Politeness: From The East To The West-A Contrastive Study Of Invitation Strategies Between Chinese And Westerners

The thesis intends to make a contrastive study of invitation strategies between Chinese and the Westerners under different social parameters. The aims of the research are to find the similarities and differences between Chinese and the Westerners in their selection of politeness strategies under given situation and social parameters and tries to give a cultural interpretation of the differences and the social variables that have a bearing on the choice of strategies. Invitation is chosen as the focus of the contrastive study of politeness strategies for its fundamental position in human interactions in interpersonal communication, which could be a foundation for study of communicative patterns in given societies, and also be a resource of misunderstandings in intercultural communication if the patterns and the interpretation of the practice differ and are not recognized between the two sides. With questionnaire and interviews to both Chinese and Western respondents, the research partly proves the theories of politeness strategies by B & L (1987) and Scollon and Scollon (2000). A cultural interpretation of the differences and the social variables is made and perspectives against the controversial part of the above theories are also provided in the thesis.The whole thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One makes a brief introduction to the motivations of the study, the scopes, aims and hypotheses and the structure of the thesis. Chapter Two concentrates on the theoretical background for the research of the speech act of invitation, which includes literature review of both theoretical and empirical research. The theories that constitute the theoretical framework of the present research include the speech act theories, ethnography of communication and politeness theories. As B & L's (1978, 1987) Politeness Theory is among the most influential theories in politeness studies and also a basis for this research, critique of the theory is made upon the three most important notions: face, FTA and politeness strategies. Literature review of studies of invitations by the eastern and western scholars is made at the end of the chapter. Chapter Three introduces the methodology of the research, including an introduction of the subjects and procedures, design of the questionnaire and the analytical framework and method for data analysis. Chapter Four is focused on data analysis,which includes analysis of the data elicited from the questionnaire, interpretation of the differences and the social factors connected, which is supported by interviews both from the eastern and western respondents to ensure insider's point of view reflected. At the end of the section, a discussion is made upon the validity of the current strategy distribution theories, and upon the social and cultural variables that influence the choice of politeness strategies. Chapter Five provides a conclusion to findings of the research, together with a discussion of the influence of globalization and English study on Chinese people and English students'communicative patterns. At the end of the chapter, weakness of the study is identified, together with an orientation of future work.In spite of the limitations, the research in a way formulates the patterns of extending an invitation under different social parameters by Chinese and by Westerners. Both similarities and differences are identified and a cultural interpretation of the differences and of the variables of P, D and R are explored in the research. Modernization and globalization play an indispensable role in communication of people around the world, and changes can also be seen in the communicative patterns of Chinese. But as to the width and depth of the influence, more detailed study is needed before a conclusion can be drawn.