Refusals in Chinese Language through Negative Statements
This article analyzes dialogues of characters in TV drama as linguistic data to examine the use of negative statements in Chinese language which is adopted for refusal.Refusal expressed through negative statements mainly includes ca-ses where the negation elements bu or mei(you)are used.These refusals can be roughly categorized into direct refusals and in-direct ones,and they reflect different refusal strategies.Negative statements with bu often directly refuse by negating the sub-jective willingness of the speaker(the refuser),while direct refusals withbu and indirect refusals through negating premises are relatively less common.Negative statements with mei(you)have become common idiomatic expressions in Chinese to express refusals,such as mei kong and mei xingqu.It is also common to express indirect refusals,by emphasizing objective require-ments that are not met,through phrases like hai mei…ne.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
