Politeness - a comparison between Chinese and English

Table of contents

1. Introduction 2

2. Politeness – a theoretical approach 3

3. the concept of limao 4

4. Request strategies 4

4.1. Request strategies in Chinese 4

4.2. Request strategies in English 5

5. Forms of address 6

5.1. Forms of address in Chinese 6

5.2. Forms of address in English 7

6. Chinese: Politeness across social groups 8

7. Conclusion 9

References 11

1. Introduction

In many parts of this world, former existing borders are removed and people move closer together. It has to be admitted that most of the time this happens due to economical reasons, and the phenomenon of mass media has to be mentioned in this context as well. Therefore it becomes even more important to be able to understand cultures of different life-styles. But the success or failure of communication does not only depend on how well a language is spoken, but also on intonation and body language. Dr. Mehrabian, a prominent and successful psychologist, is perhaps best known for the investigation of the role of non-verbal communication. He published findings indicating that spoken words only account for 7% of what a listener perceives. The remaining 93% of what a listener comprehends originate from the speaker's body language and tone employed in the delivery of the words.

Not only because of studies like this, non-verbal communication plays an important role when studying language in its social context. A very interesting topic in this large field is politeness, since forms of politeness are often misinterpreted and lead to misunderstandings. So I chose to have a closer look at the differences between politeness in Chinese and English.

Since it is very difficult to collect data concerning politeness in the language of Chinese, this paper is theory-based only. Nevertheless, many books that cover this topic can be found. Some of the books used for the research of this paper were written by native speakers of Chinese, which is an indication for the author’s competence of the language. Therefore, collecting additional data would not only have been difficult, but also inefficient.

This paper will deal with the topic of request strategies used by speakers of the People’s Republic of China and the terms of address in Chinese and English. Besides, it will focus on request strategies across societal structures and social groups. In addition, it will discuss the concept of limao, the traditional concept of politeness in China. This paper will not allow to cover all important issues concerning this topic, but it shall give a rough overview and should give the reader an incentive to have a closer look at this field of study.