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This article unscrambles Chinese and Western politeness expressions in order to analyze the cultural differences between China and the West and to help understand the different cultures. From this, we can learn Chinese and Western cultural differences in this area in all directions, including how to response to compliment, how to convey thanks and apologies, how to make requests, and how to address each other so on and so forth.
Because of the continuing integration of human civilization, economic and other factors, the world is globalized, exchanges among countries become closer, so it is very important for us to know the different politeness expressions from Chinese and English languages. The cultural differences between different countries and different regions lead to differences in politeness expressions. If different countries and regions of people do not understand these cultural differences, it is difficult to understand the true meaning of politeness expressions in different countries. Accordingly, it is essential and important to study different concepts and expressions of politeness in Chinese and Western cultures, and the communication between people will be further. Even the large cultural differences between internations, we can reduce communication barriers between people and countries through this study of politeness expressions.
Politeness has become an important and indispensable part of people’s daily life in, people in polite exchanges with politeness expressions will enhance the friendship between people, so that people get good results in all aspects of things. Lack of courtesy will worsen the interaction between people, and make a lot of things in life not move forward. Human society is in constant progress, whether in economy, politic or civilization, we need to flag as a politeness. If people lose this benchmark, human society will be collapsed, and adhere to the principle of politeness, we will continue to get success. It is necessary to analyze the intercultural communication from the perspective of politeness. That makes Chinese and Western people to make mutual understanding of cultural differences in politeness expressions, continue to promote healthy international exchanges, reduce cultural barriers. Being aware of different politeness expressions will help English learners communicate with foreigners easily.
II. The Concept of Politeness ,源Z自L751:文,论/文]网[www.751com.cn
We can know from other places, politeness has universality. Politeness is a universal social phenomenon of human social existence, different regions have different cultural differences, these cultural differences gave birth to different politeness expressions. It can be understood as a means of interpersonal communication, but also can be considered a driving force behind social progress. Although polite moral standards in people’s minds is the same, but because of cultural differences lead to different criteria. Politeness in different cultures have different origins.
2.1 Definition of Politeness in General
In American culture, they often refer to someone that meets the highest ideals and norms of society in a competent and appropriate way as “polite”. This lay term, of course, has multiple facets: the physical way in which we interact (e.g. opening doors, shaking hands, etc.). In linguistic politeness the speaker aims to disarm any potential threat that an interaction may have, and seeks to communicate to the other participant in the interaction that his or her wants are valued and that he or she (i.e. the speaker) also desires for them to be fulfilled (Brown and Levinson 1987: 69-70). This aspect of politeness has been a major area of research in sociolinguistics since the 1960s, when Roger Brown and Albert Gilman published their pioneering work of the use of pronouns to convey solidarity or power (1960) and when Brown and Marguerite Ford produced their study of address forms in American English (1964).