse,which is helpful for a better understanding of the role of mock impoliteness played in the maintenance of interpersonal relationship and benefits for improving communicating skills.Besides,the study expands the research field of mock impoliteness.Drawing on data from the first two seasons of Central Comedy Roast between the initiators of tucao and the target,the research tries to address the following questions:(a)How is mock impoliteness realized in tucao?(b)How does the target react to tucao?(c)What functions does mock impoliteness in tucao accomplish?Based on the corpus data I have selected and sorted out,the major findings are drawn as follows:Firstly,mock impoliteness in tucao discourse is realized in a dynamically bilateral interaction through initiating strategies and responding strategies.The initiators choose different strategies like the addressing strategy to initiate mock impoliteness through violating different faces and rights management,which are quality face,identity face,equity right and association right.Faced with the initiator’s tucao,the target chooses relevant strategies to respond,namely,accepting actively or passively,countering offensively or defensively and withholding.Secondly,mock impoliteness in tucao discourses fulfills three pragmatic functions,namely,constructing self-identity,reinforcing intimacy and entertaining amusement.The realization of mock impoliteness manifests that the participants involved in tucao belong to a certain group or circle with shared knowledge and ethos,thus they worked together toward a common interactional goal without causing real offense within the frame of mock impoliteness.Besides,as a variety show,the program of Roast is mainly targeted at creating collective amusement.In the interaction,the guests of speaker get the chance to show their oral skills and share with the audience something more real in their daily life rather than a stereotype in the shootings they have played.What’s,the guests can take the chance to give response to the bad reports of scandals about them on the internet to better construct their public image,which is significant for their career development given their role as a public character.Lastly,this paper examines mock impoliteness in tucao discourses under the context of variety show in terms of its initiating and responding strategies as well as pragmatic functions.It enriches the understanding of mock impoliteness in the discourse of tucao on theoretical level,laying the foundations for further studies conducted in more fields.On a practical level,pragmatic studies of mock impoliteness in tucao offers some implications for fostering the pragmatic competence of Chinese as second language learners.