摘 要

在日常交际生活中，出于各种原因，人们并不可能每次都应允别人提出的提议，邀请或请求等。但为了建立和维持更加和谐持久的人际关系，人们会更侧重于选择含蓄，委婉的间接拒绝方式来予以回应。本文基于美剧《我们这一天》的台词，在顺应论的框架内，从以下四个维度分析其中的间接拒绝言语行为：（1）对语境的顺应；（2）对语言结构的顺应；（3）顺应的动态过程；（4）顺应的意识凸显度，着重探究间接拒绝用语的使用如何遵循顺应论的原则。本文旨在通过研究为人们的日常交际生活提供丰富的会话经验，提高大众的语用能力，帮助其建立和维持和谐的人际关系。

关键词：间接拒绝；语境顺应；结构顺应；动态顺应；意识凸显度

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 2
   1. Definition and function of indirect refusal discourses 2
   2. Introduction to the Adaptation Theory 3
   3. Introduction to This is Us 3
   4. Classification of Indirect refusal discourses in This is Us 4
   5. Analysing indirect refusal discourses in This is Us with Adaptation Theory

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• • 1. Adaptation to contextual factors 6
    2. Adaptation to structural choices 8
    3. Dynamic process of adaptation 10
    4. Awareness salience of adaptation process 12

1. Conclusion 13

Bibliography 15

Analysis of Indirect Refusal Discourses in This is Us from the

Perspective of Adaptation Theory

Introduction

In people's daily communication, for various reasons, people cannot always give affirmative responses to other people's proposals, invitations or requests. Therefore, people often use refusal speech act to show their unwillingness and non-cooperation. Refusal speech act includes direct and indirect refusal speech act. As the name implies, direct refusal of speech acts is a direct refusal to reject other people's proposals, while indirect refusal is not to say “no” directly, but to use a variety of expressions, such as euphemism, to achieve the true refusal intention in the heart indirectly. With the continuous improvement of social civilization, indirect refusal speech acts are more and more widely used in people's daily communication. It has become an important means for people to maintain and consolidate harmonious and long-term interpersonal relations.

In recent years, the study of indirect refusal speech act has gradually attracted the attention of scholars at home and abroad. The indirect refusal speech act was proposed by American linguist Searle in 1969 on the development of Austin's Speech Act Theory. Searle believes that indirect language phenomenon actually implements one speech act indirectly through the implementation of another speech act. Subsequently, according to Beebe et al's Semantic Componential Analysis (1990), refusal speech act strategies can be summarized as direct refusal strategy, indirect refusal strategy and refusal speech act auxiliary language. Furthermore, some Chinese scholars have studied indirect refusal from different perspectives. For example, Wang (2001) has adapted the discourse test to summarize the express patterns and analyse them from Brownamp; Levinson’s Face Theory. Besides, many other scholars and Wang (2001) also researched on refusing in relation to second language acquisition. The theoretical frameworks on refusals in recent years are diversified, such as euphemism,

refusal strategies, Leech’s politeness principles, Brownamp; Levinson’s face theory, Beebe et al’s semantic formula and so on. However, little attention has been paid to the adaptation mechanism of indirect refusal. This paper intends to study and analyze the indirect refusal speech acts in American TV series This is Us within the theoretical framework of the Adaptation Theory, to explore how to follow the Adaptation Theory to conduct dialogues, and to provide rich pragmatic experience for people's interpersonal communication, which contributes to the improvement of people’s pragmatic competence and help them to maintain harmonious interpersonal relationships.

Demonstration

• 1. Definition and function of indirect refusal discourses

Speech Acts Theory was proposed by the British philosopher Austin in his famous book How to Do Things with Words published in 1962. In this book, speech acts are defined as acts performed through speech itself. And speaking is doing something, that is, people can act by speaking, and speech act is the basic unit of communication (Austin,1962). Then, in the late 1960s, Searle, an American linguist, enriched and perfected the Speech Act Theory in Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Searle holds that indirect linguistic phenomena actually implements one speech act indirectly through the implementation of another. Indirect refusal is not to object directly to the other people's proposals, invitations or requests, but to refuse through other euphemistic ways such as putting forward corresponding reasons and so on.