Chinese Modal Word NE And Its English Translation: From The Perspective Of Mood Of Agreement Of Politeness

In Chinese, NE (呢) is a modal word where a lot of controversies exist. Generally there are three opinions about NE, namely, the maximalist view, the minimalist view, and the communicative view. According to the maximalist view, NE plays quite a lot of grammatical functions which seem to be separate from each other. The minimalist view claims that NE has several core properties that generate many other properties. And the third argument is the communicative view, which claims that NE plays as an interactive particle in a statement, negotiating a common ground in communication.After the comparative study of Ying Ruocheng's English translation versus original Chinese plays, the author proposes to study NE from the politeness perspective. In Chinese plays, NE represents the mood of agreement between the speaker and the hearer. People do not always agree with each other. But without the mood of agreement or intention to reach consensus, the two participants in an utterance will face great difficulties if they want a successful communication. The hearer will receive the signal of NE, and become cooperative in the utterance. Based on this analysis, the author uses the term - the agreement marker to define NE in order to fully reflect its roles in oral utterances.As an agreement marker, NE has four functions, i.e., it makes the existing mood of agreement salient, approaches the mood of agreement, mitigates hostile or negative feelings, and symbolizes power relations that are projected by the social status of the two participants in an utterance.The author has studied Ying Ruocheng's translation of Chinese plays which contain the modal word of NE, namely家(The Family) and狗儿爷涅槃(Uncle Doggie's Nirvana). There are hardly any English words that are equivalent to NE. Maybe it is reasonable because essentially English does not have so many modal words as Chinese. However, in English, there are some linguistic devices that express the similar agreement mood as in Chinese. These devices include grammatical structures, contexts, honorific addresses that imply interpersonal relations, indirect speech, etc. The author has carefully investigated into Ying Ruocheng's English translation of Chinese plays, and found out that, in most cases, he faithfully conveys the mood of agreement from Chinese to English. This is particularly important, because his translation is used for performance on the stage, not merely for reading.The author also discusses why NE is translated into special linguistic devices in English. All languages seem to express moods of politeness, including the mood of agreement. But different languages adopt different strategies and forms in order to express the mood of agreement. The culture and language interact with each other, resulting into particular linguistic devices that express the mood of agreement. Therefore, just as NE expresses the mood of agreement in Chinese, in English, although there are no corresponding modal words, there are some linguistic devices that play the same roles as NE does in Chinese.The author suggests further studies on the cross-cultural comparison of politeness expressed by modal words, because by doing this, we may have deep understandings of modal words in Chinese texts and English translations.