Book contents
- Chinese Politeness
- Chinese Politeness
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Prologue
- 1 Pragmatics, Politeness, and Chinese Politeness
- 2 Hierarchy and Harmony: Roots of Chinese Face and Politeness
- 3 Chinese Face
- 4 Chinese Politeness and Theories of Politeness
- 5 Synchronic Consistency and Variation
- 6 Diachronic Stability and Change
- 7 In Comparison with East Asian Languages
- 8 In Comparison with English: An East-West Divide?
- 9 Politeness Theories
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
7 - In Comparison with East Asian Languages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2023
- Chinese Politeness
- Chinese Politeness
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Prologue
- 1 Pragmatics, Politeness, and Chinese Politeness
- 2 Hierarchy and Harmony: Roots of Chinese Face and Politeness
- 3 Chinese Face
- 4 Chinese Politeness and Theories of Politeness
- 5 Synchronic Consistency and Variation
- 6 Diachronic Stability and Change
- 7 In Comparison with East Asian Languages
- 8 In Comparison with English: An East-West Divide?
- 9 Politeness Theories
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
Summary
This is a chapter in which Chinese politeness is compared with politeness in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. With their respective morphological systems of honorification, Japanese and Korean languages are structurally different from Chinese, an isolating language that has hardly any inflectional morphology. These linguistic differences, however, do not prevent the three linguacultures to demonstrate a remarkable degree of similarity in terms of politeness at a deeper level of analysis. The three linguacultures, for instance, seem to be similarly hierarchical in social structure, although they differ in the relative weight a particular factor on a hierarchy has in a given context. The architectural features of language, Chen argues, are not as determinant in politeness as scholars have believed. A culture value such as self-denigration, which often presents itself in terms of politeness, is expressed regardless of how the language is structured linguistically. Vietnamese, on the other hand, is typologically close to Chinese, its culture shares much with Chinese culture, but it was under the French rule for several decades (1985-1954). And yet, B&L-E is shown to be capable of capturing the similarities and differences between it and Chinese in terms of politeness.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Chinese PolitenessDiachrony, Variation, and Universals in Politeness Theory, pp. 115 - 131Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023