A Comparative Study Of Polite Language In English And Chinese Cultures

Politeness is a very important issue of study in modern linguistics, especially in pragmatics. This thesis tries to carry out a historical review of politeness study in the English culture and the Chinese culture, to attribute the differences of politeness to the distinctive cultural values of the two and to make a comparison of the linguistic devices of politeness in the two languages.Leech proposed the Politeness Principle and divides it into six maxims. They are tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim and sympathy maxim. Brown and Levinson's Politeness theory contains three basic notions: face, FTA and politeness strategy. Gu Yueguo proposed five maxims of Chinese politeness, the self-denigration maxim, the address term maxim, the refinement maxim and the virtues-words-deeds maxim.This paper holds the view that the concept of politeness varies in different cultures. The concept of politeness in the Chinese culture is closely tied with ethics and moral standards. But in the English culture, the concept of politeness exists only in the immediate context that involves two conflict parties. Thus Chinese people have a different interpretation of what counts as a face-threatening act and what does not. Chinese modesty, which can be seen as another way of saying self-denigration, is a virtue of self-cultivation while the English modesty is a strategy of minimizing or avoiding self-praise. Privacy is valued in all cultures, but the applicable scope of it in the English culture is much larger than that in the Chinese culture. Attitudinal warmth is considered very polite in the Chinese culture. As a result, what is thought of as an act of politeness in the Chinese culture might simply be regarded as an intrusion upon a person's privacy by an English-speaking person. The different value systems, individualism in the English culture and collectivism in the Chinese culture, impose different rules of communication on their peoples. What is regarded as an imposition in the English culture is considered as polite and sincere in the Chinese culture. Differentways of communication also influence people's choice of ways of expression. Terms of address can be said to be one of the most sensitive features in reflecting speaker's assessment of interactants.The factors that determine the degree of politeness are power, distance and rank of imposition. Other factors that influence the choice of language are rights and obligations, years of studying the target language, social change and cultural exchange.This paper also attaches great importance to the tact of politeness. Politeness of language is reflected in many aspects in the two languages. The first device is by using certain lexicon such as personal pronouns, nominalized forms, lexicon showing intimacy, vague expression, super-ordinates and modal auxiliaries. The second device is by using particular tense and aspect. In English, past tense is more polite than perfect tense, and perfect tense is more polite than present tense; and continuous aspect is more polite. The third device is by using passive voice in English and sentence without subject in Chinese. The fourth device is by syntax such as partial negation, conditional sentence, transferred negation, ellipsis, interrogative sentences, tactful implication and periphrases. The last device is by stress and intonation. This paper made a comparison of these linguistic devices applied to achieve politeness in the two languages.