英汉招呼语中文化因素对比的分析

英汉招呼语中文化因素对比的分析 河南师范大学 硕士学位论文 英汉招呼语中文化因素对比分析 姓名:彭勤 申请学位级别:硕士 专业:语言文学 指导教师:陈运香 20090601 摘 要 礼貌是人类语言所共有的一种社会现象,是人类文明的标志。作为社交礼貌的常规 用语,招呼语具有建立和延续各种人际关系的作用,是言语交际中的重要组成部分。从 招呼语的使用可以看出交际双方的身份、社会地位、以及两者之间的亲疏程度等。 虽然招呼语在很多学科中得到了一些研究,但鲜有对英汉差异的文化因素进行定性 定量分析。鉴于此,本研究遵循定性与定量、理论与实践结合统一的原则,运用对比方 法在调查研究的基础上从这一方面对英汉招呼语进行对比分析,旨在找出英 汉招呼语的 异同点,并对其文化背景渊源进行探索,指出不同的文化背景对语言使用的影响,从而 探索出对英语学习与教学和跨文化交际的实际意义。基于此研究目的,本研究提出了以 下三个问: (1)英汉招呼语的异同点有哪些? (2)影响英汉招呼语差异的因素是什么?其深层原因是什么? (3)对招呼语的研究在英语学习与教学和跨文化交际中有什么意义? 本研究以Austin的言外行为理论和一些礼貌理论为主要理论依据,在界定招呼语的 同时,根据所收集的语料从称呼、方式等五个方面对英汉招呼语语汇进行了分类,说明 二者有很多相似之处。Brown&Levinson和Leech的礼貌理论是根据英美国家人们如何 运用此原则而使说话达到良好的交际效果而所提出的。顾日国根据汉语礼貌的独特性提 出了适用于中国文化环境的礼貌准则。然而尽管礼貌原则是各种社会普遍存在的交往准 则,体现这些策略的语言形式也是因文化内涵不同而不同的。没有任何一种理论能适合 所有的文化模式。 本研究从内容和称呼方面阐述了英汉招呼语的表达差异,然后分析了影响礼貌策略 的社会因素,如社会距离、社交场合和个人差异等。文章重点探讨了招呼语差异产生的 文化根源。文化不同,英汉语言的礼貌原则也存在差异。见面时英美人喜欢谈论天气; 汉语常谈家常,越琐碎越显得亲切。文章还对比了英汉文化模式:个人主义与集体主义。 在英美文化中,个人主义是主流。个人的权利和自由不受他人干扰,个人利益神圣不可 侵犯。而中国的传统文化强调集体主义,注重和谐融洽的人际关系,个人利益必须服从 III 于集体利益。正是由于文化背景的差异对招呼语的差异产生了决定性的影响。 随着中西方国家交流的不断深入,双方不仅在经济方面相互渗透,语言也相互影响。 汉语中见面时“你好"和“嗨”均是受了英语的影响,对于打招呼时的称赞恭维,人们 倾向于表示感谢而不是完全拒绝。现在已经被英美人广为接受的Long time no see就是 来自汉语的“好久不见’’。 本研究分析结果表明: (1)各种语言中都有招呼语,但其表达方式要受到社会因素和文化因素的影响。 (2)虽然英汉招呼语存在很多差异,但是也有诸多相似之处,这有助于中西方人民 相互学习语言,并促进相互的交往。 (3)招呼语在英汉两种文化中存在着差异,但是,这些差异随着时代的变化也在发 生变化,在现代交际中已经趋向弱化。 本研究对中国的英语学习与教学和跨文化交际具有重要的实际意义。学生在学英语 的时候不仅仅要学习一定的语法知识,更重要的是要逐渐培养文化意识。相应地教师在 教英语的时候要多注重文化因素的导入。在跨文化交际中,我们要逐渐培养跨文化交际 能力,尽量减少或避免因文化习俗的差异而产生误解。 本文由五个章节组成。第一章简要介绍了本研究课题的主要动机,研究目的,研究 方法以及本论文的框架。第二章主要阐述并比较了中西方有关礼貌的重要理论,并详细 回顾了关于招呼语的研究,为本文奠定了理论基础。第三章是研究部分。提出了研 究问题,介绍了本研究的语料收集和研究步骤,并对英汉招呼语进行简单分类。第四章 是本文的重点论述部分。分析了英汉招呼语的表达差异以及影响其不同的社会因素,并 重点探讨了产生其差异的文化渊源,指出近年来国际交往使得中西方招呼语差异逐渐缩 小,有文化融合的倾向。第五章总结全文。本章分析了本研究结果及其对于外语学习与 教学和跨文化交际的实际意义,并指出本研究的局限性和对未来研究的建议。 关键词:招呼语,言外行为理论,礼貌,文化 IV Abstract Politeness,an important symbol of human civilization,is a common phenomenon shared by all human societies.Greeting is part of the linguistic repertoire of politeness in order to affirm or improve a type of relationship or social status between individuals in conversation.Greeting behavior reflects kind of the social distance and the relationship between the participants. Many studies on greetings between English and Chinese have been made from different perspectives, yet few quantitative and qualitative intercultural studies have been conducted.Consequently,the present study aims to undertake such all investigation.The study aims to find out the common properties and differences between them and to explore the cultural factors that lead to the differences in the hope of guiding the EFL learning and teaching as well as for the intercultural communication.Based on these objectives,the present study attempts to answer the following questions. (1)What玳the common properties and differences between English and Chinese greetings? (2)What factors influence the u?of greetings and what is the deep cause? (3)What are the implications of the findings in the EFL learning and teaching as well as for the intercultural communication? The present study is conducted on the basis of Austin’S illocutionary act theory and some politeness theories.The classification on greetings of English and Chinese on the basis of data collected indicates some similarities exist between them.Brown&Levinson and Leech’S politeness theories are only appropriate to western countries.Gu Yueguo formulates his own politeness principle according to the modem notion of Chinese politeness.Though commonly used in all societies,greetings vary from culture to culture strategically as time goes on.No single politeness Call be applied to all languages. The study analyzes the differences between greetings of English and Chinese,and finds out the social factors affecting the use of greeting.It puts emphasis on the cultural sources that lead to the differences. English speakers like to talk about non?personal affairs when they greet each other and the right of individuals is emphasized,while the Chinese people tend to care about private things and Chinese culture places a high value on interpersonal harmony. V The languages are influenced each other in recent years of international cultural exchanges.The examples are that Chinese people greet with“Hi’’and English people with“long time no see”. The major findings of the present study are: (1)Though frequently used in all societies,greetings are affected by social and cultural factors strategically. (2)The similarities between English and Chinese greetings are of help for people of two cultures in learning languages of each other and have better communication. (3)The differences between global interaction in -45recent years. English and Chinese greetings are reduced gradually with the increase of The present study carries the practical implications for the EFL learning and teaching勰well as for the intercultural communication.The EFL students need to develop the cultural awareness besides grammars. The EFL teachers should s订engthen the input of culture in the classroom accordingly.In the intercultural communication it is necessary tO improve the intercultural communicative competence in order to reduce or avoid intemational conflicts due to cultural factors. The thesis is composed of five chapters.Chapter one is a brief inuoduction of the thesis.It presents the research motivations,objectives,methodology and the whole organization of the thesis.Chapter two is a literature review of the theories on politeness and the studies on greeting.Chapter three is the research design of the present study.Research questions,data collection and research procedure are offered in this chapter.Greetings are also briefly classified.Chapter Four is the key part of the thesis.It presents the differences of greetings and the social factors affecting the use of greetings.It also explores the cultural sources that lead to the differences and points out that the international exchanges reduce the differences in greetings in recent years.Chapter Five is a conclusion.It analyzes the major findings of the present study and the implications for the EFL learning and teaching丛well as for the intercultural communication.Last are some limitations of the present study and suggestions for the futm'e research. KEY VI WORDS:greeting,illocutionary act theory,politeness,culture List of Abbreviations BL:Brown and Levinson EFL:English as a foreign language FSA:face saving act PP:politeness principle SAT:speech act theory VIl 独创性声明 独创性声明 本人郑重声明:所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的 研究成果。尽我所知,除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方外,论文中不包含其他人已 经发表或撰写的研究成果,也不包含为获得河南师范大学或其他教育机构的学位或证书 所使用过的材料。与我一同工作的同志对本研究所做的任何贡献均已在论文中作了明确 的说明并表示了谢意。 签名-.蜜望日期.里里乞:兰:坐 关于论文使用授权的说明 本人完全了解河南师范大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定,即:有权保留并向国 家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和磁盘,允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权河南师 范大学可以将学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索,可以采用影印、缩 印或扫描等复制手段保存、汇编学位论文。(保密的学位论文在解密后适用本授权书) 签名: 导师签名: 日期:型:曼:! Acknowledgements First and foremost,1 would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,Professor Chen Yunxiang for all her help and encouragement with this thesis and for the care and good friendship she has shown me.Her insightful guidance and patient instructions have contributed greatly to the completion of this thesis.I have benefited a lot from her guidance and valuable suggestions.Without her valuable suggestions and critical comments,the completion of the present paper would not have been possible. I alTl also greatly indebted to the teachers of my postg#‘aduate COUrSes in the Faculty of International Studies of Henan Normal University,especially,Prof.Li Wenzhong,Prof.Zhang Zhiqiang,Prof.Guo Yingzhen,Prof.Wu Yimin,Prof.Duanmu Qingyi,Prof.Zhao Wenjing,Prof.Liang Xiaodong,Prof.Wang Caiqin,and Prof.Lou Baoeui for the knowledge and inspirations I have acquired from their illuminating COUISeS. My sincere thanks also go to my friends and my classmates for their WaI'ITI-hearted help in various ways.Last but not least,1 would like to thank my family for their everlasting love,support and Chapter One Introduction Chapter One Introduction The present research aims to explore cultural factors between greeting expressions of English and Chinese from a contrastive perspective.This chapter offers a very brief introduction to the whole layout of the present study The motivations,objectives and methodology of the present research are provided one after the other.The organization of the thesis is presented in the final section of this chapter. 1.1 Research motivations The present study is conducted out ofthe following considerations. Firstly,greetings are social communicative spoken languages which are used frequently and widely all over the world when people meet each other in their daily life.As Brown and Levinson(hereinal=ter shortened BL)claimed,greetings occur in all languages(BL,1978,cited in Qian Housheng,1996:1). Greetings may occur between two persons visible to each other,either out on the road,or at work,or on many social occasions.ney Can be used as a regard at the opening of an interaction and sometimes as a marker of a parting.They Can also be an expression of good wishes sent to someone for their health and happiness on their birthday or on a festival day.The proper use ofgreetings indicates the speaker’S personal accomplishment and demeanor to some extent in some countries,and it also helps people maintain the normal social relations.In what way greetings Can improve the relationship major concern -5of the studies on greetings. between people has been a Secondly,as a universal phenomenon of politeness,greeting has attracted more and more attention in recent years.Many researchers in western countries as well as in China have made a lot of systematic studies from different perspectives such as pragmatics,language teaching,sociolinguistics,discourse analysis,and SO on.Yet few studies have been conducted concerning quantitative and qualitative cultural factors on greetings.What is more,greeting can not be comprehended literally according to Austin’S illocutionary act theory(hereinafter shortened 1AT).Misunderstanding and misinterpretation in intercultural communication can lead to feelings of offence,insult and suspicion between the individuals involved.We do not know what factors affecting the use of greetings.The present research,therefore,attempts to explore Explodng Cultural Factors in Greetings between English and Chinese from a Contrastive Perspective and compare the cultural sources between English and Chinese greetings. Thirdly,with the increase of economic and cultural exchanges between countries in recent years, people travel frequently all over the world.In their communication with the people from other countries, they are confused by the changes in customs that they confront.Whether any changes take place in greetings is worth exploring. 1.2 Research obj ectives The present study on greetings between English and Chinese is carried out on the basis of Austin’S IAT and some politeness theories from the contrastive perspective.The major research objectives include: (1)To find out the common properties and differences between English and Chinese greetings; (2)To explore the cultural factors that lead to the differences between English and Chinese greetings; (3)To present some implications for the EFL learning and teaching as well as for the intercultural communication. 1.3 Research methodology The present research involves bom quantitative and qualitative study.Austin’S IAT and some politeness theories will be first adopted as theoretical framework of this study.Then the greeting expressions are collected from different sources and are classified into some categories according to different criteria.After that a further analysis is conducted on the superficial differences in greeting use and the deep cultural SOurCeS. 1.4 Organization of the thesis The thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One gives a brief introduction to the whole thesis.It involves the research motivations, research objectives,research methodology of the present study,and the whole organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is the part of the literature review.This chapter firstly states the main theories related to the present study which includes Austin’S IAT greetings are reviewed and evaluated. -42studies -5on and some politeness theories.Then the relevant previous Chapter Three presents the research design of the study.Research questions,data collection and 2 Chapter One Introduction research procedures are presented in this chapter.Greetings of English and Chinese are classified in terms of form,mode,content,time,and social distance on the basis of data analysis. Chapter Four,the most important part of the thesis,firstly discusses the differences between the English and Chinese greetings in terms of content and terms of address.Then the factors affecting the use of greetings are investigated and the cross-cultural differences between the two languages ale highlighted. The section of cultural factor exploration is made up of two parts:politeness criteria and cultural sources. And in the final section of this chapter are discussed the changes taking place in greetings in recent years. Chapter Five presents the conclusions of the study,which includes the summary of the major findings, the implications for the EFL learning and teaching as well as for the intercultural communication,some limitations of the present study and suggestions for the future research. 3 Chapter Two Literature Review Chapter Two Literature Review 2.1 Introduction Greeting has been a focus for study in recent years.Many researches have been conducted either from the theoretical or the empirical pempectives.This chapter introduces the theoretical background to the current study consiSting of Austin’s tAT and some politeness theories.Then some previous empirical studies related to greetings are also reviewed and evaluated. 2.2 A survey of the theories concerning the present research 2.2.1 Austin’S illocutionary act theory Speech act theory(SAT)was originally put forward in 1 962 by John L.Austin,an Oxford philosopher. The basic assumption of Austin’s theory is‘‰say something is to do something'’(Austin,1 962:1 65).His theory is helpful to be used to explain how people convey their coved messages.In his book How to Do Things with Words Austin(1 962)makes it explicit for the first time that there are many different things speakers can do with words and that some utterances are not statements or questions about some piece of information,but a托actions.When he says“I bet you six pence it will rain tomorrow”,the speaker has not made statements about betting,but does the act and such utterance is a bet. According to the theory,utterances are the production of words and sentences on particular occasions by particular speakers for particular purposes.They ale not ends in themselves,but means to ends-----means affecting 1 isteners in certain ways.They are speech acts for achieving certain communicative goals. Utterances can perform three kinds of acts:locutionary,illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.The illocutionary act,which has a certain force in saying something,is performed in saying something(the performance of a particular language function).It includes acts like betting,promising and ordering.Austin classifies the illocutionary act into five groups:verdictives,exercitives,commissives,behabitives,and expositives. Austin’s SAT was further developed and modified by an American philosopher John R.Searle.Searle 5 Exploring Cultural Factors in Greetings between English and Chinese from a Contrastive Perspective (1 969:1 6)thinks“all linguistic communication involves linguistic acts”.Speech acts are the basic or minimal units of human communication,in other words,the basic or minimal units of human communication are not linguistic expressions,but rather the performance of certain kinds of acts,such as complaining,promising,ordering,apologizing,requesting,etc. Searle(1 976)criticizes Austin’S categorization and argues that there is no clear and consistent principle of his classification.He finds the different twelve criteria of different speech acts,and the most important three criteria are illocutionary point(common purpose the same kind of speech act has),direction of fit(the way the speech act fits the world,and/or the world fits the speech act),and expressed psychological state(of the speaker:a belief,an assertation,a remark etc).On the basis of the above mentioned criteria,Searle renewedly establishes the five speech act categories:representatives,directives, commissives,expressives,and declarations.Searle’s classification of speech accepted. acts is the most widely According to the above classification of illocutionary acts,greetings fall into the category of ‘‘expressives’’and therefore should not be understood literally.When an English speaker asks you‘‘How are you?”or‘'How is your work?”,he is not necessarily concemed much about your physical condition or work,but showing his politeness.Similarly,an interesting example of the expressive aspect of such routines is the use of the Chinese expression“吃了吗?”.When a Chinese speaker makes such an inquiry, he is seldom really concerned about whether you are full or hungry,but intends to make you feel that he is being considerate to you.The conventional answer is“吃了”,though often a white lie.Actually such a greeting expression is not an invitation but a means to show the speaker’S warm attitude and consideration The discussion above shows that greetings can be regarded as illocutionary acts from pragmatic perspective.Illocutionary force Can be conveyed through these illocutionary acts.However,the understanding of the coven meaning of greetings by the interlocutors in daily conversation lies in the routinization of such expressions. 2.2.2 Politeness theory Politeness theory begins its analysis with speech acts(Searle,1 969),which refers to the functions or 6 Chapter Two Literature Review actions performed by particular utterances.Politeness issue has been a major co