Politeness and Cultural Difference 英语毕业论文.doc

politeness and cultural differenceoutlinethesis statement: this paper focuses on a study of politeness in its manifestations in chinese and western cultures observe different maxims of the politeness principle.previous studies of politenessa.definition of politenessb.pragmatic studies of politeness by western and chinese scholars.c.importance of politeness in our daily life.chinese and westernobservation of different maxism of politenessa.greetingb.offering and invitingc.giving and receiving complimentsd.an apology. politeness and social civilizationa.violization of principle of politenessb.politeness behavior and respect for othersabstractthis paper focuses on a study of politeness in its manifestations in chinese and western cultures. it gives the readers a general idea of some pragmatic studies of politeness previously carried out by western and chinese scholars, and it gives several comparisons of current practices between chinese and western ways of expressing politeness in different situations，include greeting，offering and inviting，giving and receiving compliments and an apology. in brief, the findings in this paper support the view that politeness in its various manifestations is culture specific to a great extent. by understanding cultural differences, many misunderstandings and miscommunications can be avoided.摘要这篇文章主要研究礼貌文化在东西方文化中的不同，它给了读者曾经东美方学者的一些基本的观点和一些当前的中美文化在不同情景下的比较，包括问候、提出和接受邀请、接受称赞和称赞别人以及向别人道歉的礼仪。总之，这些都在一定程度上证明了礼貌观念的不同是因为文化的差异。通过理解了文化的不同，许多的错误的理解和交流我们就可以避免了。politeness and cultural differencethis thesis attempts to study politeness in its manifestations in chinese and western cultures. what is politeness, then? in oxford advanced learners english-chinese dictionary, polite is defined as “1. having or showing that one has good manners and consideration for other people; 2. (typical) of a superior class in society; refined.in modern chinese, the equivalent of politeness, limao, is believed to have evolved in history from the notion of li. the notion of li originated in the ancient chinese philosopher and thinker confucius (b.c. 551-479), who lived at a time when the slavery system had disintegrated and there were constant wars between feudal states, the former aristocratic social hierarchy was shattered and chaos reigned over the land. to remedy the situation confucius advocated the restoration of li, which referred to the social hierarchy and order of the slave society of the zhou dynasty (dating back to 1100 b.c.). to confucius, it was the model of an ideal society. to restore li, it was necessary to zhengming (to rectify names), i.e. to put each individual in his place according to his social position. confucius set much store by zhengming because he thought, if names were not properly rectified, speech cannot be used appropriately, nothing can be achieved; if nothing is achieved, li can not be restored and consequently social order and hierarchy cannot be maintained. the notion of li advocated by confucius was interpreted, as social appropriacy regards to ones social status by way of self-denigrating and other-respecting. it has ever since become an essential feature of the chinese notion of politeness and has remained at the core of politeness in the chinese culture (he zhaoxiong, 1995).the pragmatic studies of politeness by western scholars are mainly based on brown and levinson (liu, yunqing ,1987). sociolinguists penelope brown and stephen levinson identified two kinds of politeness, deriving from erving goffmans concept of face:negative politeness: making a request less infringing, such as if you dont mind. or if it isnt too much trouble.; respects a persons right to act freely. in other words, deference. there is a greater use of indirect speech acts. positive politeness: seeks to establish a positive relationship between parties; respects a persons need to be liked and understood. direct speech acts, swearing and flouting grices maxims can be considered aspects of positive politeness. because they show an awareness that the relationship is strong enough to cope with what would normally be considered impolite. they articulate an awareness of the other persons values, which fulfils the persons desire to be accepted. (goffman.e,1959) this invetigation is a cross-cultural account of politeness phenomena by way of examining how politeness is used. on the basis of the theoretical framework of linguistic politeness, this study shows one of the approaches of linguistic politeness. there are brown and levinsons approach, leechs approach and lakoffs approach. leech maintains that his model is descriptive and many researchers found it useful in accounting for linguistic politeness in their data. he also argues that brown and levinsons model is a production model, which has attracted a large amount of attention. because it purports to explain the occurrence of specific forms of linguistic politeness in preference to others.( leech, g.1983)from above we could see that politeness can be realized in a number of ways, among which the use of language is an important one. with the development of pragmatics in the past years , more and more attention has been paid to the ways in which language is used to show politeness and also the difference between different languages and cultures.politeness can be understood as a social phenomenon, a means to achieve good interpersonal relationship or a norm imposed by social convention. so it is phenomenal, instrumental and normative by nature. politeness is universal, which is interpretable in various ways, i.e. it can be observed as a phenomenon in all cultures, it is resorted to by speakers of different languages and recognized as a norm in all societies.despite its universality ,the actual manifestations of politeness and the standards of judgement differ in different cultures, which can be traced in the origin of the notion of politeness in different cultures.therefore, we have to study the differences in different cultures so that we can avoid misunderstanding and behave ourselves appropriately in various occasionsan.in turn it promotes the communication and enhances the friendship between our fellow countrymen and all the friends even all people throughout the world.according to professor jias observation, there are many differences in the following speech acts. these speech acts include: forms of address, apology,asking for permission, request, gratitude, compliment; agreement or disagreement,approval or disapproval, refusal; recommendation, expressing, concern, suggestion, warning, criticism; greeting, invitation, telephone talk; introduction, denial congratulation, persuasion, ommand, direction; instruction, report , threat, prohibition.in this essay the author hereby just chooses some aspects to analyze the different polite language between chinese and western culture. in daily life, greeting is a polite language whenever one meets others and wherever he or she is. however, different cultures have different influences on greetings. although both english and chinese may also ask or comment on other things as a means of greeting, the two cultures differ in the ways they do this. for example, a chinese and an english-speaker are acquaintances and came across on the way home one day.the chinese passed by and asked, “have you eaten yet?” the english-speaker was offended by this question. this is a typically acceptable and polite greeting used by native chinese people to show their concerns for others, but it is peculiar and offensive to the westerners. because to some westerners, this question might mean that, “i havent either. come on, lets go together and get something to eat” or “if you havent, i am just going to invite you to my place and have a dinner.” although it takes a form of question, it is a common chinese greeting around a mealtime, nothing more than “hello” or “hi” in english. there is another example as follows: chinese people are likely to say, “where are you going?” when they meet. but in the western culture, people prefer to comment on the weather as a means of greeting, such as “isnt it a good day?”.but not on personal affairs as chinese people do.there are two common ways of greeting in china to state what someone is doing and to greet the other . for example, if a chinese meets someone who is obviously going to the school or washing the clothes, he may say, “going to study?” or “washing your clothes?” but these words sound a little strange to the westerners, for they would not regard these as greetings. in such situation, they are likely to simply greet the person with a common greeting like “hello”. but if people want to appear friendly, they can say, “hello. have a nice dinner!” or “hello. youre doing a good job!”the cinesce should not use chinese greetings when they meet english-speakers. because these greetings are considered as questions which invade their personal lives rather than friendly greetings.we can see that greetings in chinese are mostly universal. whereas those in english are generally such verbal routines as: “good morning” ,“good afternoon” ,“good evening” ,“hi” ,“hello”,“how are you?” “how are things with you?” “hows everything?” ,“how are you getting on?”, “what a lovely day!” and so on. in modern chinese, more and more people greet others by such routines as “ni hao” and “zao shang hao” and so on, which are equivalent to “hello”,“how do you do”,“good morning” and so on in english.about the offering and inviting ,there are also diffrences.in a birthday party, chinese and westerners have different ways in giving and receiving gifts. chinese think that the more expensive the present is, the more sincerity the offerer tries to express. that is why it is a big burden for them to attend a wedding banquet of their friend. because they have to put out a sum of money from their pocket to buy a rather expensive and presentable gift. however, they feel honored to be invited to the banquet as a distinguished guest at the same time. and chinese will not unpack the present until all the guests leave. in their opinion, opening the presents in he presence of the guests will show their over-eagerness at knowing the value of the presents.in contrast, westerners will try to buy or make presents that can best express their concerns with the receiver. the value of the presents lies in the efforts the offerer puts in. a friend told me that she was touched by a souvenir given by one of her western friends, who took the trouble to send the souvenir from a city two thousand miles away just to convey his blessing when he was on his trip to a new place. the postage may be far more expensive than the souvenir itself, but she can tell that she was always on his mind anywhere and anytime. she said this kind of things would never happen among chinese, who must consider it as sheer unworthy. moreover, westerners will open the presents in the presence of the offerers to show their appreciation and gratitude on the spot to make the offerers feel more comfortable and kind of accomplishment.besides, we can all recount tales of misunderstanding while residing in a foreign culture. here are a couple of instances: (1) while living abroad an englishman invited people to party or dinner at his house. although he requested an rsvp, he never got any. as a result, it was necessary to prepare a large amount of food in case they all came. he was annoyed that he hadnt understood the cues for negation. (2) in the united states negotiations with north vietnam were often misinterpreted. the president often said, “ill talk peace anywhere, anytime.”an american hearer would think that one meaning that can be attributed to this utterance is “no, i wont.” the reason for this interpretation is that in most u.s. areas, when a person says, “drop in any time”, this is not an invitation. rather, if one really wanted to extend an invitation one would need to specify when and where to meet. by saying “anywhere, anytime” without being more specific, the presidents willingness to negotiate seemed dubious. (joan rubin, 1989)offering and inviting are considered as face-threatening acts because they impede the hearers personal freedom. this sounds hardly acceptable to the chinese, to whom offering and inviting always demonstrate good will on the part of the offerer and the inviter. in their eagerness to benefit the offerer nd the inviter they tend to overlook the latters choice and preference. whats more, such good-willed acts are rarely performed successfully without persistence. an inviter normally repeats his invitation twice or three times to show his sincerity and the inviter normally will not accept the invitation until it has been repeated twice or three times. not to reissue an invitation when it has been declined for the first time would be considered insincere.similarly ,to accept the invitation right after it has been issued for the first time would be regarded as a sign of over-eagerness to be benefited and thus improper. this contrasts sharply with the way offers and invitations are made and the way in which they are accepted in the english-speaking culture.when we listen to people speak a foreign language that we understand, we notice that the native speakers of that language use words and phrases in a manner different from what we are used to. in western english, for example, people say “thank you” frequently. a word for “thank you” exists in almost every language. but how and when it is used is not always the same. in chinese language, we do not thank people for trivial as well as important or unusual favors. for westerners his expression is used as a polite response to different kinds of favors and compliments and is often automatic (e.g., “thanks for calling” to someone on the phone or “thank you” to a teller in a bank).when being complimented, an english-speaking person would readily accept the compliment by saying something like “thank you” to show his appreciation of the praise, but a chinese speaker would try to deny the truth of the compliment. they both are being modest and they both think they are behaving properly. the english speaker is being polite to the extent by accepting and showing appreciation of the compliment. he avoids hurting the positive face of the person who makes it; the chinese speaker is showing modesty by denigrating himself, ignoring the factuality of the compliment paid to him. as has been mentioned, self-denigration has been at the core of the chinese notion of politeness for over two thousand years. the chinese in order to show modesty will go to such lengths to underrate what himself has achieved and deny the truth of a complimentary remark.although chinese are famous for their modesty in receiving compliments, in the viewpoint of foreigners, chinese seem not polite enough in some way. they take the service they enjoy (such as the offering of dishes by the waiters) for granted and seldom utter their gratitude. “thank you” is rarely heard among good friends, especially between father and son, wife and husband. on the contrary, westerners epeat the utterance hundreds of times a day. for example:“have a good flight?” , “not at all bad, thank you.”“you are a beautiful woman.” , “thank you”“and your name, sir?” , “hare.”“thank you. well see you tomorrow at 8,then.”we can easily notice how often westerners use the expression “thank you”. a customer after paying $100 for a meal in a restaurant, says, “thank you” to the person who hands him the bill. in response to “ i like the color of your car.” westerners might answer “thank you”. in both of these cases, no great favor or compliment was extended yet. “thank you” was the automatic response. while westerners say “thank you” readily whenever possible, either for a trivial compliment or for a big favor they received,the chinese tend to keep the heavy word of thanks in their hearts and leave it unsaid. they would try to look for a chance to do something for the helper in return. they think the heartfelt gratitude is not worth mentioning. on the other hand, if you repeat your gratitude orally, the people would think that you treat him as an outsider. they think it as their obligation to give you a hand whenever you have trouble and turn to him for help. he regards it as his honor and pleasure to be helpful. the function of an apology is to make up for rude words or acts and it serves as a remedy to recover the harmonious relationship. how and when to make and accept an apology is a very important part in the expression of politeness. when someone say sorry to us we should not say “it doesnt matter.” in english in response as we do in chinese ,we should say, “thats all right”“thats ok.” or “no problem.”. when our work gets compliment from others, we tend to say, “its nothing.” and “you flatter me.” or “never mind.” to show our modesty. but in english, “never mind.” is used to comfort the interlocutor as a means of showing politeness. apart from the way in expressing our apologies, timing is also important. catch the right time to give your apology so that your regret can reach the person at the right moment. after that the ice between you and him or her can be timely broken. otherwise, the misunderstanding between you could be deepened to such an extent that it is beyond you to make up. therefore, we should know more about the differences between chinese and western culture, so that we can try to avoid misunderstandings in mutual communication. from the above manifestations of politeness in chinese and western cultures,i would like to tentatively propose that though