A Study Of Politeness In The Language Of Business Negotiation

My thesis attempts to analyze linguistic realization of politeness theory in business negotiation with regard to lexicon, tense and voice, and syntax. Numerous books have been published to offer guidelines for business negotiation, but rarely do they give attention to linguistic strategies in business negotiation. This dissertation makes a careful case analysis of linguistic strategies of politeness in business negotiation. It consists of five parts as follows:Introduction is devoted to a general description, including the purpose, sources of language data, research method and organization of the dissertation.Chapter one commits itself to the literature review. First of all, Brown and Levinson's politeness theory is briefly overviewed. And then other scholars' views on politeness theory are presented. Finally the definition of business negotiation is given.Chapter two is the case analysis. Examples mainly fall into two groups: one belongs to negative face, the other positive face. In addition, off record strategies also get discussed in this section. The same message can produce different responses on the hearer if the speaker adopts different linguistic strategies. This chapter will make a careful analysis of different outcomes of linguistic choices with the negotiators.Chapter three deals with the influence of culture on linguistic choices in business negotiation. Under a different cultural context, the same phrasing may carry different responses on the hearer. And in turn the negotiating process may go towards a direction unfavorable to the negotiators.Finally comes the conclusion. After a general summary, the theoretical and practical significance of the dissertation is considered with suggestions for further research efforts.