A Study On Politeness Language In Modern Chinese

A series of principles and theories on the study of the language of politeness from inland and abroad, such as the cooperation principle, the politeness principle, the view of norms to social activity, the view of conversational-rules, the view of "face-saving" and the view of conversational-contract and especially the china-typical "Five rules of politeness" etc, provide the firm basis, the rich nourishment and the proper thinking method to this dissertation.The dissertation is composed of a prologue, six chapters and a concluding remark, studying the language of modesty and compliment reflecting the linear communicating activities between people in the social sphere applying for the theories of "Xiao -san- jiao" ("small triangle"), of cognition and of functions, based on the sentence structures of politeness language, handling the matters of the distribution of politeness category in the sentence units (words and phrases) , the form characteristics of sentence patterns and the politeness cognition rules of sentence structures. The politeness language takes on the essence of morality, self-identification, successes, utility and weakness.The language of politeness is consisted of the units of politeness cell, -sentence and -mood.The polite cell, linking the politeness substances frames like calling, greeting, congratulating, thanking, farewell, apologizing, euphemism and gentleness, arouses the "humanitarian inter-active" communicational information on respect, modesty, friendship and tenderness among the peoples' experiences. At the same time, the politeness cell, rich of patterns and variations, filling various kinds of language situations can yet be distributed uneven due to the far or near of relationship, the strong or weak of politeness strength, the popular rate and the mastering degree.The politeness cell polymerized by its kinds forms itself different scripts of various characters. According to The Modern Chinese Dictionary (revised version) and our language sense, under the seven conditions of typical categories in the politeness network, we generally have the following typical politeness cells of politeness scripts: the script of wishing - " Zhu"(wish) ; the script of modesty - "Guojiang" (over compliment) ; the scripts of respects -"Baituo" (please); the script of polite formula - "Zaijian" (goodbye); the scripts of gratitude -" Xiexie" (thanks); the scripts of greeting—" Hao" (fine) and the script of euphemism "Xiejue" (politely refusing).Though there are differences of social factors, of linguistic environment and of persons itself, the basic route one masters the politeness categories is as following:Acquainting family politeness cell -?—> expanding acquainted family politeness cell-*—> analogizing and spreading social cell —?-+ establishing psychological politeness vocabulary —>—> constructing the interactive network of politeness.The characteristics of the politeness scripts in linguistic surface, linguistic interior and linguistic value are:The script of wishes has the typical or untypical formats and typical or untypical marking words different in position; the wish-expressing sentences particularly have their own value of context, value of human sphere, value of time and value of linguistic style.The script of modesty has the patterns of setup, continuing and of both. It has the linguistic interior meaning of degree and space, of subjective minimum quantity and of evolvement of meanings. There are useful values in the interpersonal communication on the space, the time and the rules.The script of respects in expressing types of V, N, A, and Pr. has the collocation of subject-predicate, verb-object, combining and unifing and connection, the usages of symmetry or un-symmetry and general or versatility.The script of politeness can be used either at the beginning, the continuing, or the end of communication. It has all kinds of relations and types. The meaning can be extended. The focus, context and the forms of communication have clear applied characters.The script of gratitude, in forms of generals, ellipsis, phrases and one-word-sentences, has dynamic and static characters in features and overlapping of meanings. And it has dynamic and static values of alternation, correspondence and transfer in application.The script of greeting has the marking word like "Wen-an" (salute) and the format of —Hao" (How ...). Its features are actively applied for the practice ofestablishing, keeping on or developing the good relationship between people, We herewith mainly discuss the marking words for politely refusing like "V BuV" (V not V) or" ...Ba" (How ...), and "......Bu Zenmeyang" (....not that...) etcin the form, inner meaning and value.The script of euphemism has different degrees due to the collocation of factors and is always based on "Moderateness" and "Harmony" either in mood, time value or effect.The cognitive action at the politeness of people, based on the person's own body, puts up in time and space. The politeness language has a sort of "natural-time-copying" and the cognitive characters in "Whole Time" or "Circle Communication Time". By the communication between people we modestly call our parents, brothers or sisters the "Jia X"(X of the family), such as "Jiafu" (father of the family) and we address the parents, brothers or sisters of the other side respectfully with "Ling X"(X of his/her family), for example the "Lingzun" (the respectable of his/her family). The respected or modest titles focusing on the conversational parties are copied out from the birth relation and the birth order along the natural timeline. The Family relation being held in early or late is analogized to the society. The family's social title obeys the regulation that copying the natural time, either by birth, for instance the "Dabo" (elder uncle) or by experience, such as the "Dashifu"( honored master) or by both, for example "Laoshifu" (honored elder master); or by the cognitive prediction, such as the "Laotianye" (the great god), etc. But their differences are far not clear like day and night, yet we can say that the typical characters of "time" makes it what the title been chosen.And, the polite title has also the copying of the natural time, for instance the "Xianlie" (the passing martyrs), or so.Greeting follows the natural time sequence such as "Good morning", "Good afternoon" and "Good evening", etc. We can express the salute to the others by using the single word "Zao" (morning) because it is the beginning of the Whole Time cognition whilst we can not say" Zhongwu" (noon, afternoon) or "Wanshang" (evening) to put greeting.As of the wish "Happy New Year" to the Chinese New Year, also a sort of beginning of time, being used between the 24th of the 12th month of the passing year to the 15th of the first month of the coming year does project the"Demand of Perfection" of the people. To say Goodbye, marking the end of an actual communication, is to book the beginning of the next (possible or mental expecting) meeting is also a projection of "Whole-time" cognitive psychological action in the friendship connecting communication.What the space matters: In the politeness language there are projection of potential difference and the living space. When the individual apperceives to the outside, he faces upward or pays attention to those spaces where he can not actually or mentally control while he would ignore the spaces below where he can easily touch or possess. Thus, the character of a space being "Up" is generally linked to the Superiority and the Homage whilst being "Down" is joined with the Inferior and Humbleness. There are such politeness phrases coming from the apperceived experience in the "Up" or "Down" like "Shangzuo" (the privileged seat) etc. The titles including the morpheme of "Gao" (supreme, highness) or "Tai" (honored), which highly appraise to the others, for example the "Gaocaisheng" (highly talented) or "Taifu" (his highness) have the same superiority in the cognition as "Up". Of course they are different in the apperceived spaces in the polite expression. The speaker usually addresses a big space oriented"Dage" (valuable brother) to the other, while chooses small space oriented "Xiaodi" (little brother) for himself in order to form a harmonious and warm co-existing space.Body actions can almost precisely express one's physiological and psychological state. The Han-Chinese used to select the projection of body action relying on the principles of Importance and Goodness. The papers here of using the materials from six famous books, "The tall of three kingdoms", "Stories of water bandits", "A journey to the West", "Unheard stories of intellectual", "Dreams on the Red Chamber1', "Romances and heroism" etc, slightly explore the move and flow of the projection of body action in the politeness language.Chinese politeness language has container pictures of substantiality and mentality which form the politeness metaphoric rule of the "respecting the others" and "self-modesty".Finally the dissertation, synthesizing dynamic and static factors including the forms, the experiences and mentality, has mainly discussed the completed psychological mode, macrocosmic and microcosmic modes, context mode andvalue mode of the politeness language in actual conversation.The Chinese language has a rich variety of titling and calling expressions for relatives and social affairs. The fundament of relatives-titles is ethic. It is an automatically identifying network based on generation signs horizontally and vertically. And the Han-Chinese used to analogize the family titles to social polite titles. Deeply driven by Idea of family harmony consists of cognitive mind, value orientation, ethic idea, thinking method and aesthetic view through the Chinese history, the Chinese language has a network of social polite title identification copying the family one.As a rule, there is an unchanged program in the "Polite sphere", namely to express polite meanings by using vivid voice filled with enthusiasm.Furthermore, both the macrocosmic and microcosmic modes are applied in a bilateral conversation. In fact, in certain context and among social network, the position and rank of the communicators can be made sure by the politeness expressions, direct or potential personal experiences can be exchanged, as to form the polite communication mode obeying the universal principle of "respecting the other and self-modesty" to realize an effective intercommunication. There are four modes in Chinese polite speech, namely the mode of "A and A", the mode of the "A and -A", the mode of "A and B", and the mode of "A and 0". By all appearances, it is very difficult to identify the polite speech in practice because it has not only connections to the linear features of the speech, but also to the mind identifying factors like culture, humanity, society and circumstance.To sum up, the politeness language is always in a dialectical unification of absolute moving and relative static of inner saving and outer interacting.