Shanghai International Studies University
A TENTATIVE STUDY ON CLASSIFICATION AND MOTIVATION
OF INDIRECT USE OF LANGUAGE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF
RHETORICAL PRINCIPLE
A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
By
Xie Qing
Under Supervision of Professor Yu Dongming
May 2009
Acknowledgements
I would like to take this opportunity to express my great gratitude to a number of
persons who help me a lot in this thesis.
First of all, I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Professor Yu Dongming,
who has helped me very much in the development and revision of this thesis. With his
illuminating and patient guidance, invaluable suggestions and instructive comments, I
can finally finish this thesis.
My sincere thanks should also go to Professor Mei Deming, Li Ji’an, Xu Yulong,
Feng Qinghua, Xu Haiming, Zou Shen, Zhang Jian, Zhang Qun and other teachers in
SISU, from whose lectures I have learnt a lot in terms of professional knowledge and
research methodology which are very useful for this paper and my future research.
I am also grateful to some of my classmates for their expert comments, friendship
and support during the writing of this thesis.
Finally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to my family for their encouragement,
understanding and support during my MA study. Their boundless love and support
have contributed a lot to the completion of this thesis.
i
!"#!$%&'()*+,-./0
1!/2345678&9:;<=>?(@A
BCD!EFGHABIF5JKLM-.NO5*
+G/PQR5STUVWXYZ[\2]*+^_=
DUV/2*+`abcdefghFijkAl<6
8)mnopqrst!uWvwqrxy)DzWM{
IF5?i|}!~!€!‚&&opƒLM/
„…†‡ˆ!‰ˆ!Š‹&opŒŽ…†5?zW~=-‘’D;
o“”•–Q)opqr—˜!)
;opƒLM9:
sAB!™š›œž;>?UŸGUV?`ab
c
”• ¡…†¢£¤v£;>?›¥¦§…†w8!
qk!{!¨©ª«6¬¤­£®¯?°±²¡³
¤v´U®¯? ;45µ³¤­´U®¯?"D;45
µ³! ¤¶´U$%78k ¤¶£·¯?k `¸…
†M6op¥¹!º|»-.k 6mnopqrk ¤¼£;
>?UŸ½¾¿:deU5À!op678¶
›Ÿ¤Á£–QÂÃ!UV?bRÄÅLÆÇiÈ
ɂ•£bc–Q…†(Êbc!ËNbc6ÌÍbcÄÅL‘’ÆÇi
ii
~!6ÎI’bc…†|}bc!Š‹bc6ÏÐѯbc¤¢£ÒÓÔ
Õ?ƖQ˜!Ö×6ØÙÚÛ
;
op; -.; bc
Abstract
Indirect use of language is a common phenomenon in daily communication which
means the speaker intended to say something indirectly. Researches on indirect use of
language are many. Great scholars Austin, Searle, Grice and so on who have given
some classic explanations of indirect use of language from mismatch between form
and function, different illocutionary acts or implied meaning in the conversation have
explained much on how indirect use of language was produced. However, they didn’t
explain why people should do this. Functional linguistics believes form is not
important as if we analyze utterance into words and phrases all utterances are
composed by same linguistic form. Analyzing motivations behind these utterances can
help us to understand utterances’ production and meaning better. And in Leech’s
rhetorical principle, utterance in conversation was regulated by certain principles in
order to achieve the pragmatic goal. People speak indirectly in order to be more polite,
decent, economy, interesting and so on. Rhetorical use of language not only includes
simile, metaphor, irony and so on such rhetoric, but also includes any modifies of
language in order to make a decent and successful communication. This study tries to
illustrate indirect use of language from the angle of rhetorical principles and gives a
classification of indirect use of language and motivations behind indirect use of
language with large number of examples.
This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one presents a general introduction to
the research, and it includes the definition, rationale, objective, data collection and
research method of this study. Chapter two provides a review of the relevant literature
iii
of the previous studies on indirect use of language. Part one reviews Austin’s
contribution to Speech Act Theory. Part two reviews Searle’s contribution to Indirect
Speech Acts and part three is Grice’s theory of Conversational Implicature. Chapter
three lays down the theoretical background of the research which includes basic
concepts of Pragmatics and Rhetoric, Halliday’s Functional Grammar theory and
Leech’s Rhetoric Principle theory. Chapter four analyzes indirect use of language with
examples and classifies indirect use of language into three types including convention,
figure of speech and conversational implicature. Chapter five is the main content of
our study which analyzes motivations of indirect use of language. Textual motivation
which intends to make the utterance itself more effective and interesting mainly
includes economy motivation, aesthetics motivation and variability-oriented
motivation. Interpersonal motivation which intends to make the communication more
harmony or decent mainly includes politeness motivation, irony motivation and
understatement motivation. Chapter six concludes major findings in this study and
puts forward limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.
v
Key words: indirect use of language; rhetoric; function; motivation
Contents
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ i
Abstract(Chinesee) ........................................................................................................ ii
Abstract(English) ......................................................................................................... iii
Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 2
1.1 The definition of indirect use of language........................................................ 2
1.2 The rationale of the study ................................................................................. 2
1.3 The objectives of the study............................................................................... 2
1.4 Data collection and methodology..................................................................... 3
1.5 Outline of the thesis.......................................................................................... 3
Chapter 2 Literature Review ......................................................................................... 5
2.1 Austin’s contribution to speech act theory ....................................................... 6
2.2 Searle’s contribution to indirect speech acts .................................................... 8
2.3 Grice’s contribution to conversational implicature ........................................ 10
2.4 Achievements and limitations of the past researches ..................................... 13
Chapter 3 Theoretical Background ............................................................................. 15
3.1 Rhetoric and Pragmatics................................................................................. 16
3.1.1 What is rhetoric .................................................................................... 16
3.1.2 What is pragmatics ............................................................................... 18
3.1.3 Similarity between rhetoric and pragmatics ......................................... 19
3.1.4 What can rhetoric do to understand pragmatics? ................................. 20
3.2 Halliday’s functional grammar ....................................................................... 21
3.3 Leech’s rhetoric principle ............................................................................... 23
Chapter 4 Classification of Indirect Use of Language ................................................ 28
vi
4.1 Convention ..................................................................................................... 28
4.2 Figure of speech ............................................................................................. 31
4.3 Conversational implicature ............................................................................ 33
Chapter 5 Motivations of Indirect Use of Language ................................................... 35
5.1 Textual rhetorical motivation of indirect use of language .............................. 35
5.1.1 Economy motivation ............................................................................ 35
5.1.2 Aesthetic motivation............................................................................. 39
5.1.3 Variability-oriented motivation ............................................................ 43
5.2 Interpersonal rhetorical motivation of indirect use of language .................... 44
5.2.1 Politeness motivation ........................................................................... 44
5.2.2 Irony motivation ................................................................................... 47
5.2.3 Understatement motivation .................................................................. 49
Chapter 6 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 51
6.1 Major findings and discussions ...................................................................... 51
6.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research ....................... 52
Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 53
2
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 The definition of indirect use of language
Indirect use of language means the speaker intended to say something indirectly.
Many scholars have their views about it. Here we take the definition of Grice’s. Grice
(1968:225-242) assume that a sentence uttered in context has both a sentence meaning
and a speaker meaning. Sentence meaning (or direct, literal meaning) refers to the
sense and reference of an utterance derived from the words and rules of syntax alone,
without any reference to the context within which the utterance occurs. In contrast,
speaker meaning refers to what the speaker intends to accomplish with the remark in
the particular setting. For example, in a certain context an utterance such as “Can you
open the door?” has a speaker meaning (the speaker is probably asking the hearer to
open the door) that differs from the sentence meaning (the speaker is literally asking
about the hearer’s ability to open the door). The speaker is thus performing the request
indirectly or using language indirectly.
Indirect use of language is not a rare thing.
For example: (1) A: Won’t you have more coffee?
B: I’d love to, but I have to get up early tomorrow.
B’s utterance is an indirect use of language which functions as an indirect refusal
to A’s question. In normal communication people have no difficulty to understand
such kind of words.
2
1.2 The rationale of the study
There are several reasons for choosing indirect use of language as the object of
the present study.
Firstly, indirect use of language is a common phenomenon in daily conversation.
Although a lot of scholars mentioned this language phenomenon when they studied
speech acts or figure of speech or related it to cultural background and do some
comparison work between different languages, there are few specific researches on
indirect use of language itself. In fact, there is much room for us to study the
phenomenon itself.
Secondly, the study of indirect use of language may help us to understand
indirect use of language better. Though people have conscious to speak indirectly or
understand indirect use of language, they don’t have much conscious why did they
say so or how many kinds of indirect use of language are there? The knowledge of
indirect use of language may promote our own use of it since the main cause to use
language indirectly is to reach a successful communication.
Thirdly, the study of indirect use of language may be of further theoretical
significance. Traditional pragmatic theories such as conversational implicature or
indirect speech acts have been accepted widely, but the explanatory power of those
theories cannot adequately explain this phenomenon of indirect use of language.
Therefore, a new perspective to explain this phenomenon is needed.
On the basis of above mentioned reasons, the present study is intended to shed
light on indirect use of language from the perspective of sociolinguistic.
1.3 The objectives of the study
Indirect use of language is a strategy which was used in conversation. From the
perspective of sociolinguistic, the present study tries to analysis indirect use of
language from its communicative goal i.e. functions of these speeches. Based on
previous studies of indirect use of language, the present study tries to answer the
2
following two questions:
1) How to classify indirect use of language?
2) What are the motivations behind indirect use of language?
1.4 Data collection and methodology
The present study mainly relies on the qualitative analysis of the data. The data
used in this study are mainly selected from spoken discourses both in English and
Chinese. There are four types of data in the present study. The first type of data is
from daily conversations; the second type of data is from literary works; the third type
of data is from mass media, such as TV plays; the last type of data is from the
examples collected by other writers in their studies. Altogether, I have collected 100
examples of indirect use of language.
Generally speaking, qualitative approach is mainly adopted in this study. From
sociolinguistic perspective, this study tries to analysis indirect use of language with
the hope that it will shed some light on this language phenomenon.
Quantitative approach is a necessary supplementation to qualitative analysis.
Preliminary statistical method is employed to classify those examples of indirect use
of language. For example, does this example belong to politeness use of indirect use
of language or economical use of indirect use of language or how many examples of
those examples of indirect use of language owing to politeness?
1.5 Outline of the thesis
This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one presents a general introduction
to the research, and it includes the definition, rationale, objective, data collection and
research method of this study. Chapter two provides a review of the relevant literature
of the previous studies on indirect use of language. Part one reviews Austin’s
contribution to Speech Act Theory. Part two reviews Searle’s contribution to Indirect
Speech Acts and part three is Grice’s theory of Conversational Implicature. Chapter
three lays down the theoretical background of the research which includes basic
3
concepts of Pragmatics and Rhetoric, Halliday’s Functional Grammar theory and
Leech’s Rhetoric Principle theory. Chapter four analyzes indirect use of language with
examples and classifies indirect use of language into three types including convention,
figure of speech and conversational implicature. Chapter five is the main content of
our study which analyzes the motivations of indirect use of language. Textual
motivation which intends to make the language itself more effective and interesting
mainly includes economy motivation, aesthetics motivation and variability-oriented
motivation. Interpersonal motivation which intends to make the communication more
harmony or decent mainly includes politeness motivation, irony motivation and
understatement motivation. Chapter six concludes major findings in this study and
puts forward limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.
4
Chapter 2 Literature Review
As a fairly common language phenomenon, indirect use of language has
attracted the attention of various lines of researchers. Most of them studied it from the
perspective of pragmatics concerning speech act i.e. from the mismatch between
language form and language function. Austin put forward speech act theory then
Searle raised indirect speech acts and Grice’s contribution to indirect use of language
is his famous conversational implicature. In this chapter, these related studies will be
5
reviewed.
2.1 Austin’s contribution to speech act theory
Mismatch between form and function of language was first put forward by
English philosopher Austin. Austin distinguished two kinds of utterance which are
constative and performative. Constative utterance is verifiable and it is either true or
false. Such as: China has a population of 1.3 billion. This utterance may be true or
false. While the performative utterance was used to perform an action, so it has no
truth value. They were used to do something. Such as: I do. In a wedding ceremony
this utterance was used to promise i.e. do something. So Austin successfully proved
that language has the function to do something. Austin thought as long as three
felicity conditions were possessed, an utterance is a performative. First, the speaker
must have the right to do this. A married man haven’t the right to say “I do” to a
woman. Second, the speaker must have the sincerity to say something. If people lie or
don’t comply with their words, they are not doing something. Third, people can’t go
back on their words. Then Austin tried to set up standards to distinguish which
utterances are constatives and which are performatives. He pointed out two syntactic
forms of performatives. First is “I+vp”. That sentence’s subject is “I” which presents
tense, declare mood and active voice. Such as: I promise to give you a job. Second
type is the passive form corresponding with the first type. Such as: Passengers are
required to cross the line by the foot bridge only. However, Austin’s syntactic standard
was not tight. Sentences likes “I take a cold bath every day.” belongs to the first form
but it isn’t a performative. And sentences belong to constatives can also used to do
things like performatives such as: Can you close the door? At last, Austin got the
conclusion that judgements of language function can not only based on the language
form. That is to say language form and its function are not compared with each other
strictly. We can use statements to command people to do something and we can also
use questions to state our feelings. Austin later on put forward three famous speech
act i.e. locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutioanry act. He thinks when
6
speaking people simultaneously carry out three acts most of the time and he thinks
these three acts were separated.
( ) locutionary act: the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and
reference
( ) illocutionary act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. in
uttering a sense, by virtue of the conventional force associated with it (or
with its explicit performative paraphrase)
( ) perlocutionary act: the bringing about of effects on the audience by
means of uttering the sentence, such effects being special to the
circumstances of utterance
(Levinson, 1983:236)
To be more specific, a locutionary act is the act of uttering words, phrases, and
clauses; it is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and
phonology. An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention; it is
the act performed in saying something, making a statement or promise, issuing a
command or request, etc…A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting
from saying something; it is the consequence of the utterance, or the change brought
about by the utterance; it is the act performed by saying something: getting someone
to believe that something is so, persuading someone to do something, etc. We can
make it easy by illustrating it with the following example:
(2) You have left the door wide open.
The locutionary act performed by the speaker is that he had uttered all the words
“you”, “have”, “door”, “open”, etc. and expressed what the words literally mean. The
illocutionary act performed by the speaker is that by making such an utterance he has
expressed his intention of speaking, i.e. asking someone to close the door. The
perlocutionary act refers to the effect of the utterance. If the hearer gets the speaker’s
message and sees that the speaker means to ask someone to close the door, the
speaker has successfully brought about the change in the real world he has intended to;
then the perlocutionary act is successfully performed.
7
2.2 Searle’s contribution to indirect speech acts
Speech Act Theory aroused great interest among the scholars in the 1960s and
1970s. One of the most notable was the American philosopher John R. Searle, who
had studied under Austin in the 1950s, and subsequently became the main proponent
and defender of Austin’s ideas. The most important contribution that Searle has made
to speech act theory is that he is the first one who put forward indirect speech act
theory. Searle’s Indirect Speech Acts (1975), draws attention to the fact that the basic
unit of human communication is not linguistic expressions, but rather the performance
of certain kinds of illocutionary acts, such as making statements, asking questions,
giving directions, apologizing, and thanking. Searle (1975: 60) defined indirect
speech acts as “cases in which one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of
performing another”. On some occasions, a speaker utters a sentence and means
exactly and literally what he says and the hearer is able to recognize the speaker’s
intention according to the hearer’s knowledge of the rules that govern the utterance of
the sentence but the majority of acts in everyday conversation and some written works
are indirect. Take “It is cold in here” for example, if the speaker only wants to tell the
hearer the temperature at the moment he was speaking, and then his language is direct
expression. But if his intention is to require the hearer to close the window, or fire on
stove, then his utterance is indirect. While uttering this sentence, simultaneously he
performs two illocutionary acts, one being statement and the other being command.
Statement is medium while command is his real intention.
Searle classified indirect speech acts into two types, namely conventional
indirect speech acts and non-conventional indirect speech acts. The former refers to
those illocutionary acts which are customarily used to make indirect speech acts, for
the speaker and the hearer may not be conscious of the fact that their intended or
interpreted meanings of this kind of utterances are the same as the meanings of literal
utterances. Take “Would you mind my smoking here?” for example, the structure
“would you mind…?” has been conventionalized to show politeness instead of simply
asking a question. The later, non-conventional indirect speech acts, refers to those
8
speech acts, which depend much more on the mutually shared background
information and the context in which the utterance is being produced. For example:
(3) A: Let’s go to the movies tonight.
B: I have to study for an exam.
The illocutionary force of refusal is not conventionalized but inferred from the
specific contextual background. The following statements can function as requests in
certain contexts:
(4) I’m going to take a nap.
(5) There is too much noise in here.
(6) I’m very tired now.
Searle proposed the ten-step reasoning for the appropriate comprehension of
conversation. He employed example (3) to show how to make inference:
In this short dialogue, the utterance of X serves as a proposal while the utterance
of Y constitutes a rejection of the proposal. Then, how is it possible for X to interpret
the utterance of Y as a rejection of the proposal? Searle (1979b) assumed that X will
go through ten steps to work out Y’s intention.
“Step1: I have made a proposal to Y, and in response he has made a
statement to the effect that he has to study for an exam. (facts about the
conversation)
Step2: I assure that Y is cooperating in the conversation and that
therefore his remark is intended to be relevant (principles of
conversational cooperation)
Step3: A relevant response must be one of acceptance, rejection,
counterproposal, further discussion, etc. (theory of speech act)
Step4: But his literal utterance was not one of these, and so was not
a relevant response. (inference from step 1 and3)
Step5: Therefore, he probably means more than he says. Assuming
that his remark is relevant, his primary illocutionary point must differ
from his literal one (inference from step 2 and 4)
Step6: I know that studying for an exam normally takes a large
9