Gender-Based Differences in Hakka Complaint Realization

客語抱怨行為的性別差異

吳睿純(Jui-Chun Wu)

《漢學研究》 31卷4期 (2013/12) Pp. 279-318

摘要

本文旨在探討性別在客家話「抱怨」這個語言行為中所扮演的角色。透過言談情境填充問卷（Discourse Completion Task）的語料蒐集，我們發現就平均抱怨語長度而言，女性的平均抱怨長度比男性長，顯示女性傾向使用較長的句子來弱化「抱怨」可能對受話者帶來的威脅和衝擊，也展現女性比男性有禮貌的一面。此外，客家女性特有的「節儉」美德，也表現在其抱怨策略的選擇上，她們比男性選用更多的「要求賠償」策略。反之，男性則展現具侵略性的特質，選用較多相對較嚴厲的抱怨策略。就社會語用變項來看，客語使用者對受話者社會地位的改變比較敏感，且在面對社會地位高者傾向使用「放棄抱怨」的策略；而隨著受話者社會地位降低，抱怨者的禮貌也隨之遞減。此外我們也發現女性是較敏感且體貼的會話者，因為她們較易依著受話者性別的改變而選用不同的抱怨策略。

關鍵字

抱怨 ； 性別差異 ； 社會地位 ； 社會距離 ； 客語

並列摘要

This paper examines the complaint behavior of Hakka-speaking men and women, including average sentence length and frequency of various complaint strategies used by each gender. Data was collected via responses to an oral Discourse Completion Task (DCT), consisting of 18 complaint-provoking scenarios. Each situation presented respondents with a detailed description of the context, the gender and social status of the interlocutors, and the social distance between them. The results suggest that female Hakka speakers are more polite than males, since they tended to use longer sentences to weaken or soften the force of a complaint and frequently chose an Ask for Repair strategy, as thrift is a virtue highly regarded by the Hakka. On the other hand, the results suggest that male Hakka speakers are generally more aggressive, in that they tended to choose relatively severe complaint strategies. As for the influence of socio-pragmatic factors, it was found that Hakka speakers were more sensitive to the relative social status of interlocutors than to the social distance between them, and were more inclined to use an Opt Out strategy when facing recipients of higher social status. With the diminution of social status, linguistic politeness was also reduced. Ask for Repair strategies were most often directed at interlocutors of equal social status, and less often to those of higher or lower social status. Besides this, the findings suggest that female speakers are relatively sensitive and thoughtful communicators, since they tended to be more sensitive to the gender of the interlocutors. In short, this study reveals several gender-based distinctions as well as some culturespecific features in Hakka complaint behaviors.

並列關鍵字

complaint ； gender difference ； social status ； social distance ； Hakka

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