【作者】 赵文；

【导师】 何刚；

【作者基本信息】 华东师范大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2014， 博士

【摘要】 评价话语涉及说话人的态度和观点,说话人针对特定客体进行评价、表明立场。根据说话人的态度积极与否,评价话语可以分为正面／积极评价和负面／消极评价。本文拟从语用学角度探讨负面评价话语的基本特征,并结合特定语篇分析说话人实施负面评价时所遵循的原则及常用策略。评价研究引起了哲学、逻辑学、伦理学、系统功能语言学等多个领域的关注,而语用学角度的研究相对较少。语用学把评价作为一种言语行为进行分析,强调特定语境中评价话语的理解。评价话语可以通过具有评价意义的词汇、短语和句子结构得以实现。以往的评价话语研究主要涉及会话分析、评价的功能、评价策略等三个方面：会话分析着重研究与评价话语相关的话轮转换,总结常见的话轮类型；评价的功能重点分析作者或说话人通过评价话语表达态度和观点、劝说读者或听者的过程；其策略研究与面子、礼貌等概念密切相关,旨在分析作者或说话人选择的评价策略。然而,上述研究很少专门分析负面评价话语,所用语料多集中于书评、广告等书面形式,并且较少提及社会语境和文化语境。本研究针对负面评价话语,主要以SBC语料库、COCA语料库以及报纸中的口语语料为基础进行分析。所用理论框架主要涉及言语行为与语境研究(包括情景语境、社会语境和文化语境)、礼貌、非礼貌等相关的原则与策略研究(Leech,1983；Brown＆Levinson,1987；Culpeper,2011)以及Du Bois(2007)的立场三角。负面评价话语的基本特征分析涉及负面评价行为的分类、触发物、评价标准、评价强度、听者反应、评价的功能等多个方面。依据不同的分类标准,负面评价可以分为自评(针对说话人的负面评价)和评他(针对听话人或其他人)、真实和虚假负面评价、以及直接和间接负面评价。负面评价的触发物包括被评价者的外貌、能力、行为、性格、特定事物或状态等。评价标准涉及说话人的个人喜好、社会规范或行为准则、包括文化态度在内的文化标准等三个方面。说话人可以通过词汇手段或评价策略的选择实现不同的评价强度；负面评价强度与情景语境、交际双方的亲疏关系和权势关系、特定文化中负面评价的强制性等因素相关。负面评价在交际双方的互动中得以实现,听话人的参与体现为对负面评价话语的反应,如接受、反对或询问等。负面评价话语的功能主要包括表明负面态度、改变评价客体、与听话人拉近距离、以及获取权力。在负面评价基本特征的研究基础之上,本文选取Obama-Romney政治竞选相关语料,分析了这一特定语篇中负面评价话语的特征,并重点研究了说话人所遵循的原则及常用策略。说话人对原则的违背或不恰当的评价方式可能威胁说话人自己的面子,削弱负面评价的影响力。在Obama-Romney个案分析中,双方的负面评价主要基于两党之间的利益原则：(1)最大化自己的利益；(2)最小化对方的利益。在此原则指导下,说话人通常遵循有据可依准则、客观准则、道德准则及建设性准则。评价策略分析从策略类型、修饰成分、修辞手段、说话人的立场表达等四个方面进行。语料涵盖了七类策略类型,包括负面态度的明确表达、指出问题、提供事实或数据、预测将来、明确评价标准、要求改变、做出比较等。修饰成分可以分为内部修饰和外部修饰：内部修饰成分主要包括标记语和强势语,而外部修饰成分主要包括正面评价、引入成分和解除成分。修辞手段包括隐喻、典故、反问、嘲讽等。在实施负面评价行为的过程中,说话人同时进行着自我定位、对客体的评价以及与其他会话参与者的比较；说话人通过疏远对手、与听众建立一致性而实现自我的定位。本文探讨了负面评价话语的基本特征,并结合Obama-Romney政治竞选尝试了特定语篇中负面评价的原则和策略研究,是言语行为研究的有益补充。研究结果对人们恰当地理解和实施负面评价行为具有一定的指导意义。更多还原

【Abstract】 Evaluative utterances involve speakers’ expression of their attitudes towards certain entities. A speaker assesses an entity and takes a stance while making an evaluative utterance. In this process, the speaker expresses his attitudes on the pleasant-unpleasant dimension, which leads to the distinction between positive evaluation and negative evaluation. This dissertation employs a pragmatic approach to analyze general features of negative evaluative utterances as well as features, principles and strategies concerning negative evaluative acts in a specific discourse.Studies of evaluation have drawn scholars’ attention from fields such as philosophy, logic, ethics, and systemic functional linguistics, but those from the pragmatic approach are relatively rare. Pragmatics takes evaluation as a type of speech act and puts a great emphasis on evaluative utterance understanding. Evaluative utterances can be realized through words, phrases and sentence structures with evaluative meanings. Previous studies of evaluative utterances are mainly conducted from three aspects:conversation analysis, functions of evaluative utterances, and strategies for evaluative acts. Studies from the aspect of conversation analysis focus on turn-taking involving evaluative utterances with frequently occurring turns being listed. Analysis of functions focuses on the process in which writers or speakers express their attitudes through evaluative utterances, persuading readers or hearers to accept their opinions. Researches on strategies, which are closely related to concepts such as face and politeness, are conducted in order to identify writers’ or speakers’ choices of strategies.A review of these studies shows that specific ones centering on negative evaluative utterances are rare. Most of them are based on written data collected from book reviews or advertisements. Moreover, the social context and the cultural context have been partly ignored. This dissertation will focus on negative evaluative utterances with spoken data from SBC, COCA and newspapers. The theoretical framework covers speech act in context, principles and strategies concerning politeness theories and impoliteness studies (Leech,1983; Brown&Levinson,1987; Culpeper2011), as well as Du Bois (2007)’s stance triangle.Analysis of general features in the present study covers various aspects including types of negative evaluative acts, premises that arouse speakers’ negative attitude, criteria of evaluation, degrees of intensity, hearers’ responses, and functions of relevant utterances. Negative evaluative acts can be divided into self-oriented (negative evaluation of the speaker himself) vs. other-oriented (negative evaluation of the hearer or an absent party) ones, genuine vs. mock ones, and direct vs. indirect ones. Premises of negative evaluation mainly include a person’s physical appearance, performance, behaviors, personality traits as well as a certain entity or state. Criteria of evaluation can be personal preferences, social norms or conduct rules, and cultural standards that involve cultural assumptions. Speakers can adopt different degrees of intensity with their choices of lexical items and strategies. Intensity degrees are related to factors such as the immediate situation, distance or power relationship between participants, and imposition of negative evaluation in a certain culture. Negative evaluation is realized in interaction, which indicates the important role of hearers’participation. Hearers can respond to negative evaluative utterances in different ways such as acceptance, resistance, and asking for details. Through negative evaluative utterances, speakers can express their negative attitudes, change unpleasant evaluated entities, build solidarity with hearers, and gain power.Based on the analysis of general features, this dissertation also conducts a case study of the Obama-Romney interaction with a focus on principles and strategies concerning negative evaluative utterances in the specific discourse of political campaigns. A speaker’s violation of certain principles or choice of inappropriate strategies may threaten his own face and weaken the effect of negative evaluation. The most important consideration in American political campaigns is the interest maxim:(1) to maximize the interest of one’s own party;(2) to minimize the interest of the other party. Under the influence of this impetus, speakers tend to follow four sub-maxims:being well-grounded, being objective, being morally justified, and being constructive. Strategies of negative evaluative acts are studied from the four aspects of strategy types, modifications, rhetorical devices and speakers’stance-taking. Seven strategy types are identified in the present data, including explicit expression of one’s negative attitude, identification of the problem, presenting facts, predicting a bleak future, clarifying criteria of judgment, asking for change, and making a comparison. Modifications can be divided into internal modifications that mainly include cajolers and intensifiers as well as external modifications such as sweeteners, preparators, and disarmers. Rhetorical devices including metaphor, allusion, rhetorical questions, and mockery are frequently adopted. When performing a negative evaluative act, a speaker positions himself, evaluates the object negatively and aligns with other subjects. In the Obama-Romney interaction, the speaker tends to position himself by distancing from his rivals and building convergent alignment with the audience.This dissertation is complementary to speech act studies since it has explored general features of negative evaluative utterances and proposed a tentative way to analyze principles and strategies concerning negative evaluative acts in a specific discourse with data from the Obama-Romney interaction. Findings offer certain implications for participants in interaction, helping them understand and perform negative evaluative acts properly.更多还原