Cultural Expectations And Perceptions Of Politeness: A Case Study Of Chinese Teen-aged ESL Learners

The current dissertation deals with the study of cross-cultural politeness phenomenon in Chinese and western cultures. As a foreigner living and working in China (Shanghai), the author has seen many instances of cross-cultural misunderstanding when it comes to the topic of politeness.China is at an important crossroads in terms of its economy and society. Western culture and people inbound have had an enormous impact on Chinese society, and cross-cultural relations have put quite a spotlight on the topic of politeness here in China.Literature on western and Chinese ideals of politeness is reviewed, and the author argues that the vast differences discussed in much previous research is not a sufficiently accurate reflection of the politeness situation in contemporary China today. The author maintains that Brown and Levinson's (1987) framework of politeness is feasible for the study of cross-cultural politeness here in China.The main point of research deals with linguistic realizations of politeness strategies, and what motivates the people of these two cultures to choose and produce utterances when faced with the decisions about proper politeness. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, this paper attempts to identify which factors influence decisions in politeness strategies, and compares the responses of the two groups under study. Similarities and differences are identified and researched. The author attempts to show that there is a large amount of similarity between the two groups under study, and explain the sources of differences.It is hoped that the results from this study can illuminate the sources of cross-cultural politeness clashes in multi-cultural, multi-lingual China today. An argument is made for an emphasis to be put on cultural awareness and knowledge about norms of social interaction in the English language curriculum in China.