A Comparative Study Of Face & Pragmatic Strategies In Chinese And Western Cultures

Face exists in all human communications. But in different cultural contexts, people hold different ideas of the concept of "face". Moreover, face and facework have been employed in intercultural communication widely, playing very important roles in intercultural communication, while the using style and principles vary a lot according to different culture backgrounds.The present thesis analyzes the concept of "face" under Chinese "li" culture and that in the individual-oriented western culture, and makes a comparative study between their respective causes and speech strategies. On the other hand, it aims at distinctions of facework employment and its impact on the intercultural communications between Chinese and western culture, with the trend of leaning towards mixing. The discussion mainly focuses on the following: (a) the analysis of characteristics of traditional "li" culture; (b) Chinese concept of "face" in "li" culture; (c) individualism in American culture; (d) face concept in the culture of individualism; (e) the acceptance of "li" in American concept of face and the development of individualism in the Chinese culture. What is really new in this study is to find out new tendency of mixing of "face" concepts in Chinese-Western communication.On the basis of a comparative analysis, this thesis explores certain pragmatic strategies of mixing and understanding for each other through the analysis of cultural roots, in order to make it easier to have a command of facework principles and to benefit from mutual understanding. Besides, it attempts to find out the cultural elements underlying the differences in face and facework by focusing on the distinct features between two different cultures. It centers on the positive role of stereotype and the advantages the Chinese people have with regard to empathy, which is regarded as another innovative point of the thesis.