Keqi (客气) in historical Chinese: evidence from metapragmatic comments

IF 1.4 2区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Journal of Politeness Research-Language Behaviour Culture Pub Date : 2022-03-10 DOI:10.1515/pr-2019-0045

Hui Li

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract Keqi is a politeness1-related metalexeme in both historical and contemporary Chinese. It is often understood as synonymous to the etic metalexeme “polite”. This article explores the meaning of keqi in historical Chinese by delineating the shared characteristics of the verbal and non-verbal behaviors that are interpreted as keqi in participants’ metapragmatic comments (99 cases of bubi keqi, 66 cases of buyong keqi, and 16 cases of bie keqi) in historical Chinese and by analyzing how the practice of keqi impacts the ongoing interaction. We find that the practice of keqi should be understood as a type of relational ritual and that it can be understood as a ritual frame indicating practice which indicates an emergent standard situation. As a metalexeme, keqi is different from politeness in that it is associated with the operation of ritual frame indication in a behavioral act, while politeness is associated with the operation of other-attentiveness. In cases where both the operations are possible, the interpretation of a behavior as keqi or polite depends on which operation is more salient to the recipient.

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历史汉语的“可气”:来自元语用评论的证据

礼气是历史与当代汉语中与礼貌相关的元喻。它通常被理解为客位元格“礼貌”的同义词。本文通过描述参与者元语用评论中被解释为“客气”的言语和非言语行为的共同特征(99例“不客气”、66例“不客气”和16例“别客气”)，以及分析“客气”的实践如何影响正在进行的互动，来探讨“客气”在历史汉语中的意义。我们发现，可气的实践应该被理解为一种关系仪式，它可以被理解为一种指示实践的仪式框架，表明一种紧急的标准情况。礼貌作为一种元例，它与礼貌的不同之处在于它与行为行为中仪式框架指示的运作有关，而礼貌则与他人注意的运作有关。在两种操作都可能发生的情况下，对行为的解释是礼貌还是礼貌取决于哪种操作对接受者来说更突出。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Politeness Research-Language Behaviour Culture Multiple-

CiteScore

2.50

自引率

30.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Politeness Research responds to the urgent need to provide an international forum for the discussion of all aspects of politeness as a complex linguistic and non-linguistic phenomenon. Politeness has interested researchers in fields of academic activity as diverse as business studies, foreign language teaching, developmental psychology, social psychology, sociolinguistics, linguistic pragmatics, social anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, communication studies, and gender studies. The journal provides an outlet through which researchers on politeness phenomena from these diverse fields of interest may publish their findings and where it will be possible to keep up to date with the wide range of research published in this expanding field.