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摘 要

1975年，赛尔提出了间接言语行为理论，即一种以言行事是通过另一种以言行事的表达方式间接实现的。所以，人们常常出于礼貌、维护双方尊严等因素，间接的表达自己的真实意图而非直接的通过言语表达。语言学家们认为，格莱斯提出的合作原则和里奇提出的礼貌原则与赛尔提出的间接言语行为有着紧密的联系。

在收集间接言语行为语料的过程中，作者发现间接言语行为不仅在语言学领域受到学者们的关注，在人们的日常生活中也十分重要。作为指导人们语言交流的指导性原则之一，合作原则可以很好的解释说话人的字面意思和说话人的真实意图。为了实现顺利的交谈，说话人和听话人在交流的过程中会自然的遵守着合作原则及其准则。然而，在实际的交际活动中，为了某些目的，人们并非完全遵守合作原则。礼貌原则作为合作原则的补充，则解释了为什么人们在特殊情况下要违反合作原则。

本文基于合作原则与礼貌原则，采用解释、描写等方法对《唐顿庄园》中的人物对话进行详细的语用分析，旨在揭示间接言语行为在日常交流中产生的效果以及人们是如何通过违背合作原则和礼貌原则表达其真实意图。通过本文分析可以得出以下两个结论：第一，在大多数情况下，违背合作原则和礼貌原则不会导致日常交流失败。第二，基于合作原则及礼貌原则对人物对话的分析，人们能更好的欣赏《唐顿庄园》。笔者希望通过本文的分析，使观众能够更好的欣赏剧中的对白，并且探讨成功交际的说话技巧从而提高人际交流水平。

关键词：间接言语行为；合作原则；礼貌原则；《唐顿庄园》

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iv

Table of Contents v

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Significance of the Study 2

1.3 Research Methodology 3

1.4 Structure of the Thesis 3

Chapter Two Literature Review 5

2.1 Theoretical Foundation 5

2.1.1 Indirect Speech Act 5

2.1.2 Cooperative Principle 5

2.1.3 Politeness Principle 6

2.2 Previous Research of the Study 7

Chapter Three Analysis of Downton Abbey 8

3.1 Introduction of Downton Abbey 8

3.2 Analysis of the Conversations from Downton Abbey 9

3.2.1 Violation of Cooperative Principle 9

3.2.2 Violation of Politeness Principle 12

Chapter Four Conclusion 17

4.1 Summary of the study 17

4.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study 17

References 19

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research Background

In modern interpersonal communication, people have various of ways to transmit information such as letter, e-mail, picture, telephone, etc. However, utterance still plays a fundamental role in the process of exchanging information, establishing and maintaining special interpersonal relationships. The Speech Act Theory was proposed by J. L. Austin in his book “How to Do Thing with Words” in 1962 which is aimed at exploring meanings from pragmatic perspective in a dynamic way. Based on Austin’ s theory, Searle developed it into a more specific one, which was called Indirect Speech Act Theory in 1962. Yet, In order to make up for the weakness of the Indirect Speech Act Theory, Paul Grice, the English language philosopher, put forward the cooperative principle in 1976 which illustrates that in conversational interaction people work on the assumption that the speaker and the hearer comply with the rules the cooperative principle defines in order to make a meaningful conversation. (Thomas 1995:62) The cooperative principle consists of the following maxims: the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner. (Grice 1975) And then Leech proposed the politeness principle in 1983 which rescues the cooperative principle from incompleteness. The politeness principle runs six maxims: the tact maxim, the generosity maxim, the approbation maxim, the modesty maxim, the agreement maxim and the sympathy maxim. (Leech 1983)

This thesis aims to detect the hidden meaning behind characters’ utterances through their daily conversations from the perspective of the cooperative principle and the politeness principle. The analytic materials are collected from a British TV series named Downton Abbey. No doubt, TV series have became an imperative part of people’s life because more and more TV series, like Friends, Gossip girl, Two broken girls, Lie to me, The big bang, etc，are imported to our country and make life more enjoyable．Downton Abbey is one of the most popular English TV series that was first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 26 September 2010 and on PBS in the United States on 9 January 2011 as part of the Masterpiece Classic anthology. (Wikipedia, 2015.4.3) It is also one of my favorite TV series．As a student of linguistics, I find that tactful dialogues in it provide English learners with good examples in terms of how to express their implied intentions indirectly, skillfully and effectively. By analyzing conversations collected form this TV series, this thesis will further explore how people establish their interpersonal relationship with others in a special period, and how people express their implied meanings by violating the two principles. At the same time, the study tries to further promote English learners’ awareness to better appreciate the dialogue in Downton Abbey and then remind them to improve their conversation skills and techniques. In this way, they would be able to achieve barrier-free daily communication.

1.2 Significance of the Study

Indirect Speech Act is a common as well as special linguistic phenomenon in people’s daily communication. It illustrates that the speaker chooses to express their real meaning in an indirect way. Namely, it can make some effects in communication. In daily communication, the cooperative principle provides a general rule that people should observe while the politeness principle in an attempt to explain why individuals often convey what they really mean in an indirect way by violating some cooperative maxims. Therefore, analyzing Indirect Speech Act from the perspective of the cooperative principle and the politeness principle can help people to understand how the effects of Indirect Speech Act is generated in conversations and help them to improve communication skills in order to avoid misunderstanding and ambiguity.

This thesis aims to probe into how the Indirect Speech Act generates and its effect in the characters’ utterances in Downton Abbey from the perspective of the politeness principle and the cooperative principle．This research may fan some sparks in analysis of characters’ utterances in Downton Abbey. Because there are few pragmatic study of characters’ utterances in this TV series. Therefore, this study will help the audience to better appreciate the TV series and enable people to make good use of the two principles in real life to achieve successful interpersonal conversation.

1.3 Research Methodology

Description, interpretation and explanation will be used in this thesis with the cooperative principle and the politeness principle, with conversations materials selected from English TV series Downton Abbey.

This thesis will deduce the conversational implicature according to violating some conversational maxims in order to explain how Indirect Speech Act performs in TV series to English learners. At the same time, the study enables people to understand how to use the cooperative principle and the politeness principle in daily communication in order to avoid misunderstanding, express and discover implied meaning.

1.4 Structure of the Thesis

In this study, the author will use an TV series called Downton Abbey as a materiel to study Indirect Speech Act from the perspective of the cooperative principle and the politeness principle. This study includes four chapters:

Chapter one will give a general introduction of this paper, which focuses on research background, the significance of study, the research methodology and the structure of the study as well. Chapter two is the literature review. This chapter will review the present situation of the related researches at home and abroad and theoretical foundation. The main body of this thesis lies in Chapter three. Firstly, it gives a brief introduction of Downton Abbey. And then it introduces the details of how the cooperative principle and the politeness principle work, followed by the analysis of the dialogues from Downton Abbey. It will emphasize the analysis of characters’ utterances that violate the cooperative principle and the politeness principle. Chapter four is the conclusion part. This chapter covers the summary of major findings, the limitations of the present study and suggestions for future research will also be pointed out.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Theoretical Foundation

2.1.1 Indirect Speech Act

The most significant contribution Searle ever made to the Speech Act Theory is that he is the first person who put forward Indirect Speech Act Theory. He described Indirect Speech Act as follows "In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer." (Searle 1979:115) He studied the case in which the speaker utters a sentence and means more than what he or she literally means. For example, if a robber says to his victim “I advise you to give me all in your pocket”, (Chen XinRen 2007:145) he is not really advising, but threatening. Therefore, an utterance with a performative verb may not be executing the type of act suggested by the verb.

2.1.2 Cooperative Principle

Grice believes that a speaker communicates more than what his or her words say. People could not talk randomly in conversation and assemble the unrelated words together. On the contrary, they tend to show some degree of cooperation desire and endeavor to put it into practice. (Grice 1975) Therefore, in order to explain the fact that instead of expressing the same meanings in personal interaction, natural utterances usually violate the maxims intentionally in order to convey the conversational implicature. H.P. Grice proposed the cooperative principle “Make your contribution such as is required，at the stage at which it occurs，by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” (Grice 2002:26) in his lecture named “Logical and Conversation” in Harvard University in 1975. Cooperative principle consists of four maxims: the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner. (Grice 1975)

These maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational, cooperative way: they should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly while providing sufficient information．(Levinson 2001:102)

2.1.3 Politeness Principle

There is no doubt that the cooperative principle formulated by Grice is a significant principle in daily communication. It requests that speakers and hearers are observing the same conversational maxims and it accounts for the relationships between the literal meanings of utterances and their practical meanings in exchange communication. (Leech 1983) However, it is inadequate to explain why people often violate the maxims of the cooperative principle.

From then on, many scholars relate indirectness to politeness. Particularly, Leech points out that indirectness is motivated by politeness. He believes that besides being cooperative, the speakers in conversations normally try to be polite in order not to threaten people and keep dignity. Based on this observation, Leech puts forward the politeness principle “the politeness principle is a constraint observed in human communicative behavior, influencing us to avoid communicative discord or offence, and maintain communicative concord.” (Leech 1983) Leech assumes that the politeness principle can be seen as not another principle to be added to the cooperative principle, but as an indispensible component, which rescues the cooperative principle from serious trouble. In daily communication, unnecessary conflict and aloof interpersonal relationships caused by improper language are not rare; therefore, it is important to understand the usage of language in a polite way. The politeness principle contains six maxims run as follows: the tact maxim, the generosity maxim, the approbation maxim, the modesty maxim, the agreement maxim and the sympathy maxim. (Leech 1983)

The politeness principle plays a crucial role in regulating the speakers’ utterances and explaining the reason why individuals violate the cooperative principle and its maxims. Also, only by having a deep understanding of the cooperative principle and the politeness principle can people achieve successful daily interaction.

2.2 Previous Research of the Study

The idea of Indirect Speech Act has gradually became the study mode of linguistics after Searle bring the concept of Indirect Speech Act. In foreign countries, studies such as Smith, Barry(1990)“Towards A History of Speech Act Theory”, McGinty, Mac(1997) “The filmic dialogue: A theoretical application of Grice's cooperative principle and conversational maxims to film” and Chen, Rong (1990) “Verbal irony as conversational implicature” has made great contribution to this field.

In China, the researches on Indirect Speech Act from the perspective of the cooperative principle and the politeness principle has never stopped. In 1992, the famous scholar Gu Yueguo became the first person who wrote his book ''The Politeness, Pragmatics and Culture” based on Chinese culture. In the past ten years, Hu Zhuanglin introduced the cooperative principle to China through his book “Pragmatics”. (Pang Feng 2013) Recently, scholars like Yin Yuhong(2010) and Shi Hui (2014) had successfully studied the TV series and novel through the cooperative principle and politeness principle and had caused a great influence in academia.

In addition, Downton Abbey has became epidemic in the last five years. From then on, many researches about Downton Abbey were available to learners. For example, Zhang Yan(2014) and Zhang Yun(2013) studied the marriage culture and times culture of upper class through Downton Abbey. Zhou Qiantong(2013) investigated the euphemism in characters’ utterances which makes readers better understand the importance of euphemism in daily communication. However, the majority of researchers paid attention to nobility culture around twentieth century in England and few of them did researches from pragmatic aspect. Therefore, this thesis is a good attempt to study characters’ utterances from the perspective of pragmatics.

Chapter Three Analysis of Downton Abbey

In the previous chapter, the author has discussed the theoretical foundation. In this chapter, the author will conduct an analysis of characters’ utterances collected from Downton Abby season one and two. The analysis will be carried out on the cooperative principle and the politeness principle and will be conducted in three stages: description, interpretation and explanation. For convenience, the author is going to combine the first two stages together and in the last stage, the author will try to analyze the linguistic features of utterances and explore the effects of Indirect Speech Act and then further uncover the hidden meaning behind dialogues.

3.1 Introduction of Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey is a British period drama television series created by Julian Fellowes and co-produced by Carnival Films and Masterpiece．The series, set in the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey, depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants during the reign of King George V. Although it is fictional，it shows some great events in history having an effect on their lives and on the British social hierarchy．Such events depicted throughout the series include news of the invention of telephone, the sinking of the Titanic, the outbreak of Word War I，the Spanish influenza pandemic，the United Kingdom general election of 1923, etc. (Wikipedia, 2015.04.03)

This TV series has five seasons. The linguistic materials collected in the thesis come from season one and two.  Much of the series focuses on the relationship between Lady Mary (Lord Grantham’s eldest daughter) and Matthew (heir presumptive to Downton). Another major plotline involves the arrival of a new staff member Mr. Bates, who had fought under Lord Grantham's command in the Second Boer War and finally falls in love with Lady Mary's personal maid, Anna. What’s more, many other characters in the story could not be ignored: Cora Crawley, Lady Sybil , Lady Edith , Thomas Barrow, Carson, etc.

3.2 Analysis of the Conversations from Downton Abbey

3.2.1 Violation of Cooperative Principle

People are supposed to abide by the cooperative principle “to converse in a maximally efficient, rational and cooperative way, they should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while providing sufficient information.” (Levinson 1987:10) However, complete cooperation does not always takes place in daily communication. Sometimes, people may fail to obey these maxims, that is to say the interlocutors may violate the cooperative principle or its maxims. Therefore, when people deliberately violate any of cooperative maxims, conversational implicature will occur and then extra meaning will be produced in characters’ utterances.

1. Violation of the quality maxim

In daily communication, the violation of the quality maxim is performed by saying things which are not real, true or for lack of enough evidence in order to convey implied meaning. The following conversation is what O’Brien says to a young female maid Ethel:

ETHEL: Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Whatever's that about?

O'BRIEN: It's about an invitation to talk some more, that's what.

Mosley, a suitors of Anna, please Ethel to transfer a book named “Elizabeth and Her German Garden” to Anna. According what happened earlier, O’Brien must know this book is not about the “opportunity to strike up a conversation”. So what she replies to Ethel is sure to be false which violate the quality maxim undoubtedly. But, she sharply points out the real purpose of Moseley is that he wants to chase after Anna. Based on the story, the audience not only can understand O’Brien’s answer, but also realize a sense of humor.

1. Violation of the quantity maxim

The examples of the violation of the quantity maxim are very common, and both more and less information given than required may contain conversational implicature that goes beyond the literal and semantic meaning.

In Downton, Lady Mary is the eldest daughter and the most beautiful one among three sisters. Lady Edith always plays against with her sister Mary and they are hard to reach a consensus. Their conversation usually brings fun to the audience:

LADY EDITH: But how old is he?

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