A Pragmatic Study of Suibian as a Signal of Speakers’ De facto Care in Chinese Conversations

王惠

1. Introduction

The Chinese word suibian （[隨便]， ‘whatever） as a discourse marker canonically shows speakers nonchalance or lack of concern regarding choice-making or decision-making. Nevertheless， suibian is also used， quite conversely， when speakers actually display full-fledged care and concern in that regard. On this usage， however， there has been a dearth of study， and further linguistic investigation is called for. In this paper， I describe this usage in naturally-occurring conversations and try to account for it from a pragmatic perspective.

The use of suibian as a discourse marker denoting de facto care receives scant attentions. The pragmatic functions and pragmatic motivations of this usage still remain under-documented. I will argue， by using Politeness and Face Theory， that this usage of suibian as a face strategy is motivated by speakers need to mitigate face threat and potential interpersonal conflict.

2. Analysis

“Suibian+conditional sentence” as disagreement avoidance. Avoiding disagreements means that the desire to agree or appear to agree with the hearer leads to mechanisms for pretending to agree. When suibian cannot form a separate sentence， the conditional sentence following it indicates that the hearer has views of his or her own and really care if the offer corresponds with the hobbies or interests.

“Suibian+pron+xingbuxing？” as compromise. For some reason， the speaker grants the hearers needs to remove negative emotion and dispute. It is different from submission， for a compromise is not a total acceptance or a total rejection. It is just an approximate agreement reached by the two parties. With inner disapproval， the speaker says suibian to avoid faces threatening acts.

“Jiushi suibian” as self-deprecation. Self-deprecation means that the speaker shows respect for others and embodies humble attitude to ensure smooth communication and get anticipative effects. In other words， the speaker saves his or her face and gives the hearer face. The speaker not only reaches communicative purposes but also makes a good impression of modesty and politeness.

“Suibian+modal particle” as evasion. Their function is reflecting the mood or attitude of the speaker. Mandarin Chinese depends highly on the use of modal participles because it is a tone language by changing the pitch of the sentence or phrase that would make the meaning different.

“Suibian+V bu V” as attitude indication. People convey their attitude towards the content， such as affirmation， negativity， positivity or passiveness. They use suibian to show their explicit attitude and evaluation as well as standpoint and perspective. In the sentence pattern “suibian+V bu V”， the speaker has strong sense of choice and inclination that the speaker wants the hearer to V.

Sound prolongation of suibian as negative emotion implication. Phonetically， the explicitness of the speakers signal means that real meanings can be identified from pause and pitch levels of intonation. In Chinese， suibian， as a disyllable， consists of two Chinese characters. If both syllables are stressed and prolonged， suibian turns into two separate words， achieving an effect of negative emotion implication.

Suibian as utterance terminator. Utterance termination implies that the speaker doesnt incline to talk much and intends to end the talk. The speaker gives guidance and control about the topic and provides some subjective information irrelevant to the subject. Sequentially， the speaker guides and restricts the hearer from handling and processing information. Talk stops here and theres no use in discussing it.

3. Discussion

‘Faces， politeness and suibian. Face is emotionally invested and something that can be lost， maintained， or enhanced， and therefore must be constantly attended to be in interpersonal interaction. In the West， we have Face Theory （FT for short） noted by Brown and Levinson （1978） in which face is the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself. In their view， face consists of two related aspects： positive face and negative face. And in Chinese culture and social life， “face” is used to control and modulate social acts. The implication of face is that Chinese attach more importance to individuals subordination to the society， because Chinese culture is collectivity-centered.

Discourse markers and suibian. All above shows that suibian can be used to mitigate Face Threatening Acts. In fact， the vital reason is that suibian is also a sort of discourse markers （DMs）， which has the ability to ease the threatening. Relevance theory is a proposal by Sperber and Wilson （1986） that seeks to explain the second method of communication： implicit inferences. Hence suibian as DC reflects subjectivity of the cognition. Hearers are required to infer the procedural meaning on the basis of the conceptual meaning.