A Pragmatic and Rhetorical Analysis of Impoliteness in The Big Bang Theory美剧《生活大爆炸》中不礼貌现象的语用修辞分析开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述包含参考文献）

1.introduction1.1 research backgroundas an important part of human natural language, polite and impolite utterances widely exist in interpersonal communication. scholars have studied politeness for a long time, especially since the emergence of leech's politeness principle (1983) and brown and levenson's face theory (1987). with the deepening of the research, scholars have noticed another aspect of polite communication, namely the existence of impoliteness, which may produce conflicts and threats in the conversation between the two sides. the focus shift from politeness to impoliteness is the latest development of pragmatics. impoliteness is common in real life and literary works. impoliteness even plays an important role in certain discourses, so scholars have paid more attention to it in recent years. most studies focus on the definition and classification of impoliteness, whereas it is increasingly important to explore the specific meaning and rhetorical effect of impoliteness in the specific context.1.2 need for the studythe thesis has both practical and academic meanings. on one hand, this paper will contribute to the current research on impoliteness and its application. since culpeper put forward a framework of impoliteness in 1996, many scholars have gradually realized the importance of impoliteness and the imbalance between politeness and impoliteness. however, previous theoretical studies on impoliteness have mostly focused on the definition and classification of impoliteness. there are not sufficient studies on impoliteness strategies and their applications. therefore, the study of the pragmatic and rhetorical functions of impolite verbal communication in a specific context is of significant value. on the other hand, this paper will contribute to english learners and fans of the big bang theory, especially those from china, because chinese culture is very different from that of the united states. through the analysis of the use of impoliteness strategies, this paper can help english learners and english lovers better understand the discourse, so as to appreciate the discourse more easily. at the same time, it can also help people better understand the impoliteness phenomenon in real life to a certain extent.2.literature review2.1 definitions of impolitenesswhat is impoliteness? early studies mainly focused on the strategy and instrumentality of impoliteness. at present, more and more scholars pay attention to the interpersonal problems involved in impoliteness, and update the definition of impoliteness based on the dynamic development of specific context, discourse and communication. culpeper (1996: 350) regards impoliteness as "the use of strategies by which the speaker attacks face and leads to social breakdown". culpeper (2003: 1545) emphasizes that impoliteness is a kind of communication strategy intended to attack face and cause social conflict and disharmony". bousfield's strategy is based on politeness theory. he considers impoliteness as "the conflict face threatening behavior without reason intentionally implemented by the speaker" (bousfield, 2007: 132). with the relational turn of impoliteness research, culpeper (2011: 19) puts interpersonal relationship into the definition of impoliteness and updates the concept of impoliteness, regarding it as "the negative attitude of the behavior in a specific context", and emphasizing that "the behavior and the actor of the behavior are related to the impoliteness metalanguage". spencer (2005: 96) puts forward that impoliteness is a kind of "evaluative label", which represents people's subjective judgment of verbal and non behavioral social appropriateness". zhang and xie (2015: 24) define impoliteness as "intention" and "identification", and define impoliteness as "the communicative act of attacking the face, identity attribute of the speaker intentionally and recognized by the hearer".2.2 classifications of impolitenessaccording to liu's research (2017), impolite speech acts can be divided into the following three categories from the perspectives of the hearer, the speaker and the third party. from the perspective of the hearer, it can be divided into superficial impoliteness and substantial impoliteness. from the perspective of the speaker, there are two types of impolite speech acts: intentional impolite speech act and unintentional impolite speech act. intentional impolite speech act refers to the fact that when the speaker uses an impolite speech act, he clearly knows that the act is impolite. on the contrary, it is unintentional impolite behavior. from the perspective of the third party, impolite speech acts can be divided into two types: one is the same direction, the other is the reverse. these two impolite speech acts are mainly based on the evaluation of the hearer. co directional impolite speech act refers to the third party's consistent judgment with the hearer's when judging impolite behavior.2.3 theoretical framework2.3.1 culpepers theoryculpeper's impoliteness framework and its definition explain impoliteness in discourse and conversation. culpeper (2008) proposes five types of impoliteness as follows.(1) bald on record impoliteness: it refers to the behavior of deliberately attacking the hearer's face on the occasion of face, and realizing face threat in a direct, unambiguous and concise way.(2) positive impoliteness: it refers to the strategies used by the speaker to damage the hearer's positive face needs. culpeper subdivides this strategy as follows: deliberately ignoring the positive and impolite opponent, ignoring the opponent's requirements, excluding the opponent, indicating that it has nothing to do with the listener, showing indifference to the listener, using inappropriate identity marks, vague language, seeking differences, making the listener feel uncomfortable, using taboo words, calling his name directly, etc.(3) negative impoliteness: it is a strategy that damages the hearer's negative face needs, e.g., threatening, belittling ridicule, invading the speaker's private space, clearly connecting the listener with the negative aspect, physically hindering the passage, verbally interrupting the other party, etc.(4) off record impoliteness：namely surface politeness strategy. the surface politeness uses the politeness strategy of obvious insincerity to carry out face threatening behavior. (5) withhold politeness：it refers to refuse politeness.2.3.2 pragmatic theorycomprehensive pragmatics research relies on data and is highly empirical. when considering the positions of language users (first-order perspective) and language researchers (second-order perspective), it adopts comprehensive perspective to analyze data and pragmatic phenomena, such as politeness, impoliteness, and integrates different research perspectives and methods. pragmatics studies the relationship between different language forms, functions and contexts. pragmatic form refers to any linguistic or nonverbal unit with pragmatic function (culpeper he, 2000). in the choice of impoliteness strategies, impolite speech users construct and change interpersonal relationships through certain means in the process of verbal communication. since the context in communication is also a key factor in the formation of rhetorical principles, will the choice of impoliteness strategies reflect the difference of rhetorical devices? the rules of general rhetoric are abbreviated as rules of speech, and the forms of special rhetoric are abbreviated as figures of speech. the rules and figures of speech are the rules or patterns of rhetoric. the rules of diction can be divided into two types: the rules of choosing words and the rules of choosing sentence patterns. figure of speech is a fixed form of speech created by people in long-term language practice, which can enhance the effect of language expression. chinese figures of speech are various and characteristic.2.4 previous research and its limitations2.4.1 foreign studies on impoliteness in foreign countries, the study of impolite utterance can be traced back to the study of face (goffman, 1955) and politeness (lakoff, 1973). throughout the foreign research on impolite utterance, its development can be divided into three stages. the first stage is based on brown and levinson's face theory (1978, 1987) and leech's politeness principle (1983). impoliteness is regarded as a marginalized linguistic phenomenon, a pragmatic failure of polite utterance in communication, and a violation of politeness principle in communication (beebe, 1995). therefore, the concept of impoliteness was not put forward completely in this period, but was replaced by the terms of "aggravation", "rudeness" and "conflict". culpeper considers that lachenicht (1980) is the first scholar who attempts to systematically explore the topic of impoliteness. his academic contribution lies in the distinction between positive aggrandizement and negative aggrandizement. lakoff (1989) distinguishes three politeness forms in the context of medical discourse: polite behavior, impolite behavior and rudeness. from lakoff's point of view, rude behavior refers to a kind of behavior in which impoliteness strategy is used instead of politeness strategy. in lakoff's discourse, he still does not use the term impoliteness. another noteworthy scholar is kasper (1990), who distinguishes between motivated rudeness and unmotivated rudeness. in his opinion, rudeness is a violation of the proper code of conduct due to ignorance.in the second stage, the study of impolite discourse is mainly marked by the construction of theoretical framework, and the main representatives are culpeper (1996) and bousfield (2008). inspired by brown and levenson, culpeper tries to establish a theory of impoliteness which is parallel to and relative to brown and levenson's politeness framework. so far, the term impoliteness has been put forward completely and has become one of the hot topics in pragmatics. since culpeper (1996) published the article towards politeness of impolite, the study of impolite discourse has gradually aroused widespread interest in the academic circle. culpeper (1996) proposes five impolite strategies as opposed to brown levenson's (1987) politeness strategies. culpeper (2003) also explores the role of semantic prosody in the construction of impolite utterances for the first time. according to culpepers research (2017), the study of impolite utterance is an interdisciplinary and multidimensional study, and its development really started around 2008. inspired by culpeper (1996), bousfield (2008) publishes impoliteness in interaction, which marks the transition from politeness study to impoliteness study. in this book, bousfield lists ten research problems, systematically expounds the implementation of impoliteness, and verifies and repairs the theoretical framework of impoliteness proposed by culpeper (1996). there are other scholars in this period, such as mills (2003) and rudanko (2006).the third stage is characterized by the study of impolite utterances from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics. in recent years, with the continuous development of pragmatics, more and more scholars pay attention to the pragmatic problems between people. the study of impoliteness no longer focuses on how individuals implement impolite behaviors, but more on the role of impolite utterances in the construction of interpersonal relationships, and discusses the role of impolite utterances in the construction, maintenance, promotion or deconstruction of interpersonal relationships. for example, spencer (2005) defines impoliteness as a kind of subjective judgment on the appropriateness of verbal and non-verbal behaviors, and discusses the impact of this subjective judgment on interpersonal cognition and interpersonal harmony. langlotz and locher (2013) explore the role of emotion in the study of impoliteness from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics. langlotz and locher (2013) explore the role of emotion in the study of impoliteness from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics. locher (2015) explores the feasibility of an interdisciplinary approach to impoliteness from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics.2.4.2 domestic research on impoliteness domestic scholars focus on the study of offensive speech and conflict speech. within the framework of interpersonal relationship management pragmatic view, they investigate the aggressive and uncooperative features of impolite speech in specific contexts, analyze the pragmatic strategies involved, and reveal the pragmatic motivation of the speaker and the pragmatic motivation of impoliteness. some scholars also pay attention to the power relations of the communicators in conflict discourses, investigate the different development modes of conflict discourses, explore the dynamic development of strategy choice and power relations in impoliteness, or explore the disharmonious pragmatic orientation and interpersonal effects of impolite expressions from the perspective of identity. others start from the communicators' communicative intention. this paper investigates the mechanism of meta-pragmatic discourse in mediating interpersonal relationship. most of the existing studies focus on the linguistic expressions, types of pragmatic strategies, and the impact on interpersonal relationships of impoliteness, but they lack attention and pragmatic interpretation to the response caused by impoliteness.domestic research on impolite utterance started late, and the research results are relatively insufficient. as early as 1986, liu regarded impoliteness as an extension of brown (2) the principle of human relationship is a principle of interpersonal pragmatic interaction, and calls for interpersonal pragmatic interaction. we should pay attention to the local perspective in the study of socio-pragmatics. in a word, the study of impoliteness in language use from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics will inject fresh vitality into the study of impoliteness and expand a broader research space for the study of impoliteness.2.4.3 limitations of previous studiesfrom the above review, we find that the research on impoliteness in recent years mainly focuses on the definition, classification and empirical research in other fields. this paper will explore the pragmatic and rhetorical value of impolite verbal communication in a specific context, and summarize its characteristics and principles.referencesarndt, h., janney, r. (1985). politeness revisited: cross-modal supportive strategies. international review of applied linguistics, 23, 281-300.beebe, l. (1995). polite fictions: instrumental rudeness as pragmatic competence. georgetown university round table on language and linguistics, 154-168.bousfield, d. (2007). beginnings, middles and ends: a biopsy of the dynamics of impolite exchanges. journal of pragmatics, 12, 2185 -2216.bousfield, d. (2008). impoliteness in interaction. philadelphia and amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company.brown, p., levinson, s. (1978/1987). politeness: some universals in language usage. cambridge: cambridge university press.culpeper, j. (1996). towards an anatomy of impoliteness. journal of pragmatics, 3, 349 - 367.culpeper, j. (2008). reflections on impoliteness, relational work and power. in bousfield, d., locher, m. (eds.), impoliteness in language: studies on its interplay with power in theory and practice (pp. 17-44). berlin: mouton de gruyter.culpeper, j. (2011). politeness and impoliteness: pragmatics of society. berlin: walter de gruyter.culpeper, j., haugh, m. (2018). integrative pragmatics and politeness theory. in cornelia, i., norrick, n. (eds.), pragmatics and its interfaces (pp. 213-239).culpeper, j., bousfield, d., wichmann, a.(2003). impoliteness revisited: with special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. journal of pragmatics, 10, 1545 - 1579.culpeper, j., haugh, m., kadar, d. (2017). the palgrave handbook of linguistic (im)politeness. london: palgarve macmillan.goffman, e. (1955). on face-work: an analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. psychiatry: journal for the study of interpersonal processes, 18, 13-231. kasper, g. (1990). linguistic politeness: current research issues. journal of pragmatics, 14(2), 193-218.lachenicht, l. (1980). aggravating language. a study of abusive and insulting language. papers in linguistics: international journal in human communication, 13 (4), 607-687.lakoff, r. (1973). the logic of politeness, or minding your ps and qs. chicago linguistics society, 9, 292-305.lakoff, r. (1989). the limits of politeness. multilingual, 8, 101- 129.langlotz, a., locher, m. (2013). the role of emotions in relational work. journal of pragmatics, 58, 87-107.leech, g. (1983). principles of pragmatics. london : longman.locher, m. (2015). interpersonal pragmatics and its link to politeness research. journal of pragmatics, 86, 5-10.mills, s. (2003). gender and politeness. cambridge: cambridge university press.rudanko, j. (2006). aggravated impoliteness and two types of speaker intention in an episode in shakespeare's timon of athens. journal of pragmatics, 38, 829-841. spencer, h. (2005). politeness, face and perceptions of rapport: unpackaging their bases and interrelationships. journal of politeness research. 1, 95- 119.verschueren, j. (2005). understanding pragmatics. beijing：beijing foreign language teaching and research press. watts, r. (2003). politeness. cambridge: cambridge university press.陈望道（1979），《修辞学发凡》。

上海：上海教育出版社。

丁崇明 (2001), 论词语叠连式不礼貌语言, 《语言文字应用》, （3）: 64-69。

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

3.Methodology3.1 Research questionsThis paper aims to explore the pragmatic and rhetorical value of impoliteness in the script lines of the American drama The big bang theory. To be more specific , two vital questions to be answered in this study are as shown below.( 1 ) What are the pragmatic strategies behind the impolite speech in the script of the big bang?( 2 ) What is the rhetorical value behind the impolite speech in the script of the big bang? 3.2 Research methodsThis paper is a theory driven research, so we mainly use qualitative research methods. This paper uses qualitative method to classify and analyze impolite speech strategies. This paper also uses the research methods of corpus research and discourse analysis to analyze the impolite speech phenomenon in the script lines of the American drama The big bang theory from the perspective of pragmatics and rhetoric, and the pragmatic strategies behind the verbal communication, so as to explore the pragmatic and rhetorical value of impolite verbal communication in a specific context.