Conversational Storytelling in Chinese Speech Acts

Abstract

Conversational narrative or storytelling is a prevalent activity in everyday talk. This paper, drawing on the speech act theory and conversational analysis methodology, examines the conversational storytelling in performing a few types of illocutionary acts like assert, warn, object, advise in Chinese everyday talk. It is found that storytelling plays several significant roles in performing some types of illocutionary acts, i.e. to make a point, to build rapport among friends and even to reduce the face threat. Conversational storytelling may occur immediately after the expression of an illocutionary act, and sometimes before it to indicate certain illocutionary force.