摘要

    跨文化语用失误是近年来语用学和跨文化交际学研究的热点问题。而礼貌原则是造成语用失误的重要原因之一。鉴于其普遍性和文化特性，不同的中西方礼貌原则和对于各自礼貌原则的不同理解 造成了跨文化语用失误，因此礼貌成为语用学和跨文化研究的重要课题。本论文基于文献调查，分别从含义，内容和应用三个方面对中西方礼貌原则进行比较，其中最主要的礼貌原则是西方著名语言学家珍妮• 托马斯，里奇和中国语言学家顾曰国和徐盛桓的四个礼貌原则，并且对于他们相关语用失误所做的突破性研究成果进行分析论述。此后，论文还谈论了中西方礼貌原则的相同点和共同点。在最后从由礼貌原则引起的语用失误的四个方面——打招呼，称呼，赞美和谦虚，以及道歉，来折射出中西方礼貌原则的不同。

关键字：语用失误；礼貌用语；跨文化交际; 跨文化语用失误

Abstract

Politeness principle is one of the important causes of pragmatic failures. Considering its universality and cultural characters, different politeness principles and different understandings of each politeness principle result in cross-cultural communication failures. Thus, politeness principle becomes a significant issue both in pragmatics and cross-cultural research. This paper, on the basis of literature search, respectively compares the western and Chinese politeness principles in three parts:  definition, content and application. The three most important principles are the three principles of the famous western linguists, Jenny Thomas and Leech, and Chinese linguist, Gu Yue-guo. Moreover, this paper analyzes their breakthroughs covering pragmatic failures. And then it discusses the similarities and differences between them. And finally, it reveals the differences between the western and Chinese Politeness Principle from four aspects——greeting, address form, compliment and modesty, and apology.

Key words：pragmatic failure; politeness principle; cross-cultural communication; cross-cultural pragmatic failure

1. Introduction

As a Chinese, I am a foreigner to English speaking countries, whether on the aspect of language or culture. While I was reading some books about western culture and cross-cultural communication, I found that sometimes I couldn’t understand real meanings of the words uttered by foreigners. From time to time, I become more and more interested in this topic. At the same time, I also found many linguists having noticed this phenomenon and some of them have worked out plenty of useful findings. Therefore, I’d like to make good use of these important materials and look into this topic by myself.