Abstract：Indirect speech act is a common linguistic phenomenon. Because of different cultural background, different countries and areas form different ways of thinking, and when the different ways of thinking reflected in languages, a peculiar expression of its own will be arose. English and Chinese are two languages, which have different cultural backgrounds and their expressions are certainly unfamiliar. But the only thing we can be sure is that in all cultures indirect speech act play an important role in communication.

In chapter 1, the writer introduces the indirect speech act on the whole. Through several examples in everyday life, the writer leads out researches on indirect speech act, from which the writer could grasp the overall understanding of indirect speech act. In chapter 2, the author introduces the three basic categories of the indirect speech act: politeness utterance, euphemistic utterance and figure of speech. Through the classification of the indirect language, the author presents her understanding and grasping about the indirect speech act in daily life. Based on some examples, the paper preliminarily disclosed indirect speech act in Chinese and English. In chapter 3, the paper briefly introduces the understanding of indirect speech act by discussing the motivation of indirect language behavior. In chapter 4, the author tries to find the difference of indirectness between Chinese and English from three aspects: written language, spoken language and body language. It is concluded that Chinese is more indirect than English. In chapter 5,the author sums up the paper and points out the importance of learning the difference of indirectness to learn English, which sublimate the theme.

Keywords: indirect speech act; politeness; motivation; written language; spoken language; body language

Contents

摘要

Abstract

Chapter 1 Introduction-5

Chapter 2 Classification of Indirect Speech-7

2.1 Politeness Utterance-7

2.2 Euphemistic Utterance-8

2.3 Figure of Speech-9

Chapter 3 Understanding Indirectness-11

3.1 Motivations of Indirectness-11

Chapter 4 Indirectness in Written, Spoken and Body Language-13

4.1 Witten Language-13

4.2 Spoken Language-13

4.3 Body Language-14

Chapter 5 Conclusion-17

References-18

Acknowledgements-19