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成 绩评卷人姓 名贺天慧学 号2010212836 华 中 师 范 大 学本 科 生 课 程 论 文论文题目 Talk About the Intercultural Communication From the Pragmatic Differences of Polite Language 完成时间 2013年6月20日 课程名称 语用与交际 授课教师_柯 贤 兵_专 业 辅修第二学位英语专业 年 级 2010英语双学位辅修 Talk About the Intercultural communication From the Pragmatic Differences of Polite LanguageAbstract: The polite language is a fixed expression for users of the language to show their politeness. They are usually fixed expressions, which are nation-specific and society-bound. Due to the profound differences between east and west culture, Chinese and English politeness expressions are differ in thousands ways. These differences are most of the time the causes for misunderstanding between different peoples and thus lead to intercultural communication failures. Thus various pragmatic failures of politeness formulae occur in cross-cultural communication.Since 1983, Thomas put forward the definition of cross-cultural pragmatic failure, many linguists and scholars have studied the cross-cultural pragmatic failures committed by Chinese learners of English in speech acts. But these studies are very general, that is, researchers studied pragmatic failures from many aspects rather than focusing on the point. Therefore, few works and papers have specially concerned the analysis of the intercultural pragmatic failures of politeness formulae. Under the circumstance, this thesis attempts to investigate the pragmatic failures committed for the false use of politeness formulae in the Chinese-English intercultural communication and to find out the causes of these failures in order to get a better understanding of the topic. In the Chinese-English intercultural communication, the pragmatic failures of the politeness formulae are mainly caused by the following two factors: firstly, we do not know enough about the English politeness formulae; secondly, we falsely use the English politeness formulae or even transfer our Chinese politeness formulae into English communication contexts, making our partners of communication misunderstand us and feel unhappy. The latter factor is the focus of the thesis: intercultural pragmatic failures of the politeness formulae. Distinguished from language errors or intercultural communication failures, intercultural pragmatic failure belongs to the range of intercultural communication failures. The intercultural pragmatic failures are divided into two categories: pragmalinguistic failures and socio-pragmatic failures.This research adopts pragmatic contrastive analysis method to analyze the intercultural pragmatic failures of politeness formulae in the movie the Joy Luck Club, aiming to find out the causes for these failures. Through analysis, the author argues that culture differences are the utmost cause of intercultural pragmatic failure. Failing in confirming to the contexts as well as negative transfers are the causes of pragmatic failures of politeness formulae in Chinese-English cross-cultural communication. Judging from the perspective of cultural transfer and pragmatic transfer, speeches with pragmatic failures break the language rules and culture conventions of the target language. Negative pragmatic transfer results in breakage of the target language rules and results from culture transfer. It is the negative culture transfer that leads to the breakage of the culture conventions of the target language.To avoid the intercultural pragmatic failures aroused by the inappropriate usage of politeness formulae, we need to enhance the systematic study of English politeness formulae and understand the differences between two different politeness formula systems clearly on the one hand; on the other hand we should also try to get rid of the influences of ethnocentrism. 摘要：礼貌用语是语言使用者用来表示礼貌的固定表达，具有熟语性、民族性、社会象征性等特点。由于东西方文化的深刻差异，汉英礼貌用语也存在着千差万别。这种文化异常经常导致跨文化交际者之间不能正确地相互理解，从而导致交际失误。因此，在跨文化交际中常会出现各类礼貌用语的语用失误。继1983年由Thomas提出跨文化语用失误概念后，至今已有许多语言学家和学者对中国人在跨文化交际中各种语言行为的语用失误进行研究。然而同时我们也注意到这些研究都是非常广泛的，并没有具体到某一领域或某一方面。因此具体针对英汉交际中礼貌用语的跨文化语用失误的研究很少。作者证实在这种情况下对英汉交际中礼貌用语的跨文化语用失误进行对比并分析产生这些失误的原因，以期对这一主题有更好地了解。在用英语进行的英汉跨文化交际中，礼貌用语的交际失误主要是由两方面的基本原因引起的：一是我们对英语文化和礼貌用语掌握不够；二是我们误用了英语礼貌用语，或是套用了汉文化的礼貌用语等原因，导致英美交际伙伴的误解或不快。后一方面的原因导致了礼貌用于的跨文化语用失误。本论文正是采用语用对比分析法，从语用语言方面失误和社交语用方面失误两个角度来对电影喜福会中的礼貌用语语用失误现象进行分析，期望于从中得出其跨文化语用失误的原因。经过对比分析，笔者认为，文化差异是造成跨文化语用失误的根本原因。英汉交际中礼貌用语的跨文化语用失误是由于不符合语境和语用负迁移造成的。从文化及语用迁移的角度看，语用失误的话语违背了目的语的言语规则和文化规范，对于目的语言语规则的违反证实语用负迁移的结果。在言语交际时因套用母语的言语规则而使交际失败的迁移就是语用负迁移。语用迁移正是文化迁移的直接结果。文化负迁移导致了对目的语文化规范的违背。文化负迁移是两种文化差异的具体体现。在跨文化交际中为避免因礼貌用语的使用不当而发生语用失误，我们应该一方面加强对英语礼貌用语的系统学习，并对英汉礼貌用语的差别有一个清楚的认识，从而提高跨文化交际的能力；另一方面应该努力克服民族优越感的影响。Key words: polite language; cross-cultural communication failures; cross-cultural pragmatic failure; language-pragmatic failure; socio-pragmatic failure; negative transfer.The introduction:1.1 The research backgroundThe trend of global integration makes cross-cultural communication to be more and more frequent inevitably. And the rapid development of communication tools makes it possible. Therefore, around the world, more and more people start learning Englishthe international language of today. More and more Chinese people are becoming more and more exquisite in terms of spoken English and written English. After learning English for ten years even longer, some people who is confident about their English proficiency have chances to go abroad and chat with the people whose mother tongue is English. At the same time, the problems appear. So we feel puzzled in this kind of cross-cultural communication. Why we communicate with good wills and friendly intentions would let our British and American friends so unhappy and even anger? When we try to establish and maintain harmonious social relationships and show kindness to our foreign partners, what we find in their facial expressions is how angry they are. What is the matter? Kindness is wrong? Of course not. In fact, we all know some expressions of polite behavior, such as bowing. There are also some words express kindness, such as “对不起”, “那太好了”, we know their importance and methods of use. The first conscious action we have learned is waving to friends to say goodbye. In the process of learning to speak, our study start from “谢谢” and “thank you”. Everyone wants to get others good treat and hopes to get along with other members. Therefore, the politeness principle and politeness language are useful and significant. The importance of politeness is consistent across the globe. However, the ways to express politeness under different cultural background are different. Politeness and politeness language have strong cultural characteristics, and people in different culture background have different evaluation criteria in politeness and impolite. The differences of these standards are worth studying and this is also the source of the conception of my article. 1.2 Purpose of research This article mainly discusses the cross-cultural pragmatic failures of polite language. I will search for the causes of failures to achieve the following purposes: 1. Try to do a summary for the research of this field. 2. Show different cultures, especially the differences of polite language in movies which describe Chinese-English cross-cultural conflicts. And we will analyze the cross-cultural pragmatic failures caused by them. 3. Help the communicators develop their cross-cultural awareness in their daily communications. They will realize the daily life is helpful to enhance the understanding of society and culture. The polite language as a part of our daily life, it has important effects to coordinate the relationship of the speakers and listeners. The options of polite language can show speakers social status and the familiarities between speakers. The literature review:2.1 Politeness and language courtesy2.1.1 The definition of politenessPoliteness is a common phenomenon in different languages and cultures. It is a sign of human civilization. According to Modern Chinese Dictionary, the polite is a modest and respectful performance of language and action. Without politeness, people cant get along well with others and society cannot function properly. It is because the importance of politeness. It is becoming the common research topic of many subjects, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, culturology etc. Especially in this year, the scholars made a more complete and reasonable explanation to this topic from the perspective of semantics. The fact proved that all of our endeavors are effectual. For example, Leechs politeness principle. Domestic scholars have also published opinions. 2.1.2 Domestic and foreign studies of politeness 2.1.2.1 Foreign studies of politenessIn recent years, with the development of pragmatics, more and more academic writings start analyzing seeming politeness as pragmatic phenomenon. Next, we will introduce two of the most influential politeness principles-Leechs politeness principle, Brown and Levinsons face-saving theory. They are the theoretical basis of the study. To a certain extent, Leech agrees Grices cooperative principle. He thinks the dialogue between people is restricted by certain principles. However, he believes the cooperative principle need to be expanded, so Leech put forward his politeness principles to make up the shortfall of the cooperative principle. Cooperative principle can be expressed roughly as: we control the discourteousness to a minimum and play the politeness to the highest limit in the case of other conditions remain unchanged. According to the cooperative principle, we analyze the politeness principle by several of the ceilings. And under each ceiling, we have two small points:() The strategy principle (a) Minimize the damage to others (b) Maximize the benefit to others() The liberal principle (used for instruction and commitment) (a) Minimize the benefit to themselves (b) Maximize the damage to themselves() The principle of praise (used for expression and statement) (a) Narrow the disparage to others as far as possible (b) Try to exaggerate the praise to others() The modesty principle (used for expression and statement) (a) Reduce the praise to themselves (b) Increase the criticism to themselves() The agreement maxim (used for statement) (a) Reduce the disputes with others (b) Increase the same ideas with others() The sympathy maxim (used for statement) (a) Try to reduce the aversion to others (b) Try to exaggerate the sympathy for othersFrom the point above the politeness principle, we can find what Leech focuses on is the relationship of the speakers on both sides of the dialogue. Leech also distinguishes the relative politeness and absolute politeness. The relative politeness points out the fact that politeness is just for a particular culture and occasions. And the absolute politeness is the degree of politeness of impolite speech acts in a certain order. In addition, Leech pointed out that each principle has a set of pragmatic criteria to measure the specific degree in a particular language environment. To the skill standards, Leech put forward the following standards:1. The gain and loss standard: Reflect the speakers and listeners gain and loss.2. The optional degree standard: Reflect the size of the listeners opportunity provided by speakers.3. The indirect degree standard: Reflect what the behavior refers to. 4. The authority standard: Reflect the relationship of status between speakers and listeners. 5. The social distance standard: Reflect how familiar the speakers and listeners are. 2.1.2.2 Domestic research on politenessIn China, linguistics started to study politeness from 1980s, when the first time linguistics was introduced to China. In the past twenty years, the progress of Chinese politeness research is very huge. Some scholars have already introduced the western courtesy to China. Some other major scholars, such as GuYueguo made some revisions to western courtesy.In these studies, the most noteworthy is Professor Gu, he promoted the study of Chinese politeness. He disagreed the face-saving theory of Brown and Levinson and agreed Leechs politeness principle. He also formed his own politeness principle based on Leechs politeness principle. In his opinion, his principle is more suitable to China. He summarized four basic principles of politeness:(1) The principle of belittling themselves and respecting others.(2) The call principle: Call others in the right way.(3) The gentility principle: Use the elegant language including euphemism and indirect language.(4) The seeking common principle: The most degree of seeking common ground while putting aside differences between communicators. (5) The statement and action principle: Minimize the loss of others and maximize the benefit of others.In a word, Gus Chinese politeness model indicated his deep attainments in Chinese language and culture. 2.1.3 The definition of polite languagePoliteness includes verbal politeness and nonverbal politeness. The polite language is a kind of polite language forms. The polite language is a set of rules of language users; it is also a set of fixed format of relationship between interlocutors. They are a series of regular expression in society include greetings, saying goodbye, thanks, apologies, celebrations and wishes. In addition, other fixed expressions which can promote people to establish contact are also included. Using the polite language reasonably means saying the right words in right time, at right place and by right way. In our daily communications, all the languages use a plenty of polite language to establish contact between the members of society. 2.1.4 The functions and features of polite languageThe polite language is very important because of its function. So what are its functions? To answer this question, we should talk about the function of language first, because polite language is also a part of language. Geoffrey Leech thinks polite language has at least five functions in social activities:1. Convey information (Information function)2. Express the attitudes of speakers and authors (Expression function) 3. Guide or impact others attitude or behavior (Indicate function)4. Make the art effect (Art function)5. Maintain the social contact (Phatic function)As a kind of special language form, polite language has phatic function, expression function and indicate function. Usually, we think the information function will be the most influential function. However, there are a lot of daily polite expressions such as greetings, saying goodbye and “Hows the family?” and “哪里去？”. These are used to express our friendly emotion. This is also an important function of language.2.2 Pragmatic failureTo figure out the concept of cross-cultural pragmatic failure and distinguish it from pragmatic failures, cross-cultural communication failures and language errors is the first step to study cross-cultural pragmatic failure of polite language. Thomas is the first person who put forward the concept of pragmatic failure. She thinks different people will meet misunderstanding although they do not have any confusion to their dialogue in cross-cultural communication. This cultural failure is not a surface question of language problem; it is wider because the language environment it involved is wider. When we search for the related information, we find domestic scholars talking about pragmatic failure only when they talk about across-cultural communication. However, the pragmatic failure can appear not only in cross-cultural communication but in the communicators who have the same background in fact. So , according to if the communicators have the same background, we can divided the pragmatic failures into two kinds:1. Intralingual pragmatic failure: The pragmatic failures appear between the communicators with the same background.2. Cross-cultural pragmatic failure: The pragmatic failures appear between the communicators with different background.The speakers do not pay attention that if their words are suitable to the occasion and listeners, it will cause intralingual pragmatic failure. For example: A student calls his new professor “王叔” in a classroom which is full of audiences and leaders. Because the professor is his fathers good friend, he gets used to call him so. This is seen as a intralingual pragmatic failure. These failures have nothing to do with cultural differences, because the two communicators are coming from the same cultural background. On the other side, cross-cultural pragmatic failure usually caused by the differences between two cultures. A mistake Chinese students usually make is to call their teacher “Teacher Green” or “Green Teacher”, because in Chinese culture, we call the teacher whose last name is Zhang “张老师”. Usually, a Chinese teacher will respond you with a smile. However, when a foreign teacher was called by this way, he or she would be very surprise. When they stop and wait, they find the student is leaving. These foreign teachers will always be in a mystery and the cross-cultural pragmatic failure is caused by this situation. Now we have gained some understandings to cross-cultural pragmatic failure through the examples above. In my opinion, the cross-cultural pragmatic failure means in our daily communications, although speakers use some sentences with suitable symbolic relations, these sentences will be inscrutable and unpleasant in the specific communication context. And the speakers do not realize this, so they wont get the satisfied result. We call this cross-cultural pragmatic failure. According to this definition, we can isolate four standards to judge cross-c
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