5。3 Different ethics 12

6。 Solutions to the Cultural Conflicts Caused by Differences of Chinese and English Courtesy Languages 12

7。 Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1。 Introduction

Politeness is sustained phenomenon of civilized human, different courtesy languages reflect perse mental outlook, is the code of conduct with the most ethical significance in daily life and the necessary means to maintain the harmonious interpersonal relationship。 Language is an important tool of expressing politeness, and it is inevitable for people to use polite language in daily communication。 

With the emergence of pragmatics, politeness has become a hot research topic in the field of pragmatics for more than 20 years。 In 1978, the British scholars Brown and Levinson published an article entitled “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena” (Brown & Levinson 60)。 For the first time, the systematic study of courtesy, “face” problems reveals the politeness is a prevailing phenomenon in the use of language。 This theory has attracted the interest of linguists when it came out。 Based on the study of politeness phenomena, the famous British linguist Leech G N followed the cooperative principle that Grice H P advocated, and put forward the principle of politeness as a criterion for universal adherence in the use of human language (Grice 123)。 But the theories of Brown, Levinson and Leech all aimed to reveal the universality of politeness, and not to discuss the concrete expression and application of politeness under different cultural background。 This paper will make a contrastive analysis from these two aspects of two kinds of Chinese and English politeness principles and politeness formulae and point out the solutions to the persity of Chinese and English polite expressions to reduce people’s fault in intercultural communication in order to make the communication go on smoothly。

2。 Literature Review 

Politeness, a kind of social convention, has a restrictive effect on any member of the society。 As a kind of social activity, language activities are also subject to the constraints of this principle。 As the pragmatics grows, politeness has gradually become a major research topic in this subject。 

In the end of the 1950s, the speech act theory, which was produced by the English Philosopher, J。 A Justin, indicates that a speaker might be performing three behaviors simultaneously when speaking: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act。 American philosopher J．R Searle has developed Austen’s theory, and he improved the speech act theory from the study of the significance of isolated words to a kind of theory that explains the human speech communication。 Another American philosopher H ．P．Grice proposed the cooperative principle; he believed that there is a kind of tacit understanding between the speaker and the listener in all the verbal communication activities (Grice 130)。 They cooperate with each other and follow the basic principles of the conversation to ensure that verbal communication can be effectively carried out。 However, the principle of cooperation can only be restricted to what we say in conversation and how to understand each other’s implication, did not explain why people do not speak bluntly。 On this basis, the British linguist G．N ．Leech proposed politeness principle in conversation, it shows that people sometimes deliberately violate the cooperative principle is the need of politeness, which makes up the deficiency of the cooperative principle to a great extent。 It can be said that politeness principle has a higher level of regulation; it can not only make up for the flaws of the principle of cooperation, but also promote the friendly relationship between them。 Eastern cultures have more emphasis on “Modesty Maxim” than those in the west, while the English speaking countries have a greater emphasis on the “Tact Maxim” (Leech 145)。