Abstract:As a common phenomenon in all languages and cultures, politeness plays an important role in interpersonal relationships, especially in establishing and maintaining social harmony and provides individual language behavior. Because of cultural differences, differences in the expression and understanding of courtesy and the inappropriate use of polite expressions often cause failure in intercultural communication. This paper is to analyze pragmatic differences between English and Chinese courteous expressions, explores the causes of the differences and accordingly, tries to find out the ways to help people in their cross-cultural communication.

This paper consists of four chapters. Chapter one offers a brief introduction to politeness expressions. Chapter two introduces different politeness principles in English and Chinese. Chapter three analyzes pragmatic differences between English and Chinese courteous expressions, especially in greetings, terms of addressing, compliments, and also pragmatic failure which are caused by unawareness of politeness. The author tries to provide some advice to reduce mistakes which are brought out by different courteous expressions. Chapter four is the conclusion of the whole paper. 

Key words: courteous expressions, pragmatic differences, pragmatic failure, causes, communicative strategy

CONTENTS

Abstract

中文摘要

Introduction-3

1 Brief Review of Politeness Principle in English and Chinese-3

1.1 Politeness Principle in English-3

1.2 Politeness Principle in Chinese-3

2 Pragmatic Differences between English and Chinese Politeness Expressions-3

2.1 Pragmatic Difference of Greetings-4

2.1.1 Difference of the Subject-4

2.1.2 Difference of the Response-5

2.2 Pragmatic Differences of Terms of Addressing-6

2.2.1 Kinship Terms-7

2.2.2Non-kinship Terms-8

3 The Reasons for the Differences-8

3.1 Different Cultures-9

3.2 Different Understanding of Privacy-9

3.3 Different Understanding of the Respect for Seniority-10

3.4 Different Values-10

4 The Ways to Conquer the Differences in Politeness Expressions-11

4.1 Understanding English Culture and Expression Characteristics-11

4.2 Avoiding the Cultural Prejudice-11

4.3 Doing as the Romans doAvoiding the cultural prejudice-12

5 Conclusion-12

Bibliography-13

Acknowledgements14