Politeness In English-Chinese Intercultural Communication

This paper mainly discusses politeness in English-Chinese intercultural communication. The author used the method of Contrastive Analysis to study politeness not only in linguistic forms but also in nonverbal communication. Politeness is everywhere in our social life, and it is also culture specific. It was found that the different realization of politeness in English culture and Chinese culture is influenced by the different cultural patterns of them. By analyzing politeness in the English and Chinese culture, this thesis may be helpful for people in English-Chinese intercultural communication.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter One is an introduction, which includes the significance of the study, the methodology and the format of this thesis. Chapter Two deals with the concept of politeness, the relationships of language, communication, culture and politeness, and the English and Chinese cultural patterns. Chapter Three is concerned with western politeness theories, such as Grice's Cooperative Principle, Lakoff's Politeness Principles, Leech's Politeness Principle, Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory, and the relationships of these politeness theories. Chapter Four focuses on politeness studies in China, mainly about Gu's politeness maxims. Chapter Five emphasizes politeness in non-verbal intercultural communication and offers some advice on intercultural skills for nonverbal communication. The last Chapter concerns the avoidance of pragmatic failure and miscommunication, offers some advice on intercultural communication and finally makes a conclusion of this thesis.