The rhetorical use of 'Ni yiwei' +X? in Chinese interpersonal interaction

Abstract

In this article, I explore how the Chinese-language construction Ni yiwei +X? (Do you think X?) is used as a rhetorical question in interpersonal interactions, which has been overlooked in the literature. I analysed 1,071 interpersonal interactions drawn from the Center for Chinese Linguistics corpus to examine the recurrent rhetorical uses of this construction. The results have revealed that Ni yiwei +X? has a conventionalised role in realising a range of relational acts dominated by expressives (including disagreeing, complaining and belittling), in the contexts where intersubjective or relational discrepancies have been invoked between interactants. Embracing the perspective of metapragmatics, I indicate that the rhetorical question Ni yiwei +X? arguably constitutes a case of metarepresentation where a thought explicitly attributed to the recipient is further embedded within a negative attitude expressed by the speaker towards the attributed thought. It is thus suggested that the rhetorical use of Ni yiwei +X? could be indicative of speakers’ metarepresentational awareness of the intentional states of both self and others, and hence their efforts to counter the relevant problematic situations, by tactfully holding the recipients accountable for the problems.