Politeness And Translation Of Politeness Expressions Between English & Chinese

This thesis is an attempt to examine the similarities and differences of politeness principles between Chinese and English, analyze the application of translation strategies for politeness expressions and find out the factors influencing the adoption of different translation methods with emphasis on the translation purpose.The introduction begins with a true story in which cross-cultural difference of politeness caused misunderstanding in daily communication and illustrates the necessity to examine the common grounds and divergences of politeness between different cultures and the importance to have an appropriate translation of politeness expressions. Then, the scope of discussion of the paper is also defined.Chapter One is a review of previous literature concerning both politeness and translation. As far as politeness is concerned, there are quite a few important conceptualizations in western countries which form the core of the vast field of modern politeness research-Lakoff's pragmatic conflict-avoidance strategy of politeness, Leech's maxim-and-principle approach to politeness and Brown & Levinson's face-saving view of politeness. In China, the most recent developments in politeness study are represented by Gu Yueguo, who explicitly connects politeness with social moral norms. In terms of translation, I will discuss Nida's functional equivalence approach, Newmark's functional theory of translation, Bassnett & Lefevere' s cultural approach to translation, Vemeer's Skopos theory and Venuti's Foreignization and Domestication one by one as well as their application to the analysis of politeness translation.Chapter Two is a comparison and contrast between Chinese and English politeness principles. I first introduce English and Chinese Politeness Principles proposed by Leech and Gu respectively. English politeness principle consists of six maxims: Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy (Maxim). Chinese politeness principle is made up of five maxims: Self-denigration and others-respecting, Address, Elegancy, Conforming and Virtue, Words & Behaviour (Maxim). Secondly, I explore the similarities between Chinese and English Politeness Principles both at the macrolevel of pragmatics and at the microlevel of the specific maxims. Thirdly, I examine their differences in four aspects: Self-denigration and Others-respecting (Maxim), Compliments (part of Approbation Maxim), Address (Maxim) and Taboos (part of Tact/Elegancy Maxim), which are the focus of ChapterTwo. In the last part of Chapter Two, I summarize the deep-rooted reasons for these differences in the cultural background.Chapter Three is a tentative analysis of politeness translation. I first discuss the application of domestication strategy for the translation of politeness expressions. As the use of politeness falls within the pragmatic area, in general, domestication, which is similar to Nida's approach of functional equivalence, is the most common strategy for politeness translation to achieve the pragmatic equivalent effect. I prove it with cases of translation of daily politeness formulae and conversations in short stories and novels such as Six Chapters of a Floating Life. But it is not absolute and the foreignized examples of politeness translation can be found without much difficulty. Hence, secondly, I analyze the application of both domestication and foreignization strategies for the same source language text with examples from the translation of The Dream of the Red Mansion and The Moment in Peiking, to study the role of translation purpose in it. Thirdly, I focus on the application of only foreignization to a politeness text mainly with the examples from the translation of The Fortress Besieged and probe into the factors influencing the selection of this strategy. They include the translation purpose, the linguistic and cultural background of the translator, the expectation and cultural background of the target language readers, the nature of the source language text, etc. Last, I analyse an unsuccessful example of pol...