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Article published In: Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 31:1 (2018) ► pp.408–430

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A contrastive study on mitigation of criticism in English and Chinese book reviews

 | University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Published online: 27 August 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.15027.qia
Abstract
The present article is a corpus-based contrastive study on mitigation of criticism in linguistic book reviews in English and in Chinese. It is based on the face theory of Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and follows the framework of Johnson, D. M., & Roen, D. H. (1992). Complimenting and involvement in peer reviews: Gender variation. Language in Society, 21(01), 27–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. The present article shows the following results: (1) at the local level, there are thirteen mitigation devices in the corpus, of which only six have been introduced by previous studies; devices of ‘generalization’ and ‘metaphorical statement’ are specific to the English sub-corpus, whereas ‘omission’ is only found in Chinese; (2) at the global level, English writers maintain an overall supportive tone with praise largely distributed in both openings and closings, whereas their Chinese counterparts sound much impartial. Differences in findings are then explained from perspectives of cultural values and functions of book reviews.
Resumen
A partir de un corpus de reseñas, en el presente estudio se comparan los mecanismos de atenuación empleados al escribir críticas en inglés y chino sobre libros pertenecientes al campo de la lingüística. El análisis se sustenta en el concepto de imagen pública de Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar y en el marco de Johnson, D. M., & Roen, D. H. (1992). Complimenting and involvement in peer reviews: Gender variation. Language in Society, 21(01), 27–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. Entre los resultados obtenidos, (1) en el nivel local, se identifican trece recursos de mitigación en el corpus, de los cuales solo seis fueron descritos en investigaciones anteriores; los recursos de ‘generalización’ y ‘expresión metafórica’ son específicos del subcorpus en inglés, mientras que la ‘omisión’ solo se encuentra en chino; (2) en el nivel global, los reseñadores que escriben en inglés mantienen un tono general de apoyo con alabanzas, mayoritariamente distribuidas en aperturas y en cierres; sin embargo, los que reseñan en chino parecen más imparciales. Las diferencias en los resultados se explican desde la perspectiva de los valores culturales y de las funciones de las reseñas de libros.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Book reviews from a pragmatic perspective
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Working definitions
    • 3.2The corpus
    • 3.3Research procedures
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Findings at the local level
      • 4.1.1An overall picture of devices to mitigate criticism
      • 4.1.2Further exploration of other mitigation devices
        • 4.1.2.1Mitigation devices in both English and Chinese BRs
        • 4.1.2.2Mitigation devices specific to English BRs
        • 4.1.2.3Mitigation device specific to Chinese BRs
    • 4.2Findings at the global level
      • 4.2.1Openings
      • 4.2.2Closings
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Divergence in cultural values
    • 5.2Divergence in functions of BRs
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
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