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[Abstract]This paper focuses on the pragmatic factors affecting the politeness of speech. Through the analysis of the importance of politeness in speech communication and the influence of socio-linguistic, psycho-linguistic, cultural linguistic and pragmatics on the language use, I discuss respectively three main pragmatic factors affecting the politeness of speech: 1. social factors; 2. cultural factors; 3. linguistic factors.
[Key words] pragmatic factor; politeness of speech
“Striving for politeness is a common phenomenon in language communication”. Everyone can feel it in the daily life. In fact, if speech can be proper and polite, the language communication in social life usually can be successful; otherwise, the language communication will fail. And the general case is that every person would inevitably meet politeness and impoliteness. Now, some problems exist here. What kind of speech action is polite language action, or what characteristics does the language action have? And how many factors can affect and restrict speech politeness? After investigating and analyzing, three main factors: 1. social factors; 2. cultural factors; 3. linguistic factors are concluded.
I. Social factors
In each society, there are specific social economic systems and social construction, and each nation has different national psychology and customs. During the process of speech communication, each person living in the society will be affected and restricted by the inner factors in the system of social language construction, as well as many social factors beyond language. The polite speech communication manifests more apparently in this aspect.
No one is an isolated creature, a social person is connected with many kinds of social relationship. Everyone is more or less in the web of relation. And because of profession, political attitude, religious belief, interest and hobby, marriage, etc. a person, in his adult, will have all kinds of social relation with many more people. In a word, as you grow up, the formed social relation will become more and more complicated. Because each relation can form community by the characteristics of its members, and each community has its specific language habits which are different from other community’s characteristics. So the social people belonging to a certain community will automatically manifest some features of their own community.
II. Cultural factor
Different society has different custom, history and cultural tradition. Whether the speech is polite should be judged by whether the speech and the way of expression are in line with the civilized regulation of culture. “Politeness has cultural characteristics” namely, some cultural factors are very important which can affect and restrict the politeness. It includes values, social convention, and mode of thinking and aesthetic taste.
Values have different manifestation in different society and culture, and prominently affect and restrict peoples’ speech and behavior. Taking Chinese culture and British culture as an example, Chinese culture worships group values, advocates collectivism and devotion. While British culture holds in esteem for individualism and emphasizes personal independence.
The social convention is formed by a long period of accumulation of the social culture and historical customs. Those form of address and greetings in Chinese are not formed in a single day. The most common way of greeting in Chinese is “have you eaten?” or “Where are you going?” The British might regard this as an invitation to a meal or they might be offended at such a Chinese form of greeting because they think it is an invasion of their privacy.
Modes of thinking and aesthetic taste are also the important factors, which can affect and restrict the politeness of speech. Chinese nation and American nation have great difference in it. Chinese are used to the concrete thinking, but Americans are used to the logical thinking. It potentially restricts the polite speech action of its own social members.
All these cultural factors mentioned above are the prominent factors affecting the politeness of speech. They are regarded as a part of the communicative culture in the field of communication across culture.
III. Linguistic factor
The speech politeness is not only affected by the social and cultural factors, but also restricted by the inner factors in the system of language construction, such as pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar etc.
Sentences in people’s speech have intonation tone quality, which directly affect the politeness of speech. “Nearly everyone can judge the content expressed beyond what he heard by his own instinctive feeling for the language”. We know each person has obvious personal feature in speech sound, like resonance or sonority. These factors will have important effect on the speech politeness.
Any words must be expressed by vocabulary. Generally speaking, when you are asking someone, you should use the words without sigh, which can give the listener more room to choose, so it appears more polite. Look at these sentences:
a) How beautiful is she?
b) How ugly is she?
a) How old are you?
b) How young are you?
In these two groups of sentences, the underlined words in sentence a) are words without sign, which can give the listener large room to choose, because the listener can make his own choice from “beautiful” or “ugly”, “old” or “young”; but the underlined words in sentence b) are words with sign, so the listener can choose only from “ugly” or “young”. Obviously, sentence a) can get politeness easily than sentence b).
Whether in Chinese or in English, besides the above factors, the expression has grammar factor. For example, in the same circumstance, the choice of different sentences will affect the level of politeness. For instance,
① Open the door!
② Please open the door!
③ Will you open the door!
④ Would you please open the door!
Sentence ① is an imperative, what it expresses is an order. Sentence ② is also an imperative, it appears a little more polite by the addition of “please”. Sentences ③and ④ are all interrogations. They all use the tune of uncertainty to seek opinion of the opposite side. So they are more polite than the imperative.
There are three main pragmatic factors, which can affect the politeness of speech. Thought the development of our society, there’ll be come more and more language communication. And everyone wishes his speech communication could be successful. So, in our daily life, we should have some understanding of these factors and use them appropriately. Thus, we can make our speech communication more polite and successful.
Bibliography
[1]Xing Fuyi. Cultural Linguistic[M].Wuhani:Hubei Education Publishing House,1990.
[2]Yu Zhiyuan.Spoken English Self-Taught[M].Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press,1995.
[Key words] pragmatic factor; politeness of speech
“Striving for politeness is a common phenomenon in language communication”. Everyone can feel it in the daily life. In fact, if speech can be proper and polite, the language communication in social life usually can be successful; otherwise, the language communication will fail. And the general case is that every person would inevitably meet politeness and impoliteness. Now, some problems exist here. What kind of speech action is polite language action, or what characteristics does the language action have? And how many factors can affect and restrict speech politeness? After investigating and analyzing, three main factors: 1. social factors; 2. cultural factors; 3. linguistic factors are concluded.
I. Social factors
In each society, there are specific social economic systems and social construction, and each nation has different national psychology and customs. During the process of speech communication, each person living in the society will be affected and restricted by the inner factors in the system of social language construction, as well as many social factors beyond language. The polite speech communication manifests more apparently in this aspect.
No one is an isolated creature, a social person is connected with many kinds of social relationship. Everyone is more or less in the web of relation. And because of profession, political attitude, religious belief, interest and hobby, marriage, etc. a person, in his adult, will have all kinds of social relation with many more people. In a word, as you grow up, the formed social relation will become more and more complicated. Because each relation can form community by the characteristics of its members, and each community has its specific language habits which are different from other community’s characteristics. So the social people belonging to a certain community will automatically manifest some features of their own community.
II. Cultural factor
Different society has different custom, history and cultural tradition. Whether the speech is polite should be judged by whether the speech and the way of expression are in line with the civilized regulation of culture. “Politeness has cultural characteristics” namely, some cultural factors are very important which can affect and restrict the politeness. It includes values, social convention, and mode of thinking and aesthetic taste.
Values have different manifestation in different society and culture, and prominently affect and restrict peoples’ speech and behavior. Taking Chinese culture and British culture as an example, Chinese culture worships group values, advocates collectivism and devotion. While British culture holds in esteem for individualism and emphasizes personal independence.
The social convention is formed by a long period of accumulation of the social culture and historical customs. Those form of address and greetings in Chinese are not formed in a single day. The most common way of greeting in Chinese is “have you eaten?” or “Where are you going?” The British might regard this as an invitation to a meal or they might be offended at such a Chinese form of greeting because they think it is an invasion of their privacy.
Modes of thinking and aesthetic taste are also the important factors, which can affect and restrict the politeness of speech. Chinese nation and American nation have great difference in it. Chinese are used to the concrete thinking, but Americans are used to the logical thinking. It potentially restricts the polite speech action of its own social members.
All these cultural factors mentioned above are the prominent factors affecting the politeness of speech. They are regarded as a part of the communicative culture in the field of communication across culture.
III. Linguistic factor
The speech politeness is not only affected by the social and cultural factors, but also restricted by the inner factors in the system of language construction, such as pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar etc.
Sentences in people’s speech have intonation tone quality, which directly affect the politeness of speech. “Nearly everyone can judge the content expressed beyond what he heard by his own instinctive feeling for the language”. We know each person has obvious personal feature in speech sound, like resonance or sonority. These factors will have important effect on the speech politeness.
Any words must be expressed by vocabulary. Generally speaking, when you are asking someone, you should use the words without sigh, which can give the listener more room to choose, so it appears more polite. Look at these sentences:
a) How beautiful is she?
b) How ugly is she?
a) How old are you?
b) How young are you?
In these two groups of sentences, the underlined words in sentence a) are words without sign, which can give the listener large room to choose, because the listener can make his own choice from “beautiful” or “ugly”, “old” or “young”; but the underlined words in sentence b) are words with sign, so the listener can choose only from “ugly” or “young”. Obviously, sentence a) can get politeness easily than sentence b).
Whether in Chinese or in English, besides the above factors, the expression has grammar factor. For example, in the same circumstance, the choice of different sentences will affect the level of politeness. For instance,
① Open the door!
② Please open the door!
③ Will you open the door!
④ Would you please open the door!
Sentence ① is an imperative, what it expresses is an order. Sentence ② is also an imperative, it appears a little more polite by the addition of “please”. Sentences ③and ④ are all interrogations. They all use the tune of uncertainty to seek opinion of the opposite side. So they are more polite than the imperative.
There are three main pragmatic factors, which can affect the politeness of speech. Thought the development of our society, there’ll be come more and more language communication. And everyone wishes his speech communication could be successful. So, in our daily life, we should have some understanding of these factors and use them appropriately. Thus, we can make our speech communication more polite and successful.
Bibliography
[1]Xing Fuyi. Cultural Linguistic[M].Wuhani:Hubei Education Publishing House,1990.
[2]Yu Zhiyuan.Spoken English Self-Taught[M].Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press,1995.