3.2 Non-canonical Uses of Personal Pronouns…
3.2.2 Second Person Singular Pronoun: Ni ‘you’
3.2.2.2 Impersonal Use
The use of the impersonal or generic ni ‘you’ has been a widely discussed atypical use of the personal pronouns. It occurs when the second person singular does not refer to the addressee alone but to anyone in a speech situation. The token frequency in the current data is shown in Table 3.7.
Table 3.7: Impersonal ni in the two spoken genres
Sources Daily conversations TV interviews
Tokens (Frequency) 31 (1.32) 54 (1.91)
As can been seen in Table 3.7, the impersonal ni does not display a pervasive phenomenon in both speech genres even though this use has been observed in the previous studies. There are two possible reasons for this discrepancy with preceding studies. For one thing, preceding research on the atypical use of second person singular places their emphasis on the classificatory and the contextual description of the functional characteristics (Kitagawa & Lehrer 1990, Biq 1991, Lin 1993, O’Conner 1994, Wang 2006, Wang 2007, Wang 2008, Chen 2009, Yates & Hiles 2010, Stirling & Manderson 2011, and Liu & Xiong 2012). The frequency-oriented investigation is few.15 For another, the criteria of the generic ni vary from study to study. Liu & Xiong (2012: 18), for instance, follow the criteria of Stirling &
Manderson (2011: 1582-1583) and contend that context works as a vital role in the identification and classification of the diverse cases of atypical second person singular.
On the other hand, Lin (1993), Wang (2006) and Wang (2007) adopt Kitagawa &
Lehrer’s (1990: 742-743) five characteristics in categorization of these non-canonical use found in Chinese.16 In the current study, we incorporate both contextual information and the concept of the generality of personal pronouns in the identification as well as classification of Chinese second person singular.
Daily conversations
It is found that speakers tend to display his knowledge by using the impersonal
15 The recent study takes a qualitative approach is Hsiao’s (2011) study. He explores the amounts and discourse distribution of the mismatched use of Chinese first and second personal singular.
16 The five characteristics of English impersonal you proposed by Kitagawa & Lehrer (1990: 742-743) are (1) it conveys the generality, (2) it is replaceable with an indefinite pronoun, (3) it resists pronoun shift, (4) its deictic use would be included (e.g. an impersonal you would surely include the addressee), and (5) the sentence including the impersonal you would ‘approximate that of sentences with universally qualified NPs or variable bound by them’ (p.743).
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ni (Stirling & Manderson 2011 and Liu & Xiong 2012). In (3.10), the speaker A and B
are discussing baseball games and A appears to have more understanding on the some people are very GY. That is, they’B: ‘Take off their pants?’
A: ‘No.’
The speaker A was describing a baseball rule at that time. Since they are not baseball player, it should be those players who should obey the rules during the game.
However, the speaker A suggests that not only the addressee but anyone who plays baseball should obey the rule he talks about. The display of his understanding toward the rule suggests the speaker’s attempt to exhibit his knowledge toward the subject.
The use of the impersonal ni implies A’s intention of engaging the addressee in the discussed event. In daily conversation, two effects are found by using the impersonal
ni—to invite the addressee’s participation and to display the addresser’s
understanding toward the event.51
TV interviews
Another example illustrating the impersonal ni ‘you’ is (3.11), where the scholar, S is talking about the negative effect of expectation of one’s death.
(3.11) S: …. 事實上， 在 經濟學 裡面 呢， 預期
S: ‘….As a matter of fact, in the field of economics, expectation receives great attention in the recent thirty years because we know that
expectation can murder people. You tell one person that s/he gets cancer, and that it’s in the last phase. Even if s/he has not got the cancer, s/he would die.’
H: ‘S/he snaps, too. ’
The speaker mentions that the power of expectation is so strong that could kill people—this claim is immediately followed by a supporting statement which begins with the subject, ni. The second person singular does not refer to the addressee(s) but to unspecified and unidentified people who reveal the bad news to others. The selection of the second person singular here could have two effects. Firstly, the impersonal ni could ‘draw the interlocutor in’ and contributes to an ‘interpersonal, involving function’ (O’Conner 1994: 59). Secondly, the impersonal ni could achieve a distancing effect when the speakers do not want to include themselves in the negative description (Yates & Hiles 2010), in this case, a man-killing instance. The speaker’s instance exhibits his knowledge about the discussed event and this example suggests his intention to strengthen his credibility toward the subject.
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Apart from exhibiting knowledge and credibility, speakers would embed their attitude toward the subject matters—a phenomenon occurring especially in TV interviews. In (3.12), the speaker J proposes that the laborers may be subject to
J: ‘….It is different in laborers’ situation. First, you are lucky. Your boss would never take advantage of you. S/he is an honest boss. However,
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even if you got fifty thousand dollars a month, your premium ratable wage is 43900 at most.’
H: ‘It’s the maximum. It never equals to your salary.’
J: ‘This is the first situation. Secondly, unfortunately, your boss knows exactly how to find a loophole in a law. You may wonder why plenty of Taiwanese workers insure a basic wage.’
There are a total of eight tokens of ni with the impersonal use in the TV talk. Except for the last one that refers impersonally to anyone, the remaining seven tokens indicate the laborers. The speaker demonstrates her knowledge and understanding toward the discussed events through analyzing the laborers’ situation. She addresses the participants and the audience as if she is an expert of this particular area. As proposed in Stirling & Manderson (2011: 1597), the speaker would ‘display the authority as a member of this group and thus enhance the creditability of her account and evaluation with it’ by means of the impersonal ni. Simultaneously, she speaks from laborers’ viewpoint and identifies herself with the laborers by saying hen
buxingde ‘unfortunately’. It is proposed that the speaker’s intention to speak for the
laborers’ experiences is in support of Stirling & Manderson’s (2011: 1589-1590) claim that the impersonal ni is used to ‘seek recognition and acknowledge of the shared understanding from and to evoke empathy and epistemic agreement of the addressee’.Summary of Impersonal Ni ‘You’
Based on the current data, it is found that the impersonal ni in both genres shares two common functions: to attract the hearers’ involvement and to display the speakers’
credibility/knowledge on the subject. In addition, in the TV interviews, the use of impersonal ni could reveal the speaker’s attitude toward the speech events.