Advisees

Year	Name	Current Affiliation
2001	Dongmei Li Hongjian Tan	Guangxi Normal University Dongguan Polytechnic University
2002	Ji Liu Aiyun Wei	Guangxi Normal University Guangxi Normal University
2003	Chenghui Chen Qi Gao Zheng Li Ying Liang Xia Wang Guifang Zhao	Nanjing University of Agricultural Science and Technology Guangxi Normal University Zhanjiang Normal University Guangxi Medical University Dongguan High School Guilin No. 18 High School
2004	Chunhua Hu Juanjiao Luo Haiying Xiang Huizhen Wang	Dongguan Polytechnic University; Shanghai International Studies University Hunan University of Finance Hunan University High School of Guangxi Normal University
2005	Jianjun Tang Xinhong Tang Ping Zhang Shaolan Zhang	Jiangxi Normal University Jiangsu School of Foreign Studies, Guilin University of Electronic Technology Dept of College English, Guilin Institute of Tourism
2006	Yunhui Wei Xueqing Liang Ning He Zhaojuan Xu Yuping Zhou Wensheng Tang Pingxiang He Yan Sun Kaiwen Wang Yuge Song	Dept of Foreign Language, Guilin Institute of Technology Dept of College English, Guilin Medical College Yunnan University of Minority Nationalities College of Foreign Studies, Nanyang University College of Foreign Studies, Jiangxi Normal University Dept of Foreign Languages, Wuzhou College Dept of Foreign Languages, Quanzhou Teachers’ College
2007	Wenbo Wang Hui Xu Yanqiong Zhou Xia Tang Xiaoya Qian Yinwen Huang Handong Li Zifang Zhu Liyuan Wang Guizhi Xu Linyu Xu	Guangxi Jiaotong Professional College Zhanjiang Normal University
2008	Weizhen Ai
2009	Haiyan Luo Yi He

Theses

(More MA theses)

Year	Title / Author / Current Affiliation / Thesis Abstract
2001	1.Relevance theory and listening comprehension (by Dongmei Li) (Guangxi Normal University) (Abstract) 2.Value of context in verbal communication (by Hongjian Tan) (Dongguan Polytechnic University) (Abstract)
2002	1. The Cooperative Principle and its study in China (by Ji Liu) (Guangxi Normal University) (Abstract) 2. Attitudinal study of Chinese English  (by Aiyun Wei) (Guangxi Normal University) (Abstract)
2003	1. The realization of compliments by Chinese teachers  (by Chenghui Chen) (Nanjing University of Agricultural Science and Technology) (Abstract) 2. The realization of "correcting" in Chinese classrooms (by Qi Gao) (Guangxi Normal University) (Abstract) 3. Internal, external expression of the translator’s subjectivity and its development: Study of the translator's subjectivity from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics  (by Zheng Li) (Zhanjiang Normal University) (Abstract) 4. A study of the system of Chinese English words  (by Ying Liang) (Guangxi Medical University) (Abstract) 5. On "waste" in high school English teaching and learning: Manifestations, causes, and countermeasures  (by Xia Wang) (Abstract) 6. A study of exemplification in middle school English teaching  (by Guifang Zhao) (Abstract)
2004	1. Leading through Language: A Pragmatic Study of  Leadership Language with Examples from Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping   (by Chunhua Hu) (Dongguan Polytechnic University) (Abstract) 2. The meaning system of Chinese English (by Juanjiao Luo) (Hunan University of Finance) (Abstract) 3. A Pragmalinguistic analysis of the speech act of fundraising   (by Haiying Xiang) (Hunan University) (Abstract) 4. (by Wang Huizhen) (Abstract)
2005	1. A Survey about the Adaptability of the Politeness Principle in Internet Chatting  (by Tang Jianjun) (Jiangxi Normal University) (Abstract)   2. A Pragmatic Study of Address Forms by Chinese Students of English (by Tang Xinghong) (Abstract) 3. A Study of the “Swearing” Speech Act in The Dream of the Red Chamber (by Zhang Ping) (Abstract) 4. A study on English learning strategy training among secondary vocational school students  (by Zhang Shaolan) (Guilin Tourism College) (Abstract)
2006	1. Creativity in Advertising: The Relevance Theory Approach (关联理论视角下的广告语创作研究) (by Yunhui Wei) (Abstract) 2. A Politeness Approach to Euphemism in Doctor-Patient Dialog (医患对话中委婉语的礼貌研究) (by Xueqing Liang) (Abstract) 3. A Comparative Study of Metaphors between Chinese and English Netspeak (英汉网络语言中隐喻的对比研究) (by Ning He) (Abstract) 4. Defining Word Meanings in Bilingual Dictionaries: A Pragmatic Perspective (语用学视角下的双语词典词语定义研究) (by Zhaojuan Xu) (Abstract) 5. Studies on Fictional Dialogue from the Perspective of Gricean Conversational Implicature Theory: A Case Study of Jane Eyre (格氏会话含义理论在《简．爱》会话语言中的应用研究) (by Yuping Zhou) (Abstract) 6. Fuzziness of Language in Stock and Bond Analysis (证券分析中的模糊语言) (by Wensheng Tang) (Abstract) 7. The Language of the NBA: A Linguistic Analysis of Impromptu NBA Commentaries (NBA语言研究--NBA即席解说词的语言学探析) (by Pingxiang He) (Abstract) 8. A Cross-Cultural Study On the Realization of the Speech Act of Introduction (“介绍”言语行为的跨文化研究) (by Yan Sun) (Abstract) 9. Classification of Interlocutors and Its Effects On Communication (论对话者的角色类别及其对交际效果的影响) (by Kaiwen Wang) (Abstract) 10. A study on the speech act of bargaining in Chinese (汉语“讨价还价”言语行为研究) (by Yuge Song) (Abstract)
2007	1. Direct Request in Chinese (汉语直接请求言语行为研究) (by Wenbo Wang) (Abstract) 2. The Speech Act of Indirect Refusal in Contemporary Chinese (现代汉语“间接拒绝”言语行为研究) (by Hui Xu) (Abstract) 3. The Speech Act Realization of Thanking in A Dream of Red Mansions汉语“感谢”言语行为的研究：以《红楼梦》为例 (by Yanqiong Zhu) (Abstract) 4. A Contrastive Study of the Speech Act of Persuasion in Chinese and American English (中美“劝说”言语行为对比研究) (by Xia Tang) (Abstract) 5. Pragmatic Strategies in News Headlines: Beijing Daily’s Olympic news as a case study (新闻标题语用策略研究：《北京日报》奥运新闻个案考查) (by Xiaoya Qian) (Abstract) 6. Statement in Advertisement and Declarative Indirect Persuasion (广告产品陈述与陈述性间接劝服) (by Yinwen Huang) (Abstract) 7. The Necessity of Introducing Speech Act Theory into College English Writing Teaching: A Corpus based Analysis (引入言语行为理论指导大学英语写作教学的必要性：基于数据库的分析) (by Handong Li) (Abstract) 8. Gender Differences in Performing Invitation in Chinese (汉语“邀请”言语行为的性别差异研究) (by Zifang Zhu) (Abstract) 9. The Speech Act of “Thanking” in Chinese(汉语“感谢”言语行为研究) (by Liyuan Wang) (Abstract) 10. A Study of the “Congratulating-Wishing” Speech Act in Modern Chinese (现代汉语“祝颂”言语行为研究)(by Guizhi Xu)(Abstract) 11. A Study on the Speech Act of Comforting in Chinese (汉语安慰言语行为研究) (by Linyu Xu) (Abstract)

Abstract

A Survey about the Adaptability of the Politeness Principle in Internet Chatting
Student: Jianjun Tang   Supervisor: Shaozhong Liu     Date: 2005

As an important pragmatics principle, the Politeness Principle (PP) has always been a focus of study over the past decades. Due to the diversity of cultures, nevertheless, researchers have come up with counterdata as to throw doubts in the explanatory adequacy of this principle. In my opinion, the PP which reflects much tropism, is still a principle that can be applied to people-to-people interaction in a large extent. Today apart from the true-life-communication, many people like to communicate on the internet, that is internet-communication. As a result, current research of pragmatics naturally extends to internet language and internet-communication, and the adaptability of the Politeness Principle in internet chatting becomes one of the topics under heated discussion
This is an explicit study on the adaptability of the PP in internet communication.

      Through emails, a survey that contains five variables—“age”, ”sex”, ”character”, "occupation”, “time” was conducted on line. Then SPSS was adopted to analyze the mode, frequency, the relatedness of two samples, the relatedness of several samples.

      It was found that in internet-communication, PP’s maxims encounter challenges. In fact almost all the PP maxims and submaxims are subject to a certain extent of revision or rectification; the more cost to self, the more revision it should be made; in a likely manner, the more benefit to other, the more revision such a maxim is needed; however, less cost to self or less benefit to other maxims are less likely to revision needs.

      Accordingly, the adaptability degree of Leech’s Politeness Principle in internet chatting bears five levels:

First level: Minimize dispraise of other,  Minimize antipathy between self and other  

      Second level: Minimize cost to other, Maximize praise of other, Minimize disagreement between self and other

      Third level: Maximize benefit to other, Minimize praise of self,  Maximize agreement between self and other

      Fourth level: Minimize benefit to self , Maximize sympathy between self and other

      Fifth level: Maximize cost to self , Maximize dispraise of self

Such an adapted PP seems to be more adequate in explaining both the everyday interaction and internet communication.

Key words:  Politeness Principle, internet-communication, adaptability, survey    (To the top)

A Pragmatic Study of Address Forms by Chinese Students of English
      Student: Xinghong Tang   Supervisor: Shaozhong Liu    Date: 2005

This study investigates the speech act of address performed by Chinese students of English from the perspective of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP).

      Address forms, as an impressible linguistic phenomenon, have always been the object of sociolinguistic researches. From the angle of pragmatics, address is also a speech act, but few studies consider it a speech act, and few describe the patterns of address behaviour in a speech community. Although various speech acts are investigated in ILP, yet little has been done on the speech act of address performed by L2 learners, especially by Chinese ESL learners. 

This study is confined to the student community，mainly investigating how Chinese students address their English or foreign teachers, focusing on the description of patterns of their address, and discussing the governing factors  and  causes for the patterns. It hopes to shed light on English language learning and teaching.

Basing on the speech act theory, I defined the speech act of address in a contextual use of proper address forms to express some feelings or achieve some goals. And then the illocutionary forces and pragmatic functions of address are generally discussed.

      Questionnaire is mainly employed to get the data, and the informants of both lower-proficiency and higher-proficiency are the students from College of Foreign Studies in GXNU.

      The following findings and conclusions were obtained:

(i) Governing factors.

      The choice of address form is governed by various actors, and the importance degrees of these factors to Chinese students are different from those to native speakers. Among these factors, socio-culture plays an important role. The learners’ address is influenced by both English and Chinese cultures.

(ii)Pragmatic failure

Most CS can follow the generally-accepted rules to address their foreign teachers, using TLN or FN, but still quite a few address teachers with TFN, or teacher, neither of which is proper to address a teacher in English culture. This is the phenomenon of pragmatic failure. The illocutionary forces produced through the misuse of address may be misunderstood by foreigners.

(iii)Pragmatic transfer

Pragmatic failures are caused by two things: one is students’ not fully understanding pragmatic rules or norms of address in English, the other is the influence of Chinese language and culture on English addressing behavior, which is negative pragmatic transfer. Even advanced learners make pragmatic failures in TL.

The study may help enhance Chinese learners’ awareness on polite address in cross cross-cultural communication and improve their communicative competences. Foreign language teachers can also get implication for their teaching methods, paying more attention on cultural teaching of speech acts.

Key words: speech act of address, address form, interlanguage pragmatics, Chinese students of English   (To the top)

A Study of the “Swearing” Speech Act in The Dream of the Red Chamber
     Student: Ping Zhang  Supervisor: Shaozhong Liu    Date: 2005

This is an explicit study of the speech act of “li ma” or “swearing”. It narrowly defines swearing as those “ma” characters, expressions and clauses that contain the “ma” morpheme.

      Based on the Peking University database, this project sorted out over 90 sentences from The Dream of the Red Chamber, that fall under the Chinese “ma” definition for analysis, and probed into these apparently “ma” meaning-bearing expressions. The ultimate purposes of this study were to detect and determine the structural models of swearing, its pragmatic functions, pragmatic parameters, and strategies of response.

      It was found that swearing possesses 3 types of discourse structural models: appellational swearing, insulting swearing, and causal swearing. Then 30 odd pragmatic functions were reported in the study that strongly display their competences in helping people, as those in The Dream of the Red Chamber, to express their subtle feelings to the full in intricate situations and under complex mentality. Meanwhile, 4 pragmatic parameters were discovered in this analysis of data: the sex character of swearing explaining how sex as a pragmatic factor influences the speech act of swearing; the socio-cultural character of swearing demonstrating how 8 aspects of socio-cultural elements affect the realization of swearing in English and Chinese; the courtesy character of swearing, and the psycho-cognitive character of swearing. Finally in terms of responding strategies, the study evidenced that basically 3 types of strategies were used when confronting swearing: no response, expectant moderate response, and excessive response.

      Different from previous studies, this investigation confined its in-depth study of swearing by basing on the data in the masterpiece The Dream of the Red Chamber, and accordingly revealed the rudimental patterns of swearing. This is an example to exemplifying the utility and explanatory adequacy of pragmatics through concrete data. In addition, the study of swearing in The Dream of the Red Chamber might indirectly add understanding to our further appreciation in the magnitude of significance of this great work, though this was by no means our original intent.

Key words: The Dreams of the Red Chamber, swearing, discourse models, pragmatic functions, pragmatic parameters (To the top)

Attitudinal Study of Chinese English
     Student: Aiyun Wei  Supervisor: Shaozhong Liu    Date: 2002

Chinese English is the English variety integrated into the social and cultural environments in China. It is referred to the English made by the Chinese people (who have grown up on the mainland of China only) in using English to express themselves, which is greatly influenced by the special thinking modes of the people and the styles of Mandarin in many ways.

Researchers, out of different purposes or interests, looked at Chinese English from various angles. Rongpei (1991), for instance, holds that Chinese English is an objective reality, Li Wenzhong (1993) and Ge Chuangui (1980), for another instance, regard Chinese English as being free from Chinese transfer, and there is a striking difference between China English and Chinese English, while Xie Zhijuan (1995) and Zhang Peicheng (1995) contend that Chinese English is not a national variety of English. A similar view is from Chen Wencun (1999) who argues that it is unnecessary to see Chinese English as a regional variety in China. However, most of them focused on its definition, characters and functions, leaving many other aspects such as the status or treatment undiscussed. For that matter, this study specifically considers the attitudes toward Chinese English, and proposes a “basic treatment” it deserves. 

The paper begins with the development and expansion of the English language throughout the world; summarizes the actual situation of the English in China and the study of the English there; points out the confusions left behind the study and the objective reality of Chinese English, probes into the cognitive and social accounts for its rational existence; and discusses the national guarantee of its status. On the basis of the comprehensive functioning of the above mentioned factors, to our understanding, the basic treatment of Chinese English is mainly reflected as below: first, Chinese English should be leniently treated; second, the rational existence of Chinese English should be recognized and accepted; third, new linguistic theory should be introduced to the study of Chinese English; forth, Chinese English is an indispensable English variety in intercultural communications between China and foreign countries; and finally, people should show their confidence towards the bright future of Chinese English.

The study is of great importance either to the development of Chinese English, to the study of language variety or to the guidance of English teaching in China.

Key words:  Chinese English,  interlanguage theory,  sociolinguistic theory,  basic treatment  
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The Realization of “Correcting” in Chinese Classrooms

     Student: Qi Gao  Supervisor: Shaozhong Liu    Date: 2003

Correcting is frequently used in our daily life. However, there have been few studies addressing this issue. How do Chinese college students realize such a speech act?  What are the politeness formulas employed in their correcting? The questions still remain unsolved, thus are the aims of this study.

The data is elicited from the students, 60 undergraduates, 34 females and 26 males, were randomly selected, varying from grade one to grade four, in the College of Foreign Studies of GuangXi Normal University, to write down their responses in Chinese in three situations.
      In Situation 1, where students role-play professors to correct their students, it was found that the subjects prefer to point out the occurrence of the mistake, instead of correcting directly. This pattern using “No correction” is different from the pattern using “ positive remark﹢[but]﹢correction” shared by majority of Americans and Japanese, as was observed by Beebe and Takahashi (1993).
      In Situation 2 , where students correct professors, the subjects correct directly, but they employed various politeness devices.
      In Situation 3, where students correct students, the subjects correct directly and use less politeness devices.
      The study found that Chinese subjects in Situation 1 prefer to use positive remarks to preface the correction. In Situation 2, Chinese students enhance the politeness and soften the face-threatening by way of employing various politeness devices at a time in one response. In Situation 3, subjects employed less politeness devices to correct the mistake directly. These findings suggest that the theory of “face” restated by Brown & Levinson does exist in the performance of correcting. And it is also found that the percentage of the politeness devices used in Situation 2 is higher than politeness devices used in the rest of two situations, also is higher than Americans and Japanese used according to Beebe & Takahashi (1993). These findings show Chinese college students shift their politeness devices according to different people in different status and they are sensitive to social status.
      The findings of this study might help both foreign language teachers and foreign language learners to diminish the breakdowns of cross-culture communication when performing correcting.
      However, this study is confined to classroom correcting, and it would be interesting in the future to investigate how people out of classroom perform “correcting”, and if they also follow our models and politeness devices.  

Key Words:  correcting,  speech act,  face- threatening act, pattern,  politeness devices 
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Relevance Theory and Listening Comprehension

     Student: Dongmei Li Supervisor: Shaozhong Liu    Date: 2001

Mainstream listening comprehension researches to date can be roughly categorized into four tributaries. First of all, from a psycholinguistic perspective, researches approached listening comprehension from three interrelated and recursive processes: perceptual processing (focusing on the perception of sounds and storing them in memory), parsing (probing into how listeners use words to construct meaning) and utilization (examining into how listeners connect what is heard with what is already known). Secondly, by adopting the schema-theory, researchers envisaged listening comprehension as involving or displaying two opposite information processing orientations, top-down and bottom-up. During a top-down processing process, listeners are observed to deploy their knowledge of the world, situations and roles of human interaction to comprehend meaning; while in a bottom-up information retrieving process, listeners are observed to use their knowledge of words, syntax, and grammar to work on form. Then, from the pragmatic point of view, researchers attached great importance of context in listening comprehension. Finally, in the area of SLA research, scholars have demonstrated strong interests in finding out factors affecting the learners’ listening. Although these different perspectives have led to our overall understanding, nevertheless, our knowledge about the nature of listening comprehension process is still far from being complete.

The Relevance Theory (RT) is first proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986) in their book Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Over the decade, it has been widely and successfully applied to analyze stylistic features, translation, syntax, discourse, literature, and media discourse and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, literature on its application to listening comprehension is scantly documented. This thesis is an explicit attempt to explain listening comprehension under the Relevance framework.

As far as I can see, interpreted from the RT perspective, (1) the aim of listening comprehension is to obtain the speaker’s intended meaning. While grasping the speaker’s informative intention, the listener’s attention should be paid to the speaker’s communicative intention. (2) As for the nature of listening comprehension is concerned, it is an inferential process in which the listener uses his encyclopedic, logical and lexical knowledge to process the incoming new information. In other words, the listener searches from his assumptions about the world in his preference and ability the most relevant information to complement the lacking premises for inference. (3) Different from our familiar conception of context, which utterance comprehension heavily relies on, it is a dynamic psychological construct and developed in the course of interaction. What is more, the selection of it is governed by the principle of relevance. How to search the optimal relevant information to form a context for inference within the limited time is the key to improve the efficiency of listening comprehension. (4) Due to differences of individuals’ cognitive environments, the result of comprehension to one utterance could not be the same. The same utterance, inferred in different context, might result in utterly different understandings, though all interpretations could be explained as the optimal and most appropriate on the part of listeners.

Based on the RT interpretation of the listening comprehension process, I concluded: 

      (1) that it is imperative to reconsider the teachers’ role of a listening course. As far as I am concerned, listening comprehension course in present China is of transactional nature, and students in such a course have rare chance to interact with the speaker. An evident aspect is that the students’ comprehension of the listening materials is reflected in answering the questions raised by the teacher. In this case, the teacher’s intention is what the students need to recover in order to answer the question correctly. The question itself and the optional answers for a multi-choice are factors that constrain the students searching for optimal relevance. In a certain degree, the teacher in this situation is actually a communicator rather than only a guide or what is even worse, an onlooker.

      (2) that teachers should choose the appropriate listening materials for the students. The materials should embody some interaction with the students’ cognitive environment. Too old or too new incoming information may have little contextual effects, thus have low degree of relevance to attract the students attention to process the information.

      (3) that teachers should help in every way the students to recognize the speaker’s intention which is a core part of communicative competence. These might include choosing materials that interact directly to the students, using video to assist and discriminating the suprasegmental features to help the students grasp the meaning behind the words.

      (4) in the news listening comprehension teaching, the teacher can help the students develop the context by selecting the current broadcasting news and topic, and teaching to constrain the students searching for relevant background information for comprehension.

Keywords: listening comprehension，relevance theory，listening teaching    (To the top)

Values of Context in Verbal Communication

Student: Hongjian Tan  Supervisor: Shaozhong Liu    Date: 2001

Context is a common concern in not only linguistics, sociolinguistics, but also pragmatics. Out of various interests, researchers have initiated studies from different perspectives. Nevertheless, what are some of the values a context may pose? This is certainly a fundamental issue in the understanding of context. Unfortunately, there is little mentioning of this in the rich literature of context analyses, and up till now, there exists no such studies. As an explicit examination into the values of context, this project is believed to add to our knowledge about context. 

By synthesizing traditional views and pragmatic views on context, we found that context in verbal communication is factors abstracted from concrete communicative settings (both immediate physical and social) having influence on communicators in the interacting process. In addition, these factors are actually a pool of common background knowledge mutually manifest to the participants, and have impacts on the linguistic forms chosen for uttering, the appropriateness of uttering, and the meaning of utterance.

By absorbing the latest discoveries in context discussions, we took a dynamic attitude towards context, and held: (i) that context is not given, immutable, or pre-existing before the interaction takes place, but to a great extent, created by communicators as contextualization cues in their utterances.  What is more, it keeps changing and expanding in the process as the interactants’ mutual knowledge expands. (ii) that context is not static. Aspects of context can be intentionally manipulated and made use of by communicators as a communicative strategy.

Since successful communication is always characterized by the successful expression of intention on the part of the utterer, and the successful comprehension of the intention on the part of the hearer, in other words, successful conveyance and comprehension of communicative meanings of utterances are key access to successful communication, hence we concluded that context plays a cardinal and decisive role, and exhibits colossal values in verbal communication, which are manifest in four ways:

      (i) Imposing constraints on communicators in the process of interaction so as to provide a common ground for uttering an d comprehension. Owing to the constraints, the utterer is limited to make contextually appropriate utterances to express his or her intention. The hearer restricts the range of meanings with context and come up with the understanding of the utterer’s real intention.

    (ii) Supplying enough proofs for the understanding of utterance meanings so as to speed up the hearer’s recognition of the utmost intention of the utterer.

  (iii) Manipulating contextual elements to achieve communicative goals. Communicators can make use of the immediate physical environments or activate from the pool of shared knowledge relevant schemata to establish or re-establish a context beneficial for attaining communicative goals.

(iv) Adding beauty of speech both in form and content. Careful consideration and planning of phonemes in their co-text, harmonious allocation of words and phrases, and balanced arrangement of sentences in discourse make utterance well weighted and phonetically musical. Besides, context can be exploited to enhance the expressiveness of utterance.

The significance of this study is both theoretical and practical. Theoretically speaking, it helps to widen or enrich th