Gender Differences Of Politeness Strategies In Fortress Besieged

As both a social phenomenon and a language phenomenon, politeness exists in all nations and it is considered as a significant principle of social activities. As a result,many linguists have proposed different theories for politeness study from different perspectives, among which Grice’s CP, Leech’s PP and Brown & Levinson’s Politeness Strategies are the most popular and influencing ones.This study tries to analyze the conversations of hero and heroine in the famous Chinese novel Fortress Besieged based on the theoretical framework of Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategies, so as to reveal the different preferences of politeness strategies by different genders, and further analyze the main causes of these differences.In the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed. For the quantitative method, first of all, the total numbers of politeness strategies used by the hero and heroine in this novel are collected respectively, and they are 122 and 87.Then according to the classification of politeness strategies, numbers of different politeness strategies and sub-strategies used by the hero and heroine are counted respectively. Also, the proportions of different politeness strategies and sub-strategies are calculated. In order to clearly examine the distribution of the politeness strategies and sub-strategies used by the hero and heroine, tables are made based on the figures counted and calculated carefully. While for qualitative research method, the results of the data collected through the quantitative method are analyzed. Finally, this paper probes into the causes of the differences in politeness strategies preferences based on the data analysis.Based on the data analysis, it reveals:On the one hand, males are more inclined to use negative politeness strategy and bald on record strategy in general, with proportions of 34.4% and 24.6%. As for the sub-strategies, they tend to use minimizing the imposition sub-strategy, being ironic sub-strategy, avoiding disagreement sub-strategy and joking to make the hearer at ease sub-strategy, the proportions being 4.9%, 4.2%, 4.2% and 3.3%.On the other hand, females prefer to use positive politeness strategy and off record strategy, with proportions of 33.3% and 29.9%. In detail, noticing/attending to hearer sub-strategy, using metaphors sub-strategy, going on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting the hearer sub-strategy, giving gifts to the hearer(goods, sympathy,understanding, cooperation) sub-strategy and being incomplete sub-strategy are frequently used by females, the proportions being 6.9%, 5.8%, 4.6% and 4.6%.This paper argues that three kinds of causes lead to the different choices of politeness strategies between males and females:Firstly, the long-term social roles males and females have to play have a great influence on the usage preferences of politeness strategies;Secondly, females are in the subordinate social status to males, which contributes a lot to the different choices of politeness strategies between genders;Thirdly, males and females belong to different sub-cultures, and their speech styles and preferences of politeness strategies are greatly influenced by the sub-cultures.This study serves as a supplement to the research on Politeness Theory from pragmatic perspective, and it could be a good research data for future studies. At the same time, this study also has some enlightenment to the successful communication between the two genders.