No matter what kinds of dialogues are and where they take place, people talk with aimed to seek information, however, the dialogue may involve something too personal for the partner to answer. Then people choose indirect way to response to those questions. Evasive answers plays an important role under such conditions. Much research has been done on evasive answers by far (Bavelas, et al 1990; Bull 1998; Zhu Wenqiong 2011). However, most of them pay attention to the evasion in the political field, little has been conducted on the sphere of celebrities#8217; talks. This study is aimed to draw a outline of the most-used strategies and forms of evasion by comparing the various strategies and forms used in evasive answers in the TV interviews of the celebrities from the pragmatic aspect.

The motives for such research include the motives for much universal daily use. In addition this knowledge of the most-used evasive answers in communications could have practical consequences. It might enable the interlocutor to perform smooth dialogues without hurting his or her partner and make the communication sound. Moreover, getting a sound awareness of where and what kind of proper evasive strategies might help us out of the woods when we feel embarrassed asked some questions especially under some important circumstances.

During the past decades, much study has been conducted on equivocal communications (Bavelas, et al 1990; Bull 1998; Berninger amp; Garvey 1980). As to the evasive strategies in question-answer communication, Galasinski (2000) holds that evasion is correlate in pragmatics but not in semantics. Harris believes evasion means neither answer the question directly nor doubt the question. From the previous researches, numbers of evasive strategies can be found, however, so far the most-used form and strategies in proper situations has been rarely studied. Therefore, this study is conducted to make a comparison of different TV interviews of celebrities and try to find out the proper and most-used evasive strategies and forms in proper situations in order to be made use in daily communications.

The research is directed on an analysis of some dialogues between the celebrities and the comperes in the TV interviews. By analyzing the strategies and methods they use when faced with unfavorable questions and explain them with Cooperative Principles and Face Theory. Hence a conclusion of the mostly used strategies and methods of evasion can be detected.

Evasion, an important strategy in question-answer communication, is a speech act with unique function. ”Equivocation is non-straightforward communication; it appears ambiguous, contradictory, tangential, obscure, or even evasive”(Bavelas, et al., 1990). The Palo Alto Group first study such messages as disqualification. They seek an explanation in the speaker's communicative situation. Moreover, other researchers have pursued indirect speech acts, which are also forms of equivocation.

Bradac(1983) suggests that evasive answer is a non-relevant answer or belief that speaker thinks his or her message fail to inform the addressee the real condition of the matter. In 1990, Bavela, Black, Chovil, and Mullet put forward that ”all messages that would (intuitively or otherwise) be called equivocal are ambiguous in at least one of these four elements”, namely, sender, content, receiver, and context. Polcar(2002) takes an equivocal response as ”a viable communicative move” because an interlocutor can ”maintain the appearance of openness and cooperativity to an overall discourse goal,” while not committing to a particular position or ”otherwise appearing to thwart” the discourse activity. Steven E. Clayman(2001) regards ”evade/evasive” as actions treated as inadequately responsive by the interview participants. Peter Bull(2003) reserves evasion for a readily understandable response to communicative conflicts, as well as a way of minimizing the face threats which these conflicts present.

Throughout the years, practical evasive strategies are mostly analyzed through two typical approaches. Generally speaking, they are semantic approach and functional approach. The semantic approach commits to explore the underlying mechanism in the process of producing evasive answer. It is proposed by Dariuz Galasinski in The Language of Deception. He demonstrates the strategies to generate the implicit evasive answer by manipulating the question structure and semantics.

(1) Changing the textual context of the question

(2) Changing the focus of the question

(3) Changing the focus and the textual context of the question (Galasinski, 2000)