Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background and Significance
In oral English，some mitigating devices and mitigators are widely used, aiming to builda good relationship and to achieve the communicative goal. On one hand，the imposition ofillocutionary act is reduced; On the other hand, the acceptability of language information isintensified.Fraser (1980) firstly points out the concept of mitigation and shows its intimacy withpoliteness and face theory. Caffi (1999) further indicates that mitigation is functional tosmooth the speech act which may impose face threat on the interlocutors, such as refusal,negation and so on. Besides Fraser and Caffi, many scholars contribute to the study of themitigation from different aspects and attain essential findings. Besides, some scholars athome begin to explore the mitigation. In 2012, Ran Yongping claims that mitigationfacilitates the management of interpersonal relations in interaction. So，mitigation plays therole of a good candidate in monitoring interpersonal relation, emotive distance among thepeople in oral English. However, its strategies attract more attention rather than itsinterpersonal function.In the history of human's language use, negation employs a vital role in oral English.The studies of negation have been made in discipline for a long time from differentperspectives. For example，Grammarians take interests in its formal regularities; Pragmaticstakes its interest in the interpretation. Considering the previous studies on negation, we cansee that researchers just analyze negation in a contrastive approach, concerning with itsnegative structures and translation between English and Chinese.
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1.2 The Outline of the Thesis
Six chapters make up of this thesis.
Chapter One is a brief introduction which introduces the research background,significance and the framework of this thesis.
Chapter Two gives a review on negation, such as its definition, classification，and itsprevious study. Besides, it expounds some information about mitigation.
Chapter Three states the theories of this thesis, and interpersonal meaning andgrammatical metaphor are referred to.
Chapter Four explores the mitigating devices and analyzes the interpersonal meaning ofthem.
Chapter Five expounds the interpersonal function in the mitigation of negation.
Chapter Six draws a conclusion of the major findings of the research and somesuggestions are put forward.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Negation
Negation is one of the most common and widely existing phenomenons in language,with its various forms and ways to express negative meanings and disagreement betweennegative meaning and negative form.Negation, no matter for English or for Chinese, is regarded as the opposition of theaffirmation. Besides，in some senses，it doesn't only encompass one meaning in a wide rangeof aspects. In the dictionary, the definition of negation is the absence or opposition of certainpositive thing or quality. It denies or disproves the existence of something or the authenticityof somebody. In linguistics，negation means denial. It denies the presence of objects，property, actions, state and etc. It is also used to deny the authenticity of a proposition.However, this doesn't explain the meaning of negation sufficiently, if combined with otherconstituents; negative means not only denial, but many other meanings. In view of this,Bloom points out that there are three primary meanings of negation (Bloom: 266-271).
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2.2 Mitigation
Mitigation is widely used in all languages, and it has a long history. Dating back toLatin period，“to mitigate" means “to make mild and gentle" and its nominalization of"mitigation" is related with environmental sciences and contexts. Ever since LakofF studies itin the view of linguistics, Mitigation becomes the hot topic of the study. Many researchershave made contributions to the study of it including its definition and its functions and so on.Although we couldn't make the exact definition of mitigation, even or different researchersmay definite its functions differently, they all have the valuable meaning to this thesis. Daaet (1980:525) doesn't define the term of mitigation，he just describes "to mitigate，，as rhetorical devices, the function of which is to soften the forces of some unpleasant aspectsof an utterance on the speaker or the hearer.Later on, the definition of mitigation becomes the hot topic in the studies of scholars.Fraser (1980) firstly offers a definition of mitigation that mitigation is to reduce anticipatedunwelcome effect which a speech act has on the hearer. Besides, he restricts that mitigationoccurs only when the speech act causes unwelcome effect, including driven of fear to causediscomfort to himself and driven of fear to cause discomfort to others，so congratulations andpraise can't be mitigated because they have not unwelcome effect
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework....... 12
3.1 Interpersonal Meaning....... 12
3.1.1 Mood .......12
3.1.2 Modality and Polarity....... 14
3.1.3 Person System .......16
3.2 Interpersonal Metaphor....... 16
3.2.1 Metaphor of Mood....... 17
3.2.2 Metaphor of Modality .......17
Chapter Four Research Methodology....... 19
4.1 Data Collection....... 19
4.2 Research Method .......19
4.3 Statistics .......19
Chapter Five Realization of Interpersonal Meaning .......21
5.1 Modal Adjuncts....... 21
5.2 Parentheses....... 25
5.3 Modal Verbs....... 29
5.4 Transferred Negation....... 31
5.5 Pronouns .......35
5.6 Tag Questions .......38
Chapter Six Interpersonal Function in the Mitigation of Negation
6.1 Keeping Image
For people, communication means interacting with the others, whose main aim is tobuild and keep the appropriate social relationship, meanwhile, which reflects their identitiesand social status. The success of the communication is not only determined by theachievement of goal，more importantly, it should go on in a positive atmosphere and notbreak the participants' image in the conversation. When facing the question by the host, Beckham expresses his view in a gentle way withthe modal verb “may”. Actually, his choice has many possibilities; he may stay still at LAGalaxy, even or may be down to other teams. However, as a republic person, keeping hiswords is his responsibility, so whether he is not sure about his choice，he must express aprobability, after all it has not become a fact.
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Conclusion
In social life, any linguistic form is used to achieve some aims. And by using language,people exchange information, express emotions and opinions and build a good relationshipwith the others. In oral English, mitigation of negation exists commonly in people's daily life,which people adopt various linguistic devices to realize such coxnmunicational goal. In oralEnglish, words and phrases enjoy popularity. And in this thesis, the author analyzes themitigation of negation from the perspective of interpersonal meaning at lexical level and atsyntactical level. Hence, the following conclusion is made.In this paper, the author collects 166 conversations from situational comedies，dailycommunication and celebrity interviews. By analyzing these mitigating devices, the authorfinds out that modal adjuncts and parentheses enjoy the high frequency in oral English. Theyare used to express probability, to reduce imposition, and to sincerity. Furthermore, they canrealize the interpersonal meanings such as keeping image, calming emotion md enhancingfeeling. Modal verbs also occupy the high ratio in the mitigation of negation in my data andthey are used to show speaker's uncertain and non-assertive views and attitudes, makingwhat they express is acceptable and negotiable，and their relationship is promoted，moreover,it is also a way to keep image of speakers, which proves that they are kind and promisedperson.
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Reference (omitted)
