自然话语中致歉语“不好意思”的韵律—语用界面研究

Prosodic-pragmatic Interface Studies on the Speech Act of Apology Marker“Buhaoyisi”in Chinese Spontaneous Speech

致歉语是一种常见的礼貌语用表达,现有研究主要探讨其词句结构和文化语境,较少关注其韵律特征。本文以汉语自然话语中口语致歉语“不好意思”为例,采取语料库研究法,探究该致歉语的韵律特征与语用功能的关系。研究发现,具有不同语用功能的“不好意思”在停顿、时长、音高和音强等方面有着不同的韵律表现,其语用功能和韵律特征之间存在着一定的对应关系。具体表现为:实现概念功能的“不好意思1”与其前后话语成分之间通常无停顿,其平均时长最短,平均音高值和平均音强值都最小。实现礼貌性言语行为功能的“不好意思2”与其前后话语成分之间有时有停顿,有时无停顿,其平均时长居中,平均音高值和平均音强值都最大。实现元话语功能的“不好意思3”与其前后话语成分之间通常存在停顿,其平均时长最长,平均音高值和平均音强值都居中。

Apology is one of the frequently occurring speech acts of politeness in daily communication.While current studies have discussed a great deal of its formal structures and cultural contexts,few have touched upon its prosodic features.Adopting a corpus-based approach,this article takes as an example of the apology marker“Buhaoyisi”in Chinese spontaneous speech,and explores the relation between its pragmatic functions and prosodic features.It has been found that“Buhaoyisi”,possessing different pragmatic functions,has distinct prosodic behaviors in terms of pause,duration,pitch and intensity.Specifically,“Buhaoyisi 1”,which performs ideational function,normally show no pauses between its surrounding constituents.And it has the smallest values in terms of its mean duration,mean pitch and mean intensity.“Buhaoyisi 2”,which realizes the function of politeness speech act,has pauses between its surrounding constituents in a casual way.And it manifests a medium value of its mean duration and has the highest mean pitch and the highest mean intensity.“Buhaoyisi 3”,which fulfills the meta-discourse function,is usually accompanied by pauses and has the longest mean duration.Its values of mean pitch and mean intensity stay medium among the three.