A Contrastive Study Of Greetings Between English And Chinese

Greetings are important as well as frequent in everyday social interactions all over the world. Appropriate greeting behavior is crucial for the establishment and maintenance of interpersonal relationships.While greetings have been studied in diciplines such as sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics and discource analysis, there has been no systematic investigation of their use across different languages from both pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives. In addition, most of the classical studies on greeting behavior such as Goffinan(1971), Laver(quoted in 钱厚生, 1996) mainly focused on greeting patterns in English other than in Chinese.On the other hand, Brown and Levinson(1978) have attempted to analyze the functional application of politeness to the performance of FTAs(face threatening acts) in order to claim politeness phenomenon as universals in language use. Laver(1981) has summarized social factors on the choice of greetings in his discriptive framework. 顾曰国(1994) has made a contrastive analysis of politeness phenomenon between Chinese and English and has pointed out the cultural difference in politeness phenomenon. Jia(1999) made a comparison of interpersonal relationship and intercultural communication between the East and the West. 钱厚生(1996) has provided a contrastive study of the greetings and partings in English and Chinese discourse in terms of linguistic routines and politeness. On the basis of these studies, therefore, it makes practical sense for the author to make a contrastive study of greetings between English and Chinese in terms of politeness principles and sociolinguistics.This paper attempts to draw a contrastive study of greeting phenomenon between English and Chinese from both pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives. First of all, the functions and use of greetings are introduced. Then it explores some common properties of greetings in English and Chinese and investigates the differences in theirlinguistic routines and use. It also goes beneath the surface and attempts to explore the cultural differences in value systems and their underlying philosophical sources of the differences between Chinese and English politeness phenomenon. In Chinese culture, Confucianism, especially 仁 and 礼 determines almost all aspects of the Chinese life-they have become the collective unconsciousness for the Chinese programming their social behavior, 仁 and 礼 actually act as shapers of the patterns of interoersonal relationships which in turn affect interactions and communications on both sides. As a matter of fact, 仁 and 礼 is a system of moral codes in the Chinese context predisposing a society in which relationship is asymmetrical and reciprocally obligatory.On the contrary, what is emphasized in English culture is individualism and as a result equal or horizontal relationship is highly valued. Thus the value of equality is prevalent in social relationships. The relationships are symmetrical. This symmetry presupposes role equality rather than differentiation as is the case in China.Moreover, greetings exist in culture and reflect culture as a component of language. Language is the vehicle for human communication, however, most people overlook its potentialities as a reflection of the entire culture of those who speak it. Thus miscommunication in intercultural communication would take place as a result of cultural differences. Through the analysis of the implication of greetings in intercultural communication, the need for further intercultural studies in linguistic routines and politeness is emphasized.