中西文化下的礼貌用语分析doc资料.doc

中西文化下的礼貌用语分析

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A Comparative Study of Polite Discourses between Chinese and Western Cultures
闫晶 2010103010231

摘 要：礼貌的表现方式在不同的文化中是达不相同的，它与某一特定社会群体的典型行为密切相关。总的来说，礼貌用语中的称呼语、问候语与告别语、致谢语、道歉语以及赞扬语在人们的日常生活中扮演着重要角色。本文对中西礼貌用语进行了具体而详尽的对比与分析，并概括了不同文化之间的礼貌用语存在差异的原因，即是由于不同的历史文化背景和不同的价值取向造成的。通过分析比较中西文化下的礼貌用语差异，人们可以更好的学习英语，同时对于跨文化交际有一个更深层次的了解。
关键词：礼貌用语；文化；价值取向

Abstract: The expressive ways of politeness are different from culture to culture and are closely associated with the typical behaviors of some particular social groups. Generally, polite discourses such as address, greeting and leave-taking, thanks, apology and compliment play a vital role in people’s daily life. This paper makes a detailed contrast and analysis to the polite discourses between Chinese and English cultures, and summarizes the reasons for the differences of the polite discourses— different historical and cultural background and different value orientation. According to the analysis, people can learn English better as well as have a deeper understanding of cross-cultural communication.
Key words: polite discourses; culture; value orientation

Introduction
People all communicate with others all the time. No matter how well they understand each other, communication is hard. “Culture” is often at the root of communication challenges. The culture influences how people approach problems, and how they participate in groups and in communities. When they participate in groups they are often surprised at how differently people approach their work together.
People’s histories are a critical piece of their culture. Historical experience—whether of five years ago or of ten generation back—shape who they are. Knowledge of your history can help you understand yourself and one another better. Exploring the ways in which various groups with our society have related to each other is the key to opening channels for cross-cultural communication. This thesis is intended to compare different expressive ways of politeness in Chinese culture with that in English culture to have a better understanding of the polite discourses with different cultures. Through the brief analysis, it can be concluded that it is the historical and cultural background and different value orientation that determines the dissimilarities of polite discourses under different cultural contexts. Learning the relationship between language and culture and how that influences communication and understanding will help people participate in groups in an easy and friendly way.

1. The different expressive ways of polite discourses
There are various languages with different meanings in the world. People from different cultures might misunderstand each other because they don’t have a good knowledge of the differences of politeness. Here are some detailed examples of polite discourses to analyze the behaviors in different cultures by which people can improve their ability to communicate with others.
1.1 Address
The forms of address in every language reflect social status of the speaker, of the addressee, of the relationship between them. As far as English and Chinese forms of address are concerned, each has a system of its own due to the different cultures they have derived from. Generally speaking, there three noticeable differences between Chinese and English address systems which are likely to cause problems for intercultural communication.
First, a proper Chinese name is arranged in the order of surname plus given name(s). An English name, however, is arranged in reverse order from the Chinese. The English first name (equivalent to the Chinese given name), is a non-kin public address term. So, in English, the usual forms of address for the English teacher are as follows: Mr. Lewis, or Andrew. (not: Teacher Lewis, Mr. Andrew, etc )
Second, some Chinese kinship terms have extended and generalized usage. This is not the case of English counterparts. For example, a child may call a policeman 警察叔叔 (police uncle), a young street peddler may address a middle-aged female customer as 大姐. Yeye (grandpa), nainai (grandma) can be used to address people who have no familiar relation with the addresser. We may say that in Chinese culture kin terms are widely used to address known or unknown people, with the appropriate use of kin terms reflecting a person’s politeness, respectfulness, and friendliness.
The third difference is that most occupational titles can be used as address terms in Chinese, but their English equivalents are not necessarily used in the same manner. Look at a talk exchange which actually occurred between a Chinese student (C) and an English teacher (E):
C: Teacher, how do you do?
E: How do you do? Where do you teach?
C: No, I’m not a teacher. I’m a student.
Here, C was using “teacher” as an address term, which was interpreted by E as a self-introduction.
The three differences also reveal the Chinese system of forms of address has been dominated by status and politeness norms for many years. In contrast, with the gradual rise of domestic ideology, and equality increasingly become prevalent in forms of address in English.
1.2 Greeting and leave-taking
People of different cultures have different ways of greeting and leave-taking. One can’t start a talk without greeting, and one can’t keep on the relationship without bidding farewell at leave-taking.
Giving regards to others directly, this is characterized in English. English has “Good morning” and “Good afternoon”. In Chinese culture there are similar structures, such as “你身体好吗?”(How are you?) and “近来怎么样”(How are you keeping recently?). Commenting weather is the most often used in English, but when Chinese friends meet on street, they greet one another by saying “去哪呀?”(Where are you going?) around meal time, a common greeting is “吃过了吗?”(Have you had your meal?). These greetings, encoded as greeting in Chinese culture, are often decoded in Western culture, as preliminary to a request for information in the first case and to an invitation to a meal in the latter.
In Western culture, it is common to indulge in a couple of minutes’ talk, as preparation for leaving. This maybe the along the lines of: “Well, it’s been lovely to see you again, but I must be going soon. I hope we’ll be able to get together again before long. While it is customary for the Chinese guest to say “慢走”, “走好”, etc. The host usually insists on seeing his guest off, while the guest tries to decline. Here again, what is considered as an act of politeness in Chinese culture might be regarded as a face-threatening act in Western culture. To Westerners, a smile and a gesture of farewell would be enough.
1.3 Thanks
How to respond to thanks is also associated with cultural norms. Below is an example showing how Chinese native speakers and English native speakers may respond to thanks differently in the same situation.
Chinese Customer: Thank you for your excellent service.
English waiter: Don’t mention it.
Chinese waiter: This is what I should do.
The above example demonstrates that the Chinese response is associated with a sense of duty, which to the Chinese is a moral obligation. To say that what you have done is what you should do shows that you are modesty and courteous, since the response indicates that one need not to be thanked for what one should do. In comparison, the modesty and courtesy that the English native speaker’s response reflect is not linked with moral obligation. English may feel upset and offended since English’s interpretation of Chinese’s response is that Chinese is obliged to do so rather than do it willingly.
1.4 Apologies
Apologizing is a speech act addressed to the offended person’s face-needs and intended to remedy an offense and thus to restore the friendship between the two. However, people in different cultures have different ways of expressing apology.
For the Chinese, apology most often occurs between people of unequal social status and it is usually the person with less power apologizes to the person with more power, e.g. students to their teachers, employees to employers. But for the native English speakers, an apology is necessary whenever inconvenience or offence is made with little consideration of the status or social power of the people concerned. For example, a manager will say sorry if s/he has to answer a phone call during a conversation with his or her clerk.
In responding to an apology in both English and Chinese, one can reject the need for apologizing. But in English society, what the hearer can not do is to accept the apology; whereas in Chinese society, it is perfectly polite to accept the apology by saying “我接受你的道歉”。(I accept your apology).
It’s obvious that there are different rules governing the apology behavior of the Chinese and English speakers. That’s the reason for the fact that the Chinese may not seem polite enough to English speakers and the English speakers may seem too insincere to the Chinese.
1.5 Compliment
Culture affects ways of compliment and response even more. In giving a compliment, the speaker is attempting to get the addressee to recognize the former’s positive evaluation about the latter. Take the verbal interactions of compliment in American English and Chinese as an example; please compare the following two groups of responses to compliment:
English Chinese
(1)
A: This is really a nice sweater. A: Your sweater is very good.
B: I’m glad you like it. B: I bought it only for five Yuan.
(2)
A: You did a good job. A: You did the job very well.
B: Thank you/Thanks. B: That’s the result of joint efforts/
There’s still much room for improvement.
According to the examples, saying thanks is the primary consideration for the group of English when they respond to compliments. While the Chinese answer reflects a conversational habit: when commenting on a purchase, we often ask or voluntarily tell whether the price is cheap or expensive. Many Westerners feel somewhat inhibited about talking about price of possessions. Also, that is very likely to be taken as a rejection of native English speakers’ ability to judge.
In giving compliments, frequency of the sentence pattern “I like/love it” in American English is much greater than that in Chinese and “you” and “your” appear in most of the Chinese compliments. Overuse of “I” is marked by the Chinese as a sign of arrogance or the intention of showing off, which is naturally avoided in complimenting others. In responding to compliments, Americans tend to accept them as a kind of recognition of their individual efforts, whereas the Chinese tend to efface themselves, for too much emphasis on individual efforts will not be socially acceptable, and regard those who praise themselves or simply accept compliments without hesitation as blowing one’s own horn.
2. The reasons for different polite discourses between Chinese and English cultures
Just as the above analysis, the politeness indicates its own great diversity during its realization in different cultures, but there exist deeper cultural differences below those phenomena. It is caused by the different historical and cultural backgrounds as well as the different value orientations between two kinds of different cultures.
2.1 Different historical and cultural backgrounds
A country or a nation’s cultural orientation, lifestyles, and communicative behavior, to great extent, are determined by its geographical and other physical conditions. The four countries with an ancient civilization in the world are all developed on the basis of farming. The Chinese nation rises in Yellow River Valley, which demonstrated that the ancient Chinese people relied on agriculture heavily and developed a steady lifestyle for survival. Union and steadiness has always been the important thing in every dynasty. This kind of steadiness has permeated through all areas including family, society and even one’s social status and relationships. Moreover, in Chinese there is an elaborate system of kinship terms, because Chinese families used to be very big and highly hieratical, so to some extent the Chinese system of forms of address has been dominated by status and politeness norms for a long time.
In contrast, the Western countries usually rise in the oceanic environment. They immigrated cross the ocean and conquered other countries and regions as their colonies. All these experiences formed their different mental attitudes and characteristics. And they also try to escape from the shackles of family. Everyone is created equal has become the core of social norms. This kind of parallel or equal social relationship of course has a great effect on people’s communicative behavior.
2.2 Different value orientations
It is believed that individualism is the core of Western cultural value, while collectivism is the core of Eastern cultural value. People in Western countries value freedom and places high priority on openness. The word privacy has positive connotation for people in English-speaking countries. They think of the privacy of their homes, the right to privacy, and the right to private property. The word exclusiveness indicates that a person withdrawal from a society, is a loner, or does not fit in. However, the traditional Chinese did not have a concept of privacy. As a result, there is no corresponding word in the Chinese language. Typically privacy is translated exclusiveness, which brings up very different connotation in English from the word privacy. Moreover, the Chinese people, in general, place emphasis on relationships, group harmony, cooperation, and family. As a result, different value orientations might lead to different behaviors.

Conclusion
This thesis mainly talks about the differences of politeness under different cultures. In the first part, it sets several detailed expressive ways of polite discourses as examples, revealing the dissimilarities of politeness in different cultural backgrounds. In the second part, it introduces the reasons for the differences. From the above analysis, people can learn the differences of polite discourses between Chinese and English cultures. This can also help the speakers behave politely and properly when communicating with others.
With the globalization of economy, the intercultural communication is becoming more and more important and is becoming a daily occurrence. These changes have produced major transformations in both worldwide and local patterns of communication and interaction. As a result, mankind is going to have to adjust. Everyone wants to leave a perfect impression on others when they meet for the first time. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to study a foreign language and also people’s customs and behaviors. Most importantly, the language learners also can learn to see world as native