从语用学礼貌原则角度分析国王的演讲.doc

廊坊师范学院

本科生学年论文

题 目：Analysis on the Dialogue in The King’s Speech from the Perspective of Politeness Principle

学生姓名：袁亚利
指导教师： 王钟锐
二级学院： 外国语学院
系 别： 英语系
专 业： 英 语
年级班级： 2012级1班
学 号： 12030141022

完成日期： 2015年1月7日

Title: Analysis on the Dialogue in the King’s Speech from the perspective of politeness principle
Abstract: The nature of language is to communicate. Communication is a bridge ,through which people can transfer and get the information they need. The movie’s dialogue is also the way to communicate .It is an important way to describe the characters’ inner feelings ,activities and their characteristics. The film tries to inflect its communication purpose by the dialogues. In this paper, I will use Leech’s Politeness Principle and Brown’s Face Theory to analyze the dialogue in The King’s Speech,and make a deep analysis on its characters so as to let readers have better admirations on this movie. At the same time ,if we use our pragmatic knowledge ,we can understand the film’s deep meaning and its art’s feature .
Key words: Politeness Principle ;Non-public Politeness Dialogue ; Discourse Analysis

1. Introduction
The film shows its communication aims through dialogue, which can not only the audience understand the development of plot also can deepen the understanding of author’s intention.Hence, through analyzing the film’s dialogue can dissect character’s inner feelings ,activities and his characteristics so as to help audience understand the film better.
Leech’s Politeness Principle
American linguistics H.P.Grice proposed the Cooperative Principle(CP for short) in the William James lecture delivered at Harvard University. Grice thinks that people all use CP both consciously and unconsciously when they use language to communicate. However, Grice’s Cooperative Principle is not explain sufficiently (1)why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean and(2）what is the relation between sense and force when non-declaration types of sentences are being considered[1] As a result, in 1983,Leech proposed Politeness Principle so as to rescue the CP from trouble. Leech believes the main reason that people violate CP intently is the consideration of politeness.
From the perspective of rhetoric and stylistics,Leech (1983)lists six specific maxims,as summarized in the following:Tact Maxim, Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim, Modesty Maxim, Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim.
Apart from Leech ,Brown and Levinson(1987) proposed the Face Saving Theory too. In their view, face can divide into positive face and negative face.The positive face indicates to get people’s agreement and praise;the negative face indicates the basic clame to territories,personal preserves,rights to non-interference.
Brown and Levinson(1987) also proposed Face Threaten Acts(FTA for short). When people communicate, it always threats the faces of two parts. So, the speaker should obey the Politeness Principle in order to save not only his face, but also the hearer’s face.They call politeness redressive strategies which contain three part .We only talk about the non- public politeness.It shows speaker’s implicit polite.
2. Dialogue Analysis
The King’s Speech is based on the true story of King George VI.
After the death of his father and the scandalous abdication of King Edward VIII,Bertie who has suffered from a speech impediment all his life, is suddenly crowned King George VI of England. Because of his stammer and cowardice,he can not deliver a speech in public. His wife,the Queen Elizabeth,tries her best to find doctors to treat him .Finally, with the Lionel Logue’s help, King George VI overcomes his stammer and deliver a radio-address that inspires his people and unities them in the battle.
This paper tries to analyze the dialogue of the main characters through Politeness Principle.
1 Scene:Lionel Logue is sitting on the crown ceremony chair
King George VI(K for short):  Get up! Y-you can't sit there! GET UP!
Lionel Logue(L for short): Why not? It's a chair.
K: T-that... that is Saint Edward's chair.
L: People have carved their names on it.
King George VI tries to persuade Lionel Logue not sit on that seat, which is Saint Edward's chair.But L does not listen.He thinks it just a chair ,just so ordinary.There is no difference compared with other chairs.while ,King George thinks it very important .Nobody can sit on it ,only Saint Edward.It is the represent of status.Here, L violates the Agreement Maxim through showing the different opinion about the chair.. What’s more ,L also hurts King George VI’s positive face.In the dialogue ,By saying “Get up! Y-you can't sit there! GET UP!”and”T-that... that is Saint Edward's chair”,King George VI wants L understand it is a special chair and wants him to get up.But L does not listen.From the two points ,we can see Logue is a person who is despise the power and he pursues freedom .
2 Scene: the quarrel between King George VI and Lionel Logue
K: L-listen to me... listen to me!
Logue: Why should I waste my time listening to you?
K: Because I have a voice!
L: ...yes, you do.
In the first two short sentences ,we can know Lionel Logue refuse to listen K‘s words.He hurts King’s positive face.
King George VI wants Lionel Logue listen to him and say his reason why Lionel Logue should listen to him .Logue agrees by saying”...yes, you do.”.This shows Lionel Logue obeys the Agreement Maxim.Logue agree that King has a voice. Here ,“have a voice”not only represents the power of his words but also the ability of delivering a speech in public. Logue uses non-public politeness to encourage King George VI to overcome his weakness---Stammer and discourage. That is to say ,Logue is very understanding and kind has positive power to encourage others in his heart.
3 Scene:Queen Elizabeth’s first visit to Logue:
Queen Elizabeth: My husband's work involves a great deal of public speaking.
L: Then he should change jobs.
Queen Elizabeth: He can't.
L: What is he, an indentured servant?
Queen Elizabeth: Something like that.
The beginning of the short dialogue between Queen Elizabeth and Logue,when she says that her husband has a great deal of work about public speaking,(and we all know in the movie she explains the reason that her husband can’t speak fluently before.)Logue should show his sympathy for her husband ‘s condition . But, in fact, he says that King George VI should change his job.Logue ,here, violates the Sympathy Principle
4 Scene:Queen Elizabeth’s first visit to Logue:
L:Well,we need to have your hubby pop by...Tuesday would be good .He can give me his personal details and I’ll make a frank appraisal and then we can take it from there.
Queen Elizabeth:Doctor forgive me.I don’t have a hubby and we don’t pop and nor do we never talk about our private lives.
L: No .You must come to us.
L: I’m Sorry Mrs J,my game, my turf,my rules
Queen Elizabeth ‘s responds save her negative face ,violate the Tact Maxim and the Generosity Maxim and her refusal hurts Logue’s positive face.At the same time, Logue’s respond(“You must come to us.””Sorry Mrs J,my game, my turf,my rules”)also hurts her negative face.From her response we can know she is very proud of her royal status and she takes it for granted that he should visit to them.
5 Scene:King George VI and Logue first meeting
L: What was your earliest memory?
K: I'm not... here to discuss... personal matters.
L: Why are you here then?
K: Because I bloody well stammer!
L:you have a bit of temper.
K:one of my many faults.
When Logue asks King’s first memory of his stammer,he does no not say it explicitly but uses a very euphemistic way .He uses non-public politeness to saves King’s face.And King obeys the Modesty Maxim when he responds to Logue(“one of my many faults.”)It can also show he is a modest person.
6 Scene:before the speech begins,King and Logue practice
K:”I solemnly promise to do so”
L:Louder, I can’t hear you up the back.
K:”I solemnly promise to do so”(louder)
L:Very good!
Here, Logue obeys the Approbation Maxim to praise King George VI ,which can encourage him have a better condition to make a speech.
3. Conclusion
From the above dialogues ,we can see that characters often use politeness principle whether obey or violate it .The dialogue promotes the development of the plot,it also draws the outline of characters and their psychological changes.From the dialogue ,we can know Lionel Logue is kind ,generous ,inspirable and likes freedom.King George VI is a responsible, powerful king who always keeps trying.Queen Elizabeth is a woman who is always proud of her royal status .We can draw a conclusion , using pragmatics properly when we watch movies ,it can help us understand and appreciate the film’s art feature ,thought and characters better.

Work cited
Leech G. Principles of Pragmatics [M ]. London : Longman ,1983 .
Brown P, Levinson S . Politeness[M ]. London : CUP, 1987.
陈新仁. 新编语用学教程[M ].北京.外语教学与研究出版社。

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