Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews

Abstract

This paper identifies and accounts for mitigation strategies in a corpus of language that attempts to reflect the communicative style of Chinese speakers in semi-structured oral interviews. Thus, the analysis was carried out on the informal conversations of the C-ORAL-CHINA corpus. Mitigating resources were classified and grouped into seven general procedures that constitute different strategic mechanisms with which mitigation is carried out. Regarding the strategic mechanisms through which mitigation was carried out in these semi-structured oral Chinese interviews, the most common strategies were the following: the use of resources that downgrade what has been said or done, the use of resources that involve the addressee in what has been said or done, and the use of resources that limit or restrict what has been said or done. Conversely, the strategies of correcting or repairing what has been said, justifying, and defocalizing had the lowest frequency of use.