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1. Introduction 2 2. Politeness - a theoretical approach 3 3. the concept of limit 4 4. Request strategies 4 4. 1.
Request strategies in Chinese 4 4. 2. Request strategies in English 5 5. Forms of address 6 5. 1. Forms of address in Chinese 6 5. 2. Forms of address in English 7 6. Chinese: Politeness across social groups 8 7.
Conclusion 9 References 11 1. Introduction In many parts of this world, former existing borders are removed and people move closer together. It has to be admitted that most of the time this happens due to economical reasons, and the phenomenon of mass media has to be mentioned in this context as well. Therefore it becomes even more important to be able to understand cultures of different life-styles. But the success or failure of communication does not only depend on how well a language is spoken, but also on intonation and body language. Dr.
Mehrabian, a prominent and successful psychologist, is perhaps best known for the investigation of the role of non-verbal communication. He published findings indicating that spoken words only account for 7 % of what a listener perceives. The remaining 93 % of what a listener comprehends originate from the speaker's body language and tone employed in the delivery of the words. Not only because of studies like this, non-verbal communication plays an important role when studying language in its social context. A very interesting topic in this large field is politeness, since forms of politeness are often misinterpreted and lead to misunderstandings. So I chose to have a closer look at the differences between politeness in Chinese and English.
Since it is very difficult to collect data concerning politeness in the language of Chinese, this paper is theory-based only. Nevertheless, many books that cover this topic can be found. Some of the books used for the research of this paper were written by native speakers of Chinese, which is an indication for the author's competence of the language. Therefore, collecting additional data would not only have been difficult, but also inefficient. This paper will deal with the topic of request strategies used by speakers of the People's Republic of China and the terms of address in Chinese and English. Besides, it will focus on request strategies across societal structures and social groups.
In addition, it will discuss the concept of limit, the traditional concept of politeness in China. This paper will not allow to cover all important issues concerning this topic, but it shall give a rough overview and should give the reader an incentive to have a closer look at this field of study. 2. Politeness - a theoretical approach The theory of Brown and Levinson, published in 1987, focuses on communicative strategies and how these strategies are realized structurally and lexically in languages. This theory describes two levels of communication, namely the surface level and the underlying level. As Lee-Wong points out, "on the surface level, the maxims are deemed to be infringed but on the underlying level, the Cooperative Principle is still at work, i. e.
conversation is still seen as purposive and rational. " (Lee-Wong 2000: 18) Whereas Brown and Levinson look at the phenomenon from a socio-psychological perspective, Leech sees the role of politeness as essentially social. According to him a successful interaction does not only depend on the assumption of the Cooperative Principle, but the Politeness Principle plays an even more important role. So the more costly the request is, the greater the degree of politeness has to be. Besides these theories there exist a number of theoretical approaches concerning politeness. Other examples would be the "concept of politic behaviour" by Watts or the socio-psychological approach by Janney and Arndt, just to mention a few. Generally speaking, all these theories are either orientated toward the conceptualization of politeness as a pragmatic means of conflict avoidance or as a form of ritual routine.
Therefore politeness can be seen both as a norm-oriented phenomenon and as a strategy. This perspective emphasizes that politeness is context-bound. So an utterance that is perceived as polite in one context might be interpreted differently in another because of contextual features such as relative social relationship and power. In order to understand politeness in modern China it is necessary to look at its past since politeness can only be explained with the help of knowledge of Chinese traditions. It is very important to know that China was traditionally a family-based society, which explains that this society is still hierarchically orientated. 3.
The concept of limit The most approximate Chinese equivalent to the English word "politeness" is limit which could be translated by "polite appearance." Limit is a concept that derived from the old Chinese word li. Li was formulated by Confucius (lived from 551 B. C. to 479 B. C. ), whose influence is still strongly felt today in the country of China. Back then the country was uncontrollable due to several wars going on between feudal states.
Chaos practically reigned over the land. So it was Confucius' aim to restore li, the social hierarchy that existed before in the Zhou Dynasty (1100 B. C. ). In order to restore this system, it was necessary to restore sociological definitions and values of individuals in order to put each individual in his or her place according to his or her social position. There are basically four notions underlying the Chinese conception of limit: respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth, and refinement. Respectfulness is defined as a positive appreciation towards oneself and the admiration of others (face, social status, etc. ).
Modesty should prevent a person from acting selfish and snobbish, so it could be translated as the term "self-disparagement." Attitudinal warmth means self-demonstration of kindness, consideration, and hospitality to others. Finally, refinement refers to behaviour towards others meeting certain standards. Mentioning these four aspects of limit it is essential to notice that polite behaviour can occur in both verbal and non-verbal forms. Talking about verbal behaviour of Chinese, being polite in content has to be distinguished by being polite in manner, since it is possible to criticise somebody (being impolite in content) in a gentle way (being polite in manner). 4.
Request strategies 4. 1. Request strategies used in Chinese language As Lee-Wong (2000: 108) observes, native Chinese speakers tend to favour a direct bald on-record form of request strategy type. A very popular form of uttering requests is the so-called ba-construction, e. g. "Ba che jie wo" / 'Car, could you lend me'. Besides, action verbs as 'lend', 'give', 'get', or 'change' etc. are used frequently: "Huan shang kuwaiti" / 'Change a pair of chopsticks'.
As illustrated in these examples, utterance meaning and sentence meaning are almost identical when requests are made in Chinese. In other words, requests are usually expressed with a minimal number of words. This leads to the conclusion that native Chinese speakers tend to use forms that are clear and explicit. A similar tendency can be noticed when we look at requests of information. Here direct questions as "Tongzhi, zone get hair bank lu xue should?" / "Tonghzi, what is the procedure for enrolling my child in the school?" are consistently used.
Nevertheless, the type of request strategy has a lot to do with relative power. "[... ] one distinct conclusion can be drawn, i. e. it is socially acceptable for a speaker who holds a relatively higher social position to frame direct bald on-record request using imperatives [... ]. This acceptance is extended to speakers who are social equals. Its use, however, is restrained in the case of low power. " (Lee-Wong 2000: 101) Since im positives are commonly used in situations where social positions are equal or low and social distance is small, this type of request strategy seems to be less formal. It marks solidarity whenever it is used between peers, and signals power in a conversation with the speaker enjoying a higher social status than the hearer.
Nevertheless, native speakers of Chinese seem to be direct and explicit except in a context of extremely high social power. This again shows that Chinese speakers prefer to use a level of directness where they can emphasize clarity and explicitness in daily face-to-face communication. Gender is a relevant variable as well, and therefore it cannot be left out of account. Especially in Chinese culture gender plays an influential role by the choice of request strategies. Statistical evidence shows that more females than males use an indirect strategy, for example "Nin shi bu shi new bang wo xie yi feng jieshaoxin?" / 'Is it possible for you to write me a reference?' . 4. 2.
Request strategies in English As already mentioned, native speakers of English interpret non-im positive forms of requests as more polite than im positives. As Brown and Levinson (1987: 64) state: "So some simple compounding of hedges and indirectness, particles and so on, increases the relative politeness of expressions. " But it is not easy to make simple generalizations, since polite offers, for example, are often bald-on-record imperatives. This shows that 'on record' and 'off record' are categories that do not precisely coincide with categories of linguistic forms only. What is important to consider as well is their context. According to Yule (1996: 65), requests are often expressed by negative politeness strategies via a question containing a modal verb, e.
g. "Could you lend me a pen?" Besides, there are often forms used that contain expressions of apology for the imposition or hesitations. So it is essential to notice that in the English language most of the time a less direct and probably longer and more complex structure is used in order to get a basic message across, which indicates that at least in this aspect the Western culture is totally different compared to Chinese culture. Whereas speakers of Chinese prefer to be direct in order to show respect and politeness, speakers of English would rather avoid direct forms and stick to hesitations and indirect questions. 5. Forms of address 5. 1. Forms of address in Chinese The forms of address in the Chinese language are deeply rooted in the social system. What is striking is that forms of address have changed tremendously with the c...
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Research essay sample on Politeness A Comparison Between Chinese And English
