A Study on the Implementation and Response of Impolite Strategies in Chinese Conversations

This paper analyzes and explores discourse in Chinese conversations based on Culpeper(1996) impoliteness model and the impoliteness strategies he proposed. The main focus is on two aspects: (1) From the perspective of the implementation of impolite strategies, this study investigates whether Western impolite strategies can be found in Chinese corpora, and (2) from the perspective of listener responses, this study examines whether Western impolite response patterns align with the impolite response patterns exhibited by Chinese speakers in Chinese corpora.<br/> This study takes Chinese dialogue as its research object, focusing on television dramas, TV programs, and videos posted on online platforms. Based on Culpeper(2011) introduction to conventionalized impolite programs, the study prioritizes selecting corpora with high levels of offensiveness and relative stability. To maximize the reliability of the corpus selection, this study also invited two Chinese speakers to simultaneously screen and label the corpus within the aforementioned selection scope. The consistency between their results and the author’s corpus selection and labeling reached 96%. Ultimately, 27 Chinese corpus examples were selected that correspond to Culpeper(1996) impolite strategies in terms of pragmatic meaning and pragmatic effect.<br/> Through the screening, labeling, and classification of Chinese corpora, the implementation methods of Culpeper(1996) positive and negative impolite strategies in Chinese conversations were ultimately identified. This indicates that, from the perspective of strategy implementation, Culpeper(1996) impolite strategies have corresponding specific manifestations in Chinese corpora. Additionally, the impolite response patterns chosen by Chinese speakers align with those proposed by Culpeper et al. (2003). The impolite response patterns exhibited by Chinese speakers in the Chinese corpus are fully consistent with those proposed by Culpeper(2003).