摘 要

礼貌作为表达友好，维持或建立社会关系的工具，在人们的日常交际生活中起着至关重要的作用，国内外学者对礼貌研究的热度也居高不下。随着信息时代的到来和推进，礼貌在日常生活中的表现形式也更加多样化，也呈现出新的特征和含义。本文结合所收集的文献资料和日常生活中的典型案例对礼貌在信息时代的发展变化做出归纳分析。经调查分析发现，在信息时代，礼貌的程度很大规模上取决于语境的正式程度，交际双方关系的亲疏和交际媒介的选择等方面，礼貌的表现也更具幽默性，更强调减少信息差、凸显真我和双方地位平等的重要性。通过理论研究和实例分析，本文不仅研究了新时代礼貌呈现的新方式，对礼貌原则的研究有一定借鉴意义，也有助于人们增加对自身行为的认知，指导人们在日常交际生活中礼貌行为的展现。

关键词：礼貌原则；日常交际；信息时代；交际媒介

Abstract

Politeness plays such an important role in the daily communication as an instrument of friendliness and the maintenance or establishment of social relationships that the politeness researches conducted by scholars home abroad are heated all the time. With the arrival and advancement of information age, politeness functions in more various ways and oozes fresh features and meaning. By means of the patchwork of collected literature and typical examples in daily communication, this paper finds through the analysis of the development and change of politeness in the information age that politeness depends on the formality of context, the relationship between the interlocutors and the communication medium to no small extent. Besides, politeness tinted with more humor put more emphasis on less information gap, the presentation of true self and equal status between the interlocutors. As a result, this paper is conducive to not only the subsequent research but the increased cognition of ones' own behavior and deployment of politeness in daily communication.

Key Words: Politeness principle; daily communication; information age; communication medium

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 The Related Factors of Politeness 3

2.1 Social convention 3

2.2 Formality and the context 4

2.3 The relationships between the interlocutors 5

2.4 The medium of conversation 6

3 Forms of Politeness in the Information Age 6

3.1 The Use of pictures, punctuation, numbers and emoji 7

3.2 Delayed response and silence 8

3.3 The avoidance of repetition 9

4 Analysis of Politeness Principle in the Information Age 9

4.1 The importance of common ground 9

4.2 The role of humor in communication 10

4.3 The prominence of individualism and equality 11

5 Conclusion 12

References 13

Acknowledgements 15

Analysis of Politeness Principle in Daily Communication in the Information Age

1 Introduction

Politeness, as a ubiquitous phenomenon, exists in every conversation and functions as an important tool to mitigate the conflicts and maintain or establish social interaction. Given the importance of politeness, especially in the information age where people all around have the chance to be interconnected and are benefit-relative, the theories about politeness have been springing up with the development of pragmatics and the forms of politeness have renewed and tinted with more characteristics of times. In this paper, these new features of politeness and the development of politeness principle are discussed and analyzed in an attempt to provide somewhat meaningful materials for subsequent politeness research by making a comprehensive analysis of politeness forms and the politeness principle applied in daily communication in the information age.

With regard to the research on politeness, it has gone through evident development for many times over the past 40 years(汤睿，2010). First proposed by foreign scholars and experts, politeness theories abroad have covered many famous models, such as social norm view, whose representatives include Fraser, Held and Ardnt, and conversational maxim view, whose sub-theories are composed by Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Lakoff’s Politeness Principle and Leech’s Politeness Principle. Besides, the face-saving view proposed by Brown and Levinson are world-renowned for the conception and interpretation of Model Person, negative face and positive face. And with the increase in cross-cultural communication, politeness theories have been enriched by Scollon and his work Intercultural Communication, in which he introduces the definition of involvement and independence. Meanwhile, there are still numerous other outstanding scholars and theories, such as Watt’s first-order politeness and second-order politeness in his Politeness. While despite the fact that the relevant study in the home starts later than that in the foreign countries, the politeness theories have developed in a high speed and reaped a great harvest. When it comes to the politeness research, it is imperative to mention these scholars, such as Xu Shenghuan, Gu Yueguo and Chen Xinren, who all promote the development of politeness principle in China. As for Xu Shenghuan, he proposes the content of social networking promotion and politeness tactics deployment. As for Gu Yueguo, his theories, based on Leech’s Politeness Principle, include the maxims of politeness, addressing, agreement and so on. But in this paper, Chen Xinren’s theories are mentioned much more than the other two for his newer perspective of politeness in the Internet age. As a whole, politeness principles are becoming much richer in both number and content.

A chunk of politeness theories has been proposed to document, explain and analyze the phenomena of politeness. In this chapter, several important theories have been succinctly introduced and there are still more relevant theories ready to be analyzed in the following chapter related to the cases. Based on the theories and specific cases, this paper will be divided into four parts. It is mainly discussed about the background and content of politeness principle in the first part. The second part will encompass the related factors of politeness. In the third part, the specific forms of politeness in the information age will be introduced and compared with those in the former times. In the fourth part, the condensed analysis of politeness principle in the information age will be made as a reference to subsequent research on politeness principle and the daily communication of modern people. Taking the newest cases as the text, the paper will provide a fresh and holistic perspective for the analysis of the politeness principle in daily communication in the information age.

2 The related factors of politeness

2.1 Social convention

With the development and evolvement of human beings and the maturity of society and social systems, politeness, not an instinctive mankind property, was gradually constructed, systematized and taught to every social member not only as an appropriately linguistic and nonverbal behavior for interpersonal communication but also as a kind of awareness implanted in the minds of every person (Shahrokhi, M amp; Bidabadi, F. S., 2013). In the process of politeness education and spread, it is imperative to figure out the definition of politeness and delineate the scope of politeness. Then the specific knowledge, behavior or awareness of politeness can be handed down to the next generation or other people. Taking the most evident behavior considered polite into consideration, such as Professor Li, the combination of the occupation and the surname when it comes to addressing, it is not difficult to find that social convention serves an unparalleled role in the politeness definition and delineation. As Fraser (1990) put it, every society has a particular set of social norms containing more or less explicit rules that prescribe a certain behavior, a state of affairs, or a way of thinking in a context. Politeness which acts as an important tool in harmony and relationship maintenance between the social members is to no small extent defined by the culture or tradition inherited from the previous times and accepted by the majority of people. From the common addressing of people, the table manners, the dressing code and so on in private environment to etiquettes in the omnibuses or some other public places, how to behave politely in language and behavior in the society has been framed in the fixed rules. When people follow these fixed social rules, they can be considered to be polite. Once they go astray from these rules, the propensity of being deemed as impoliteness will largely increase. Take the greeting in our daily life as an example. It is much more accepted to greet other people with a smiling face and meantime some greetings like “Good morning. It is a nice day,” or hands waving or shaking in comparison with just a smiling face but no words or stiff hands in the Chinese contexts. In China, it is essential to have oral conversation except from eye contact or a pale smile when two people meet each other in the street, especially among familiar people. Otherwise, embarrassment, dissatisfaction and even hatred will be bred in the minds of one party, who will brand the other party as impolite and haughty. In different cultures, however, politeness varies a lot in a large volume of behaviors and expressions. For example, patting the head of a child is considered to be a kind of intimate and friendly behavior in China, while it is prohibited in some countries like Thailand for its tint of insult and disrespect.

Another side of politeness defined by fixed rules is that though social convention has determined what is thought of as polite and what not, politeness, not dead, is still evolving with the development of society, history and culture. Living in the information age, people can observe and feel the conspicuous change of modern people’s living habits, including food, clothes, houses and communication. Escaping from the comparatively private properties of communication in the previous age, the communication in the modern age can take on the online convenient applications and medium to help the interlocutors communicate openly and specifically. Before the interlocutors meet and chat with each other, perhaps one party in the communication has acquired the adequate information of the other party through the latter’s own online share. As a result, the party who owns more information can provide more specific and thoughtful answers to the other party. Such kind of particular care and intimacy much easier to catch the other party’s heart and win his/her affection, can be interpreted as politeness instead of trespassing on the other party’s privacy. Take the greeting as the example again. Over the past, people encountering in the street would often greet with some common topics such as the weather, the time for lack of adequate information of the other, while in the present time, the speaker having the access to the other’s emotional or life changes to the most detailed and comprehensive before their meeting can directly ask for the specific situation of the other, like “How is your body going? I’m sorry to have known you caught a fever.” Such behavior will readily arouse the fondness of the other party, who regard his behavior as polite and thoughtful. But in the past, such similar behavior would probably stir up the antipathy of the other for it means that the information of the other party is leaked and spread by accident rather than out of the will of his/her own. Therefore, the arrival of the information age not only brings about the change of communication topics but results in the change of politeness definition. From the perspective of Leech’s Politeness Principle, the current exploitation of politeness makes fully use of the rule of maximization of benefit to others and agreement with each other.