Chinese Yes-No Questions in Taiwanese Television Interviews

臺灣電視節目訪談中漢語是非問句的研究

李昱慧(Yu-Hui Lee)

指導教授 ： 曹逢甫

國立清華大學/人文社會學院/語言學研究所/碩士(2010年)

https://doi.org/10.6843/NTHU.2010.00703

摘要

This thesis analyses two areas of questioning in Mandarin (Chinese) discourse: functional yes-no questions and types of responses. For functional yes-no questions, those inviting and preferring either “yes” or “no” responses are non-neutral yes-no questions, whereas those inviting but not preferring response are neutral yes-no questions. Adapting Tsui (2000)’s functional categories of questions, we have found that four categories (i.e., information-, confirmation-, agreement-, and commitment-seeking yes-no questions) can be realized by yes-no questions, and that the functions of the questions are highly related to their polarities, which constrain the production of subsequent responses.
Regarding the types of responses, those involving either “yes” or “no” are type-conforming responses, which are preferred by yes-no questions; on the other hand, responses involving neither response particles (i.e., “yes” or “no”) are non-conforming responses, which depart from the preference of type-conformity of responses set by the forms of yes-no questions (Raymond 2003). Examples will be provided to illustrate that, in Mandarin, type-conforming responses (i.e., “yes” or “no”) can be further divided into two kinds: polar answers and particles of (dis)agreement. Polar answers (for example, 是shi, 會hui, 有you, 可以ke-yi or 不是bu-shi, 不會bu-hui, 沒有mei-you, 不可以bu ke-yi) and particles of agreement (for example, 對dui, 沒錯mei-cuo) are type-conforming responses which formally and functionally conform to the constraint set by yes-no questions. However, constituent negators 不是bu-shi and 沒有mei-you are used as particles of disagreement which depart from the constraint of yes-no questions. It is also shown that particles of (dis)agreement are restricted in use to responding to non-neutral yes-no questions and providing agreement/disagreement to the interviewer’s assumption to the matter in question. However, polar answers may be employed to reply to both neutral yes-no questions (i.e., questions without assumption) and non-neutral yes-no questions (i.e. questions with assumption) and to confirm the interviewer’s assumption to the matter in question, if there is any. The data shows that responses to yes-no questions in Mandarin not only reply to the truth-value of the matters in a question, but also provide feedback to the assumptions and expectation for response embedded in the questions.
In the interviewes, when interviewees are reluctant to confirm/disconfirm the matters in question, several strategies of response evasions are used, including (1) Answer objection, (2) Question autonomization, (3) Question Modification, (4) Challenging the Question, and (5) Implicit Agreement. The evasions totally depart from the constraint of yes-no questions, since they neither involve response particles nor provide (dis)confirmation/(dis)agreement to the substance of questions. Except for (5) Implicit Agreement, the other strategies show that the initiation of topics by yes-no questions fails to elicit the response particles required by the interviewer. The particles of disagreement and response evasions usually indicate that the design of the questions or the topics initiated by the questions is problematic. At the end of the thesis, a preliminary model of responding to yes-no questions is provided in order to display the relationship of polarities of yes-no questions and types of responses.

Keyword: Yes-No question, Polar answer, Response particle, Agreement particle, Disagreement particle, Response evasion, Television interview, Functional question, Conversation analysis

關鍵字

是非問句 ； 答詞 ； 是非答詞 ； 回答偏好 ； 會話分析 ； 規避策略

並列摘要

本論文主要分析漢語會話中問話的兩個部份為研究對象: 功能性是非問句以及其答句類型。功能性是非問句可分為引導"是"或"否"的非中性是非問句以及無特殊引導效果的中性是非問句。本論文以Tsui(2000)對問句的功能分類為基礎，我們發現漢語是非問句中包含了Tsui(2000)提出的四種類型(資訊引導、確認引導、同意語引導以及許可引導的是非問句)。我們亦發現是非問句的功能與具限制隨後答句環境功能的問句極性(Polarity of questions)高度相關。
在答句類型方面，與問句形式相符的答句(type-conforming responses)，也就是包含"是"或"否"的答句，較符合是非問句的對答句的偏好。而不包含"是"或"否"等等回答小詞的答句則屬於與問句形式不相符的答句(nonconforming responses)，為較不符合是非問句的偏好的回答 (Raymond 2003)。本論文認為與問句形式相符的答句(type-conforming responses)可再細分為兩種:極性答詞和(不)同意詞，並提供了許多例子佐證。極性答詞(例如是、會、有、可以、不是、不會、沒有、不可以)和同意詞(例如對、沒錯)可被認為屬於與問句形式相符的答句，其在形式上和功能上皆符合是非問句對答句的限制。然而，否定詞(constituent negators)"不是"和"沒有"屬於不同意詞，其功用不符合是非問句對答句的限制。我們也說明了不同意詞只能被用來回答非中性是非問句以及用來表達說者同意或不同意是非問句中隱含的假設/預設回答。而極性答詞則可用來回答中性是非問句(也就是帶有假設的問句)，也可用來回答非中性是非問句(也就是不含假設的問句)以及表示回答者是否同意問句中的假設。我們的研究顯示漢語是非問句的答句不但回應問句中的問題點，亦對問題中的假設的正確性和假設回答做回應。
在訪談中，當受訪者不願意對問題中的議題表示肯定或否定時，他們則會轉而使用回答規避的策略，其包括(1)拒絕回答，(2)自動轉移問題，(3)問題修改，(4)質疑問題的正確性和(5)暗示性同意。由於這些回答規避策略不包含任何是非問句的答詞也不提供對問題點的(不)肯定/(不)同意，這些策略皆不符合是非問句對答句的限制。除了第五項暗示性同意之外，其他規避策略的產生顯示其是非問句無法引導出訪問者所要求的回答。不同意詞和回答規避策略的出現通常表示先前的是非問句的設計或其包含的話題不適當。在本論文的最後，為了呈現是非問句的極性和答句類型的關係，我們提出了是非問句的回應流程的初步模式。

關鍵詞: 是非問句、是非答詞、回答、同意詞、不同意詞、規避回答、電視訪談、功能性問句、會話分析

並列關鍵字

Yes-no question ； Response particle ； Polar answer ； Preference for response ； Conversation analysis ； Response evasion

參考文獻

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