Rong Chen. Toward a Motivation Model of Pragmatics. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2022.

Reviewed by

This article reviews the book Toward a Motivation Model of Pragmatics (2022) written by Rong Chen. In this book, Chen put forward a new pragmatic explanatory model for pragmatic studies. As universalism and particularism have been heatedly discussed in the field of pragmatics, the author seeks to propose a model to support the former. By this model, the author attributes all the communicative issues to two aspects, i.e., transactional motivations and interactional motivations, with the former concerning the way we deliver information and the latter concerning the involvement of public image. This article highly acknowledges the author’s effort to seek explanations for different pragmatic issues. However, the author of this article mainly holds some questions on Chen’s definition of both image and (self/other-) politeness.

Keywords: Motivation Model, pragmatics, public image, politeness

This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.

References (15)

References

Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. 1978. Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Goody, Esther N. (ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction, 56–289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chen, Rong. 2001. Self-politeness: A proposal. Journal of Pragmatics 33(1). 87–106.

. 2022. Toward a motivation model of pragmatics. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

. 2023. Why impolite: Politeness, impoliteness; other-politeness, self-politeness. East Asian Pragmatics 8(1). 7–32.

Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gu, Yueguo. 1990. Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 14(2). 237–257.

Leech, Geoffrey N. 1983. Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.

Lin, Yanling & Chen, Xinren. 2022. Also on humblebragging: Why many Chinese posters brag by complaining. Journal of Pragmatics 2011. 149–159.

Mao, LuMing Robert. 1994. Beyond politeness theory: “Face” revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics 21(5). 451–486.

Ren, Wei & Guo, Yaping. 2021. What is “Versailles Literature”?: Humblebrags on Chinese social networking sites. Journal of Pragmatics 1841. 185–195.

Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2007. Theories of identity and the analysis of face. Journal of Pragmatics 39(4). 639–656.

van Dijk, Teun A. 2012. Ideology and discourse: A multidisciplinary introduction. ([URL]) (Accessed 2024-07-18.)

VandenBos, Gary R. (ed). 2015. APA dictionary of psychology. 2nd edn. Washington: American Psychological Association.

Walton, Douglas. 1998. Ad hominem arguments. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.