关键词: 同情话语; 交际权利; 和谐关系建构; 文化特征; 《红楼梦》

Abstract: As a kind of polite speech, sympathy discourses have the pragmatic function of enhancing rapport relationship(García, 2012). Based on García’s theory on sympathy discourses,  relational face concept by Spencer-Oatey(2002) and politeness maxims by GU Yueguo(1992), the article analyzes the sympathy discourses from Dream of the Red Chamber to show the discourses’ face-saving process, so as to explore their rapport-constructing mechanism. The article finds that in communication, sympathy discourses provide the addressees with the three association rights of interactional association/dissociation, affective association/dissociation and respect through three sympathetical strategies, which include involvement (the principle that people should have appropriate amounts and types of “activity” involvement with others), empathy (the belief that people should share appropriate concerns, feelings and interests with others) and respect (the belief that people should show appropriate amounts of respectfulness for others). Association rights act as the “access” to the addressees’ overall face. Through association rights, the addressees’ identity face is firstly enhanced and their behavioral expectations are satisfied. As a result of the process, the addressees’ two face elements at individual level-equality rights and quality face, and further their face as a whole are maintained so that their face sensitivity and interactional wants are satisfied in the end. Studying the sympathy discourses in Chinese, the article argues that, restricted by Chinese culture and its politeness maxims, the rapport-constructing process of the sympathy discourses and the communicative strategies in it show some Chinese cultural characteristics as well as the common ones.

Keywords: sympathy discourses; association rights; rapport relationship construction; Chinese cultural characteristics; Dream of the Red Chamber