Background Information
This section gives a brief introduction to some basic, but important, concepts that we should learn about before starting to use this website. In addition, politeness principles and cultural values that underlie appropriate communication in Chinese are also briefly explained here to prepare us to understand well about the website content.
Intro to Pragmatics
When we learn a foreign language, we usually pay close attention to "grammar," but what is "pragmatics"? Is "pragmatics" important for our language learning?
If "grammar" relates to the accuracy of language, "pragmatics" is concerned with the appropriateness of language use in everyday communication (Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei, 1998). To become competent in a foreign language, learners need to acquire not only grammatical accuracy but also pragmatic appropriateness.
Given specific situations and interlocutors, how do we choose and vary our expressions in order to appropriately convey our intended meanings? This is what "pragmatics" addresses. For foreign language learners, we definitely don't want to offend other people during communication. Instead, we hope to successfully and appropriately communicate our meanings when speaking with native speakers. So it is necessary for us to learn about "pragmatics."
It has been reported that pragmatics instruction has been given insufficient attention in language classrooms for a variety of reasons, such as limited time and resources. Nonetheless, it is important to teach students pragmatics in order for them to learn to interact in a way that is both linguistically accurate and pragmatically appropriate.
Intro to Speech Acts
One of the most researched areas in the field of pragmatics is the "speech act." When we are saying something, we are actually doing something; in other words, we do things with words. For example, when we say “congratulations” to a person, we actually have completed the act of “congratulating” at the same time. This is where the term "speech act" comes from. Explained briefly, “speech acts” are utterances through which speakers intend to complete certain actions.
There are different types of speech acts that we frequently hear and produce in our daily life, such as greeting (e.g., "How are you doing"), thanking (e.g., "Thank you"), apologizing (e.g., "I am so sorry") and requesting (e.g., "Could you please help me have a look at it"). It is not hard to see that speech acts are basic components of our daily expressions, so appropriate use of these speech acts should be of great importance to our everyday communication.
Appropriate use of speech acts not only includes knowledge about the language system (e.g., linguistic strategies), but also relates to how to use the language in a way that is expected in the given culture (e.g., pragmatic principles). These two parts are both important and will be elaborated later on this website.
Intro to Pragmatic Failure
If we fail to appropriately communicate our meanings in daily communication, it is called "pragmatic failure." Pragmatic failure can be classified into "pragmalinguistic" and "sociopragmatic" failure, which are important concepts for the learning of pragmatics.
Pragmalinguistic failure refers to errors caused primarily by incorrect use or choice of strategies (i.e., expressions used to realize a certain speech act) (Tateyama, 2008). For example, using a thanking strategy that is commonly used in American English, but never used to express gratitude in Chinese will definitely cause pragmalinguistic failure. However, grammar mistakes involved in the strategies generally will not be counted as such failure.
Sociopragmatic failure, on the other hand, is concerned with errors mainly caused by inappropriate assessment of contextual factors in a given language. If we assess the contextual factors in a way that is not expected in the target language, sociopragmatic failure occurs. For example, native speakers of Chinese rarely express their gratitude explicitly to their parents for a small favor. So saying 谢谢 (xièxiè, thanks) in this situation would constitute sociopragmatic failure.
Thinking: What pragmatic failure have your encountered or made before? Is it pragmalingusitic or sociopragmatic failure?
Intro to Social Variables
According to Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory, three universal social variables that affect how speech acts are performed have been identified. That is, social distance, power, and rank of imposition.
Social distance (D): different degrees of familiarity between interlocutors. For example, family members vs. strangers.
Power (P): “the degree to which Hearer can impose his own plans and his own self evaluation at the expense of Speaker” (p. 77). For example, boss vs. subordinate
Rank of imposition (R): it varies across different speech acts. Take expressions of gratitude for example; it means the relative extent of obligations based on which speakers should express their thanks to hearers.
Intro to Politeness in Chinese
Everyday communication and performances of speech acts in Chinese are deeply influenced by underlying politeness principles and cultural values in Chinese, which differ distinctly from the western politeness principles. This section gives a brief introduction to the politeness principles and cultural values that are closely related to appropriate communication in Chinese.
The most approximate Chinese word to the concept of politeness in English is limao (礼貌) which originates from the old Chinese word “li” formulated by Confucius. “Li” refers to social hierarchy and order (Gu, 1990). Traditional Chinese society is hierarchical, and everyone acts according to the social position/status where a person is within the society and thus hierarchical differences are highly valued. Based on the traditional notions of “li,” power-oriented social relationship has been rooted in Chinese culture. In other words, power or authority is highly respected. For example, at universities, students hardly question their teachers/professors and show great respect for authority; in companies, staff members always comply with their leaders /directors.
According to Gu (1990) and Bi (1996a), there are four notions underlying Chinese conception of limao, i.e.,politeness in Chinese nowadays, including respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth, and refinement. The notions of respectfulness and attitudinal warmth basically refer to the self’s demonstration of admiration, respect, consideration, and kindness to others. In other words, what counts as a polite behavior is to think from others’ perspective and to show understanding and consideration to others. On the other hand, the notion of modesty is understood as self-denigration, i.e., denigrating self and elevating other; while refinement is to modify the self’s behaviors for meeting certain standards.
To summarize, the core of politeness in Chinese is to show care, consideration, and respectfulness to others while requiring modesty and refinement of the self.
Review
The following consists of a basic Review of the ideas here.
