DifferencesinPolitenessPrinciplesBetweenChineseandEnglishCultures

1、Differences in Politeness Principles Between Chinese andEnglish Culturesabstract:politeness is universal but culturally specific.itshows different characteristics in different cultures.from the angle ofcultural differences， this paperreviews chinese and western”politeness principles”putforward by gu

2、 yueguo （顾曰国）and leech , intends to compare on someof the important differences on politeness between chinese and westerncultures. understanding the differences can avoid the pragmatic failuresand achieve success in cross-cultural communication.it can also helpenglish learners to develop and improve

3、 their pragmatic competence.key words：politeness principle chinese culture english culturedifferences1、introductionwith the development of science and technology,communicationamong people from different countries and different cultures is morefrequent and important.our world is multicultural.when we

4、 communicatewith people from another culture,we are not only affected by thedifference of language,but also disturbed by the difference of culture.toensure a successful understanding and communication,we should payattention to politeness,one of the most universal phenomena inintercultural communicat

5、ion.politeness,which is a symbol of human civilization,is a very importantpart of every national culture.it plays a key role in establishing andmaintaining social harmony,and prescribing individualsbehaviors.people from differentcultures may have different views on what politeness is and how to bepo

6、lite.in cross-cultural communication,some languages or linguisticexpressions are considered to be polite,while others were found to bediscourteous.differences of polite language exist in because ofdifferences between oriental historical and culturalbackground,geographical environment and thinking ma

7、nner.chinese andwestern cultures are two different types,they have their own differentfeatures and focus.2、the different definitions of politeness chinese and western culturesin the english-speaking culture and the western world ingeneral,politeness has been closely related to the behavior typical o

8、f acertain social location and a certain social group. to be polite means tolive up to a set ofconventionalized norms of behavior (he zhaoxiong,1995:3). in modernchinese,the equivalent of politeness is limao, which is believed to haveevolved in history from the notion of li( 礼).li origi nally refers

9、 to thevarious rules orpractices employed in ancient sacrificial rites.the ancient philosopherand thinker confucius advocates restoring li,which refers to the socialhierarchy and order of the slave system of the zhou dynasty.it has eversince become an essential feature of the chinese notion of polit

10、enessand has remained at the core of politeness in the chinese culture.(hezhaoxiong, 1995:3-4)“after the analysis of the differences between chinese and englishcultures,l.r.mao concludes that politeness refers to ideal social identity inthe chinese culture and it refers to ideal individual autonomy

11、in theenglish culture”. ( 朱玲麟. 2005, 3: 51 )3、the differences between chinese and western politeness principles3.1 leech s western politeness principlein grice s opinion,in all verbal communication,in orderto achieve specific aims,there is a tacit understanding between thespeaker and hearer,a princi

12、ple that should be obeyed by speaker andhearer.he called this principle as the cooperative principle (cp) .thereare four maxims incooperative principle： quantity maxim,qualitymaxim,relevance maximand manner maxim.(jiang wangqi，2000：38-40)but in real communication,in order to be polite or something e

13、lse,theparticipants often flout the cooperative principle. however,the cp fails togive a reason why people are frequently indirect in expressing what theymean,so that they use implication.geoffrey leech(1983),the famous british linguistician,added and enriched grice s cooperative principle,proposed

14、politenessprinciple (pp) to explain why people violate the cooperative principle(grice,1967) in conversations.he divides the politeness principle into sixmaxims,each consisting of two sub-maxims.they are as the follows:(1)tact maxima.minimize cost to other;b.maximize benefit to other.(2)generosity m

15、axima.minimize benefit to self;b.maximize cost to self.(3)approbation maxima.minimize dispraise of other;b. maximize praise of other.(4)modesty maxima.minimize praise of self;b.maximize dispraise of self.(5)agreement maxima.minimize disagreement between self and other;b.maximize agreement between se

16、lf and other.(6)sympathy maxima.minimize antipathy between self and other;b.maximize sympathy between self and other.”(leech, fromhe zhaoxiong,2003:534-535)leech notes that not all the maxims are equally important. “tactmaxim is perhaps the most important kind of politeness inenglish-spoken society

17、”3.2 gu yueguo s chinese politeness principleleech s politeness principle is proposed according to westernculture.some of them are not suitable to chinese culture,because chinahas its own culture characteristics which are quite different from westernculture.according to the characteristic of chinese

18、 culture,chinesescholars,prof. gu yueguo has proposed four sides ofpoliteness:respectfulness, modesty,attitudinal warmth andrefinement and five politeness maxims:(1)self-denigration maxim ：denigrate self and elevate other.(2)address term maximaddress your interlocutor with an appropriate address for

19、m;(3)refinement maximuse refined language,including the use of euphemisms andindirectness,and avoid foul language;(4)agreement maximmaximize agreement and harmony between interlocutors, andminimize disagreement between them;(5)virtues-words-deeds maximminimize cost and maximized benefit to other at

20、the motivationallevel,and maximize benefit received and minimize cost to self at theconversational level.(gu,1992:11-14)comparing leech s pp with gu s pp,we can find some similaritybetween them.for instance,tact maxim and generosity maxim of leech spp are similar with virtues-words-deeds maxim of gu

21、 spp.however,there are still somedifferences between them,because ofthe different cultural backgrounds.self-denigration maxim has the mostchinese characteristics.4、 the differences of politeness between chinese and western culturescultural differences on politeness between western and chinese canbe

22、found in many aspects of daily communication, includingaddressing,greeting,compliments,apologies,thanks, etc.in thefollowing,we will look at some cultural differences between china andwestern.4.1 addressingin the verbal communication ， we meet address problem at first ， soaddressing is a very import

23、ant mark of politeness. westerners havestrong sense of equality,the family structure is simple,by the parents andminor children of the nuclear family,while the chinese pay attention tohierarchy and stronger family structures more complicated,so the termsof address are very different between chinese

24、and english cultures.in chinese culture,addressing obeys the rule ”上下有义， 贵贱有分，长幼有等” .to address senior people directly by their names includinghis parents,grandparents and teachers is considered to be impolite inchinese culture.while towesterners,to be addressed by their names is universal.in inform

25、aloccasions,even a professor or a chairman prefers himself to be calledwith his given name to show intimacy to others.and they tend to callothers like this.chinese often use one s occupation to address him to showrespect,either in formal or informal occasions when their social status isconsidered to

26、 be high or respectful.e.g.李教授，张老师，王经理,etc.if their social statuses are considered to below,such as barber,cleaner,technical worker, cook,plumber and mostpeople in service profession,people will often call themshifu （师傅） instead of theiroccupations to be polite.to westerners,this is not the same.in

27、formalsituations,they often address people who hold high social status withtheir professions as:professor green,chairman johnson etc.but theynever address people with teacher or manager .besides some addressing terms are considered to be politein chinese rather than in english.in china,”小 + 姓” or ”老

28、+姓” is an address to show intimacy but we cannot address foreignersin such a way.for example,we usually address young ma6 小李” or ”小张” and the old man ” 老李” or ” 老张” in chinese.however,inwestern countries ， we cannot address others ”little brown ”or ”oldjones ” in english.the addressing terms used fo

29、r strangers are also different. chinesepeople like to use family terms to address strangers or people elder thanthem. for example,children are told to address adults with 阿姨 or 叔叔 ;call old people奶奶 or 爷爷 ,even at the first time they meet.but westerners never calla family outsider with those items.t

30、he X I Iterms mr, miss, mrs, sir andmadamare widely used amongpeople.4.2 greetinggreeting is used frequently in our daily life,its auniversal behaviour to show politeness.people from different culturesoften have different ways of greeting.chinese often greet people like this”have you eaten? ”“ where

31、 are yougoing? ”“ what are you doing here? ”“how much have youearned? ”“ howold are you?”or”are you married or single? ” whenthey meet.all these reflect chinese attitudinal warmth. the chinese thinkthat they are being polite by showing concern for the other person,andasking all these questions will

32、help shorten the social distance betweenthemselves and their interlocutors.to western people,should they be asked all such questions,they wouldfeel their interlocutor is rudely encroaching upon their privacy.it iscommon to see that the westerners often greet others with acheerful ”hello! ”or somethi

33、ng like ” how are you? ”if they aretalking with a stranger,they tend to talk about the weather as a way ofgreeting.because individualism is considered of great value in westernculture.what is considered as an act of politeness in chinese culturemight simply be regarded as an intrusion into a person

34、s privacy by anenglish-speaker.4.3 compliment & responsecompliment is an expression showing one s admiration andapproval.nearly all the people more or less have a psychologicalinclination tohear compliments.in respondingto compliment,chinese people and english people are absolutelydifferent.indi

35、vidualism is considered of great value in theenglish-speaking culture.westerners worship personal struggle,areespecially proud of the achievements of individuals. and they nevercover up their self-confidence,when being complimented,an englishspeaking person would accept the compliment by saying some

36、thinglike ” thank you ”to show his appreciation of thepraise.chinese people view the group orientation as theirmost important values.chinese place country and family above theirownselves.in chinese culture,people usually denigrate self to showrespect to others.as have been mentioned,self-denigrating

37、 has been atthe core of the chinese politeness for over two thousand years.thechinese usually underrate his achievement and deny the truth of other s compliment in order to show modesty,which is the opposite in theenglish culture.for example:when hearing the praise:you did a goodjob.westerners would

38、 answer: thanks a lot.chinese would answer:no,ihaven t done enough.theachievement is the result of joint efforts.from the above conversation,we can easily perceive chinese andwesterners different attitudes towards compliment, which are inconsistent with the group and individual orientation.on the ot

39、her hand,the english-speaker is very confident abouthimself.when his praise is denied,he may feel his self-esteem is beinghurt and his ability is doubted.he is being polite to the extent that byaccepting and showing appreciation of the compliment,because heavoids hurting the positive face of the per

40、son who makes it.however,thechinese speaker is showing modesty by denigrating himself,ignoring thefactuality of the compliment given to him.in intercultural settings,the chinese modesty or self-denial will createcommunication problems. sometimes even,chinese people s modestywill be regarded as hypoc

41、ritical and incapable by westerners.4.4 leaving-takingwestern and chinese cultures have different ways to dealwith leave-takings.firstly,in english society,during the closing phase of anencounter,from” i ” perspective.typicalcomments are associated with expressions of apology,such as “iamafraid i mu

42、st be off,i have to relieve the baby-sitter ” etc.westernpeople believe that to be willing to visit and converse with someoneis tohave respect for him,to terminate the visiting is not of one s own freewill,but because ofsome other arrangements,therefore they always try to make their leavingsound rel

43、uctant by finding some reasons and apologize for it to make theleaving acceptable for both parties.english speakers often signal severaltimes before leaving. ”well,it s been nice to see you again.i do enjoyour talk and the lovely dinner,but i must be going soon” . ”thank youvery much.i hope we ll be able to get together again before long ” inchinese society,during the closing phase of and encounter,usually,froma” you” perspective,such expressions include “你挺忙的，我 就不多打扰了。”“你一定累了，早点休息吧，我要告辞了” ,“对 不起，打扰了。”“对不起，占用你不少时间。” etc.and the host