1。1 Background of this study

In Western countries, people were in awe of gods, religions, and incantations。 In order to avoid the disasters caused by calling these things directly, our ancestors coined some politeness, many of which came from Latin。

The 19 century is a period of great prosperity in which the speed of politeness development is rapid。 This trend continued to current society。 The improvement of the status of women, the intensification of racial contradictions and the changes in personal values promoted the development of politeness。 It is easy for us to find that there is a close relation between politeness and different cultures。 After the reform and opening up implemented by Chinese government, the relationship between China and the west has become closer and closer, combined with more frequent activities in industry, economy, politics, culture, medical care and other important facets。 As a result, politeness, which shoulder the success of cross-cultural communication, should be paid more attention。 Because if people ignore the politeness differences, there will be some unnecessary conflicts that will affect the communication between people from two language backgrounds。 In some cases, these misunderstandings may even obstruct language learners to master the language。 In intercultural communication, in order to achieve our communicate purpose, we should pay more attention to the pragmatic habits in different cultures。

1。2 Significance of this study

There are quite a lot of researches which focus their attentions on different expressions of politeness in different countries。 Being a normal phenomenon in our life, courtesy language is not only a research category of ethics, but also of sociolinguistics and pragmatics。 This article tries to compare and contrast different expressive ways of politeness, including its word choices, influence and pragmatic habits in different countries。 Furthermore, this paper will pay it attention to some politeness principles from different cultural backgrounds。

Based on the existing researches, this paper discusses some important politeness principles in China and Western countries, including Brown and Levinson’s "face" theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle and Leech’s Politeness Principle。 By studying these principles carefully, people will master the correct ways to use polite expressions so as to avoid some unnecessary troubles caused by misunderstandings。 In addition, in the process of studying different politeness from different countries, students can easily understand different conditions of economy, politics, religion, and even values in China or Western countries, which is very useful for language learners in the long run。 Last but not the least, if the politeness principles are used in the English teaching, it will effectively improve student’s communicative competence。

2。Literature Review来自优I尔Q论T文D网WWw.YoueRw.com 加QQ7520~18766

Western scholars have studied politeness for a long time。 There are a lot of descriptions about taboos in many books from adventurers and anthropologists。 In the early 1870s, British writer George Blunt pioneered the word politeness and defined it as a good or favorable interpretation of a bad word。 Since then, many Western scholars have made great contributions to the study of politeness。 The American linguist Menken discussed hundreds of English politeness and their causes in The American Language, providing a valuable legacy for the politeness study。 In 1981, the British linguist Hugh Rawson compiled and published A Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk, which embodies the amazing research results over the years。 The British linguist Leech proposed the principles of politeness in the book Principles of Pragmatics。 Leach argued that the principle of cooperation should be complementary to the principle of politeness and these principles form a complete theoretical system of conversation。 Kind Words, a Treasures of Euphemisms published by American linguists Neaman and Silver is a masterpiece of politeness study。 In 1985, Enright published Fair of Speech, the Uses of Politeness, studying politeness from the perspective of pragmatics。 In 1986, Sociolinguistic Study published by Chen Yuan, revealed the social essence of euphemism from the profound historical and social psychological background。 In 1989, Shu Dingfang published the Euphemism in Modern Chinese。 In this book, he first attempted to explore and describe the structure and scope of politeness in modern Chinese。