현대중국어 부가의문문의 화행 기능과 의사소통 효과

Abstract

This paper aims to study the function of speech acts and communicative effects carried by means of attaching a tag question to the end of such a sentence as declarative sentence, imperative sentence, exclamatory sentence, and rhetorical question. The paper discusses the presupposition that the hearer needs to know the background information about the information delivered by the speaker. It also discuses four types of Chinese tag questions, such as ‘X嗎?’, ‘X吧?’, ‘X不X?’, ‘不X嗎?’. The ‘declaration’ of the speaker’s views or opinion expressed in a declarative sentence is changed to the speaker’s ‘request’, ‘blame’, ‘excuse’, ‘assertion’ etc by means of attaching a tag question to the end of the declarative sentence. The attachment of a tag question to the end of an imperative sentence with a soft tone changes the speaker’s ‘order’ to ‘advice’, ‘refusal’ to ‘persuasion’, ‘request’ to ‘urgent request’, which may easily get the hearer to cooperate for the conversation. However, the tag question with a strong tone attached to the end of an imperative sentence tends to change the speaker’s ‘order’ to ‘threat’, which may force the hearer to satisfy the speaker’s requirement without complaining. The speaker’s ‘compliment’ expressed in an exclamatory sentence tends to be changed to ‘request’ for the hearer’s approval by means of attaching a tag question to the end of the exclamatory sentence, which have naturally the hearer participate in the conversation. The speaker’s ‘statement’ expressed in a rhetorical question tends to be changed to ‘assertion’, ‘tease’ to ‘blame’, ‘cynicism’ to ‘suggestion’ by means of attaching a tag question to the end of the rhetorical question. These changes of speech act through attaching a tag question have a great influence on the effects of communication in an either affirmative or negative way.