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5 Results and Discussion 10
5.1 Results 10
5.2 Discussion 11
5.2.1 Softened Disagreement 11
5.2.2 Disagreement not Softened or Strengthened 13
5.2.3 Aggravated Disagreement 14
Conclusion 16
References 18
Figure 4.1 Rees-Miller’s Classification of Disagreement 9
Table 5.1 Distribution of Disagreement Strategies 10
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
As a common linguistic phenomenon in daily life, disagreement, namely expressing perspectives different from others, has attracted increasing scholars’ attention. According to researches on English disagreement expression, disagreement has traditionally been considered as a confronting act, harmful for social harmony, which should be avoided or mitigated. However, some ensuing studies indicate that disagreement is not necessarily a negative act causing impoliteness and conflicts, but a symbol of closeness and sociability which may serve to maintain and elevate face instead of destroying communication (Locher, 2012). In order to protect each other’s face, speakers tend to use different strategies to express disagreement and these strategies are affected by various factors, such as social distance between addressers and addressees, relative power of speakers and rating of imposition (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Speaking of present researches on Chinese disagreement expression, Chinese researchers define disagreement as different opinions and their studies focus on the strategies applied to expressing opposing views. During the exploration, they observe that Chinese disagreement is under the influence of social status, social distance, gender, etc (Peng & Yuan, 2006).
In recent years, pragmatic competence has gained more and more popularity among scholars and students. As EFL learners, it is expected that the more we achieve in linguistic competence, the more fluent English we speak; however, this does not necessarily mean our pragmatic competence is also improved after years of English learning. With the crisis of the Chinese language coming, scholars realize that the pragmatic competence of Chinese EFL learners has been apparently on the decline (Cui & Yan, 2008). Most of these learners find it difficult to choose right words in specific circumstance in spite of years of learning the English language. For example, lacking deep understanding of English culture, students use improper words or do not know what to say in cross-culture communication. Besides, some EFL learners pay so much attention to literal meaning that they ignore special context and implied meaning.
1.2 Research Object
As a matter of fact, conveying disagreement is a demanding act, which requires addressers to master excellent speaking skills so that face-threatening phenomenon can be mitigated. Thus, a speaker’s pragmatic competence can be evaluated by his choice of disagreement-expressing strategies. This paper is aimed to demonstrate how English disagreement is expressed by post-graduate students of English major from Nanjing University of Science and Technology in the academic context, and inquire the related factors.
1.3 Layout of the Thesis
The thesis is made up of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction to background information and object of this disagreement study, as well as the general structure of the thesis. Chapter two consists of some previous studies in related field from western countries and China, comprising the definition of disagreement, studies connecting disagreement and politeness, studies on EFL learners’ pragmatic competence, and these studies’ achievements and shortcomings. Chapter three is about the theoretical framework: Austin’s Speech Act Theory and Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory. Chapter four demonstrates the methodology of this thesis, covering research questions, data collection coding scheme and data analysis. Chapter five illustrates the results and discussion from the gathered data.