1.3 Research Design and Methodology

The prevalence of talk shows in China arouses attentions to verbal impoliteness in the programmes. Firstly, this paper is planned to discuss the definitions of impoliteness. Then examples are chosen and data are collected from the three Chinese talk shows: The 80’s Talk show, from October, 2012 to March, 2013, Tian Tian Xiang Shang, from January to March, 2013 and Kang Xi Lai Le, from November, 2012 to March, 2013. This paper analyzes the producer and target’s approaches of verbal impoliteness with the examples and data, and it aims at demonstrating the functions of verbal impoliteness.

2 An Overview of Verbal Impoliteness

2.1 Definition of Verbal Impoliteness

Culpeper (2011: 23) defines impoliteness as “Impoliteness is a negative attitude towards specific verbal behaviours occurring in specific contexts. Situated verbal behaviors are viewed negatively - considered ‘impolite’-when they conflict with how one expects them to be, how one wants them to be and/or how one thinks they ought to be. Such behaviors always have or are presumed to have emotional consequences for at least one participant, that is, they cause or are presumed to cause offence. Various factors can exacerbate how offensive an impoliteness behavior is taken to be, including for example whether one understand a behavior to be strongly intentional or not.” In other words, as far as I’m concerned, the definition of verbal impoliteness can be summed up as the negative statement presented in the conversation in the specific context, attacking the participants’ face, causing offense and disharmony. 

1 不知道大家发现没发现，在我们生活的这个城市里，有这样一种动物，非常的令人讨厌，他们叫做老板。这些人都是从来都不开心的。上班也板着脸，下班也板着脸，加班也板着脸，老是板着脸，所以叫老板。 (80’s Talk Show, 2012. 10. 21)

In this example, the speaker describes the bosses as a kind of animals, which are disgusting. It’s totally an expression of negative attitude towards the bosses’ behaviors in daily life that they are with straight faces all the time. The utterances are absolutely offensive. Moreover, the factor that whether the bosses watch the programme can affect the degree of offence. If bosses are the audience, they are attacked strongly by the intentional verbal impoliteness, and unless, they may not be aware of the verbal impoliteness.

2 (The three film stars, Huang Bo, Lin Zhiling and Gao Yixiang are the guests.)

蔡康永：康熙来了今天有三位大明星光临，欢迎黄渤、林志玲、高以翔。

小S: 你说三位大明星只有两位吧。

蔡康永：所以高以翔是大明星，黄渤是大明星。

小S：林志玲我只能说她是瞎大个儿。（林志玲穿着较为暴露）你现在知道是谁心机重了吧。

林志玲：……(Kang XI Lai Le, 2013. 3. 27)

S directly using verbal impoliteness to deny that Lin Zhilin is a super star and attacks her that she is a lady with an axe to grind, which conflicts with her public image or how people think she ought to be. It threatens Lin’s face and causes pleasantness.来~自^优尔论+文.网www.youerw.com/

2.2 Classification of Verbal Impoliteness

Scholars have made the classification of verbal impoliteness with different standards. 

“According to the intention of the speaker and the reception of the hearer,” Bousfield (2008: 72-73) pides verbal impoliteness into “(1) Perceived-intended face-damage. If the speaker intends face-damage and the hearer perceives the speaker’s intention to damage face, then impoliteness is successfully conveyed. (2) Unperceived-intended face-damage. If the speaker intends face-damage but the hearer fails to perceive the speaker’s intent, then the attempt at impoliteness fails. (3) Accidental face-damage. If the speaker does not intend face-damage but the hearer constructs the speaker’s utterance as being intentionally face-damaging, then this could be accidental face-damage. (4) Incidental face-damage. If the speaker does not intend face-damage but the hearer constructs the speaker’s utterance as being unintentionally face-damaging, then, this could be classified as incidental face-damage.” On the same basis, Yangzi and Yu Guodong (Liu Xiaoyan, 2012: 20) makes the classification as follows: “impoliteness being both intended and perceived; impoliteness not intended but being perceived mistakenly; impoliteness being intended but not perceived and impoliteness being neither intended nor perceived. These two kinds of classifications are similar”.