--------------------------------------------最新精品资料推荐-提供全程指导服务--------------------------------------------- When we must criticize others or publish the different opinion, we can take the strategy that “Xian Li Hou Bin, Xian Bao Hou Bian” The fifth politeness principle is generosity maxim. Minimize cost to others, maximizes benefit to other in the behavior of motivation. Maximize the benefit that you gain from others, minimizing the cost you pay in the words.
2.2 Politeness Principles of English Courtesy Language
Brown and Levinson thought different culture have the different politeness principles. In their view, the face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. This different is influenced by the society, culture, religion and geography chronically. Chinese and English choose the different strategy which embodies their different National culture feature to express the different politeness principle. So people will choose the proper politeness principle in cross-cultural communication.
2.2.1 Brown and Levinson’s “Face” Theory
Politeness, in the interaction, can then be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face.
In 1978, Brown and Levinson had further put forward the “Mature Face Theory” which tried to take face as a common language phenomenon to research on the basis of Goff man in their work of Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena. Brown and Levinson divided the face into positive face and negative face. Then politeness is also divided into the positive manner and negative manner. The Mature Face Theory of Brown and Levinson is the first; time to discuss the face problems of politeness systematically from anthropology and philosophy. In their view, the face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. This different is influenced by the society, culture, religion and geography chronically. Chinese and English choose the different strategy which embodies their different National culture feature to express the different politeness principle. So people will choose the proper politeness principle in cross-cultural communication. They thought that face is, for every social
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--------------------------------------------最新精品资料推荐-提供全程指导服务--------------------------------------------- member, wanted to gain for the public self-image of them. In the process of interaction, people hope each other can maintain each other’s face. Along with the face threat increasing, people use the higher politeness strategies to maintain their face. The face threat level depends on the difference of social distance and social power between the communications.
2.2.2 Grice Cooperative Principle
Grice Cooperative Principle Grice, an American linguist, has put forward the Cooperative Principle in people’s conversation. He thought that, in all the communication, the speaker and listener should follow some principles which make the process of communication develop toward the tacit understanding and cooperation. There are four maxims to embody the cooperative principle: The first one is quantity maxim: the information you offer should accord with the conversation, just the right amount. The second one is quality maxim: what you said should be reasonable and true. The next one is relevant maxim: what you said should be related to the content of the front. The last one is manner maxim: the word you said should be terse, clear, and systematical.
But some people do not comply with this social principle; even some of them violate those in social communication. In other words, the Cooperative Principle can't completely contain the kinds of conversation. According to this, the English linguist Leech thought the root of people violating the Cooperative Principle is that they want to comply with another principles — Politeness Principle. From the Pragmatics and Interpersonal Rhetoric, Leech summed up and classified the Politeness Principle during the social communication. Leech pointed that: the Cooperative Principle guides what we should say, so as to meet the expectations. However, the politeness principle can be maintained the friendship. So the Cooperation Principles and politeness principles can make a supplement each other which restrict people’s conversation behaviors.
2.2.3 Leech’s Politeness Principle
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--------------------------------------------最新精品资料推荐-提供全程指导服务--------------------------------------------- Leech’s Politeness Principle English scholar Leech, in his principles of pragmatics, put forward his politeness principle on the basis of Grecian framework. He believed that “besides Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle guides and constrains rational people’s conversation as well. It is closely connected with Cooperative Principle. Yet on the other hand, it solves the problem why people prefer to use indirect speech in conversation, which cooperative principle can not explain”. Leech’s Politeness Principle is elaborated into six maxims. The first two are Maxim of tact: minimize cost to other, maximize benefit to other. Maxim of generosity: minimize benefit to yourself, maximize cost to yourself. The second two are Maxim of approbation: minimize dispraise to other, maximize praise to other. Maxim of modesty: minimize praise of self, maximize dispraise of self. The last two are Maxim of agreement: minimize disagreement between self and other; maximize agreement between self and other. Maxim of sympathy: minimize antipathy between self and other, maximize sympathy between self and other.
This is the main content of Leech’s politeness principles. The above criteria have the different emphasis. For example, the maxim of tact and the maxim of generosity, maxim of approbation and maxim of modesty, which is the same, have two different aspects. The maxim of tact is referring to how to treat others which is applied to causative Verbal Behavior “request”. But the maxim of generosity is referring to how to treat self which is applied to commitment Verbal Behavior “promise to help”. Analogously, Approbation maxim is referring to how to treat others while Modesty maxim is referring to how to treat self. The Agreement maxim points out that it is not suitable to express directly the diversity viewpoint with other person.
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3 A Comparison of Chinese and Western Courtesy
Languages
What is politeness? This sounds like a simple question. In daily life, we often make judgments about what is polite and what is not polite. To define politeness is by no means an easy job. We may have different understandings on politeness from different viewpoints. Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good manners or etiquette. It might involve ideas like being tactful, modest and nice to other people. Also, since Politeness is a very important subject of research, many people, home and aboard has defined politeness from different perspectives. Politeness is one of those social virtues which we never estimate rightly but from the inconvenience of its loss. Though perhaps not distinctly perceived when present, its absence is strongly indicated. The difference between a polite person and one who is impolite is very marked, yet those who do not possess good breeding rarely understand its importance and worth.
3.1 Humility Language and Formal Language
The self-denigration is the polite phenomenon of richest Chinese culture characteristics. When Chinese gain the praise or congratulations from others, they usually take the expression like “Nali、Nali”, “Guo Jiang Le”, “Can Kui、Can Kui”, “Cha Yuan Le” to show their modesty. But if we communicate with the westerners in the Chinese habits, the result of communication would fail. Chinese express their
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--------------------------------------------最新精品资料推荐-提供全程指导服务--------------------------------------------- politeness through modesty and lower themselves. For example, the Chinese “请教”“高见”“贵姓”“拜读”“鄙人”“拙作”“愚见”“驾到”“贵干”“寒舍” are difficult to find the corresponding expression in English.
For westerns, it’s offensive to deny others praise. However, the Chinese people think the westerns are too confident, not enough modest to show the politeness. For example: Chinese A: 你的饭菜太香了。 Chinese B: 献丑了。
British A: You are very beautiful. British B: Thank you Chinese B: 过奖了。
British take the expression of “Thank you”. There are many words to show the respect and politeness in English, such as “will”, “would”, “can”, “could”.
From the above we can make a conclusion that the compliment of Chinese and British has the same common. There are more distinguishing in honorific of Chinese and English language.
3.2 Daily Communication Languages
Communication, namely the interaction between people, usually refers to the two
and two or more people through the language and behavior to communicate express opinions, emotion. The human communication is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a cultural phenomenon. It is no doubt that communication is of great importance in our daily life. People can not live without communication. Communication is every where. Daily communication is very important to our human the vehicle by which people initiate, maintain, and terminate their relationships with others.
Cultural differences on politeness between western and Chinese can be found in many aspects of daily communication, including addressing, greeting, compliments, apologies, thanks, and so on. In the following, we will look at some cultural differences between China and Western.
3.2.1 Terms of Address
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