Social Interactional Linguistics

Author: Lü Mingchen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1996-12-01
Features: Speech communication is so ordinary and so universal that some people tend to overlook it. Some say, who doesn’t know how to speak? Physically healthy people can speak, and if they can speak, they can engage in verbal communication with others—why would they need to learn it specifically? Yes, speaking and speaking are not the same. How to speak involves a great deal of knowledge. Some people’s claim that "normal people can all speak" is actually incorrect. What they refer to as "knowing how to speak" can only be called "being able to speak." "Being able to speak" is not the same as "knowing how to speak." The nature, purpose, and relationships between people in communication, as well as the temporal and spatial environments, vary greatly. In such cases, how one speaks and how to use speech to accomplish tasks and achieve goals are entirely different—there is much knowledge and skill involved, which can only be acquired through conscious learning and training. This book is written precisely for this purpose. The title "Social Pragmatics of Language" emphasizes the social nature of speech communication, so as to prevent anyone from viewing it merely as an individual behavior. As a book on pragmatics of language, this one focuses more on theoretical elaboration, aiming to establish the basic framework of pragmatics of language from a macro perspective and provide readers with foundational theories and knowledge. This is because the specific situations of speech communication are not only diverse but also constantly changing. Discussing specific issues in detail is inevitably incomplete, and even if explained, they may lack relevance, offering little benefit to readers. The ideas and some content of this book began to take shape during the writing of Sun Weizhang’s Social Pragmatics of Chinese Language, and some content was included in that book. However, due to length constraints at the time, it could not be fully elaborated. This time, the related issues are expanded upon, with many new contents added. Additionally, the structure has been carefully designed to ensure coherence, making the book more complete.