Contrastive Study Of Politeness Principle And Choice Of Words In English—Chinese Cultures

Politeness is one of reflections a culture or a society, politeness principles are the factors played out in social interaction sessions. Politeness is universal, everyone is in the society is expected to subscribe to these politeness principles, however politeness principles vary with culture, and types of societies. There is a huge disparity between English culture politeness and Chinese culture politeness principles. Owing to different beliefs and values, and different cultural backgrounds, these cultural differences of politeness are of great importance in cross-cultural communication, Therefore, in language class, such differences, especially those concerning the basic aspects of daily life, should be introduced to students, and this can be done in different activities effectively and efficiently, so its an individual responsibility to raise an effort to know the culture of the person in context in order to avoid ruining of both interpersonal and intercultural relationships. This paper seeks to establish the main disparities,the problems they are likely to cause and how by appropriately and tactfully applying politeness principles we can overcome them and achieve successful social interaction.