A Study of Comparison on Chinese and English Politeness Language from the Perspective of Intercultural Communications开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义

Politeness is a social phenomenon, generally existing in every language. But due to the differences of cultural values and conventions, people from different culture may have different understandings about the definition of politeness, and they deal with politeness in different ways. When communicating with people from different cultures, one should pay close attention to the connotation resulted from different culture values, otherwise it will lead to pragmatic failures in communications.

2. 研究内容和预期目标

This paper is concerned with the comparison on Chinese and English politeness language from the perspective of intercultural communications, aiming at making English learners understand the similarities and differences in intercultural communication, which can be in return beneficial for the successful cross-cultural communication and establishment of harmonious relationship.

3. 国内外研究现状

In the West, the study of politeness is not a new topic and there are a lot of works on it. In Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior (1967), Goffman puts forward the facework theory which claims that interpersonal relationship and reactions depend on people's desire for face. In Principles of Pragmatics (1983), Leech proposes politeness principles from the perspective of pragmatics. In his work, he differentiates between relative politeness and absolute politeness and he pays much more attention to absolute politeness. Brown amp; Levinson make systematic analysis of #8220;face#8221; in Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage (1987) on the basis of Goffman's study. They bring forward two kinds of face, that is #8220;negative face#8221; and #8220;positive face#8221;. Chinese scholars have made great efforts to combine western theories on politeness with Chinese reality. In 1986, Chen Rong#8217;s article on politeness, Face, Save Face and Lose Face, was published. In the article, he introduces Brown amp; Levinson#8217;s face theory in detail. Gu Yueguo, whose influence can never be neglected in the field of politeness, puts forward his own set of politeness maxims in his article Politeness Phenomena in Modern Chinese (1990). Later, he offers further revision of the above-mentioned maxims in his article Politeness, Pragmatics and Culture (1992), demonstrating altogether five maxims, which, according to him, are more suitable to the Chinese culture. From the above-mentioned works and writings, we can find that abundant researches on politeness have been conducted both at home and abroad. Based on them, this thesis attempts to make an in-depth study on politeness formulae performed by Chinese college students in the hope that it can enrich the field of politeness to a certain extent.

4. 计划与进度安排

chapter 1 introduction

1.1 research background

1.2 the purpose and significance of the study

5. 参考文献

[1] brown, p. amp; levinson, s. d. universals of language usage: politeness phenomena[a]. in e. goody (ed.), questions and politeness [c]. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1978: 56-289.

[2] brown, p. amp; levinson, s. d. politeness: some universals in language usage [m]. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1987.

[3] oatey, h. chinese and western interpersonal relationships. in hu wenzhong (ed). intercultural communication------what it means to chinese learns of english (pp.42-62). shanghai: shanghai translation publishing house,1988.