Abstract:Politeness is usually regarded as a strategy used by speakers to achieve a certain purpose. The use of politeness is a common phenomenon in various societies and groups, and it is the symbol of human social civilization. But due to different culture, different people have different understandings about the definition of politeness, and they deal with politeness in different ways. Western scholars had a lot of researches on systematic theories of politeness in pragmatics. Among these researches, British linguist Leech's politeness principle was considered the most universal by many scholars. One of the Chinese scholars Gu Yueguo has traced the origin of the notion of politeness in the Chinese culture, and has also formulated a different set of politeness maxims, which he thinks is more suitable to the Chinese culture.

Under the background of globalization, cultural communication between China and western countries is becoming more and more frequent. By understanding pragmatic discrepancies of politeness in Chinese and English, many misunderstandings and miscommunications can be avoided in cross-cultural communication.

This paper, from the point of the differences between Chinese and Western culture, introduces pragmatic discrepancies of politeness in Chinese and English based on the theories of Leech and Gu and analyzes the reasons that cause the differences from various points of view, which will make a more profound understanding of the differences and contribute to a more successful cross-cultural communication.

Keywords: politeness maxims; cross-cultural communication; cultural difference

CONTENTS

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

Chapter 2 Politeness Principles-3

2.1 Politeness Principle of English-3

2.1 Politeness Principle of Chinese-4

Chapter 3 Pragmatic Differences of Politeness in Chinese and English-5

3.1 Different maxims are chosen because of different cultures-5

3.2 The differences between the Modesty Maxim and the Self-denigration Maxim-5

3.3 The differences of the Address Maxim-6

3.3.1 The differences of appellation-6

3.3.2 The differences of greeting-7

3.4 The differences of the Refinement Maxim-8

3.5 Pragmatic mistakes in different cultures-9

Chapter 4 The Reasons that Cause Pragmatic Differences of Politeness in Chinese and English-11

4.1 Cultural values-11

4.2 Social norms-11

4.3 Modes of thinking-12

4.4 Religious beliefs-12

Chapter 5 Conclusion-15

References-17

Acknowledgements-19