言语行为理论与多模态研究——兼论多模态(语料库)语用学的逻辑

Speech Act Theory and Multimodal Analysis:the Logic in Multimodal(Corpus) Pragmatics

人们在日常交际中实施的是一个个"鲜活"的言语行为,研究者应当从人类普通行为的视角看待言语行为,在社会场景观照下对其进行考察。多模态研究拓展了学者们对包括言语行为在内语用课题的考察视野和方法,为从结构形式、韵律特征、体貌动作等多个维度研究言语行为提供了可能。个案研究显示:说话人的话语内容、韵律特征、体貌表现等资源都为其言语行为的实施作出了贡献。研究者基于多模态语料库开展言语行为研究,是以新的研究范式重新检视语用学经典课题,拓展了言语行为的研究视野,对语力、语力显示项等概念、范畴进行了发展,尤其为间接言语行为的考察提供了新路径,能够深刻揭示言语行为的本质和特点。这启示研究者应当重视运用多模态方法考察语用问题,关注多模态(语料库)语用学的兴起。运用多模态方法研究语用问题,可在研究方法上对语用学研究进行升级,从而对相关语用学理论进行拓展、修正。

Live speech acts in situated discourse are performed by live 'whole persons' who interact with the environment in a multimodal way. In this sense, speech acts are suggested to be studied in the perspective of human behavior and in the framework of social situation. With the help of Corpus Linguistics and multimodal approach to language study, researchers are able to further investigate pragmatic issues to develop a better understanding on human interaction and refine traditional pragmatic theories or concepts. Adopting the method of Multimodal Corpus Linguistics and the basic thought of Simulative Modeling, the pilot study in this paper shows that the live illocutionary act is rooted in the whole multimodal interaction of speakers, thus the illocutionary force is multimodal in nature. Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices range in its scope from language structures, prosodic features to non-verbal gestures, etc. All these resources, which are impacted by speakers' occurrent emotions and other factors, work in a collaborative way to help speakers to perform illocutionary acts. These findings are in compliance with Austin's observation on the accompaniments of the utterance when a speaker performs an illocutionary act. The findings extend the inquiry of Speech Act Theory and develop the concept of Illocutionary Force Indicating Device by using the novel method and new linguistic data. This paper provides a reference for further study of pragmatic issues based on multimodal corpus, multimodal approach to pragmatic study, or even Multimodal(Corpus) Pragmatics, therefore, should receive due attention.