A Brief Study On Politeness And Chinese-English Translation

Politeness is the symbol of human civilization, and plays as a crucial yardstick in men's social life. As a common phenomenon occurring in various cultures, politeness provides restraints for human behaviour, and harmonizes interpersonal relationship as well as communication. The importance of politeness is generally acknowledged. While politeness, as a social phenomenon, is closely connected with cultural factors as value and convention in a community. Hence, due to cultural differences, people from different cultural communities differ on the interpretation, criteria and maxims of politeness. One culture's politeness may not necessarily be understood by people from other cultures. Today, when cross-cultural communication becomes increasingly frequent, it is important for us not only be aware of the differences on politeness between Chinese and English cultures, but to reduce or eliminate them via translation. Only by doing this, people from different cultures can comprehend the politeness expressed by people of other cultures, and make effective communications.This thesis consists of six chapters: After giving a brief account of the motive, purpose , and approach of this paper in Introduction, Chapter One, Concept of Politeness, provides the definitions, essential features and functions of politeness in English and in Chinese. Chapter Two, Studies of Politeness, dwells on some major studies home and abroad, including Brown & Levinson's Face Theory, Lakoff's politeness rules, Leech's Politeness Principles, and Gu's View, to establish the theoretical framework on politeness. Chapter Three, Differences between English and Chinese Politeness, discusses the cultural differences of politeness,including modesty and 谦虚, terms of address, refinement, face and 面子,privacy and attitudinal warmth, and individualism. Chapter Four, Politeness and Translation, focus on the relationship between translation and politeness. Basing on the comments on the review of studies of politeness, it argues that the theoretical foundation for politeness translation lies in the co-existence of the universality and cross-cultural variation in the realization of politeness. Then it makes a brief study on related translation theories, which provide the basis for and are applied to the discussing of politeness translation. Finally, it briefly introduces two types of translation employed.Under the theoretical framework established in Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Example Analysis of Politeness in Chinese – English Translation, probes into the strategies employed under different circumstances in translation of politeness between the two languages by focusing on the analyzing of examples of politeness translation, especially on the differences discussed in Chapter 3. At last, Chapter Six summarizes and conclude for the whole thesis, and suggests some practical translation strategies in politeness translation between Chinese and English.