Abstract

Politeness is a universal phenomenon which can be observed in all society and recognized as a social contract in all cultures. Politeness has long been considered to be an important linguistic research field, and many scholars both at home and abroad have made remarkable studies of it. The pragmatic failure of politeness in intercultural communication has become a common phenomenon and largely influences the effectiveness of communication.
This paper attempts to study the pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication under the politeness, and aims to understand the politeness principle deeply, provides strategies to reduce pragmatic failure and develops cross-cultural communicative competence. 
Chapter one presents some study of politeness at home and abroad, including Leech’s politeness principle and Gu Yueguo’s research. Chapter two defines cross-cultural communication. Meanwhile, it introduces the definition and classification of pragmatic failure which falls into two groups: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Chapter three makes a detail analysis of pragmatic failure phenomenon under the politeness from four aspects, including greeting, compliments and response, parting and the use of “please”. Based on the analysis, the author offers the potential causes of pragmatic failure. They are differences of cultural value and inappropriate transference. Chapter four provides the strategies to achieve effective intercultural communication. People need to strengthen the cultural awareness, adopt the empathy maxim and develop cross-cultural communicative competence. The conclusion is the summary of the thesis.

Key words: Politeness principle; Cross-cultural communication; Pragmatic failure

摘  要

礼貌是一种社会现象,不仅存在于所有社会群体中，也是所有社会成员应当遵循的行为准则。礼貌是语言学的一个重要研究领域，国内外学者在这一领域取得了杰出的研究成果。当今社会跨文化交际日益频繁。跨文化交际中的礼貌语用失误已经成为一种普遍现象，在很大程度上影响着交际和沟通的有效性。
本论文从礼貌原则角度出发，对跨文化交际中的语用失误进行深入研究，旨在深入理解礼貌原则，减少跨文化交际语用失误，提高跨文化交际的能力。
本文首先介绍了中西方语言学家在礼貌原则方面的成果,包括Leech的礼貌原则和顾曰国教授的中国礼貌研究。第二章首先对跨文化交际进行定义，其次针对语用失误进行了阐释和分类，语用失误分为语言语用失误和社交语用失误。第三章重点从礼貌原则的角度出发详细分析了跨文化交际中的语用失误现象，包括招呼语、恭维与回应、道别语以及“please”一词的用法四个方面。通过分析得出语用失误的潜在原因是文化价值观的不同和语言的不恰当迁移。第四章在上述分析基础之上，提出避免语用失误的建议。要实现有效的跨文化交际，就必须增强对文化差异的认知，在实际中运用移情策略，提高跨文化交际能力。文章的结论部分是对全文的总结。

关键词：礼貌原则；跨文化交际；语用失误