Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Request-Refusal as a Face-Threatening Act 5
2.1 Speech Act Studies and the Illocutionary Force 5
2.2 Concept of Face in Speech Acts 8
2.3 Face-Threatening Acts and the Relationship with Politeness Strategies 14
2.4 Critiques of B＆L's Politeness Model and Refusal 29
2.5 Summary 34
Chapter 3 Request and Refusal Strategies and the Previous Studies 35
3.1 Requests 35
3.2 Previous Studies on Request Strategies 40
3.3 Refusals 47
3.4 Previous Studies on Refusal Strategies 51
3.5 Summary 63
Chapter 4 Research Methodology and Analytic Framework 65
4.1 Research Questions about Request-Refusals in Contemporary Chinese Teledramas 65
4.2 Methodology 68
4.3 Factors Influencing the Use of Request-Refusal 80
4.4 Analytic Framework 87
4.5 Summary 88
Chapter 5 Request Strategies in the Contemporary Chinese Teledramas 91
5.1 Coding Scheme for Chinese Requests 91
5.2 Request Strategies Used in the Nine Situations of Contemporary Chinese Teledramas 100
5.3 Request Strategies from the Perspective of Social Variables 132
5.4 Summary 144
Chapter 6 Request-Refusal Strategies in the Contemporary Chinese Teledramas 149
6.1 Coding Scheme for Chinese Request-Refusals 149
6.2 Request-Refusal Strategies Used in the Contemporary Chinese Teledramas 153
6.3 Request-Refusal Strategies from the Perspective of Social Power 161
6.4 Request-Refusal Strategies from the Perspective of Social Distance 196
6.5 Summary 202
Chapter 7 Conclusion 209
7.1 Major Findings of This Study 209
7.2 Implications of This Study 213
7.3 Suggestions for Further Research 216
Bibliography 219
Appendixes 247
Appendix 1 Samples of adjacency pairs of request-refusal in Chinese teledramas 247
Appendix 2 Contemporary Chinese teledramas analysed in the study 252