Comparative Study Of Polite Dictions In English And Chinese

Language is a social "interlingua" with which human beings communicate among themselves. Language has grown into its present being from its peculiar social history and conventions and is closely relative to its social and cultural properties, which mean speeches'are conditioned by lots of social factors beyond the language itself, and impacted by cultural factors which sometimes go much farther than merely the language. These properties reflected from the polite dictions often indicate different pragmatic usages and cultural values in different language systems.The thesis deals with a comparative study to the polite dictions in English and in Chinese from the aspects of the social and cultural properties of the language. By detailed studying and discussing the forms of addressing to people (intercommunicative, post and rank, respectful, intimate addressing and typical kinship address in Chinese), forms of greeting (wish-mode, regarding-mode, praising-mode, appellation in Chinese and chatting in English), forms of appreciating and apologizing and relevant replies, and forms of complimenting and replies, the thesis emphasizes the comparative study may help the intercommunication or cross-culture communication and understanding between English-speaking and Chinese-speaking peoples. In the last part the thesis also puts forth that the comparative study to the polite dictions in English and Chinese can be further performed from other aspects such as different histories, geographic surroundings, climates, religions, thinking modes, conduct practices, and so forth.