Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: Greetings are important, because they frequently occur in everyday social interactions all over the world. Proper greeting behavior is crucial for the foundation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. Because of different cultural backgrounds, improper use of greetings may cause misunderstandings in intercultural communication. In order to avoid the pragmatic failure, people should know the similarities and differences between these two greeting systems. This paper aims to make a comparative study of the two greetings from four aspects: comparison in sentence structures; comparison in lexis; comparison in content and comparison in non-verbal communication.

Key words: greetings; comparisons; factors; culture

摘要：招呼语之所以重要是因为在日常交际中，人们经常使用。合适的招呼语行为对于人际关系的建立和维护是至关重要的。由于不同的文化背景，招呼语的不恰当使用可能导致在跨文化交际中产生误解。为了避免语用错误，人们应该要了解这两个招呼语体系的相似点和不同点。本文旨在从四个方面对两种招呼语作对比研究，即:句式，词汇，内容和非言语交际。

关键词：招呼语；对比研究；影响因素；文化

1. Introduction
With the development of society and culture, especially after China implemented its reform and opening up policy, communications between people have become more and more important in social interactions. Proper greeting behavior is crucial for the foundation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. However, people in different countries hold different beliefs and values, which result in misunderstanding. We should understand each other’s cultures and customs to avoid cultural conflict in the process of communicating with the foreigners.
Greetings are important, because they frequently occur in everyday social interactions all over the world. Proper greeting behavior is crucial for the foundation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. As a universal phenomenon of human language, they provide the means for opening conversations appropriately and for establishing, maintaining and negotiating social relationships. When people encounter, they always greet to each other.
In order to avoid the pragmatic failure, people should know the similarities and differences between these two greeting systems. Hopefully the comparative study of the two greetings with the different cultural backgrounds can be helpful for language learners to utilize greetings in intercultural communication.