英汉礼貌用语差异对比分析及策略 --毕业论文.doc

【标题】英汉礼貌用语差异对比分析及策略 【作者】廖正丽 【关键词】礼貌；文化差异；交际障碍；策略 【指导老师】程 琼 向 俊 【专业】英语 【正文】I. IntroductionPoliteness phenomena are universal in every speech community of the world. Politeness has the function of regulating interpersonal relations and maintaining a harmonious atmosphere among people. Therefore, in every language system, politeness formulas take up an important status. Ever since the 1960s, politeness studies have caught more and more attention in the area of linguistics, especially in pragmatics. As the author of this paper has just mentioned, politeness phenomena are universal, but politeness expressions vary from culture to culture. One expression considered polite in one language, when translated literally into another language, may be perceived to be rude. For example, we Chinese are inclined to show concern for others, which is a common phenomenon of politeness in our culture, but in the eyes of an American, such behavior is offensive. Therefore, cultural influence in the employment of language to express politeness deserves our attention, for people in different cultures or with different cultural backgrounds adopt different strategies to achieve polite effects. And Politeness is closely related with speech acts. It is manifested in various speech acts such as terms of address, greeting, leave-taking, and gratitude and responds. It must be noted that when interacting with people from English-speaking countries, the Chinese often commit errors, which more often than not, are not due to the form of language but inappropriate use of it. We call such errors cross-cultural pragmatic failures. As the chances of the Chinese to interact with foreigners are increasing, the need to use English appropriately becomes more and more urgent.Ⅱ. An Overview of Previous Politeness StudiesDuring the past fifty years, various theories of politeness have been developed and new theories continue to be proposed. Among the theories, the most famous include Brown and Levinson