Personal Pronoun Interchanges in Mandarin Chinese Conversation

論文發表人：蕭季樺 (加州大學洛杉磯分校/應用語言學所)

 

http://www.aaal.org/

 

自然口語中的語言使用往往與傳統語法的描述有所不同，人稱代名詞即是一例。在對話中，說話者常常使用第一人稱，我，以指涉聽話者;反之，使用第二人稱，你，指涉自己。本文探討第一及第二人稱代名詞互換的語用及語法功能。本文發現，人稱代名詞互換是為了達到高度的溝通: 說話者使用第一人稱指涉聽話者通常是轉述對方的內心話語，表現充分理解對方的立場;當說話者使用第二人稱指涉說話者，則是為了將聽話者帶進說話者自身的主觀經驗，使之更清楚地體現給聽話者。此語用功能與其句法環境相關。第一人稱指涉聽話者通常伴隨著感官-認知-語談動詞以及無指示性代名詞；反之，第二人稱指涉說話者本身的環境正好互補，通常有指示性代名詞，但是沒有感官-認知-語談動詞。語用與句法的相互影響在本文中也再次得到映證。

 

Traditional grammarians assert that conventional meanings of personal pronouns belong to linguistic codes, and their references depend on the context in which they are uttered. However, conversational uses of personal pronouns I and you often blur the traditional distinction between speakers and hearer(s). With discourse analysis and conversational analysis (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974) as theoretical framework, this paper explores the recurrent switch of the first person singular pronoun wo, 'I', and the second person singular pronoun ni, 'you' in Chinese everyday conversation to illuminate how personal pronouns are employed to affect others' perspectives in order to enhance interaction in subsequent utterances. The following conversation excerpt nicely represents this phenomenon:

[Acting in a play]

Wang:  'He (Ming) would say, he— he — gives comments when I am acting, he will tell you how to make the playing even better.'

 

Speaker Wang is narrating his relation with another actor Ming in response to the radio show host's question of how their co-opetition relationship: Wang uses ni in reference to himself, as if the hearer, (i.e., the host), where him, and was receiving Ming's acting suggestions.

 

This paper examines the formal syntactic properties and discourse functions of the interchanges in the micro-organization within conversation and illuminates how personal pronouns are employed to affect others' perspectives in order to enhance interaction in subsequent utterances. The result shows that wo for the second person pronoun serves a communicative purpose by having speakers take listeners' perspective; on the other hand, ni for the first person pronoun is for information-providing purposes that invites listeners to a subjective experience. The syntactic characteristics within each interchange pattern correspond with one another, and together they explain the pragmatic functions of why speakers adopt the reverse perspectives contrary to the original meanings of wo and ni.