Analysis Of Car Sticker Language Based On Politeness Principle

Nowadays, with the fast development of economy, the number of cars in use is vastly increasing in China. In consistent with such popularization of motor vehicles, car stickers have already become popular in our daily life, which can be widely seen on the street. And the car sticker language as a kind of newly emerged linguistic phenomenon, has attracted a lot of scholars’ attention. To shed more light on such a cultural phenomenon, this paper studies the collected car sticker language by using the pragmatic principle, that is, the politeness principle of Leech.The politeness principle, put forward by Geoffrey Leech to show the important role of politeness among people’s communication, is composed of a series of maxims. According to Leech’s definition, politeness refers to the mode of behavior that will develop and keep comity, which means the harmonious atmosphere of mutual civility and respect.The thesis firstly introduces the purposes and significance of the study. And then it states the researches on car sticker language and linguistic politeness by previous scholars. The politeness principle forms the theoretical basis of the thesis. This thesis analyzes the collected data by using quantitative research method, descriptive research method and combing Leech’s politeness principle.The total number of questionnaire survey is 200, with the response number of questionnaires being 186, and the effective number of questionnaires being 160. This study finds out that most of the informants can understand the car sticker language. Their age and educational level bring differences to the understanding degree, while the gender factor has not this kind of evident effect. According to the research data, informants think that the 12 randomly selected car stickers respectively embody the maxim of Leech’s politeness principle. The motivations of using car sticker language are: safety warning, admonishment, improvement of people’s awareness of democracy and monocracy, individuality and entertainment.