Diachronic Analysis In Chinese Politeness Phenomena

Politeness, as a common phenomenon in social life, has generated a great number of empirical researches during the last twenty years. For all importance sociologists and pragmatics attach to the study of synchronic politeness, people rarely notice the necessity of diachronic politeness. Therefore, this research focused on Chinese politeness behavior from the pragmatic perspective with Gu Yueguo’s politeness theory. The main purpose of the study is to find out the changes of Chinese politeness phenomena through time. As it provides theoretical basis and foundation, the trends and the factors of diachronic politeness had been analyzed.This study begins with the definitions of politeness. The author use case study, diachronic contrastive analysis and qualitative analysis in this study.In the major part of this study, the diachronic politeness study may develop into three parts:1) How do the politeness changed along with the elapse of time;2) What kind of trends do the politeness changed in recent years; and3) What are the effecting factors of those politeness changes. The first problem in chapter three of this thesis deals with the five maxims that Mr. Gu proposed, from which we can get a general idea about people’s understandings on politeness not only in old age but also in recent years. Furthermore, it gives an underlay for the trends of politeness changed. The solution of the second problem in chapter four is summarized into five kinds of trends which give us a brief understanding for these changes. The trends are settled based on the politeness examples by adopting these models to analyze in a detailed way. The third problem is the author’s final aim. For the politeness had been changed along with society and individuals, the influenced factors cannot be ignored. These effecting factors are divided into two parts:the intrinsic and the extrinsic aspect.