Differences Between English And Chinese Politeness Expressions And Their Trans1ation

Politeness phenomenon is a common phenomenon in languages. But sincepoliteness is closely related to culture, in different languages, the realization ofpoliteness principle is different. So how to translate the politeness expressions inliterature translation is the key issue studied in this thesis.In this thesis, a comparative study is done to find out the similarities anddifferences between Chinese and western politeness principles. It is found that althoughthe Chinese and western cultures share mostly the common politeness principles, thereare still differences between them. The most obvious differences lie in RespectfulnessMaxim, Refinement Maxim and attitudinal warmth.Then, comparison between Chinese and English politeness expressions is donefrom ten aspects, addressing terms, honorific and humble words, taboos andeuphemisms, mode of thinking, non-verbal communication, thanks, apology, refusal,agreement and compliments.Finally, translation examples of politeness expressions are cited from Yang’stranslation of “A Dream of Red Mansions”. It can be concluded from these examplesthat when translating politeness expressions, Yang didn’t adhere stubbornly to onetranslating strategy; instead, he used the two translating strategies, domestication andforeignization flexiblyThe paper is divided into six parts. The first part is the introduction, which brieflydescribes the background, purpose, significance, method and structure of the paper.The second part is literature review. It makes a concise review on the definitionsand researches on polite, face theory and politeness principle.The third part is a comparative study between Leech’s and Gu’s politenessprinciple.The forth part analyses the differences between Chinese and English politenessexpressions from ten aspects: addressing terms, honorific and humble words, taboos andeuphemisms, mode of thinking, non-verbal communication, thanks, apology, refusal,agreement and compliments.The fifth part cites examples from English translation of A Dream of Red Mansions to analyze how to translate the differences between Chinese and English politenessexpressions.The last part is the conclusion, which sums up the previous parts and ideas. It alsopoints out the limitations and future research directions of the paper.