The Analysis of Pragmatic Ambivalence in a Dream of Red Mansions

Chunling GENG

Abstract


Pragmatic ambivalence refers to the indeterminacy of utterance meaning in the dynamic process of language use. According to Thomas (1991, 1995) and Yu Dongming (1997), pragmatic ambivalence is the language phenomenon in which the speaker conveys two or more illocutionary acts or illocutionary forces to the hearer by using indeterminate, ambivalent or indirect utterances in a certain speech act. It is a communicative strategy consciously employed by the speaker to achieve specific communicative effects.
Taking conversations in the novel A Dream of Red Mansions as the research data, relevance theory as the theoretical foundation, the thesis defines the pragmatic ambivalence, analyzes the features and functions of pragmatic ambivalence, and discusses the features and functions of pragmatic ambivalence in the novel.


Keywords


Pragmatic ambivalence; Conversations; Communicative intention

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/%25x

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