A Contrastive Analysis On Politeness Formulae Between English And Chinese

Politeness phenomenon is a universal social phenomenon that exists in all societies. The success of communication and the development of society partly depend on the proper use of politeness formulae, which, as a kind of lubricant, play an irreplaceable role in society. Furthermore, the use of language is closely related to culture, and different cultures have different communicative patterns. This is especially true for the use of politeness formulae. Politeness varies along with the culture. Besides the universal features of politeness, it is vital to be aware of the distinctive features of politeness in certain culture. This paper intends to draw a contrastive study on greeting and responding to compliments between English and Chinese, with the purpose of bridging the gap in the communication between people from diverse cultures.Politeness formula is an important subject that has attracted the attention of scholars both at home and abroad for a long time. It is generally believed that people will observe certain principles when they communicate with each other. Grice first proposed Cooperative Principle (CP). After him, Leech raised Politeness Principles (PP) to complement CP. Then Brown and Levinson offered a quite new explanation by putting forward the "face" theory, which is much more influential. They hold that politeness means various rational behaviors that the Model Persons take to maintain the "face" wants. According to Brown and Levinson, MPs are those rational people who have "face" wants, namely those who have normal communicative ability in social community. "Face" is the basic need of the Model Persons and can be classified as positive "face" and negative "face" which the Model Persons have. Besides that, the Model Persons also have rationality which enables them to choose certain means to satisfy the desired goals. On the basis of Chinese cultural background, the Chinese scholar Gu Yueguo raises his politeness model which can be applied to explain the politeness phenomenon in Chinese culture.Politeness formulae are influenced both by contexts of culture and situation. By referring to Halliday's notion of context of situation, the author thinks that the use of politeness formulae is not only influenced by cultural conventions but also by certain context of situation. In the discussion of the first variable-context of culture, the author analyzes the cultural differences from the aspect of cross-cultural communication. As to the second variable-context of situation, the author mainly discusses the interpersonal relationship and the field of conversation. Finally, the author gives a detailed explanation about the differences of two speech acts between English and Chinese, namely, greetings and responding to compliments.