A Cross-Cultural Approach To The Study Of Politeness Principle

As a sociocultural phenomenon, politeness is observed in every society and culture. In sociolinguistic study, politeness does not refer to the employment of relatively formal and deferential actions, but the appropriate behavior. In this paper, politeness behavior is concentrated on the management of linguistic practice, rather than nonverbal actions or taciturnity, to maintain and promote harmonious social and interpersonal relationships. And, throughout the paper, the term "cross-cultural" is used to refer to comparative date; while, the term "intercultural" is used to refer to interactional data. For example, "cross-cultural differences" suggest the differences standing out in contrast; "intercultural misunderstanding" refers to the misunderstanding arising when people from two different cultural groups communicate with each other.Politeness strategies in a similar cultural circumstance are themselves unpredictable on account of the numerous tactics and tricks concerned. In a intercultural communication, interlocutors bear the different cultural background which makes the manipulation of politeness strategies even more challenging. Because it is human natural tendency to evaluate other's behavior with the reference to one's own criteria. Therefore, it is necessary and useful to look at certain common and prominent cultural traits of the participants of the communication.Chinese and English-speaking people, undoubtedly, bear a great amount of cross-cultural differences, although they are not totally incompatible in many aspects of social behavior. When learning English, Chinese are aiming at obtaining grammatical competence, communicative competence and language proficiency as well. In fact, all the competences are serving for one aim: acting properly, i.e., being polite in communication, which is determined by the correct judgment of the role of certain context and circumstances. Because English culture is integrated into English learning and teaching, and English learning is, by all means, an English culture learning. The English learners must handle with the English conventions, values, beliefs, customs, and recognize, understand, and accept, when necessary, the different worldview and perspectives from anotherculture. "Accept", here, does not suggest that the learners should abandon their own cultural traits (of course they can, if they prefer to cultivate some of the English positive traits), but just suspend the prejudice and appreciate, or even just tolerate the different ways of doing things.Given the diverse theoretical approaches to the study of politeness, chapter 1 outlines certain twentieth-century debates about politeness/face. To quest why the cross-cultural differences arise, chapter 2 looks at, by comparing Chinese culture and Western/English culture from the culturally psychological perspective, the features of several pairs of concept: collectivism - individualism, homocentric - egocentric. Following the culture-specific traits, the psyche of interlocutors and contextual conditions, interlocutors tend to employ different ways or styles to communicate with each other, e.g., relational - interactional, indirectness - directness. The paper does not suggest that all Chinese or members of another cultural group are homogeneous, but that, on the whole, people of a cultural group share certain prominent commonality which makes the study of human community possible. It is the proposition argued in chapter 3. Chapter 4 offers a long list of politeness strategies to sketch the flourishing argumentation about appropriateness in interactions. Chapter 5 suggests some pedagogic methods cherishing the hope that this paper is academically as well as applicably significant. English learning may be an intriguing and painful experience, due to the discovery of a new realm and its propensity of complication. It is hoped that this paper can contribute to a better understanding of politeness phenomenon and strategies for the intercultural communication in English.