Chinese And Western Cultures In Courtesy Explore

The word of "politeness" seems common, but it's not very easy to behave politely. In our daily life, politeness phenomena penetrate the process of human's communicative behaviors and are connected with ethics in a sense.Since 1978 when Brown and Levinson published an article, ie. "Universals in language usage: politeness phenomena", many scholars focused politeness phenomena in such disciplines as linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology, psycholinguistics and pragmatics. Brown and Levinson's face theory and Leech's politeness principles promote the development of politeness. Chinese scholars Xu Shenghuan, Gu Yueguo and Suo Zhenyu amend and supplement them on the basis of the western scholars' principles. We should realize that the difference between China and the West leads to different polite languages and judge criteria. We can't mechanically judge whether a kind of behavior in one culture is appropriate or not by politeness principles in another culture. We must find cultural differences by going deep into the essence of culture so that we are in harmony with each other and realize successful cross-culture communication.First, this thesis deals with different origins and definitions about politeness between China and the West. Then the author summarizes Chinese and Western scholars' politeness theories and furthermore cultural differences between Chinese and Western politeness. Last, taking compliment speech act as an example, the author expounds different usage about compliments.The thesis is divided into 4 chapters.Chapter one is about different origins and definitions of politeness between China and the West.Chapter two presents different politeness research. The western politeness principles are closely related with such names as Brown, Levinson and Leech. While in China, scholars Xu Shenghuan, Gu Yueguo and Suo Zhenyu propose their own politeness principles.Chapter three involves politeness differences between Chinese and western culture.Chapter four, as the supplement of chapter two and chapter three, makes comparison between Chinese and western compliment speech act on the basis of different cultures.Finally, the author believes that there are no regular politeness principles which are suitable for every culture. We only compare cultural differences, apply different speech acts in specific context and try to be appropriate, so that we can realize cross-culture communication.