Author(s)

Xiaotian Wang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Gottingen, Lower Saxony, Germany

Corresponding Author

Xiaotian Wang

ABSTRACT

Politeness in Mandarin has been studied and investigated from many different aspects, such as honorific markers, humble expressions, courteous sentence structures, the usage of euphemism, and so on. The polite speech patterns of Mandarin speakers can be influenced by factors, such as age, gender, and social status. At the same time, the polite speech pattern has been evolving from time to time as well. This study tends to examine the relationship between speech politeness and three variables, including age, gender, and familiarity between speakers. An in-person rapid and anonymous survey that focuses on people’s responses to “xiexie” [ɕə ɕə] ‘thank you’ is conducted. Information related to the speakers responding and the context of the conversation are both recorded along with the exact response of the interlocutors. The age of the speakers is divided into three groups, including 19-25, 25-40, and older than 70. All the speakers are native Mandarin speakers who currently live in Dalian, China. The relationships between the politeness of speakers and their gender, age, and familiarity with the other speaker is demonstrated in figures respectively. The results show that the social norms related to the understanding of politeness established in the culture have a huge impact on the formation of people’s speech. Native Mandarin speakers are still following most of the notions proposed in Confucianism.

KEYWORDS

Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Politeness, Mandarin

CITE THIS PAPER

Xiaotian Wang, Linguistic Politeness in Mandarin. Journal of Sociology and Ethnology (2022) Vol. 4: 14-19. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/jsoce.2022.040803.

REFERENCES

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[2] Goffman, E. (1955). On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 18, pp.213-231. 
[3] Presbitero P. The gender paradox.[J]. Eurointervention Journal of Europcr in Collaboration with the Working Group on Interventional Cardiology of the European Society of Cardiology, 2009, 4(4):415, 417. 
[4] Lee, Horng-Yi. (2020). Linguistic Politeness in the Chinese Language and Culture. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1-9. 
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