Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Rationale of the Study

The analysis of negative evaluative utterances or acts has not drawn muchattention although previous studies have touched upon certain speech acts that alsoinvolve speakers, negative attitudes, such as criticizing，complaining, fault-finding,whinging，trouble-telling, bitching, and swearing (Tracy, et al.，1987; Morris, 1988;Olshtain & Weinbach, 1993; Wajnryb, 1993; Trosborg, 1995; Arent，1996; Jay，2000;Wierzbicka, 2003). It seems that negative evaluative acts cover a wider range，including at least some cases of these above-mentioned speech acts. The scope ofnegative evaluative acts needs to be defined and their constitutive rules should beclarified to present their distinctive features.Negative evaluative utterances usually go against the evaluated person'sexpectation of being positively evaluated, which may lead to dissatisfaction，anxiousness or social anxiety. As shown in Waston & Friend (1969)，s proposal of fearof negative evaluation (FNE)，people may be fearful of negative evaluation and theirexpectations that others may give negative evaluation often distress them. Sincepeople do not want to be negatively evaluated, it seems that negative evaluativeutterances should be avoided in communication in case they lead to unfavorable ordistressful consequences. However，they are not marginal in daily interaction. Ananalysis of negative evaluative utterances from the pragmatic perspective can justifytheir frequent occurrence.

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1.2 Objectives of the Study

This dissertation aims to analyze negative evaluative utterances under specificcontext from the pragmatic perspective by treating them as speech acts. Beforeproceeding further, we have to clarify what constitutes a negative evaluative act. Areview of speech act theory would be useful for our purpose to define the scope ofnegative evaluative acts. It seems that speakers' negative evaluation towards relevantevaluated targets can be analyzed according to Searle (1979),s typology. Felicityconditions and the range of negative evaluative acts should also be covered toillustrate their constitutive features.A proper understanding of negative evaluative utterances or acts can not beachieved in vacuum but should be situated in contexts, which include factors such asparticipants and socio-cultural norms. Meanwhile，the notion of face is integral to theanalysis of negative evaluative utterances since they are usually face-threatening.Speakers may adopt politeness strategies or impoliteness formulae to mitigate theface-threatening force or strengthen the effect of negative evaluation. Therefore, thepresent study will be based on the theoretical framework concerning context andpoliteness.

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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Previous Research on Evaluative Meaning

There is a broad range of lexical and other indicators of evaluative meaning,which can be reflected by terms such as "desirable" or "undesirable", or simply“good” or "bad". In daily interaction, people tend to adopt words, phrases，andlinguistic structures which convey evaluative meaning in order to express theirattitudes. These linguistic items and patterns can be regarded as main devices ofevaluation. The distinction between evaluative meaning and descriptive meaning canbe shown most sharply in adjectives (Yang，2002; Gao，2005). For instance, adjectivesin "red coat" and "good man" convey different aspects of meaning: "red" is anadjective that describes the objective nature or color of a coat and thus conveysdescriptive meaning，while "good" is an evaluative adjective since it conveys a*-speaker's attitude towards the evaluated person. In certain cases，there can be acombination of evaluative meaning and descriptive meaning. For instance, theadjective “small” in the phrase of “a small room” conveys a negative evaluativemeaning besides describing the size of a room. In other words, this descriptiveadjective also communicates one's negative evaluation of the evaluated entity "room"(Gao, 2005，p. 121).

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2.2 Studies Related to Evaluative Utterances

After the review of previous researches on evaluative meaning which mainlyinvolves lexical items and sentence structures, this section focuses on previous studiesof evaluative utterances. From the pragmatic perspective，researchers tend to treatthese utterances as speech acts or evaluative acts, focusing on their roles inconversations or speech act sequences, their functions, and pragmatic strategies thatare adopted. Conversation is one of the most important realizations of evaluative utterances. Inconversation analysis, a group of evaluative utteremces can be regarded as speech actsinserted into a conversation which in turn is composed of speech act sequences.Based on a number of conversation corpora including child-dyad exchanges,telephone directory assistance exchanges, and tutoring sessions，Swamer (1996)analyzes systematic patterns in sequences of speech act categories in two-partyconversations.

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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework........ 47

3.1 Speech Act and Context....... 47

3.1.1 The Nature of Context....... 48

3.1.2 Three Dimensions of Context....... 49

3.2 Speech Act and Strategy .......50

3.3 Stance and Stance-taking....... 74

3.3.1 Defining Stance and Stance-taking....... 75

3.3.2 The Stance Triangle....... 75

3.4 Summary .......79

Chapter Four Understanding General Features .......80 

4.1 Types of Negative Evaluative Utterances....... 80

4.2 Premises of Negative Evaluation....... 88

4.3 Criteria of Evaluation....... 90

4.4 Degrees of Intensity....... 95

4.5 Hearers' Participation .......99

4.6 Functions ofNegative Evaluative Utterances.......102

4.7 Summary....... 105

Chapter Five Principles and Strategies ConcerningNegative Evaluative Utterances in theObama-Romney Interaction

5.1 Negative Evaluative Utterances in American Political Campaigns

In this section，contextual factors concerning Americtti political campaigns areintroduced first，including factors in the situational context as well as socio-culturalfactors. Later，specific features of negative evaluative utterances in the discourse ofAmerican political campaigns will be presented on the basis of general features thathave been analyzed in Chapter Four.The important role of context can be revealed by an interesting example from theObama-Romney interaction. The Democrats or the Republicans often attack eachother by taking one's utterance out of the situational context. For instance, Romneywas once seriously attacked for his statement of ‘Tm not concerned about the verypoor". This utterance sounds quite offensive not only to the poor but also to allAmericans since Romney, who is in the presidential campaign, is expected to concernabout all people in America without any bias. However，the context under which theutterance is produced can justify Romney's utterance  In fact, Romney intends toexpress that he's not concerned about the very poor that have a safety net or the veryrich that are doing fine; his focus is to help middle-income Americans that have beenmost badly hurt during the Obama years. After being taken out of its context，thisutterance leads to misunderstandings and even more serious consequences. Therefore,analysis of specific features of negative evaluative utterances in political campaigns，principles, and strategies should be situated in specific contexts.

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Conclusion

This dissertation has focused on general features of negative evaluative utterancesas well as principles and strategies concerning negative evaluative utterances in thespecific discourse of American political campaigns. Analysis of their general featuresis based on data mainly collected from SBC, COCA and newspapers, while study inthe specific discourse is based on negative evaluative utterances in theObama-Romney interaction. In this chapter, major findings of the present study aresummarized, followed by implications of the study, limitations of the study, andsuggestions for future research.

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