Politeness - a Comparison Between Chinese and English
Table of contents
1. Introduction 2
2. Politeness a theoretical approach 3
3. the concept of limao 4
4. Request strategies 4
4.1. Request strategies in Chinese 4 4.2. Request strategies in English 5
5. Forms of address 6
5.1. Forms of address in Chinese 6 5.2. Forms of address in English 7
6. Chinese: Politeness across social groups 8
7. Conclusion 9
References 11
1. Introduction
In many parts of this world, former existing borders are removed and people move closer together. It has to be admitted that most of the time this happens due to economical reasons, and the phenomenon of mass media has to be mentioned in this context as well. Therefore it becomes even more important to be able to understand cultures of different life-styles. But the success or failure of communication does not only depend on how well a language is spoken, but also on intonation and body language. Dr. Mehrabian, a prominent and successful psychologist, is perhaps best known for the investigation of the role of non-verbal communication. He published findings indicating that spoken words only account for 7% of what a listener perceives. The remaining 93% of what a listener comprehends originate from the speaker's body language and tone employed in the delivery of the words.
Not only because of studies like this, non-verbal communication plays an important role when studying language in its social context. A very interesting topic in this large field is politeness, since forms of politeness are often misinterpreted and lead to misunderstandings. So I chose to have a closer look at the differences between politeness in Chinese and English.
Since it is very difficult to collect data concerning politeness in the language of Chinese, this paper is theory-based only. Nevertheless, many books that cover this topic can be found. Some of the books used for the research of this paper were written by native speakers of Chinese, which is an indication
1. Introduction 2
2. Politeness a theoretical approach 3
3. the concept of limao 4
4. Request strategies 4
4.1. Request strategies in Chinese 4 4.2. Request strategies in English 5
5. Forms of address 6
5.1. Forms of address in Chinese 6 5.2. Forms of address in English 7
6. Chinese: Politeness across social groups 8
7. Conclusion 9
References 11
1. Introduction
In many parts of this world, former existing borders are removed and people move closer together. It has to be admitted that most of the time this happens due to economical reasons, and the phenomenon of mass media has to be mentioned in this context as well. Therefore it becomes even more important to be able to understand cultures of different life-styles. But the success or failure of communication does not only depend on how well a language is spoken, but also on intonation and body language. Dr. Mehrabian, a prominent and successful psychologist, is perhaps best known for the investigation of the role of non-verbal communication. He published findings indicating that spoken words only account for 7% of what a listener perceives. The remaining 93% of what a listener comprehends originate from the speaker's body language and tone employed in the delivery of the words.
Not only because of studies like this, non-verbal communication plays an important role when studying language in its social context. A very interesting topic in this large field is politeness, since forms of politeness are often misinterpreted and lead to misunderstandings. So I chose to have a closer look at the differences between politeness in Chinese and English.
Since it is very difficult to collect data concerning politeness in the language of Chinese, this paper is theory-based only. Nevertheless, many books that cover this topic can be found. Some of the books used for the research of this paper were written by native speakers of Chinese, which is an indication
References: Brown, Penelope; Levinson, Stephen C. 1987. Politeness – some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gu, Yueguo. 1990. "Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese". Journal of Pragmatics 14, 237-257. Lee-Wong, Song M. 2000. Politeness and face in Chinese culture. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics – Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mehrabian, Albert. 1971. Silent messages. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Montgomery, Michael. 1995. An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Routledge. Watts, Richard. 1992. Politeness in Language: Studies in its history, theory and practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.