People use verbal words to express their intentions to the recipients in our daily life。 In the process of smooth communication, it is so important to maintain harmonious relations between speakers and listeners。 It requires people to comply with the principles of politeness。 Leech, an famous English scholar, put forward this politeness principle on the basis of Grice’s framework。 He argued that besides Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principles also guide and constrain rational people’s conversations。 They are closely linked with Cooperative Principles。 Leech’s Politeness Principles including six main maxims。

(1) Maxim of tact: reduce the adverse information on others, do not let others feel uncomfortable。

(2) Maxim of generosity: reduce the information of self-interest, let the other obtain more useful information     

(3) Maxim of approbation: try to avoid belittling each other, try to praise each other。

(4) Maxim of modesty: try to maintain modesty。 Modesty means do not exaggerate their own advantages, do not ignore or cover their own shortcomings。             

(5) Maxim of agreement: try to reduce the differences with each other to increase consistency。

(6) Maxim of sympathy: reduce their opposing feelings with each other and try to increase the mutual understanding。 

People participated in communication should try their best to abide by the above principles of politeness。 According to the above criteria, we can draw such a law: the speaker should try to respect others, so as to win favorable impression from others。 Of course, people are not abide by the principles of politeness at all times and on any occasions, such as in an emergency situation, in a heated debate or in a very friendly atmosphere。 Politeness principles may give way to the content of the discourse, staying in the secondary position。 Politeness is a product appeared with the continual development of human civilization。 In real life, the content of expression is not the only crucial thing, actually, improper speech and rude words always cause unnecessary troubles and interpersonal tension, so, it is easy for us to find the importance of courtesy。

3。1。2 Politeness Principles of Chinese文献综述

The principles of cooperative and principles of politeness are very useful and systematic in our daily communication。 The core of the politeness principles is to replace these rude expressions by polite words。 However, in actual language communication, because of the cultural differences between China and the West, the criteria for people to judge politeness or the ways of using politeness must be different。 That is to say, these criteria have a prominent flaw: it is based on Western cultures, without consideration of cultural differences。 So, in many cases, it is not suitable for Chinese culture。 In 1992, Gu Yue Guo first summed up politeness principle according to Chinese culture, which is effective and practical in the study of conversations based on Chinese cultural background。 Gu Yueguo studied the relationship between modern “courtesy” and “ritual” in ancient China, and the relationship between ritual and language。 On this basis, the following courtesy principles were put forward。

(1) The self-denigration maxim。 This rule refers to that when people talk about things related to their own, they ought to be “derogatory” or “modesty”; when people talk about things linked to the listener, they should comply to the rule of “lift” or “respect”。

(2)The address maxim。 That is, use the appropriate addresses。 It embodies the social relationships between human beings in Chinese culture, which can be regarded as the accumulation and reaction in modern society。 The use of appropriate address words is considered to be the least politeness principle。