Thus, negotiators who have developed a bargaining style that works only within a narrow scope of the business world will suffer unless they can broaden their negotiation skills to effectively work with different people across the world. With the economic negotiation occurred frequently among different countries, people would like to make analysis of aspects that are reflected in business negotiation, such as economy, policy and so on. Using language in a polite way is important for different language users to recognize successful international communication. Then, problem comes to how to possess mature negotiation skills.
Aiming at receiving a better understanding of principle politeness theories and its application in actual activities. Firstly, this paper will later put an emphasis on analyzing the actual use of politeness principles in the environment of international business negotiation. By analyzing those, the writer will make an extension of when and how those principles can be used in actual activities which also mean when and how can we make the best use of those politeness principles.
2. Literature Review源]自{751^*论\文}网·www.751com.cn/
2.1 The Definition of Politeness
What is politeness? Peter Grundy’s definition of politeness is that politeness can be used to “describe the extent to which actions, including the way things are said, match others’ perceptions of how they should be performed” (Grundy Peter, 2008: 129). Politeness could be best recognized as a practical application of good manners or etiquette. It is defined as a culture phenomenon, and there’s a situation that what is thought to be polite in one culture would often be quite rude or simply strange in another. Meanwhile the aim of politeness is to make all of the parties relaxed and more easy with one another. These culturally defined standards at times may be manipulated to inflict shame on a designated party.
In addition, politeness, as a symbol of civilization, has been playing a significant role in the cross-cultural communication. Politeness principles are used widely in business negotiation and they have already been recognizedin to be effective methods. A well application of politeness principles helps to improve the credibility between two parties involved and increase the possibility of successful-oriented negotiation. A good negotiator needs not only business knowledge but also strategies of expression and politeness can work as one of these strategies.
2.2 Development of “Politeness Principle”
H.P. Grice thought that to make the conversation continue, speakers should follow some basic principles, especially the one called “Cooperative Principle” (H.P. Grice, 1975: 45-46). A great improvement was brought about in this new theory in the concept of conversational implication, and has been got a great attention in the linguistic circle. Besides, this theory was regarded as a breakthrough in pragmatics.
However, Leech thought that the Cooperative Principle itself is not sufficient to explain the question “why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean”. That is to say the Cooperate Principle theory alone could not give explanation to how people talk. It just answered how conversational implication is given but does not give the answer to why people do not say directly what the mean. For example, why do speakers asking “could you tell me more about your company?” instead of asking “tell me about your company”? (Leech,1983:34). The reason has to do with another principle which was applied to conversation, that is Politeness Principle. He put forward the Politeness Principle so as to rescue the Cooperative Principle, in accordance with that politeness can satisfactorily explain exceptions and obvious deviations from Cooperation Principle. Thus, his politeness is not only an extension to Grice’s Cooperative Politeness, but also a necessary compliment factor for situations where the Cooperation Principle fails to provide a reasonable explanation.