中美家庭言语交际中不礼貌话语的对比分析摘要：不礼貌是社会交际中常见的言语现象。
但相较于礼貌现象，不礼貌研究一直未得到足够的关注。
本文以Bousfield（2008）的不礼貌框架为依据，对中美两部家庭情景喜剧《家有儿女》和《摩登家庭》中共182个不礼貌言现象的实现策略进行分类和对比分析，以探寻不礼貌策略在不同文化背景中提现方式的异同，并分析其文化原因。
研究发现，冷落听话人和与听话人产生分歧两种策略在中美家庭中都被经常使用，且使用频率基本相同；将听话人排除在外、威胁听话人以及和他人比较这三种策略在中国家庭中使用的频率远大于美国家庭，而使用禁忌语、讽刺与挑战这三种策略在美国家庭中出现的频率远大于中国家庭。
研究结果反映了文化共性以及中美不同的家庭权势关系和集体主义与个人主义对不礼貌策略使用的影响。
本研究的结果有助于了解不礼貌现象的文化差异，对不礼貌言语的跨文化研究提供一些启示。
关键词：言语不礼貌；不礼貌策略；家庭言语交际；对比分析A Comparative Study of Linguistic Impoliteness from Communication in Chinese and American FamiliesAbstract: Impoliteness is a common linguistic phenomenon in social interaction. However, it hasn't received enough attention compared to politeness. By classifying and comparing the impoliteness realization strategies in a Chinese sitcom Family with Sons and Daughters and a American family sitcom Modern Family based on Bousfield(2008)'s impoliteness model, this thesis explores the similarities and differences of impolite strategies employed in different cultural backgrounds. The findings show that snubbing and disagreeing are frequently used in both Chinese and American families and the frequency is almost the same. Excluding the other from the activity, threatening and comparing are more frequently used in Chinese family, while using taboo words, sarcasm and challenging are used more frequently in American family. These findings indicate the different power relations of family members and collectivism and individualism, as well as the culture universality can affect the choice of the impolite strategies. In addition, the findings help to understand cultural differences of impoliteness in Chinese and American cultures and have some implications on cross-cultural communication.Key words: impoliteness; impolite strategies; communication in families; comparative studyThe Comparative Analysis of Impoliteness from Communication in Chinese and American Families1. IntroductionImpoliteness is a common phenomenon in the interaction of human activities. When we lay our eyes in quarrels between people, it is clear that impoliteness plays an important role in posing the actual effect. This thesis tends to analyze the discourse of two sitcoms, by employing the impoliteness theory. In this chapter, the author will present the background of the impoliteness study, and then the significance of the study, followed by the organization of this thesis.1.1 Research BackgroundHumans live in a world with languages. The effect of conversations varies by means of different ways. People feel respected when the other applies courtesy in communication. The study of politeness phenomenon has been an important topic in pragmatics, since its rise in the 1970s. The results of politeness research in the past few decades are abundant and comprehensive. Related books and papers have mushroomed, ranging from the revision of politeness theory, the classification of politeness strategies, to cross-cultural study. However, the counterpart of politeness has not yet been paid enough attention. People tend to believe that politeness is a common phenomenon, while its counterpart is a marginal one. Studies of impoliteness are scarce, let alone the comparative analysis of impolite utterances in different cultural background. （加怎样的文献？关于不礼貌的最新的文献吗？）This thesis is written in order to improve the current situation by extracting some impolite fragments in different cultural background and then making some comparison between them.1.2 Research SignificanceSince Culpeper proposed his impoliteness framework in 1996, an increasing number of scholars have come to realize the importance of impoliteness and the imbalance between politeness and impoliteness, thus more papers have been producedto pay more attention to the study of impoliteness. Bousfield is the most outstanding one who revised the impoliteness theory in 2008. However, more work still needs to be done and more research needs to be explored contrast to politeness study. Therefore, the significance of this study includes the followings:First, this paper will contribute to the previous study on impoliteness. Almost all the scholars do research on the impoliteness without comparing the data from different cultures. This paper compares different strategies used in two different cultures to reveal some cultural similarities and differences. Second, this paper emphasizes the importance of impoliteness study, and tries to make up the imbalance between the study of politeness and impoliteness. Third, this paper can help English learners and the audience to have a better understanding of the impolite utterances and then appreciate it in a more comfortable way. Thus, to some extent, it can also offer people a hand to understand the impoliteness phenomena in real life better.1.3 The Organization of This ThesisThis thesis is organised into six chapters.Chapter One makes a brief introduction to the whole study. It is comprised of background information, the significance of this research and the organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review. It makes a brief review of and comments on the exsisting studies concerning impoliteness at home and abroad, the purpose of which is to figure out the enlightenment for the thesis. Chapter Three deals with the theoretical framework. In this chapter, an explanation of the impoliteness theory of Bousfield(2008a) will be given, following by the strategies and examples from Culpeper(1996) and Bousfield(2008a). The objective of this chapter is to set criteria for the data selection and lay a foundation for the latter research. Chapter Four is methodology. First, this chapter introduces two sitcoms A Family with Sons And Daughters (Jia You Er Nv) and Modern Family briefly. Then the data collection and analysis will be given. Chapter Five is the core of the thesis. After the results are given, comparison and analysis of impolite strategies in A Family with Sons And Daughters (Jia You Er Nv) and Modern Family is carried out in the perspective of Bousfiled's impoliteness model. Chapter Six is the conclusion of the thesis. Itsummarizes the major findings, offers some implications and indicates the limitations of this study as well as some suggestions for future study.2. Literature Review2.1 Studies on impoliteness abroadAmong all the scholars concentrating on the theoretical research of impoliteness abroad, Jonathan Culpeper and Derek Bousfield have the most influence.Jonathan Culpeper contributed constantly to the studies of impoliteness (see 1996, 2003, 2005, 2011). Culpeper (1996) published a journal article "Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness", which was a milestone in the area of impoliteness studies. The impoliteness model in this article is parallel to, but opposite in orientation to Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies. In 2003, Culpeper renewed the previous impolite strategies in collaboration with Bousfield & Wichmann. They stressed that dynamic context and prosodic aspects should also be taken into account, because the analysis showed that prosody plays an important role in making an utterance of impoliteness. Culpeper (2005) analyzed the words from Ann Robinson, a host of the British television quiz show "The Weakest Link" with his new model and finds out impolite words have entertainment function. This is a non-public impoliteness. The host does not have a kind and encouraging attitude like the host in other television shows, but shows humor by means of sarcasm and mimicry. The author believed that, in the established context of a TV entertainment quiz show, “analyzing prosody is key to understanding impoliteness”. (Culpeper, 2005: 35) In addition, Cu lpeper (2010) believed that (im)politeness can be more inherent in a linguistic expression or can be more determined by context, but neither alone can guarantee an interpretation of (im)politeness. (这一段是过去式，下一段也用过去式吗？)Culpeper's monograph Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence (2011), involves almost all the concerns about impoliteness. The book absorbs the research results from pragmatics and social psychology, and gives a deep anatomy of the operational mechanism of impolite verbal behaviors. Culpeper contributes to the impoliteness study in this book as follows: (1) Culpeper gives up the distinction between positive face and negative face of the classic politeness theory, emphasizingthe role of context in the evaluation of impolite behaviors. (2) Within the framework of social pragmatics, Culpeper accepts social psychology, including the theory of context, speech act theory, schema theory, face theory and social cognition, and then constructs an integrated social-cognitive model. This is quite a systematic and comprehensive model for analysis of impoliteness. It provides explanations and instructions on both the form of impolite speech and the context in which they occur.In 2008, a monograph titled Impoliteness in Interaction was published. In this book, Bousfield assumes that Culpeper's impoliteness strategy model is not perfect, because it can not assure the objective judgment of face threatening acts in the actual operation and the vast majority of communicative acts actually use both the positive and negative politeness/impoliteness strategy. Based on an analysis of three types of corpus: parking conflict, police training and kitchen conflict, Bousfield reconstructed a simpler impoliteness model with two overarching tactics: on-record impoliteness and off-record impoliteness, the latter including sarcasm and withhold politeness, extending the scope of impoliteness study from the traditional micro utterance level to the macro discourse level. This offers a new perspective of pragmatic study.To sum up, the studies on impoliteness abroad are systematic and broad, from the research on impolite speeches in the specific context to the research on specific language output strategies and specific speech acts. It is worth noting that these studies on impoliteness theories lay a solid foundation for future study.2.2 Studies on impoliteness at homeThe research on the phenomena of impoliteness at home started later than the west and there was also a lack of systematic study. There were no linguistic monograph specialized in phenomena of impoliteness for now. The theses and articles in the journals on this field were also not sufficient. Many scholars adopted Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory as a theoret ical basis for analyzing impoliteness phenomenon, among which Li Yuansheng, Yang Zi, Yu Guosheng and Wang Chuanben have profound influence. Li Yuansheng (2006) made a comprehensive analysis on the strategic impoliteness in Chinese language according to the Adaptation Theory. His study indicated that the impolite speech act uttered by the speaker isoriented to the mental world, the social world and the physical world of the speaker and the listener. Yang Zi and Yu Guodong (2007) improved the adaptation model of contextual correlates proposed by Verschueren in his theory of linguistic choices with maneuverability and use the improved model to analyze the reasons for the generation of various impoliteness. However, the improvement didn't have a revolutionary influence on the adaptation theory. Wang Chuanben (2009) explained the generation of impolite speech act and what consequences it can analyze and bring about. He also thought that impolite speech act is the result of speaker’s effort to adapt to the communication needs.Apart from using adaptation theory to interpret impolite phenomena, scholars also made some valuable research from other aspects. For example, Xie Shijian (2009) mentioned that: “a complete politeness theory should consist of politeness strat egies and impoliteness strategies and that different scales of politeness and impoliteness can be located in the same continuum.” He tried to apply the theory of impoliteness on the interpretation of dramas. Some scholars examine the impoliteness principles. Huang Weiying and Luo Changtian (2010) analyzed both English and Chinese discourse of furiousness and find out that principles of impoliteness has its universal applicability. Wang Dili (2011) discussed the positive functions of impolite utterances in communication with the application of the theories of dynamic context in pragmatics, mainly including Sperber and Wilson's cognitive context and Verschueren’s context adaptation.To sum up, although the study on impoliteness at home is not yet mature, the quantity rises and the research perspectives are becoming more innovative.3. Theoretical Framework of the study3.1 Impoliteness Model and Realizations of Impoliteness3.1.1 Impoliteness Model of Bousfield(2008a)Bousfield (2008a) presented an impoliteness model which consists of on-record impoliteness and off-record impoliteness. The new model is based on analysis of the strong-points and shortcomings of Culpeper's (1996, 2005) impoliteness model, which consists of bald on-record impoliteness, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness,sarcasm or mock politeness and withhold politeness.On-record impoliteness is the use of strategies designed to explicitly: (a) attack the face of an interactant; (b) construct the face of an interactant in a non-harmonious or outright conflictive way; (c) deny the expected face wants, needs, or rights of the interactant, or some combination thereof (Bousfield, 2008a: 95). In a word, the attack is made in an unambiguous way given the context in which it occurs. While off-record impoliteness is the use of strategies where the threat or damage to an interactant's face is conveyed indirectly by way of an implicature and can be cancelled (e.g., denied, or an account / post-modification / elaboration offered, etc.) but where "...one attributable intention clearly outweighs any others"(要用什么格式？) (Culpeper, 2005:44), given the context in which it occurs (Bousfield, 2008a: 95).According to this classification, it is clearly that aggravating behaviours or utterances which attack the target's face directly belong to on-record impoliteness, while those which are conveyed through an implicature caused by violation of Grice(1989)'s cooperative principles can be called off-record impoliteness. Judging whether the aggravating output strategy is on-record or off-record impoliteness depends on whether there are conversational implicatures.The following two examples respectively indicates on-record and off-record impoliteness from Bousfield (2008b) on the British Army setting.On-record impoliteness:6 S1: when you get down to C M S R shut your fucking mouth do youS2: <indistinct>...（格式不会弄）In this example, S1 uses two on-record strategies. "shut your mouth" is a direct command with the illocutionary force and the second is the use of taboo language "fucking", which is extremely impolite.Off-record impoliteness:3 S1: I have confidence in you Downes thanks forS2: sergeant excellent sergeant4 S1: agreeing with me that anytime you want to be platoon sergeant you giveS2:5 S1: me a shoutS2:（格式）In this example,the utterance of "thanks for agreeing with me" S1 uses is insincere politeness. This can be interpreted as operating sarcastically which means the apparent opposite.3.1.2 Realization strategies of impolitenessRealization of impoliteness means a certain language output strategy of how impoliteness is conveyed in interaction. Culpeper (1996) introduces the positive and negative strategies, and Bousfield (2008a) adds some more strategies on the basis of Culpeper's strategies, like "criticize", "enforce role shift", "hinder/block" and "challenge". The impoliteness realization strategies modified by Bousfield (2008a) will be presented below.(1) Ignore, snub the other -- fail to acknowledge the other's presence;(2) Exclude the other from an activity;(3) Disassociate from the other -- for example, deny association or common ground with the other; avoid sitting together;(4) Be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic;(5) Use inappropriate identity makers -- for example, use title and surname whena close relationship pertains, or a nickname when a distant relationship pertains;(6) Use obscure or secretive language -- for example, mystify the other with jargon, or use a code known to others in the group, but not the target;(7) Seek disagreement -- select a sensitive topic;(8) Make the other feel uncomfortable -- for example, do not avoid silence, joke, or use small talk;(9) Use taboo words -- use swear or abusive or profane language;(10) Call the other names -- use derogatory nominations;(11) Frighten -- instill a belief that action detrimental to the other will occur;(12) Condescend, scorn or ridicule -- emphasize your relative power. Be contemptuous; Do not treat the other seriously. Belittle the other (e.g. usediminutives);(13) Invade the other's space -- literally (e.g. position yourself closer to the other than the relationship permits) or metaphorically (e.g. ask for or speak about information which is too intimate given the relationship);(14) Explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect -- personalize, use the pronouns "I" and "you"(15) Put the other's indebtedness on record(16) Criticize -- dispraise h, some action or inaction by h, or some entity in which h has invested face;(17) Hinder/block physically (block passage), communicatively (deny turn interrupt);(18) Enforce topic shift;(19) Challenges.(20) Compare -- compare a person to another who shares the same age, standing, etc.The strategies (1) to (15) are from Culpeper (1996) and were classified under positive impoliteness output strategies and negative impoliteness output strategies. However, Bousfield (2008a) discussed that there is no dichotomy between the positive and negative strategies, so I will abandon this view and just adopt its strategies. The strategies (16) to (19) are strategies not covered by Culpeper (1996) and added by Bousfield (2008a). Besides, just as Bousfield (2008a) admitted, there may be other strategies for conveying impoliteness - ones that have not been predicted in the model, "compare" is a strategy I would like to add. All these strategies will be realized by data from Modern Family and Family with Sons and Daughters(Jia YouEr Nv).4. Methodology4.1 Data Sources4.1.1 Modern FamilyAmerican sitcom Modern Family is a massive hit when released on the ABC in 2009. It is the Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Comedy Series. In the show,there are mainly three families which are related to each other, which are Jay's family, Jay's daughter Claire's family and Jay's son Mitchell's family.Jay's family is a reorganized family, which is composed of Jay, his wife Gloria and Gloria's son Manny. Jay is a successful rich businessman. His wife Gloria comes from Colombia and is quite young and beautiful. Manny is the son of Gloria and her ex-husband.Jay's son Mitchell is a gay and lives with his husband Cameron. They adopted a baby form Vietnam named Lily. Mitchell is a lawyer, while Cameron stays at home to look after the baby.Jay's daughter Claire has been married to Phil for 16 years. They have two daughters, Haley and Alex, and one son, Luke. Claire is a full-time housewife and Phil is a real estate agent. The character of their three kids varies from each other very differently. The oldest daughter Haley is very pretty but doesn't like studying. On the contrary, Alex studies very hard and is the typical good student at school. Luke, the youngest son, is a little weird from normal kids.4.1.2 Family with Sons and DaughtersFamily with Sons and Daughters(Jia You Er Nv) is a Chinese TV sitcom, which tells stories of a rebuilt family in Beijing. The hero Xia Donghai(夏东海) and the heroine Liu Mei(刘梅) were both divorced. They remarried and live together with their three children, setting up a happy family. The main characters in this family include: Xia Donghai(夏东海)，the father, an editor of children play; Liu Mei(刘梅), the mother, a charge nurse; Xia Xue(夏雪)，the eldest daughter of Xia Donghai, an intelligent and straight "A" student, confident while sensitive; Liu Xing(刘星)，son of Liu Mei, a smart but naughty boy, who always fails in his school examinations; Xia Yu(夏雨)，youngest son of Xia Donghai, an adorable and naive kid who has grown up in America and come back with his father.Although being a rebuilt family, both of the parents treat all the children as their own. They love their children deeply, paying much attention to their education. Being funny and close-to-life, the sitcom was very popular among Chinese.4.1.3 Reasons for choosing the two sitcomsFirstly, both Modern Family and Family with Sons and Daughters are family-centered sitcoms. The parents and children are the major components of a complete family. And inevitably, there always have some quarrels between parents and their children. Those quarrels provide possibility for me to research impoliteness.Secondly, two sitcoms share many similarities in plots and characters. In both families, parents are well-educated; the children diversify in their personalities. Two families both have a daughter who is an A-straight student, a son who is smart while not good at studying.Thirdly, both of the two sitcoms can be reflective in its culture background and thoughts and behaviors of the people. They are close-to-life and show the real aspect in the life of their nation.Taking all the above into consideration, these two sitcoms are chosen to investigate the impoliteness between parents and their children.4.2 Data Collection and analysisFirst, the series of the two sitcoms are collected, including five seasons, total 120 episodes of Modern Family and one season, totals 100 episodes of Family with Sons and Daughters. Then, the author examines all the episodes, finding 94 utterances of impoliteness in Modern Family and 91 utterances of impoliteness in Family with Sons and Daughters. Thus, the total research corpus consists of 185 utterances of impoliteness.The following table illustrates the realization strategies of impoliteness based on Bousfield’s model.Strategies Examplessnub I don't care what you do (Bousfield, 2008)Exclude the other from the activity Just get out of the houseDisassociate from the other I've got everybody on my sideBe uninterested, unconcerned unsympatheticYou can bubble all you wantUse inappropriate identity markers My young fellerSeek disagreement -come on-there is no come onUse taboo words What are you fucking doingthreaten Touch my fucking new car and I'll bust your fucking head offcondescend Well that's being babyish isn't itExplicitly associate the other with a negative aspect Well so was Hitlersarcasm <sarcastically> have a good dayWithhold politeness -thank you very much for coming-I don't thank you at allcriticize If you want to be like that then I can walk awayHinder/block He won't allow us to remove the vehicleEnforce role shift I'm asking you as a personChallenge Why do I have to park my car three hundred yards up the roadcompare 真是，人小雪对自己要求高，人家学什么什么成，不像你，学什么什么不成。
