The Realization Of Politeness Strategies Of Request In English And Chinese Cultures

The analysis and comparison of politeness in request is carried out within the framework of theoretical models proposed by Brown and Levinson(1987),Grice(1989) and Leech(1983). The author aims to investigate and compare the differences between the politeness strategies of request in Chinese and English cultures. The paper also accounts for the linguistic forms and typical means for requesting in Chinese and English contexts. The study points out that influenced by the traditional hierarchy of Chinese culture, Chinese people tend to be over-direct or over-indirect. To achieve their goals, basic action verbs such as dai (bring), na (take), jie (lend), lexical terms qing (please), performatives and hints etc. are often used, which people consider polite. In Chinese, the use of interrogative forms outside the domain of questions is not as great as in English. In English, however, some special devices for expressing request in an interrogative style have been developed. The study shows that in the English language the mood contributes most to the politeness hierarchy and modals contribute more to the politeness of the not-as-polite declarative. Also, past-tense modal adds a small additional degree of politeness.Among the main aims of this thesis is to sensitize people to realizethe similarities and differences of the politeness in requests in English and Chinese so as to successfully minimize the misunderstandings and avoid the pragmatic failures that will arise in intercultural communication.