Exploring Affirmative-negative Question from the Sociolinguistic Perspective

Abstract

Affirmative-negative question is special in Chinese interrogative systems, with various syntactic forms, and it is also the key and difficult point in teaching Chinese grammar, but it has research gaps in analyzing affirmative-negative questions from a sociolinguistic perspective. This paper used the questionnaire method, collecting 176 questionnaires to analyze and discuss three points of affirmative-negative questions different forms of acceptance level, target audience and usage errors in sociolinguistic aspect and reached three conclusions. Firstly, people are not accustomed to using VP+(never) in modern social life. They tend to accept the usage of VP+(not)/(not yet)+VP. Secondly, people prefer to use affirmative-negative questions with their peers rather than superiors or teachers since the affirmative-negative question represents an unpolite and questioning attitude to some extent. Thirdly, when distinguishing different types of affirmative-negative questions people may have some confusion and errors, even though they are native Chinese speakers. Thus, this paper proposes some suggestions to help identify the differences clearly for people, including non-native Chinese speakers. This paper plays an inspired role in affirmative-negative questions in sociolinguistic research areas, and it contributes to teaching and learning the Chinese interrogative sentences system.