4 - Chinese Politeness and Theories of Politeness

Summary

In this transitional chapter, Chen proposes a model of Chinese politeness (MCP): “Politeness is the judgement of a behavior – both linguistic and otherwise – that it is appropriate in context for the purpose of harmony.” Appropriateness, further, is defined in terms of the position of the speaker and hearer; the maintaining of face, and the avoidance of friction between all parties involved. Chen then moves to the proposal of a general politeness theory based on Brown and Levinson’s theory but with the incorporation into it notions of self-politeness and impoliteness. The theory – Brown and Levinson extended (B&L-E) – is a set of causality relations: waht a speaker does (either benefitting or hurting) to face (either self-face or other-face) leads to a particular type of politeness or impoliteness. The benefitting of other-face, for instance, often leads to the evaluation of politeness. The benefitting of self-face, on the other hand, may (or may not) result in a judgement of impoliteness to other. Of the two models, Chen argues, MCP is a cultural specification of B&L-E. His view is therefore that there should be a universal theory of politeness such as B&L-E, which is capable of subsuming under it culture-specific models such as MCP.