语用学

Politeness Principle and analysis of its relevant application

刘阳子

[摘要] 在现代语用学理论当中，合作原则和礼貌原则是两个主要的理论。为了“拯救”和补充合作原则，英国语言学家利奇提出了礼貌原则这个理论。他自己罗列出了相关的六项关于礼貌原则的准则，为了尽可能详细的阐明礼貌原则。后来提出的“脸面理论”同样是也是关于礼貌的相关理论。实际上，在日常交际过程中，我们对他人所表现出来的礼貌都可以说是为了保护自己的面子。我们首先将简单介绍这三个理论，然后会就礼貌原则在两个领域的应用来展开分析讨论。通过对礼貌原则在英语商业信函和委婉语的使用的应用的介绍，我们能更好的掌握了解礼貌原则。

关键字：合作原则；礼貌原则；英语商业信函；委婉语

[Abstract] Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle are two major theories in modern

pragmatics. Politeness Principle was proposed by Leech, a British linguist, who said that he was to

rescue the Cooperative Principle and make an addition to it. Leech had listed six maxims by

himself to do his best to illuminate the Politeness Principle in detail. Also, face theory, is the

relevant principle in terms of “politeness”. Actually, we just want to save our face in daily

communication when we show our politeness to others. We will introduce these three theories

firstly, then the application of on the three theories—Politeness Principle—will be talked about.

Examples in two fields will be given to explain the relevant application. We can learn more about

Politeness Principle through the explanation of the analysis of PP in English business letters and

euphemisms.

Key words: Cooperative Principle; Politeness Principle; English business letter; euphemism

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary explains that

politeness is “having or showing that one has good manners and respect for the

feelings of other people”. In the field of pragmatics, many scholars and researchers

have paid much attention on politeness which is a universal language phenomenon.

They have worked out many results on it, but the research is still on the way. Here, we

are going to talk about a theory which is called “politeness principle’, produced by

G.Leech (1983).

1. About Politeness Principle

Before the Politeness Principle was presented by G. Leech, Cooperative Principle,

another theory presented by P. Grice, was widely used by language speakers. So we

can firstly introduce Cooperative Principle as the warm-up for Politeness Principle.

1.1 Grice’s Cooperative Principle

In Grice’s paper “Logic and Conversation” at Harvard University in 1967, he explained what the Cooperative Principle is. He thinks that natural languages are just

as good as special logic systems for making precise statements; the assumption that

natural language expressions diverge from the logical devices is itself faulty and that

the faulty arises from an inadequate attention to the nature and importance of the

conditions governing conversation.

Grice borrowed four categories from the German philosopher I. Kant, the four

categories are quantity, quality, relation and manner. And then Grice make creative

summary and observed the conversational maxims as follow:

Quantity Maxim:

(1) Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of

the exchange).

(2) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

For example:

—Excuse me, could you tell me what time is it?

—It’s ten o’clock, fifteen minutes, twenty seconds and in the year 2015.

Here, we can see the listener wants to know the time, but the speaker tells him the

very exact time which will make the listener confused. The speaker makes his

contribution much more informative and tells the listener some unnecessary

information. So, the speaker violates the maxim of quantity.

Quality Maxim:

Try to make your contribution one that is true.

(1) Do not say what you believe to be false.

(2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

For example:

—John, do you know where the No.1 Middle School is?

—It is at the end of the street.

In the conversation we mention above, the maxim of quality is observed. John does

not contribute what he believes to be false and what John says is fully understood.

John knows where the school is and he directly tells the location of the school that is

correct what the speaker wants. Relation Maxim:

Be relevant.

The maxim of relation is to show that the answer and the question of the sentences

in the context are related with each other.

—Do you want another coffee?

—The apple tastes delicious!

Here, we can see the second one who answers the first on flout the maxim of

relation, he does not answer the right question of the first one. The first one want to

know whether the second on want another coffee or not, but the second on gives the

answer which is about what he thinks of an apple he has just eaten.

Manner Maxim:

(1) Be perspicuous.

(2) Avoid obscurity of expression.

(3) Avoid ambiguity.

(4) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)