Linguistic Politeness In Cross-cultural Communication And Its Implications For EFL Teaching

As a universal social phenomenon, politeness has drawn great attention from anthropologists, linguists, psychologists, and sociologists since 1960s. Language is an essential means by which politeness is exhibited. With the increasing contact among the interlocutors coming from different parts of the world, people are getting increasingly aware of the importance and necessity of the polite use of the target language. The ability to speak politely and appropriately helps to establish, maintain, or consolidate harmonious interpersonal relationships and facilitate international communication.Due to the influence of different cultural value orientations, the actual manifestations of politeness and the standards for its judgment differ substantially from language to language. Misunderstandings or even breakdowns may occur in cross-cultural communication if language learners do not have an adequate knowledge of the cultural differences of linguistic politeness. Thus, teachers of English should do whatever they can to promote learners' communicative competence.This thesis is intended to provide a contrastive study of linguistic politeness in English and Chinese from a cross-cultural perspective. By analyzing the cultural values underlying the superficial differences in...