曹文妍开题报告定稿

邯郸学院外国语学院School of Foreign Languages of Handan College 论文题目：英汉拒绝语的对比研究Title： A Contrastive Study of English and ChineseExpressions in Refusing专业：英语指导教师：韩淑英班级：2011级英语专接本班学号：20110120021038姓名：曹文妍日期：2012年12月16日I. Introduction1.1 Research MotivesWith the rapid development of the society, people from different cultures have more communication with each other. Thus intercultural communication has become a increasingly important subject to college students, especially the foreign language majors. In international communication, we should know the other side‟s culture so that we can avoid unnecessary trouble and make the communication proceed smoothly. Refusal is an essential part in our daily life. Due to the different cultural backgrounds, Chinese and westerners may take the same or different refusal strategies. If we do not pay attention to cultural differences and make refusal improperly, the refused side will feel confused or even angry, which may cause misunderstanding, and the relationship between the two sides may not well maintained. To avoid misunderstanding in international communication, this thesis would give an analysis on the expressions in refusing between Chinese and English, the underlying cultural factors will be included in the thesis as well.1.2 Literature ReviewIn order to have a more complete picture about the issues I am examining, I decide first to do a state-of-the-art type of study, and then see what has happened in this area over the past years.In recent years, international communication has drawn much attention of scholars both abroad and at home, especially in the pragmatic field. Foreign scholars have made some investigations on refusal from different angles and among different languages.It is philosopher Austin who originally introduces “speech act” to the world in 1962. He believes that to say something is to do something. In his work How to Do Things with Words, Austin analyzes the relationship between utterances and performance. Utterances are used not only to describe affairs, but also things. He considers speech act as all the things we do with words. We use language to make apology, compliment, refusal and many other things. According to Austin, when a speaker is issuing an utterance, he/she can perform simultaneously with locution, illocution and perlocution. He believes that any illocutionary act is conventional, which could be made clearly by the performative formula. Accordingly a refusal would be conventional in the sense by saying “no”, “I don‟t want…” and so forth.Rubin is the first one to make study on refusals in her How to Tell Whe n Someone Is Saying “No”Revised published in 1983. She lists nine indirect strategies of refusing, and each strategy is offered with concrete examples. She proposes these strategies of refusal are found in every culture. Rubin‟s researchalso focuses on the acquisition of communicative competence of appropriately producing and understanding refusals encountered by non-native speakers of a certain language. In her opinion, one should have the desire to acquire communicative competence on refusing.Beebe, Takahashi, and Ulissweltz have made an investigation on refusal speech act published in their Pragmatic Transfer in ESL Refusals in the year 1990.In their study, they have concluded that social factors affect people‟s behavior on refusal. When confront with those who are in higher status, the Japanese tend to use more expressions of regrets than the Americans, and they more often shift styles than the Americans. Another distinction lies in refusal patterns, the Americans are likely to start their refusal with positive words such as “I am glad to…”, and then followed by their regrets and reasons to refuse. This refusal strategy can be called “general acceptance with excuse”. While Japanese often express their refusal first with regrets or apologies, and then list their reasons.In the same article, they also mention that for many non-native speakers, refusal is a major cross-cultural “sticking point”. As differences might exist between two cultures, the speech act of refusal can be different as well. If non-native speakers do not know how to refuse in another cultural environment, they may transfer their native culture‟s strategy to make a refusal, however, their behavior might lead to misunderstanding to the target community.In “Modal expressions as facework in refusals to comply with requests: I think I should say …no‟ right now” written in 1997 by Turnbull & Saxon, an important interpersonal goal of refusers should be set up, which request the refusers to portray themselves as caring individuals who do not want to offend the requesters even though they are refusing their request. For instance, when someone wants to refuse an invitation, he/she can say “I have to work then”. With this indirect way of refusal, the speaker not only make a refusal, but also list his/her reasons, and the words “have to” can intensify the necessity for refusing. This produces an effect that the speaker is reluctant to refuse but has no choice.Chinese scholars have made more comparative studies on refusal between Chinese and western languages than foreign scholars. In “Refusal Realization P atterns in English and Chinese”, published in 2001, Wang Aihua proposes the formulaic expressions of refusing usually consist of three parts, these are the head act, the assisting act and modifiers. Sometimes, just a head act or a modifier can express refusal. Head act is to express refusal attitude directly or indirectly. In Wang‟s findings, she concludes twelve forms of head act. Assisting act is to soften the hardness of refusing. The modifiers are usually address terms, first name, endearment term or title plus surname. Ms. Wang also points out the hardnessof refusal can also be softened by question sentence, rhetorical question, emphatic sentence or changes of verb tenses. Lexical choices such as intensifiers or down-graders can also soften the hardness of refusal.Chinese scholar Yao Jun has made an investigation in Fudan University in 2003 for her “Reflections on the Difference between Western Culture and Chinese Culture from a Contrastive Pr agmatic Study on Refusal Strategies”. In her study, she finds that in China there is a common way to make polite refusals, that is address term with apology and reasons. In practical communication, refusing is a face-threatening act to the Chinese, people always consider politeness when they refuse others, and try their best to satisfy the other‟s face to the greatest extent. Yao displays some refusal strategies that the Chinese are likely to adopt. These are postponement, offering an alternative, giving explanation, saying I am sorry and so on. She also points out that how polite an utterance is depends on the size of imposition that the addresser has brought and the degree of the addressee‟s tolerance.Chen, Shu-chu has made an survey via questionnaires for his Interlanguage Refusals: A Cross-Cultural Study of EFL Learners in Taiwan and Native Speakers of American English in the year 2007. His research objects include three types: the Chinese native speakers, the English native speakers and the English as a foreign language learners, 40 respectively. His purpose is to find out both similarities and differences in the realization of refusal in different cultures. The result shows that all the three groups are likely to use indirect refusal strategies. To varying degrees, social status factor has a great influence on the three groups‟performance. Mother tongue has a negative effect on the EFL learners‟ performance.Chang Wan expresses her idea in her work “A Cross-cultural Study on the Refusal Speech ACT Between English and Chinese” in 2010. She believes that in our daily communication, it is hard to avoid refusing other people‟s request, invitation, suggestion and other actions, which might make others feel losing face. So refusal can be regarded as FTA (face-threatening act) in linguistics. People tend to use polite language strategies to soften the degree of threatening. Different cultural backgrounds may lead to different strategies. The Chinese are inclined to use indirect refusal strategies, while the Americans are apt to direct strategies. Different status also lead to different strategies.1.3 Existing ProblemsBased on the results of some initial reading and personal reflection, I find that there exist some problems that have not received a due treatment in this field. As mentioned above, refusal speech acthas attracted many scholars‟attention. It is explored from different aspects. While according to the former studies on refusal speech act, I find that some of the studies are focused on the structure or the conformation of refusal strategy, some occupy a relatively minor place. There is merely a study on refusal that is of sound and thorough exploration. So there should be a further study on the refusal speech act.1.4 Research FocusesAt the present stage of my research, I select the following relationships and factors as some potential research focuses for me to concentrate on in my further study of the issues identified so far. By means of illustration, contrastive and detailed analysis, my research will focus on the following three aspects: similarities of refusal between English and Chinese, differences of refusal between English and Chinese and the underlying cultural factors that may cause the similarities and differences.II. Outline2.1 Similarities of Refusals between English and Chinese2.1.1 Preferring Indirect Refusals2.1.2 Being Ready to Give Reasons2.1.3 Taking Regret or Apology as Part of Refusal2.1.4 Tending to Offering Alternatives2.2 Differences of Refusals between English and Chinese2.2.1 Differences in Utilization Rate of Direct and Refusals2.2.2 Differences in Refusal Types, Content and Tone2.2.3 Differences in Formulaic Expressions of Refusal2.3 Underlying Cultural Factors on English and Chinese Refusals2.3.1 Chinese Collectivism VS. Western Individualism2.3.2 Chinese Confucius‟s Ranking Theory VS. Western EqualityIII. Conclusion ExpectedAs refusal is an essential part in our daily life. This thesis aims to help people to have a better understanding of the similarities and differences in the performance of refusal speech act by Chinese and westerners, and guide them to choose proper refusal strategies and avoid misunderstanding in theirinternational communication. To get a rough idea about the Chinese and western culture is another aim of the thesis.IV. BibliographyAustin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words?[M]. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962.Beebe, L. M., Takahashi, T. & Ulissweltz. R. Pragmatic transfer in ESL Refusals[C]. New York: Newbury House, 1990.Brown, P. & Levinson. S. Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena[A]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.Chen, Shu-chu. Interlanguage Refusals: A Cross-Cultural Study of EFL Learners in Taiwan and Native Speakers of American English [D]. Taiwan: National Chengchi University, 2007.Leech, G. N. Principles of Pragmatics[M]. New York: Longman, 1983.Levinson. S. Pragmatics[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Lyons, J. Semantics[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.Rubin. How to Tell When Someone Is Saying “no” Revised[C]. London: Newbury House Publishers, Inc.,1983.Turnbull, W. & Karen L. S. Modal expressions as facework in refusals to comply with requests: I think I should say “no” right now [J]. Journal of Pragmatics,1997.常婉. 英汉拒绝言语行为的跨文化研究[J]. 长春工业大学学报, 2010.何兆熊. 语用学概要[M]. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社, 1989.贾玉新. 跨文化交际学[M]. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社, 1997.王爱华. 英汉拒绝言语行为表达模式调查[J]. 外语教学与研究, 2001.吴建设. 拒绝语的表达方法[J]. 四川外语学院学报, 2003.姚俊. 从英汉拒绝策略的语用对比看中西文化差异[J]. 山东外语教学, 2003.朱跃. 英语与社会[M].合肥: 安徽大学出版社, 1999.。