Daniel Z. Kadar, Yuling Pan - Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese (2011) PDF

Politeness in Historical and
Contemporary Chinese
Also available from Continuum
Historical Chinese Letter Writing

Dániel Z. Kádár
Politeness in Historical and
Contemporary Chinese
Yuling Pan and Dániel Z. Kádár

Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Yuling Pan and Dániel Z. Kádár 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
Yuling Pan and Dániel Z. Kádár have asserted their rights under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-8470-6275-8 (Hardback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Foreword vii
Sara Mills, Research Professor, Sheffield Hallam University
Acknowledgements x
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: The Myth of Chinese Politeness: Problems,
Framework and Data 5
Chapter 3: Politeness in Historical China 38
Chapter 4: Politeness in Contemporary China 73
Chapter 5: The Transitional Period: What Happened to
Honorifics? 127
Chapter 6: Deconstructing Chinese Politeness 154
Appendix I: Chronological List of Chinese Dynasties 162

Appendix II: Simplified Chinese Transcript of the Texts Studied 163
Appendix III: Newsmaker Labelling in People’s Daily and
Guangzhou Daily 174
Appendix IV: Fonts in People’s Daily and Guangzhou Daily 176
Appendix V: Font Size in People’s Daily and Guangzhou Daily 179
Bibliography 181
Index of Names and Subjects 195
Index of Chinese Expressions Studied 200
This page intentionally left blank
Foreword
Sara Mills (Research Professor, Sheffield Hallam University)
This book attempts to grapple with a very knotty problem: how to describe
the language of a particular nation, when that country, like all countries,
has undergone huge political and social changes which have affected the
language used. Not only that, but it focuses on Chinese, which is spoken by
a wide range of people in different countries (mainland China, Singapore,
Hong Kong, Taiwan), where there are great differences between colloquial
and Classical Chinese, between Mandarin and Cantonese, and among vari-
ous dialects of Chinese. Not content with grappling with the complexities
of politeness use in Chinese, the book aims to trace the changes in the lan-
guage over time, describing the differences between historical and modern
Chinese. The book attempts to describe the factors which contribute to the
process of language change, and focuses not only on the language used in
traditional Chinese and modern Chinese, but it also analyses the language
in the transitional period, so that the processes of language change can be
charted more adequately. This is a complex and difficult task. It is extremely
difficult to generalize about the politeness use of Chinese people at present
and indeed there are many debates about this in the research, because
there are so many myths about politeness usage which circulate both in
popular culture and within the research. However, Pan and Kádár attempt
to generalize about the process whereby Chinese politeness has developed
while at the same time being keenly aware of the myths about Chinese
politeness which so affect the language production of Chinese people. This
massive task is akin to a Chinese juggler balancing hundreds of different
spinning plates and keeping all of them in play at once. However, Pan and
Kádár achieve this with great ease; they are aware of the complexities and it
is these complexities which interest them.
There are clearly massive differences between traditional Chinese
politeness and the politeness norms circulating within China at present.
The language used to be ‘honorific-rich’ but now it is ‘honorific-poor’; ritual
self-abasement was common as were complex address terms, and now most
viii Foreword
of these rituals have been swept away. The authors describe clearly the
changes in the politeness system which have taken place and describe
briefly the social and political changes which led to those changes, particu-
larly the role of the Communist regime in sweeping aside the use of a
complex system of address terms, replacing them, for example, with the
term ‘comrade’. The authors also describe the myths about Chinese polite-
ness, that is, that the Chinese were considered to be very polite in the past
and now are considered, by others as well as themselves, as being quite
rude. (This is perhaps true of all nations that they have a myth of a golden
age of politeness in their past, and now there is a debased and vulgar form
of politeness used.) The authors describe the way that in the past, speakers
would abase themselves in order to be polite, using such terms as the
stereotypical ‘this worthless person’ to describe themselves. They clearly
articulate the reasons that this concern with self-abasement and elevating
the other developed and the ritualized nature of politeness within histor-
ical Chinese. They describe the social and political trajectory of Chinese
culture and its concern with stability and status and they go on to describe
the way that this links in with a lack of concern for the individual and a
focus instead on the family and group, which is acted out through politeness
rituals. This led to a concern with a ritualized self-abasement and also with
address terms. The authors comment on the thousands of address terms
which were available within historical Chinese. They note therefore that
historical Chinese was largely deference based.
While they argue that current Chinese is clearly different to historical
Chinese, the two phases of the language are in essence very similar. The
gulf between them is in fact just the form of politeness used. Honorifics
have disappeared and deferential vocatives are no longer used; instead
there are new expressions and particles are used, but in essence there is
great continuity between historical and modern Chinese. They chart
the way that an inequality in footing is important in modern Chinese, for
example, showing that the question of who speaks first is tied in very closely
to politeness as an indicator of status within the group.
In order to analyse the changes that there have been in Chinese
politeness, the authors have gathered together a substantial corpus of texts
and data which they analyse. To analyse the traditional Chinese politeness
norms, they focus on letters and novels and in the present they have
collected naturally occurring spoken data of conversations and meetings,
focus groups data, survey interview data and television programmes among
others. The authors draw on this corpus of data very skilfully to clearly
Foreword ix
illustrate their argument. Non-Chinese speakers will be particularly struck

by these examples and the difficulty of simply translating Chinese into
English.
The authors engage with the discursive approach to politeness research
which aids their analysis of language change in Chinese. If they had taken a
strictly Brown and Levinson approach, they would have been overwhelmed
by the complexity of the material or they would have had to oversimplify in
order to make generalizations. Because the discursive approach is comfortable
with complexity, they have been able to describe the fact that sometimes
politeness norms are ambivalent or that generalizations are difficult to
make. Their general approach is largely historical pragmatics and social
pragmatics and this concern with context is evident in all of their analyses.
Pan and Kádár have tried to link the way that political events and changes
within the culture have profound impacts on the way that politeness norms
develop within a language, but they have not adopted a simplistic model of
the link between political and social change and change in politeness
norms. They draw attention to the fact that in Singapore, there was no
Communist regime but in Singaporean Chinese there are still few honorifics.
They are also aware that in North Korea there was a Communist regime but
the language has still retained its honorific system. Thus, what they are
arguing is that political and social events can influence the way that the
language develops but that is not to suggest that there is only one single way
in which the language can develop.
This is an impressive book which is intended for both researchers in the
Chinese language and also for non-Chinese scholars. There is a wealth of
examples to illustrate the authors’ argument and the book brings great
insight into current and historical politeness, but it also forces readers to
consider the way that status and deference play a role in politeness and
impoliteness in other languages such as English.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude to the following colleagues who

helped us enormously in the writing of this book. We are indebted to Sara
Mills who kindly read the manuscript, gave us invaluable advice on its
content, and agreed to write a Preface. We are extremely grateful to Wei-Lin
Chang, Michael Haugh, Suzanne Wong Scollon and Francesca Bargiela-
Chiappini for critically reading the manuscript and raising insightful points
of criticism, as well as to the anonymous reviewer for the insightful and
constructive comments. Our sincere thanks go to Jonathan Culpeper and
Alan Hyun-Oak Kim for providing expert comments on Chapters 2, 3
and 5. We are grateful to Ben Mousley for reviewing the style of the present
volume and to Stephanie Sheffield for editing the manuscript. Last but
not least, we would like to acknowledge the kind and expert support of
the editorial team of the Continuum International Publishing Group, in
particular Gurdeep Mattu and Colleen Coalter, in the course of publishing
this volume. All the remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.
We are extremely grateful to the following three organizations for their
kind support, without which the present work could have never been com-
pleted: The U.S. Census Bureau, which provided generous support for the
present research and allowed us to use its large contemporary Chinese
discourse database; The Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA),
whose three-year Postdoctoral Research Grant (PD 71628) made it possible
for Kádár to devote his time to the writing of the present work; and The
Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
(CCKF), whose long-term Research Grant (RG003-U-07) provided the
necessary financial backing for fieldtrips and book acquisitions, which
were fundamental in the completion of this book.
Chapter 1
Introduction
1 Background and Objectives
We write this book as natives of two countries – China and Hungary – whose
histories share certain similarities: the rise of Communist regimes shortly
after the Second World War and abrupt changes in society since then.
Both of us have lived and worked in China for long periods of time. We
have witnessed various aspects of communication, politeness in particular,
which seem puzzling not only to foreign visitors but also to native speakers
of Chinese.
China has been (and continues to be) famed for its long tradition of
courtesy, deference and ritualized behaviour in social and interpersonal
interaction. However, much of this tradition seems restricted to the ideo-
logical level, rather than as part of everyday communication. In colloquial
Chinese ‘traditional’ politeness seems to be lost, or at best, obscure. Many
politeness practices – even ones as simple as the use of colloquial terms of
address such as ‘miss’ (xiaoje λ‫ – )ۆ‬have gone through numerous changes
in the past century. Consequently, conflicting views and contradictory
perceptions of Chinese politeness have formed.
This phenomenon can only be understood through retrospection: the
system of Chinese communication underwent an unprecedentedly huge
transformation under the influence of (early) modern historical events. In
the course of the period spanning the second half of nineteenth century
to the 1990s – which is quite short from a historical linguistic/pragmatic
perspective – the traditional norms of deferential communication and
the huge Chinese honorific lexicon practically disappeared from Chinese
society and were replaced by a new set of norms and a small lexicon of
polite expressions. In other words, Chinese that had been an ‘honorific-rich’
language like Japanese and Korean (cf. Chapters 2 and 3) became an
‘honorific-poor’ language with many new language behavioural rules.
2 Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese
As linguists and sinologists ourselves with fairly similar sociocultural back-

grounds, we are fascinated by Chinese linguistic politeness, in particular by
the mysterious loss of tradition and the astonishingly large gap between
‘old’ and ‘new’. Our joint interest in these issues led us to work on the
present volume, which (a) comparatively examines historical (eighteenth
century to early twentieth century) and contemporary (1950 to present)
Chinese norms of polite communication, and (b) uncovers the motivating
factors behind the large-scale changes that took place during modern times.
Reconstructing the changes within Chinese politeness during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries is not at all easy because to do so one needs to
examine a complex interaction between language, language ideology, style
and history, as will be shown in Chapter 5.
This comparative diachronic approach is unique – as far as we know –
because while intercultural politeness research is a thoroughly studied area
(see, for example, Nakane, 2006 and different studies in Spencer-Oatey
[2000] 2008), intracultural comparative politeness research is regretfully
neglected.
2 Intended Audience
This book is written with two circles of readers in mind: the first encompasses
researchers and students in fields that share interest in Chinese politeness,
such as communication studies, sociopragmatics and sociolinguistics, (historical)
pragmatics, discourse analysis and Chinese linguistics; and the second,‘lay’
readers who come to this book with the practical goal of understanding
Chinese communicative norms and practices. While the present volume
is a research monograph and not a manual, we believe that the research
presented here is relevant not only to experts but also to those who wish to
understand the Chinese. The retrospection to the development of Chinese
communicative norms and practices can fulfil a practical role as it may
help to overcome stereotypical views such as the demonization of modern
Chinese as ‘rude’ people. Considering the increasing importance of China in
the global economy, international trade and business, tourism, and other
areas, and the continually increasing migration of the Chinese people into
the ‘developed’ countries (see, for instance, Pieke, 2002), understanding
Chinese politeness norms – or, in many cases, their absence – is pivotal to
successful communication and understanding of the cultural ‘other’.
Keeping a wider audience in mind, we will present linguistic data in a way
that makes it accessible to readers who do not speak Chinese. The main text
Introduction 3
includes the Chinese original texts and their literary English translation.
This representation of data suits both those readers without previous learn-
ing in Chinese and those who are fluent in Chinese already. It should be noted
that in the main text we use the so-called traditional or fantizi ᕷᡏӷ
characters in order to give a uniform style to the data (the historical sources
are written with traditional characters while most of the modern/contem-
porary sources from mainland China are written in the so-called simplified
or jiantizi ᙁᡏӷ form). Appendix II includes the extracts in simplified
form, which may be useful to those who are currently involved in learning
Chinese as a foreign language.
3 Data
Since Chapter 2 will introduce the data studied in detail, it is sufficient here
to mention that the present volume, due to its comparative nature, involves
two major datasets – one historical and one contemporary – as well as data
from the early 1900s, a historical period that we define as ‘transitional’. In the
collection of data our primary goal was to study a wide variety of genres and
styles, and many examples of language use in various social settings.
The historical linguistic data, which represents language usage in the
final years of historical China, includes three major genre types: letters,
vernacular novels and a unique intercultural Sino–Japonic source, a
historical textbook. The contemporary Chinese dataset, which covers the
period of early 1990s to 2000s, consists of recordings of authentic language
use and naturally occurring data in a range of social settings. This dataset
includes audio-taped governmental and business meetings, service encoun-
ter interactions, family dinner conversations, conversation among friends,
business telephone calls, focus group discussion, and survey interviews and
debriefing sessions. The ‘transitional’ data includes letters and novels.
4 Structure
In order for the reader to gain an overall picture of the issues and points
discussed, Chapter 2 begins with a summary of the historical events that
led to the disappearance of historical Chinese politeness. This brief
introduction is followed by a preliminary summary of the differences
between historical and contemporary Chinese politeness, and the myths
and misconceptions that arise from these differences. Next, we define the
framework adopted and the aspects of politeness studied in the present

volume. Finally, the chapter summarizes the rationale behind the selection
of data, discusses some terminological issues, and introduces the datasets.
Chapters 3 and 4 present historical and contemporary Chinese polite-
ness. In each chapter, we briefly outline previous studies of historical and
contemporary Chinese politeness in chronological order, and overview
the social ‘standards’ of politeness behaviour. We also cite cases in which
standards are flouted – or the standards themselves are ambiguous for some
reason – in order to demonstrate the ambiguous nature of politeness and
the problems inherent in making evaluative judgements about historical
and contemporary Chinese politeness and impoliteness. It should be noted
that these chapters follow the same structure, studying politeness first on
a lexical and then on a discursive level (see more in Chapter 2); following
these analyses the chapters deal with anomalies of historical and contemporary
Chinese politeness behaviours.
Chapter 5 first addresses the puzzle of the disappearance of historical
Chinese politeness by trying to answer whether the gap between historical
and contemporary politeness in China is due to linguistic/stylistic or
socio-ideological changes, or perhaps both. While it would be easy to blame
certain historical events for the disappearance of historical Chinese polite-
ness, we will argue that this phenomenon is more complex than it may
appear. Focusing on historical evidence and sources from the ‘transitional’
(early twentieth century) era, and comparing historical and contemporary
Chinese historical events and ideologizations of politeness, the chapter
argues that the collapse of the historical system of Chinese politeness is
the direct consequence of the fact that historical Chinese politeness was
vulnerable due to certain ideological and linguistic reasons.
Finally, Chapter 6 concludes the book by outlining the arguments of
the previous chapters and discussing theoretical and methodological
implications of the findings.
The chapters are followed by five Appendices, as well as Indexes of Names
and Subjects and Chinese Expressions Studied. Appendix I provides a
chronological list of Chinese dynasties, and as previously mentioned
Appendix II includes the extracts studied in simplified Chinese form.
Appendices III, IV and V overview issues related with the contemporary
database of the present volume.
Chapter 2
The Myth of Chinese Politeness:

Problems, Framework and Data
1 History Revisited
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the British East India Company
became interested in opening trade relationships with China. The British
found the isolated and exotic land of ‘Cathay’, as it was called by the
Venetian explorer Marco Polo (c.1254–1324), a lucrative market, and had
particularly high hopes of selling opium to the Chinese, thereby obtaining
the legendary wealth of the ‘Orient’ through drug addicts. However, the
court of the Great Qing Empire (Da Qing diguo εమࡆ୯), ruled by the
Manchu Aihsindjoro (ངཥ᝺ᛥ) family, was keenly aware of the potential
dangers of foreign merchants and strictly limited their activities. This
conflict of interest resulted in hostilities, which culminated in the so-called
First Opium War (1839–1842) and a series of humiliating defeats suffered
by the Chinese. The British expeditionary forces, though far inferior in
number and resources, sank Chinese warships without difficulty and seized
several key locations on the Pearl and Yangtze rivers, enabling them to
trade without restriction. On 29 August 1842 several British politicians and
representatives of the Qing Court signed the so-called Treaty of Nanking
(Nanjing-tiaoyue ࠄ٧చऊ), an unequal treaty that allowed the Brits to
trade freely with the Chinese and handed the island of Hong Kong to the
British Crown.1
From the British perspective this war and the subsequent treaty, albeit
important, were just a step in the Empire’s history. On an ideological level,
the war was accordant with the imperialist philosophy that influenced the
thinking of the majority of the British elite in the nineteenth century:2
the conquering of the Chinese was morally acceptable and righteous
because this was the way to spread the British Crown’s ‘beneficial’ influence.
As Lowell (2006: 282) notes in her illuminating monograph, “stoked with
self-confidence by technological great leaps forward [. . .] the imperialist
European nations became convinced that they, and they alone, had invented
the way of modernity and progress for the contemporary world. Far from
searching for inspiration from non-Western models, they now embraced a
mission to disseminate (by force if necessary) their vision of Progress.”3
Along with the influence of the imperialist and colonization philosophy on
many Brits, the Chinese themselves had also provided an excellent casus
belli for war when Governor Lin Zexu ݅߾৪ (1785–1850) confiscated and
burned the opium stock of resident British merchants in Canton in 1839.
Thus, although it would be a mistake to form a homogenous historical view
of Britain, or even the British elite (and indeed the Sino–British war divided
British public opinion to some extent4), it can be argued that the conquering
of China did not have any major impact on British society, except that some
immigration began to the newly acquired Hong Kong Island.
The Chinese experienced these events in an entirely different way – for
them, these events were a tremendous shock. China was dragged out with
brutal physical force from a self-imposed isolation that had been in effect
since the time of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The Chinese looked at
their country as the most ‘civilized’ realm in the world, with unparalleled
military and economic power. The “Chinese myth of central superiority”,
as the renowned sinologist John K. Fairbank coined it (1978: 29), was
based on reality: Qing China was the de facto superpower in the East Asian
region. In the North the Manchus annexed Mongolia; Tibet in the West
and Tonkin (the modern North Vietnam) in the South were protectorates
of the Qing Empire; and the Japanese Tokugawa Shogunate (Tokugawa
bakufu 㾇οჿ۬) in the East did not challenge Chinese superiority,
except in debates over Korea.5 The previous Chinese encounters with
Westerners also boosted this nation-centric worldview: for example, the
Chinese general Koxinga (Zheng Chengkong ᎄԋф, 1624–1662) took
Formosa (Taiwan) from the Dutch by military force, the Jesuit missionaries
who visited Qing China were fascinated by its culture, and the Portuguese
nationals who were allowed to settle in Macau followed the rules imposed
on them by the Chinese government.6
It is thus not surprising that the Chinese population were dumbfounded
by the humiliating defeat suffered during the First Opium War and the
subsequent wars.7 The ‘Western devils’ (yangguizi ࢩଲη), as the Chinese
called the Westerners, had gunboats that could kill from distance, and for
which the large Chinese war junks that were still legendary a few centuries
earlier were no match, as well as firearms that were considerably more
developed than the old Chinese muskets and cannons. Learned as many
The Myth of Chinese Politeness 7
Qing military officials were in warfare and Chinese classics on military

strategy, they were unable to respond to this challenge and find an efficient
way to make their soldiers stand their ground against the technical might
of the British army. But the shock was due not only to the technology of
warfare, but also, perhaps more importantly, to differences in culture. The
Chinese who came in contact with Western invaders8 realized that during
the centuries of isolation from the rest of the world China had been left
behind in several respects. The social, legal, scientific, medical and other
systems of the English, and other nations that subsequently formed colonies
in China, seemed to be more developed than their traditional native Chinese
counterparts. Seemed to be should be emphasized because the Chinese
evaluation of the ‘West’ was at least partially influenced by imperialist
and colonial ideologies.9 Whatever the truth is, immediate modernization
(i.e. ‘Westernization’) seemed for many to be the correct answer to the
menacing situation.
From the time when the Manchus conquered China in 1644, many
Chinese hated their Manchu rulers, notwithstanding the fact that the
Aihsindjoro family, and the Manchu elite in general, became strongly
sinicized and employed a filo-Sinic policy (cf. Wakeman, 1985). The defeat
of China was oil on the fire of anti-Manchu sentiment, which became all
the stronger because the Manchu court was unable to cope with the situation
and implement radical reforms that could have led the country out of the
crisis.10 The opposition against the Manchus resulted in a chain reaction
of political events, including several rebellions,11 which in turn led to the
so-called Xinhai Revolution (Xinhai-geming ٌҮॠ‫ )ڮ‬in 1911 and the
subsequent dethroning of the last Chinese emperor, Puyi ྑሺ (r. 1908–1912),
in 1912. This marked the end of ‘historical China’. Along with engendering
rebellions the culture shock also had an important intellectual influence:
the obvious subordination of China made many Chinese revise the domi-
nant traditional social values. The perilous situation brought along a strong
anti-traditionalist sentiment and active debate between those who hoped to
both preserve Chinese values and modernize the country and those who
wanted to adopt a fundamentally new social model. While this was a com-
plex struggle, the analysis of which is beyond the scope of this book, it can
be argued that anti-traditionalism gained the upper hand in the long run,
in particular through the birth of the Republic of China (Zhonghua Min’guo
ύ๮҇୯) in 1912 and, more significantly, after the Communist takeover
and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (Zhonghua
renmin gongheguo ύ๮Γ҇Ӆ‫ک‬୯) in 1949.
Anti-traditionalist sentiments arose first in 1919, during the so-called May

Fourth Movement (Wu-Si-yundong ϖѤၮ୏), which was an anti-imperialist,
cultural and political movement. The movement’s name derives from a
student demonstration that occurred on 4 May 1919, and became an anti-
imperialist national movement (cf. Chapter 5, in the present volume).
Referring to the period between 1915 and 1921, the broader May Fourth
Movement – or, more precisely, the long-term change it generated – resulted
in a large-scale intellectual endeavour to reform language and culture.
After the May Fourth Movement, traditional culture was left relatively intact
until the Chinese Communist Party (henceforth CCP) led by Mao Zedong
Лᐛܿ (1893–1976) took over political power from the Nationalist Party
led by Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi ጯϟҡ, 1887–1975) in 1949. During
the Communist rule a series of events took place that essentially changed
Chinese language and culture. The six decades of Communist China are
minuscule in the span of Chinese history. However, in terms of political and
social changes, these sixty years witnessed three main periods:
1949–1965: Early Communist period

1966–1976: Cultural Revolution
c.198012–present: China’s Open Policy and Reform era (economic reform
and privatization)
After a series of campaigns the most determinative event in contemporary

times was the so-called Cultural Revolution (Wenhua-geming Ўϯॠ‫ڮ‬,
1966–1976), during which traditional culture and language use were heavily
criticized and the Communist government instituted serious anti-traditionalist
‘brainwashing’.13 Since 1979, after re-introducing a capitalist economy through
reforms, the Communist government somewhat re-evaluated traditional
social values and practices. However, as a consequence of the gradually
strengthening refutation of traditional social values and the intensive anti-
traditionalist education between 1949 and 1976, many dominant traditional
Chinese sociocultural and sociopragmatic norms had disappeared by the
time of these economic reforms. Consequently, modern visitors to China
with interest in Chinese social behaviour can find little that would remind
them of what they have seen or read about traditional Chinese culture,
in spite of the popular nationalistic Chinese claim and stereotype that
the Chinese have a ‘culture’ [sic]14 with a history that dates back several mil-
lennia. Among the sociocultural phenomena influenced by historical
changes there is one, the subject of this book, that underwent perhaps the
most dramatic change: politeness.
2 Uniqueness of Chinese Politeness Practice
This large-scale change is a unique phenomenon because in other lan-

guages there is no comparable gulf between ‘traditional/historical’ and
‘contemporary/modern’ norms of politeness.15 For example, if one
explores compendia of politeness across languages such as Hayashi and
Minami (Sekai no keigo Шࣚ喘ལᇟ, Linguistic Politeness across the World,
1974), Hickey and Stewart (Politeness in Europe, 2006) and Lakoff and Ide
(Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness, 2005), it becomes evident that
the labels ‘traditional/old’ and ‘contemporary/new’ are hardly used in a
comparative manner when it comes to linguistic politeness. Languages do
develop and linguistic politeness is subject to constant – and often large-
scale – changes as even the history of English well demonstrates (see, for
example, Kohnen, 2008a, 2008b; Jucker, 2010). However, changes usually
occur gradually, and it is difficult to contrast certain periods, in particular if
they are temporally close. An argument that there is ‘traditional/historical’
and ‘modern’ English politeness would induce criticisms because one could
rightly ask: Does ‘traditional’ refer to Victorian or pre-Second World War
politeness, or another period? Is it the politeness of the ruling elite or that
of the working class?16 The same questions would emerge in the case of
other East Asian languages such as Japanese. As scholars such as Tsujimura
(1971) note, Japanese underwent major changes throughout its history, but
fierce debate would result if one tried to draw a clear line between ‘historical’
and ‘modern’ Japanese politeness, simply because it would be difficult to
identify a turning-point in history when ‘modern’ came into existence. As
Ide (2001) demonstrated, post-Second World War Japanese politeness has
changed greatly due to internationalization; but as far as we understand,
‘modern’ Japanese politeness did not come into existence after the war –
why not pinpoint the so-called Meiji Restoration (Meiji-ishin ܴ‫ݯ‬ᆢཥ) in
1967 then, when Japan, and its language, was first modernized?
In this sense Chinese seems to be an unusual language because we can
and should differentiate historical and modern Chinese ‘politeness’ as two
considerably different systems. A comparison between the nineteenth and
late twentieth-century equivalents of an utterance will suffice to demon-
strate this point:
(1) ‫ى׆‬Πжً៝፶ǴঈೲฦำǴ߾གྣ‫ܒ‬ϐፉӭ‫خ‬Ƕ
ȐȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝเЦ‫ق‬ӵȑ
Prithee, sir, hire a cart on my behalf, in order to deliver [them]
hither with Godspeed. If you act thus, my heart will be full of
gratitude for your caring friendship. (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat,
Answer to Wang Yanru, cited from Kádár, 2009: 153–4)17
(2) ࣁΑૈ୼ೲࡋ΢ၡǴፎж‫ך‬ચ΋፶ًǶགᖴா‫ޑ‬ᜢЈᆶ
϶ፉǶ
In order to make sure that [they] can set off quickly, I ask you to take
care of renting a car on my behalf. Thank you so much for your care
and friendship. (Constructed)
Example 2 is a contemporary Chinese translation of the utterance in

Example 1, which was taken from a letter written in the nineteenth century.
Both Examples 1 and 2 represent written Chinese style and are thus more
formal and succinct than their spoken counterparts would be. Further-
more, both would be evaluated as pragmatically ‘well-formed’ by native
speakers of Chinese. However, the sociopragmatic similarities of the utter-
ances end at this point and they show a couple of differences in terms of
‘politeness’. Most obviously, Example 1 includes several socio-indexical
honorific expressions, such as the form of address zuxia ‫ى‬Π (‘sir’) and
the verbal form xi ‫( ׆‬lit. ‘hope’, that is, humble ‘please’). These expres-
sions ritually elevate the addressee’s status (and consequently denigrate
that of the author), and the form of address zuxia also signals an informal
rank-equal relationship between the author and the recipient (zuxia
can only be used between rank-equal males). Example 2 also includes
deferential expressions, in accordance with the requirements of ‘proper’
written style, such as qing ፎ (‘please’), nin ா (deferential ‘you’) and ganxie
གᖴ (lit. ‘feel gratitude’, that is, ‘thanks’), but none of these expressions
reveal much about the relationship between the author and the recipient,
except that it is not a particularly informal one, neither do they express any
deferential elevation or denigration in a strict sense.
In addition, the request in (1) is made in a quite indirect way: except
referring to the recipient as ‫ى‬Π zuxia (‘sir’), the author avoids directly
referring to himself and the recipient, in order to keep the request indirect
and consequently more deferential. In Example 2 the same technique of
impersonalization is not, and cannot be, followed: it would be ungrammat-
ical in modern Chinese to omit personal pronouns or other forms of person
reference in certain cases (e.g. dai ж, lit. ‘instead’ in (2) requires an object
and so the first-person pronoun wo ‫ ך‬cannot be omitted).
Finally, Example 1 has a ‘pompous’ style that would sound ‘exaggerated’
to the contemporary Chinese ear: utterances such as “my heart will be full
of gratitude for your caring friendship” (གྣ‫ܒ‬ϐፉӭ) would sound
quite unusual, in particular in the case of a simple request like this one.
To sum up, there is a large difference between historical/traditional and
modern/contemporary Chinese ‘politeness’. This difference becomes even
more obvious if we compare utterances that represent spoken style:
(3)!м຦!Ǿ!ၰǺȨ֋λাηǴћλΓԖࣗ٣ǻȩ)ȜᒬШࡡ
‫ق‬ȝಃ24ӣȑ
Ran Gui . . . said: “Young lady, why did you call this worthless
person?” (Xingshi hengyan, chapter 13)
(4)!м຦!Ǿ!ᇥǺȨλ‫ۆ‬ǴԖϙሶ٣௃ǻȩ
Ran Gui . . . said: “Miss, what is it?” (Constructed)
Again, Example 4 is a contemporary Chinese ‘translation’ of the utterance

in Example 3. In accordance with the rules of historical Chinese business
interactions,18 in Example 3 the vendor responds to the customer by using
the self-denigrating form xiaoren λΓ (‘this worthless person’) and the
colloquial elevating form xiao-niangzi λাη (‘young [commoner] lady’),
hence ‘framing’ (Goffman, 1974) his relationship with the interlocutor as
that of seller–customer by means of indexical honorifics. In Example 4
the vendor, in accordance with the norms of contemporary business
communication, uses the deferential address form xiaojie λ‫‘( ۆ‬miss’),
which does not express any elevating meaning and, as will be discussed in
Chapter 4 of this volume, is even open to impolite interpretations (while
there is no alternative form of address available in such a setting). Interest-
ingly, Example 4 is a rather idealized utterance, more like a citation from a
how-to-do-business-with-the-Chinese textbook than a real-life answer, and it
is quite probable that a customer in contemporary China would get a rather
abrupt (but certainly not impolite!) answer from a street vendor, like the
following one:
(5)!ວϙሶǻ
What [do you want to] buy?
That is, in contrast with its historical Chinese counterpart, modern polite-
ness seems to have little to offer in terms of formality. Thus, as argued in
Chapter 1, it seems to be rewarding to compare historical and contemporary
Chinese ‘politeness’, and define precisely how they differ and explain why
they differ. But, before engaging in this endeavour we need to address a
problem, namely, myths pertaining to Chinese politeness and impoliteness.
2.1 Myths regarding historical and modern/contemporary

Chinese politeness
The gulf between ‘old’ and ‘modern’ Chinese ‘politeness’ leads many
researchers and ‘laymen’ to formulate ambiguous and subjective views
on Chinese ‘polite’ behaviour (cf. Pan, 2000c, and Kádár and Pan, 2011
[in press]). That is, historical China is often represented as a ‘courteous
society’ (sometimes ‘overtly polite’) and modern or contemporary China
as a somewhat ‘impolite’ one. In order to illustrate this point, it is pertinent
to compare the ways in which non-Chinese people represent Chinese
politeness behaviour. For example, John Barrow (1764–1848) the private
secretary of 1st Earl George Macartney (1737–1806), a British politician
and ambassador who tried to convince the Chinese court to form trade
relationships with Britain, wrote the following account on Chinese polite-
ness in his book Travels in China (1804):
The exterior deportment of every class in China is uncommonly decent,

and all their manners mild and engaging; but even these among persons
of any rank are considered as objects worthy of the interference of the
legislature; hence it follows that they are ceremonious without sincerity,
studious of the forms only of politeness without either the ease or eleg-
ance of good-breeding. An inferior makes a sham attempt to fall on his
knees before his superior, and the latter affects a slight motion to raise
him. A common salutation has its mode prescribed by the court of cere-
monies; and any neglect or default in a plebeian towards his superior is
punishable by corporal chastisement, and in men in office by degrada-
tion or suspension. In making thus the exterior and public manners
of the people a concern of the legislature, society in many respects was
considerably benefited. Between equals, and among the lower orders of
people, abusive language is very unusual, and they seldom proceed to
blows. If a quarrel should be carried to this extremity, the contest is rarely
attended with more serious consequences than the loss of the long lock
of hair growing from the crown of the head, or the rent of their clothes.
Although influenced by imperialist and colonialist rhetoric this passage

clearly represents the way in which foreigners described Chinese polite
behaviour as ceremonious – to such an extent that it lacks sincerity. The
same stereotype can be observed in foreign accounts on Chinese impolite-
ness: for example, several Westerners argued that the Chinese traditionally
do not use four-letter expressions but curse in a way that sounds ‘harmless’
to the Western ear.19
On the other hand, even relatively filo-Sinic Western accounts on
modern day China, such as the websites <www.chinese-culture.net> and
<www.goingtochina.com>, describe contemporary Chinese as somewhat
rude or at least potentially impolite people:
If you just arrive to work or travel in China, you are very likely to be in
for a MAJOR culture shock . . . Unfortunately . . . rude and unbecoming
to a foreigner . . . is part and parcel of the Chinese people. (<www.
chinese-culture.net>)
Chinese courtesies have always been formal to follow strict rules, although
sometimes Chinese people seem to be impolite according to Western
norms in public places. (<www.goingtochina.com>)
Furthermore, as Mills and Kádár (2011 [in press]) note, the Chinese them-
selves also often reinforce these myths by representing themselves, in a
somewhat contradictory way, as either inheritors of historical politeness
heritage or rather direct people.
What these accounts overlook in general is the notion of ‘situation’,
which plays an important role in the application of politeness (see Pan,
2000c). It is a common perception that Chinese people can appear to
be highly ritualized and deferential in one situation, and then very rude
or ‘impolite’ in another. The present work will deconstruct these myths by
arguing that while there is an important truth value behind such stereo-
types – in a similar way to other cultures (cf. Mills, 2003) – they turn out to
be simplistic in light of various social and discursive factors.
3 Framework
The present book is a primarily descriptive and comparative study of

politeness in two main time periods in China. On a theoretical level it is
anchored to the so-called discursive approaches to linguistic politeness.
In order to introduce our theoretical standpoint, we need to give a brief
overview of linguistic politeness research, and then explain how our
theorization of Chinese ‘politeness’ is linked to discursive methods. After
this overview, we will discuss the present volume’s role in the narrower field
of Chinese politeness.
3.1 Linguistic politeness research

The sociolinguistic analysis of linguistic politeness began in the 1970s; the
first influential politeness theoretical framework was developed by Robin
T. Lakoff (1973, 1977). Lakoff’s research was influenced by Paul Grice’s
‘Cooperative Principle’ concept (see Grice, 1975), or CP as it is often
abbreviated. Departing from this framework, Lakoff claimed that politeness
basically serves the avoidance of conflict, which validates the flouting of
the maxims of CP, that is, the ways in which people are assumed to logically
convey information in communication, though speakers do not always
need to flout CP maxims to express politeness. Whenever a speaker flouts
the norms of cooperation in a context that necessitates politeness, the inter-
locutor will infer that the speaker has done this due to considerations of
politeness – that is, politeness is bound to a rational cognitive activity.
For example, if one does not directly announce bad news but tells it in a
circular way, the hearer will infer that the speaker behaved so because s/he
does not want to be rude, that is, the lack of brevity and directness (flouting
of maxims) will be a sign of politeness. There are three rules for conflict
avoidance: (a) distance, (b) deference and (c) camaraderie. Politeness in a
certain culture can be categorized depending on which of the rules are
more prominent generally – for example, British culture gives prominence
to ‘distance’, Japanese culture prefers ‘deference’, while Australian culture
is ‘camaraderie’ based. Thus, besides being the first influential framework
for the analysis of linguistic politeness, Lakoff’s concept is important in that
it is the first universal politeness framework or politeness theory in the strict
sense of the word.
Lakoff’s theory was soon followed by a universalistic framework set forth
by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson (1978, 1987), which had a
great impact in the field. Brown and Levinson, in a similar way to Lakoff,
defined politeness in terms of conflict avoidance based on the CP, but
they approached this issue differently. In order to describe politeness in
different languages and societies, Brown and Levinson created the notion
of a so-called Model Person who possesses the universal characteristics
of ‘rationality’ and ‘face’. ‘Rationality’ means the availability to the Model
Person “of a precisely definable mode of reasoning from ends to the means”
(1987: 58). Thus, as in Lakoff’s model, every language user recognizes
politeness because they possess ‘rationality’, and also their politeness acts
are based on the presumption that the interlocutor will correctly perceive
the rationality behind the given act. But the work of politeness is more
complex, due to the notion of ‘face’. ‘Face’, a term of Chinese origin that
was loosely borrowed from Goffman’s (1955, 1967) work, is separated into
‘positive’ versus ‘negative’ needs in Brown and Levinson’s interpretation.
‘Positive face’ denotes the wish to be appreciated by others, and ‘positive
politeness’ is the fulfilment of this wish. ‘Negative face’ means the wish not
to be imposed upon by others, and its accomplishment is ‘negative polite-
ness’.20 Politeness is employed when a certain act threatens ‘face’, that is, it
has a redressive (conflict avoiding) function. Setting out from the claim
that politeness is a redressive act, Brown and Levinson argue that in order
to describe politeness in a certain culture researchers need to look into
‘local’ strategies of redressing. As they note, “cultural differences . . . exist
and work down into the linguistic details of the particular face-redressive
strategies preferred in a given society or group” (1987: 15).
Universalistic theories soon became subject to criticism. Several scholars,
in particular East Asian experts such as Ide (1989), Matsumoto (1988, 1989)
and Gu (1990), pointed out the inapplicability of some universalistic
concepts to the analysis of certain data. For example, Sachiko Ide (1989)
in her groundbreaking paper argued that when using honorific forms
Japanese speakers do not necessarily redress face-threatening acts, that is,
politeness in Japan cannot be described as a merely redressive act. Further-
more, Matsumoto (1988, 1989) demonstrated that the choice of certain
registers inherently conveys some kind of positioning of the speaker and
the hearer because in Japanese every speech style expresses/presupposes a
certain interpersonal relationship. Gu (1990) demonstrated that in China
‘face’ is a complex notion and the Brown and Levinsonian ‘facework’
cannot be effectively applied to analyse Chinese ‘face’.
While these criticisms (and many others21) were insightful, they did not
provide an alternative analytic framework, and in practice the Brown and
Levinsonian approach continued to dominate the field until the 2000s –
when a ‘discursive turn’ emerged in politeness studies. This turn was
initiated by influential monographs by Eelen (2001), Mills (2003) and Watts
(2003), which were followed by others such as Locher (2004), Terkourafi
(2005), Bousfield (2008), and collections such as Bousfield and Locher
(2007). In fact, several aspects of discursive thinking were already raised in
former studies, such as Watts (1989), but it was the 2000s when these ideas
began to gain momentum.
In fact, the discursive turn within politeness theory may be more accurately
seen as a trend than a ‘school’, due to the fact that discursive research is still
very much in its infancy, and also because scholars involved in this field
apply considerably different frameworks. Also, as Mills (2011 [in press])
notes, “not all of the [post-modern] theorists . . . adopt the same theoretical
position and this makes generalizing about their positions very difficult”.
Yet discursive research shares some basic concepts that differentiate it from
other approaches to politeness. First, the discursive approach, as its name
makes evident, is a discourse-based one, analysing politeness occurring in
authentic (and preferably longer) discourse fragments by focusing on various
micro and macro contextual factors. While in prediscursive politeness the
effect of a particular utterance on the hearer is often predicted, discursive
research puts some focus on the contextual variation of interpretation.
Secondly, the discursive or post-modern trend makes some distinction
between the interactants’ and the researcher’s interpretations of politeness,
labelling the former as ‘first-order’ and the latter as ‘second-order’ politeness.
As discursive scholars argue, since researchers are inherently influenced by
their own experience and stereotypes when analysing politeness, in order
to avoid subjectivity at the level of analysis and the exclusion of certain views
about politeness as much as possible, researchers need to focus on the lay
interpretation of politeness, by exploring the hearer’s evaluation – along
with that of the speaker – in discourse, and reach theoretical second-order
conclusions by means of analysis of data.22
This brief presentation of politeness research23 might have suggested our
sympathy towards discursive theorizations of politeness. In what follows, let
us define the present book’s relationship with discursive ideas.
3.2 The approach

Due to the fact that this volume simultaneously makes historical and con-
temporary inquiries, in a strict methodological sense, it is an amalgamation
of two different methodologies, that is, historical pragmatics and socioprag-
matics/sociolinguistics. As to the former, this book is a typical historical
pragmatic, or more precisely, pragmaphilological (Jacobs and Jucker, 1995)
work. That is, it aims to describe
the contextual aspects of historical texts, including the addressers and

the addressees, their social and personal relationship, the physical and
social setting of text production and reception, and the goal(s) of the
text. (Jacobs and Jucker, 1995: 11)
Thus, we aim to explore how certain utterances, in retrospect, conveyed

‘politeness’ in historical social interactions. For this reason, we will address
various contextual factors.
With regard to the analysis of modern and contemporary data, we apply

a typical sociopragmatic and sociolinguistic approach. The guiding notion
for our analysis is that politeness is a reflection of three components of
language in use. These three components are linguistic rules, cultural norms
and social practices. That is, a language system has certain constraints on
how politeness is expressed by means of linguistic tools. The component of
cultural norms embodies values placed on certain dimensions of human
interaction, such as views on hierarchy, self and group membership, and
interpersonal relationship. The component of social practices reflects the
current ways of doing things in society and the changes that go along with
societal developments. We will further elucidate this notion in Chapter 6.
With this notion, we take into consideration multiple perspectives in our
analysis. In line with Eelen’s (2001) argument that the politeness model
should account for the hearer’s interpretation, we not only examine how
speakers applied linguistic politeness, but also how hearers interpreted
politeness in various social settings. Since the focus of the book is to invest-
igate the myth of Chinese politeness, we make a distinction between
assumptions and practices and conduct two levels of analysis in our invest-
igation of politeness. First, we study actual instances of politeness practice
in real-life situations and use naturally occurring data to analyse the
speaker’s and hearer’s use and interpretation of politeness. This level of
analysis produces evidence of the impact of social practices on the use of
linguistic politeness. Second, we examine the assumptions and perceptions
that people hold with regard to politeness practice using data from focus
group discussions and interviews. This level of analysis provides reflection
on the cultural values and beliefs that people have regarding politeness
norms. By taking this dual analytical stance, we are able to see an emergent
pattern of politeness practice in contemporary China, and at the same time,
are equipped with evidence to pinpoint the gap between the ‘assumed’
norms and actual practice in politeness behaviour.
The above-mentioned two methodologies are interlinked with the joint
goal of describing the diachronic change of politeness in China. In this
respect, the work of this book is a ‘function to form’ historical pragmatic
analysis. That is, this work tracks “how a particular function has changed
the forms it employs” (Culpeper, 2009: 190). In our case, the particular
function is the expression of politeness. This work is also a typical socio-
linguistic inquiry into how historical events and societal changes have led to
changes in linguistic forms of politeness.
Our analytic methodologies are also anchored to discursive thinking in
several ways. First, we need to put some self-reflexive emphasis on the very
fact that this book is normative by nature, that is, it primarily aims to map and
compare the norms of politeness in historical and modern/contemporary
China. In fact, several discursive researchers, in particular Richard Watts
(2003), draw attention to the fact that politeness and normative behaviour
are two potentially different behavioural types. In Watts’ (2003) view, as far as
the interactants communicate in accordance with contextual requirements,
they are not polite but simply ‘politic’; an utterance can be interpreted as
polite if it goes beyond the requirements of the given context according to
the interactants’ judgement.
Unlike Watts we would argue that there is no clearly definable border
between ‘politic’ and ‘polite’ (see Kádár, 2010a),24 as Chapter 3 of this
volume will also illustrate to some extent. In several respects we agree with
Sara Mills who maintains that politeness by its very nature is a question of
judgement and assessment and that the focus should be on the analysis of
what people judge to be polite (Mills, 2003: 8).
For the historian, Mills’ approach is considerably sound, considering
the problems of the ‘excess’ notion in historical contexts (cf. Chapter 3).
However, we use the first-order versus second-order analytic concept
here to define what we try to do in this work. We want to make it clear that
due to its descriptive–normative nature, the present volume primarily deals
with ‘politic behaviour’, rather than ‘politeness’ in a second-order sense,
even though instances will be discussed when ‘excess’ politeness in a
Wattsian sense emerges in discourse. Thus, since normative politeness is
the main subject of this volume, the term ‘politeness’ describes normative
politeness. Whenever second-order or ‘excess’ politeness occurs we will
note it as marked politeness. The use of the label ‘politeness’ is somewhat
problematic in the Chinese cultural context because the Chinese did
not and do not have any emic equivalent of the English word ‘politeness’,
which is a regular problem in cultural and historical studies focusing
on politeness phenomena (cf. Kádár and Culpeper, 2010). Thus, it should
be noted that ‘politeness’ is used in this work strictly as a default working
concept.
This definition of ‘politeness’ is also important from a related perspective,
namely, the issue of ‘polite meaning’. Many discursive theorists question
whether polite meaning can exist out of context – whether certain forms
can ‘encode’ linguistic politeness (see Pizziconi, 2011 [in press], and Agha’s
insightful 2007 monograph). Indeed, it would be problematic to argue that
honorifics per se are inherently polite, four-letter words are inherently
impolite, and so on. Since the present volume studies Chinese honorifics
and other formal forms as part of ‘Chinese politeness’, the disarmament of
‘politeness’ as a default working notion also implies that we do not claim

that honorifics are de facto polite in a technical (discursive) sense.
Another discursive concept that we adopt is the ambiguity of politeness.
Ambiguity means that while in a certain society there are dominant
politeness ideologies and practices, they are always contested, and there
are competing ‘polite’ social discourses. In this sense politeness can be
identified as a typical social discourse, that is, according to Fairclough’s
definition,
it is a particular way of representing some part of the (physical, social,

psychological) world – there are alternative and often competing dis-
courses, associated with different groups of people in different social
positions. (2003: 17)
In accordance with this definition, along with focusing on standard norms

and ideologies of Chinese politeness, we will also try to analyse non-standard
and competing norms, hence demonstrating the complexity of politeness
phenomenon.
Finally, we will employ a typically discursive analytic methodology in that
we will focus on authentic sources and explore different discursive factors.
In order to avoid generalizations, we will also analyse some data that reflects
certain native speakers’ interpretations of certain utterances as polite or
impolite.
We hope that by anchoring this book with discursive theorizations of
politeness, we will not only contribute to politeness studies in general but also
to Chinese politeness research. So far the Chinese field – and, in general, the
East Asian field – has been relatively untouched by post-modern thinking,
even though there are a few exceptions such as Pizziconi (2003), Geyer
(2007), Kádár (2007a, 2007b) – and several studies in the edited collections –
Kádár and Mills (2011b [in press]) and Bargiela-Chiappini and Kádár
(2010). Thus, by incorporating discursive elements in our descriptive and
normative study, our findings will indeed be less clearly generalizable.
However, we believe that this disadvantage will be counterbalanced by the
fact that the discursive approach helps us gain a more complex picture of
Chinese politeness behaviour.
3.3 Previous studies in the field

Having outlined the framework, let us briefly define the present volume’s
place in Chinese politeness research literature.
Although the fundamental change in Chinese politeness is a noteworthy

topic, previous studies of Chinese politeness mainly focus on either tradi-
tional Chinese polite expressions or modern Chinese behaviour (see
Chapters 3 and 4 for details). The topic of change in Chinese politeness
practice has remained relatively untouched: while some studies such as
Chen and Yang (2010) addressed certain aspects of this problem, few
of these works are systematic and comprehensive in nature. Perhaps the
only comprehensive analysis of this issue was published by Guoyue Peng
(൹୯៌) in a Japanese language paper in 1999.25 Peng’s work studies
the decline of honorifics in China. He argues, convincingly to us, that the
number of honorifics in Chinese began to rapidly decrease during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
We believe that Peng’s claim is a most important and valid contribution
to the field: Peng is perhaps the only researcher who ever argued that the
disappearance of historical Chinese politeness is primarily due to historical
sociolinguistic developments and not modern historical events, an argu-
ment that was most stimulating to us. Unfortunately, Peng’s work is rather
brief and ignores post-nineteenth-century events – though he cannot be
blamed for this as he did not intend to study modern and contemporary
politeness – and so it only reveals that historical Chinese was vulnerable to
historical changes without dealing with its collapse. Also, Peng’s study is
based on quantitative research, which is not introduced in sufficient detail,
and the reader is left in limbo as to whether quantitative research (without
detailed qualitative discursive analysis) can properly capture the socioprag-
matic phenomenon studied. We believe that a wider sociopragmatic analysis
is needed, instead of focusing solely on honorifics, and also that if we intend
to reconstruct the process of the disappearance of historical Chinese polite-
ness we cannot ignore twentieth-century events. In addition, as the analysis
in Chapter 5 illustrates, it is quite problematic to demonstrate that the
number of honorifics in fact declined as in different genres and interac-
tional situations honorifics are used in different quantities. Yet, we agree
with Peng in that signs of decline can be traced in texts dating from the
period studied.
Along with Peng’s work, additional ‘antecedents’ of this book are the
twin papers by Pan and Kádár (2011 [in press]), and Kádár and Pan (2011
[in press]). In these papers we raised different problems studied in the
present book and made a preliminary comparison between historical and
modern/contemporary Chinese politeness, without studying in depth the
reasons behind the changes. The present book has been developed on the
basis of this preliminary research.
4 The Aspects of Politeness Studied
After this brief literature overview, we need to address the question of which
aspects of politeness we shall actually compare here because this concerns
the reliability of our comparison of historical and contemporary politeness.
In fact, this kind of comparative research is somewhat unusual in the polite-
ness field, due to data problems. By ‘problems’ we mean that unlike
intercultural studies, in this kind of historical intracultural exploration we
do not have directly comparable data. One can argue that historical prag-
matic data is inherently ‘problematic’; as Collins (2001: 16–17) notes:
One of the main obstacles that must be overcome is what has been
called ‘the Data Problem’ – the need to draw conclusions about language
behaviour and conventions on the basis of written artifacts rather than
direct observation (Jacobs and Jucker, 1995: 6). Generally speaking, the
only observables in premodern texts are the forms [our emphasis]
themselves.
That is, our database of extensive audio-taped interactions in contemporary

Chinese (see more in Chapter 4) obviously differs from, and provides much
more reliable data than, any historical database. Historical sources do not
record various discursive–conversational factors that are relevant from the
perspective of the politeness researcher, such as pauses and overlaps.
However, the difference between the reliability of historical and modern
data does not present a significant problem for the current analysis. While
some aspects of normative behaviour, in particular paralinguistic issues
such as the role of silence and pauses in relational work, cannot be studied
on a comparative basis, there are many other aspects of historical and mod-
ern/contemporary Chinese politeness that can be effectively compared,
and they are sufficient to map the major differences between historical and
modern politeness. Therefore, in order to make our comparison reliable,
we need to clearly define the aspects of politeness that we are actually going
to compare.
Returning to Collins’ (2001) definition above, the present volume
compares the formal(ized) or conventional(ized) aspects of politeness norms
in historical and modern/contemporary China. The label ‘formal’ covers
the application of two related aspects of Chinese politeness26 in longer
chunks of discourse, namely, honorifics and strategies.
As to the former, ‘honorifics’ or ‘honorific form’ are widely used terms in
the field of politeness study. However, as Shibata and colleagues (2001: 98)
note, “One of the problems which arises when discussing ‘honorifics’ is that
all scholars have their own definition of ‘honorifics’.” Therefore we feel the
need to carefully define the term before adopting it in this book. In fact,
‘honorifics’ is not only used in various and rather vague ways, but is also
often equated with deferential politeness, in particular in popular literature;
for example, as the Wikipedia entry “Honorifics” notes,
An honorific (Sometimes Honorable) is a word or expression that conveys

esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific>)
It is true that honorifics usually express deference (not necessarily politeness

in a technical sense), and this is particularly valid to historical China. As
Kádár (2007b) argues, in historical times the Chinese predominantly used
honorifics in order to express deference due to the fact that in the strongly
hierarchical historical Chinese context social deixis had an important
communicative role (cf. Chapter 3, in this volume). However, we agree
with Pizziconi (2011 [in press]) who notes that deference is only a default
interpretation of honorifics, the pragmatic meaning of which is context-
dependent to some extent. Thus, in our interpretation the label ‘honorifics’
refers to a category of words and expressions that have deferential semantic
(but not necessarily pragmatic) meaning when used in reference to the
addressee, the speaker or a third person.
Similar to ‘honorifics’, ‘strategy’ is another widely used (and abused) term
in politeness research and originally gained prominence in Brown and
Levinson’s (1987) work. In Brown and Levinson’s interpretation, strategies
are applied to form messages in contexts where face-saving is required.
Brown and Levinson distinguish four main types of linguistic strategies,
or “super-strategies” (1987: 17), that is, bald-on-record, negative, positive
and off-record strategies. Within these categories there are many strategies
such as giving deference and apologizing.
In the present work we do not adopt the Brown and Levinsonian inter-
pretation of ‘strategy’ because several scholars, in particular Gu (1990),
Mao (1994), Lee-Wong (2000), and Haugh and Hinze (2003) have
demonstrated that the distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive face’
(and Brown and Levinson’s understanding of ‘face’) cannot be applied in
the Chinese context, and consequently adopting the notion of ‘negative’
and ‘positive’ strategies would also raise problems. Also, Brown and
Levinson’s description of strategy is fairly complex: they model politeness
in certain languages as meticulous systems with “intrinsic ranking of

politeness strategies”.27
Thus, instead of following the Brown and Levinsonian interpretation of
‘strategy’, we will use this term in a simple technical sense: strategies will
refer to widely accepted conventional discursive ways to express politeness.
Since in every community/Community of Practice the understanding
of what is ‘polite’ is based on certain conventions, it can be argued that
‘strategies’ are at least somewhat conventionalized – and, consequently,
formalized – communicative tools, although it is obvious that different
strategies have different degrees of conventionality.
In order to capture the discursive work of politeness strategies in practice,
we will focus on certain speech acts in Chapter 3 and 4. ‘Speech act’ is a
term defined by Searle as a language philosophical notion by means of
which one can explore how “words relate to the world” (1969: 3). A conven-
tionalized ‘polite’ speech act, in our interpretation, is a socially accepted
act of communication, the default “perlocutionary effect” (Terkourafi,
2003: 149) of which is the expression of politeness.28 Speech acts are useful
for the present study because they allow us to explore the changes to
the strategies (and honorifics) required to successfully accomplish a given
speech act. It should be noted that we do not aim to make a comparative
overview of Chinese ‘polite’ speech acts; this would be all the more difficult
because, as Jucker and Taavitsainen note
speech acts are often considered the most elusive and difficult category . . .
apologies, compliments, thanks and greeting are some [our emphasis] of
the most important speech acts. (2008: 7)
This quotation demonstrates that it would be quite difficult to ‘overview’

speech acts and this is not our goal; instead, we pick categories of speech
acts (refusals, apologies and requests) for analysis so that we can demonstrate
the scope and nature of diachronic changes in nineteenth- and twentieth-
century Chinese politeness.
Discursive strategies and honorifics have several joint characteristics,
which make them particularly suitable to be studied together. Both of them
are conventional – and to some degree formal – aspects of politeness. In
addition, as was argued above, both honorifics and strategies have a default
polite interpretation, and so their properties and discursive application
represent the norms of politeness in a community or society. Also, both hon-
orifics and strategies can be subject to strategic discursive manipulation,
and become polite in a second-order sense (cf. Kádár, 2007a).
To sum up, we will focus on the formal aspects of politeness, by means

of which the historical and contemporary databases can be effectively
compared. We treat honorifics and strategies as two distinct ‘categories’
for purely technical reasons – as our analysis will demonstrate, they often
co-occur and cooperate in discourse.
Before concluding this section, it is necessary to note that we would not
like to give the false impression that by studying its formal aspects we can
cover the whole spectrum of ‘Chinese politeness’. Not only do we leave
some strategies untouched, such as the role of the aforementioned strategy
of silence, but we also ignore non-formularized/non-conventionalized
manifestation of politeness. In fact, ‘relational work’ or ‘facework’, that is,
“the process of defining relationships in interaction” (Locher, 2008: 52) is
a complex process, which includes a lot of naturally occurring spontaneous
acts, which are not strategies in a conventional sense, as the following
interaction demonstrates:
(6) ‫ܴॺך‬Ϻ΋ଆᄽᖱǴՉόՉǻ
We will jointly present tomorrow, okay?
If we suppose that this constructed utterance is made by a professor to

a graduate student, it will express politeness due to the content of the
message: a student is usually honoured to have the opportunity to give
a joint lecture with a professor. Thus, in the level of relational work this
utterance is open to be interpreted as polite, and while it can be argued
that it is a strategy (or strategically used utterance), it is not a strictly con-
ventional or formal strategy.
Finally, we will leave the issue of ‘face’ untouched in this book. While
‘face’ is a traditionally important domain in Chinese politeness research,29
the analysis of this (either emic or etic) notion would lead us far from the
comparative diachronic track. This is because ‘face’ (e.g. roughly, the public
self-image that one tries to preserve) is the perhaps most conservative aspect
of the Chinese politeness phenomena. In other words, while the linguistic
expressions of Chinese politeness have dramatically changed during the
past two centuries, we have not found evidence that the Chinese perception
of ‘face(s)’30 has changed even though this question might be the subject of
further explorations in the future.
5 Data
Along with properly defining the subject(s) of analysis, another point that
should be addressed is the selection of data for study. Before this overview,
we need to make a brief note on our data-related terminology – more

precisely, the label ‘contemporary Chinese’, as this term can cover various
periods. In the present work, contemporary Chinese politeness refers to
the politeness practice in China since 1949. We make a distinction between
‘modern Chinese’ and ‘contemporary Chinese’ here because historically
these two periods are in two very different political and social systems.
The concept of ‘modern Chinese’ refers to the Chinese used ever since the
May Fourth Movement in 1919, while the notion of contemporary Chinese
was established in 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded.
In this book, we are primarily interested in the investigation of contem-
porary Chinese politeness and will define modern China as the ‘transitional
period’. In addition, we use the term ‘contemporary Chinese politeness’ to
exclusively refer to the observable politeness phenomena in the People’s
Republic of China (or ‘Mainland’ China) after China’s Open Door Policy
was introduced and during the Reform Era, more specifically, between the
early 1990s to the late 2000s, and will treat politeness phenomena in other
Chinese-speaking regions – such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore –
separately when they are touched upon in Chapter 5. Our focus on Main-
land of China is motivated by its unique Communist history and China’s
significance in our contemporary world.
5.1 Historical data

Exploring historical Chinese requires some critical awareness in the selec-
tion of data sources. Fundamentally, all real historical pragmatic data are
reliable and authentic in the sense that they are texts produced as part of
certain historical discursive practices. In this respect we agree with Archer
who notes:
reliance on written data was originally seen as problematic for a number

of interrelated reasons, including:
1. The belief, borne out by the supposed dichotomy between spoken and
written language, that the only legitimate data source for pragmatics
was spoken data
2. The scarcity of appropriate data (e.g. spoken data)
However, as written texts of the past . . . are now recognised as capturing
a cluster of communicative practices ranging from the ‘language of
distance’ to the ‘language of immediacy’, reliance on written data is
no longer seen as detrimental to serious pragmatic investigations of
language use. (2005: 10)
Although it can be argued that our historical data is as ‘authentic’ (albeit

less informative) as the modern one, it nevertheless seems to be wise to rely
on different historical genres in order to represent different discursive
styles and practices. With this in mind, we make use of two genre types,
letters and novels, which represent the following:
a) The two major interaction types, monologues and dialogues. Traditionally,

‘spoken’ and ‘written’ were differentiated, but in modern historical
pragmatic studies no sharp difference is made between ‘spoken’ and
‘written’ genres, and it seems to be more accurate to define genres as
‘monologic’ and ‘dialogic’.
b) The two major literary styles of China.
(We also make use of an additional genre type, which is discussed in more
detail below.)
In historical China there were two types of written style: the so-called
wenyan Ў‫( ق‬lit. ‘refined language’, that is, Classical Chinese) and baihua
қ၉ (lit. ‘clear speech’, that is, vernacular Chinese). Classical Chinese
came into use during the Zhou Dynasty (c.1046 bc–256 bc) and it became
formalized by the end of the Han Dynasty (206 bc–ad 220); since then until
the twentieth century it was the official state language and the language of
‘high literature’ (e.g. historical writing and poetry). The time of origin of
vernacular Chinese is a debated issue,31 but it is agreed that by the time
of the Tang Dynasty (618–906) it was an important literary style, the
language of different genres such as Buddhist religious/popular literature
and dramas.
In the historical period studied in this book (but, in reality, since much
earlier32), Classical and vernacular coexisted in diglossia:33 the Classical
Chinese was regarded as the socially more ‘important’ language while
vernacular was the language of popular literature. By the late imperial
period Classical Chinese was considerably different from colloquial (e.g. it
applied a monosyllabic lexicon in contrast with the colloquial polysyllabic
one), while the vernacular imitated spoken style and thus was closer to
colloquial. However, no ‘pure’ Classical and vernacular existed; practically
every Classical genre included vernacular elements and every vernacular
genre made use of Classical stylistic features.34 The relationship between
Classical and vernacular was a scalar one, ‘pure’ Classical and vernacular
being the extremes of the scale.35
The present study relies on two major genre types that represent these
disglossic styles: letters and vernacular novels. Letters constitute the primary
corpus due to different reasons. First, in traditional Chinese culture letter

writing is typically considered an ‘applied’ (yingyong ᔈҔ) or ‘pragmatic’
genre, which primarily serves the conveyance of information. Secondly,
Chinese letters, while Classical in style, represent vernacular stylistic
elements. Unlike its European counterpart (see, for example, Fitzmaurice,
2002, and the studies in Nevelainen and Tanskanen, 2007), historical
Chinese letter writing is basically non-colloquial, and it is classified as a
Classical Chinese literary genre (see Kádár, 2009, 2010b). However, the
different epistolary genres – in particular personal and family letters –
display many colloquial features: due to the practical nature of letter writing
authors used a relatively ‘loose’ Classical style. Thirdly, historical Chinese
letter writing among the monolingual epistolary traditions spanned the
longest period (cf. Kádár, 2010a, and Zhao, 1999) and it preserved many
of the formal rules of historical Chinese politeness perhaps more than any
other genre. In addition, there were elaborate model-letter manuals,
somewhat similar to Ars Dictaminis in Europe, which guided authors in the
appropriate use of honorifics and other formulas (see more below), and
these sources are particularly informative about the rules of historical
Chinese politeness.
In order to represent different epistolary registers, we rely on a corpus of
185 letters translated to English by Kádár. While this corpus is relatively
small in comparison with large Western epistolary corpuses such as the
letters in the renowned ‘The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts’,36 and
represents only a small fragment of the huge Chinese epistolary corpus,
these letters were translated and analysed without any antecedent as a first
attempt of this kind – that is, we need to rely on a historical database created
by ourselves.37 We nevertheless hope that the generic diversity and the com-
mon period of writing of these letters – most of them dated from the period
spanning the 1780s to the 1880s – successfully represent historical Chinese
politeness before its disappearance. Among the epistolary sources the most
important is 60 letters selected from the epistolary collection Xuehong-xuan
chidu ഓᗶଈЁᛊ (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat), written between c.1758
and 181138 by the office clerk Gong Weizhai ᠭ҂ᗿ (1738–1811; Weizhai
was Gong’s ‘study-name’ and his birth-name was E ဝ). This edited collection,
containing 186 private letters of varying lengths written to various addressees
by Gong, is claimed to be one of the most stylistically representative col-
lections of late imperial Chinese letter writing (Zhao, 1999). Furthermore, it
is one of the most ‘popular’ historical Chinese letter collections, which was
used as an ‘epistolary textbook’ during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries and hence is often referred to as an epistolary ‘model work’
(chidu mofan Ёᛊኳጄ) by scholars of Chinese. Consequently, this is an

illuminating source of late imperial Chinese politeness.
In addition, we use several vernacular novels, including various eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century novels, as secondary sources in Chapter 3. The
most frequently cited sources are Rulin waishi Ꮒ݅Ѧў (The Scholars,
completed in 1750) and Honglou-meng आኴფ (Dream of Red Chamber,
c. mid-eighteenth century). Along with these Qing Dynasty novels, we also
use some earlier sources. Novels such as Honglou-meng are rather informa-
tive about linguistic politeness in late imperial times because their authors
imitate the speech styles of various social groups.
Along with these two major genre types, in Chapter 5 we rely on a unique
source, a textbook written for Ryūkyūan (Liuqiu ੥ౚ) students of Chinese.
The Kingdom of Ryūkyū (Ryūkyū Ōkoku ੥ౚЦ㡚), now Okinawa
Prefecture (Okinawa/Uchinaa-ken ؑ䵋䱝) of Japan, used to maintain
close political and economic ties with China, in particular during the Ming
and Qing Dynasties (see more in Nitta et al., 1994). Due to these connec-
tions, Okinawan students often visited China – in particular its Fujian
(ᅽࡌ) Province – to be educated there; learning at a prestigious
Chinese school (shuyuan ਜଣ) meant a good career upon returning to the
Ryūkyūs. Since Ryūkyūan languages belong to the Japonic language family
(Nohara, 2005), the visiting students needed to learn Mandarin Chinese
(then designated as Guanhua ‫۔‬၉, that is, ‘the language of officials’) as a
second language. Therefore, several textbooks were compiled for Ryūkyūan
students, in order to help them to brush up their Mandarin Chinese, and
also to teach them some expressions with Hokkienese (Minnan-hua መࠄ
၉, especially the dialect of Fuzhou City or Fuzhou-hua ᅽԀ၉) flavour,
before departing to China (Setoguchi, 2003: 3). Among these works the
supposedly most recent and influential one is Xue-guanhua Ꮲ‫۔‬၉ (Learn
Guanhua, or Gaku-kanwa in Japanese), compiled by an unknown author (or
a team of authors) with native Chinese proficiency, during the Qing Dynasty.
Xue-guanhua is a unique source for several reasons:
a) It is a ‘pragmatic’ textbook, which teaches Chinese oral communication

in a situational way – for example, how to behave when invited to a
Chinese family and how to talk with neighbours. Consequently, it repres-
ents Chinese polite language use in various interactional situations and
speech acts.
b) Since it is written for foreign students it represents Chinese politeness in
a somewhat standardized form, that is, in a way in which one was expected
to behave. In this sense it demonstrates the norms of communication in
a considerably better way than many ‘native’ sources such as novels that
imitate real-life (and thus less-perfect) interactions.
c) From the perspective of the historical pragmatician, a unique source
value of such intercultural works is that they provide direct evidence for
(a) the ‘proper’ use of honorifics in Chinese discourse, and (b) the fact
that honorifics and other tools of deference began to decline well before
the twentieth century. Because in various late imperial works, such as
letters, honorifics and other deferential strategies occur in different
quantity in different genres (cf. Kádár, 2010b), it would be difficult to
define their real importance in spoken language.
The only ‘handicap’ of Xue-guanhua from the perspective of this volume is

its period of writing: supposedly it was compiled during the middle of the
Qing Dynasty (c. eighteenth century), and so it could be argued that it
represents a somewhat earlier state of linguistic politeness than the other
sources studied. However, the fact that it was supposedly in use until the
Meiji Restoration (Meiji-ishin ܴ‫ݯ‬ᆢཥ, 1868), and the Japanese annexa-
tion of the Ryūkyū’s as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, demonstrates that its
style was ‘life-like’ also during the late imperial period.39
In this work we rely on a recent (2003) reprint edition of Xue-guanhua,
which was excellently annotated and introduced by Ritsuko Setoguchi
䐂㛍αࡓη.40
5.2 Contemporary data

We regard the period spanning 1949 to 1979 as part of the ‘transitional’
period because, as argued in Chapter 5, this period also had an important
role in the formation of contemporary Chinese norms. On the other hand,
it can also be defined as part of the period of ‘contemporary China’ because
during these years Chinese language was clearly and unambiguously
under the impact of the Communist ruling and Communist ideology (see
Chi, 1956, 1957; Vogel, 1965; Ji et al., 1990). We treat this period as a
process that led to the more current (beginning of the 1990s to the late
2000s) politeness phenomena observed and recorded in our contemporary
database. Our analysis focuses on the end result of this process: the observ-
able current politeness practices.
Our contemporary dataset was based on a period of nearly twenty years
of research through numerous field trips and ethnographic studies con-
ducted in China, and consists of four types of data: spoken data, written
texts (newspapers and public signs), TV broadcastings and observations.
The dataset includes over five hundred hours of recorded spoken data and
TV broadcasts, collections of various kinds of Chinese newspapers over
years, over one hundred photographs of public signs and posters, and
professional documents such as resumes, emails and faxes. There are also
multiple methods applied in data collection, including ethnography, inter-
actional sociolinguistics, participant observation, survey interviews and
focus groups. Each method yielded a slightly different perspective of the
object under study, but by combining data collected from these methods,
we are able to triangulate our interpretations and findings.
In our ethnographic research, we adopted Ruesch and Bateson’s 1968
[1951]) framework of conducting four types of observation:
1. Members’ generalizations
2. Neutral (objective) observation
3. Individual member’s experience
4. Observer’s interactions with members.
With this framework, we were able to generate four types of data. First,
we obtained data of members’ generalizations by conducting focus groups
and structured interviews. Members’ generalizations reflect the beliefs and
assumptions regarding politeness practice, which may or may not in fact be
true. The second type of data is through neutral (objective) observation.
That is, we recorded actual interactions and naturally occurring conversa-
tions and meetings of members of Communities of Practice (businesses,
government offices, service encounters and family gatherings), and col-
lected artefacts and written texts to conduct linguistic and text analysis. We
use the term linguistic analysis and text analysis here to differentiate the
analysis conducted on spoken data and written data in the contemporary
dataset. We mainly used interactional sociolinguistic methods (Gumperz,
1982; Tannen, 1990) to analyse spoken data. That is, we attended to the
negotiated meaning in the interaction and contextualization cues (Gumperz’s
term, 1982). We also triangulated our interpretations with the participants
in the events to obtain their perspectives (Tannen, 1990). In analysing
written data (mainly newspapers) we adopted Scollon’s (1998) mediated
discourse approach to analyse text and its larger discourse context includ-
ing printing size, font, colour and positioning of a text.
The third type of data is individual member’s experience. For this type
of data, we used case studies and oral histories of individual speakers
of Chinese, including ourselves (in this case, Pan), who lived through
the period of the early Communist rule and the Cultural Revolution.
There may be divergence between individual experience and generalized

experience, as Bond’s (1996) research has demonstrated, but this diver-
gence provides a critical analytic point to identify if the divergence is “the
result of false or excessive generalizations on the part of the researcher”, or
part of “the social practices of individuals within the community of practice
or culture being studied” (Scollon, 1998: 280).
The fourth type of data is the observer’s interactions with members. This
is particularly useful in resolving the divergence between generalized
analysis and individual experience (Scollon, 1998). Many of our field trips
lasted months in China, during which we had extensive and constant inter-
actions with individual Chinese or a group of Chinese. Our fieldwork also
covered many sites, including the northern and southern parts of China.
Thus, we compiled an extensive database, which has several special
characteristics that are pertinent to the investigation of the practice of
Chinese politeness. First, it is interactional in nature. We audio-taped meet-
ings, service encounter interactions, telephone calls, casual conversations,
personal history interviews, survey interviews, survey interviewer debriefings
and focus group discussions. Each of these communicative events involved
at least two participants. This is a valuable source for studying the two
aspects of politeness practice: the speaker’s application of politeness and
the hearer’s interpretation of politeness. By looking at both the speaker
and hearer perspectives, we can overcome the limitation of examining only
one aspect (be it the speaker or the hearer) of politeness practice (cf. our
politeness theoretical stance above).
Secondly, the audio-taped interactions represent actual language use rather
than a constructed methodology rooted in our discursive approach to linguis-
tic politeness. As we argued elsewhere (Pan, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c [in press]),
while constructed language data can be rather useful for studying politeness
practice, such data – collected through surveys or the method of discourse
completion tasks – are most likely to indicate the group members’ assumption
on politeness, and this assumption is often based on cultural beliefs and ste-
reotypical behaviours rather than realities. Therefore, the use of naturally
occurring data can yield more fruitful insights into how linguistic politeness is
actually applied and interpreted by Chinese interactants in various circum-
stances and how the current use of politeness differs from historical Chinese.
Thirdly, the data collected cover a range of social settings, representing
interactions in formal and informal, professional and familial occasions,
and involving an array of participants with various educational levels, age
groups, occupations and locations of living. We have data on Chinese living
in China, and overseas Chinese who emigrated to the United States from
Mainland China in the past two decades. Although Chinese immigrants

arguably behave differently in the multicultural US setting, the Chinese
subjects under study were recent and monolingual Chinese immigrants
who were least acculturated to American mainstream culture. The language
barrier prevented them from adopting new ways of expressing politeness.
Based on our research (Pan, 2008, 2011c [in press]; Chan and Pan, 2011
[in press]), linguistically, the recent and monolingual Chinese immigrants
exhibit similar behaviours as those noted in the literature on Mainland
Chinese linguistic behaviour (e.g. Li and Li, 1996; Hong, 1996). Thus the
variety in social settings and participants provides a valid base for exploring
the role of power and distance, and the axis of hierarchy and connection in
politeness behaviour.
In addition, the interactions recorded are in two main varieties of
Chinese: Mandarin and Cantonese.41 Mandarin (Putonghua ද೯၉) was
established as the standard language of the People’s Republic of China in
the early 1950s, and is based on the Peking dialect in its pronunciation and
the larger but relatively homogenous group of Northern Chinese Dialects
in its lexicon and grammar (Chen, 1999). Mandarin is used mostly in the
northern part of China, while Cantonese is used in the south east (Guangdong
Province, Guangxi Province, Hong Kong and Macau). Cantonese is also a
predominant form of Chinese in overseas Chinese communities because
most of the early Chinese immigrants came from Cantonese-speaking regions
(Yung, 1999; Wang, 2007). The intra-language variety in the data gives us a
unique opportunity to examine the function of code-switching (between
Mandarin and Cantonese) in Mainland Chinese politeness practice and
to observe the role of dialect-specific particles in expressing politeness.
In addition, the examination of data in two dialects provides a more com-
prehensive picture of Chinese politeness practice per se.
Finally, the data collected are across different time spans of contem-
porary China from the early 1990s to the late 2000s. During this time period,
China went through tremendous changes in terms of economic and societal
structures. By comparing data across time spans, we have been able to
demonstrate how the use of linguistic politeness reflects these changes in
Chinese society, which is one of the main objectives of this book.
5.3 Data from the ‘transitional’ period

Along with focusing on data from the periods compared, we analysed data
from the ‘transitional’ period, in order to track, if possible (cf. Chapter 5),
the stages of the transformation of ‘historical’ to ‘modern’ in China – though
‘transformation’ may not be the best expression to cover such an abrupt

and dramatic diachronic change.
The transitional period is perhaps the most complex one from a stylistic
perspective. After the May Fourth Movement (p. 8) Classical Chinese fell
out of usage as the official medium of writing, and was replaced by the so-
called baihua (‘clear speech’, p. 26) style. This baihua style is a modernized
form of its historical counterpart. Unlike historical vernacular, modern
baihua meant to be clear of Classical elements, hence allowing one to write
as they spoke, which seemed to be for many intellectuals a good way to
increase literacy. Thus, it can be argued that in early modern times the tra-
ditional Classical–vernacular diglossia officially ceased to exist, and the ver-
nacular replaced the Classical language. However, in reality Classical
Chinese remained in use in certain genres. By the time of Communist take-
over Classical Chinese had nearly completely disappeared as a medium
of writing in Mainland China, though in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other
‘foreign’ Chinese communities it is still in use, often intermixed with
vernacular, in some formal gongwen ϦЎ (‘official text’) genres.
In order to provide a reliable account on the language use of the trans-
itional period, we make use of two major types of dataset:
a) Personal and political letters written by early modern intellectuals and

politicians like Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhong-shan ৊ύξ, 1866–1925, the
pioneer of the Republic of China). These letters are useful because they
can be directly compared with the historical epistolary database. There
are various collections that contain modern letters such as Lin (2006).
In the present book we studied forty-eight letters written between the
1910s and the 1930s.
b) Twelve early republican short novels and essays, written by renowned
writers such as Lu Xun Ꮉِ (1881–1936) and Hu Shi च፾ (1891–
1962). We intentionally chose authors like Lu and Hu who were advoca-
tors of stylistic modernization, that is, vernacularization.
Notes
1
See a detailed discussion of these events in Têng (1944) and Fairbank (1953).
2
See, for example, Jahn (2005).
3
In order to illustrate the British worldview of the nineteenth century it is also
pertinent to refer to the imperialist and colonialist terminology of the time;
for example, Yang (2007: 52–3) notes about ‘looting’ that “[it] was a term that
grew out of the colonial experience in India and was then extended beyond the
frontiers of the subcontinent through the culture of colonialism, so much so that
one Nautical Glossary of 1867 refers to ‘Loot, plunder, or pillage, [as] a term
adopted from China.’ James Hevia argues that ‘Chinese loot can be located
within a pedagogy of imperialism, recruiting as it were volunteers for empire’,
that is, looting ‘suggests a relationship between the act of defeating China and
the constitution of colonialist subjects’.”
4
As Waley’s (1958: 31) illuminating monograph notes, the British politician
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) called the opium trade “most infamous
and atrocious” and strongly opposed H. J. Palmerston (1784–1865) and other
politicians who were in favour of the colonization of China.
5
See more on this issue in Swope (2002).
6
Cf. Fung (1999).
7
The First Opium War was soon followed by the Second Opium War (1856–1860).
8
Such encounters took place mainly at the eastern coastal territory of China. The
whole of China did not become a colonized country like India or Singapore,
but instead the invading powers conquered certain territories in which they
established colonies with extraterritorial rights.
9
As Li (2007: 23), citing from the Dutch scholar Hans van de Ven, points out, “the
Qing was ill-prepared to deal with Britain’s naval challenge not because it was
a backward country or a Confucian society with little regard for the military,
but because it had faced different sorts of military challenges and followed a
different path of military development than Britain.” That is, it would be quite
simplistic to argue that Chinese society was less ‘developed’ than British society
and was consequently defeated by the latter, an accusation often made by Marxist
theorists against ‘feudal’ China. In line with scholars such as van de Ven and Li,
we would argue that the situation was more complex: the defeat of China was
primarily military-based. Although Western social and scientific results might
have seemed to be highly developed and tempting to many Chinese, the social
superiority of the British was at least partly a myth, which served the financial and
ideological goals of the conquerors.
10
See more in Giles (1912).
11
In the series of the pre-1911 anti-Manchu rebellions perhaps the two most
important ones are the so-called Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and the Boxer
Rebellion (1899–1901).
12
The years between 1976 to 1979 are considered the ‘dawn of reform’ (see Gu,
1999).
13
It should be noted that ‘brainwashing’ is not used as an evaluative term here
but it is a borrowing of a Communist Chinese term, xinao ࢱတ (lit. ‘to wash the
brain’), and it refers to the Chinese Communist practice of changing certain
individuals’ or the masses’ opinion through education and other forms of mind-
manipulation.
14
As Mills and Kádár (2011 [in press]) argue, ‘culture’ is quite often used as a
prescriptive notion with regard to politeness, in particular in nationalistic
accounts.
15
In this book ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ refer to two different periods, cf. p. 25.
16
On this latter problem, that is, the class-ideology of politeness, see Mills and
Kádár (2011 [in press]).
17
If not denoted otherwise the translations in this volume belong to the authors.
18
See more in Kádár (2005).
19
A typical example of the supposed Chinese ‘mild’ cursing is the expression “May
you live in interesting times”, which probably never existed in China and was
invented by the Edwardian author Ernest Bramah (1868–1942); see more on this issue
on <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times>
20
Note that in Brown and Levinson’s theory the terms ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ do
not carry any value judgement.
21
Along with East Asian data, an important criticism of the Brown and Levinsonian
concept was made by using African (Igbo) data, cf. Nwoye’s (1992) study.
22
It should be noted though that there is no general agreement among scholars
who would define themselves as ‘discursive’ on the applicability of the first-order
versus second-order distinction, even though scholars agree about the importance
of focusing on lay notions.
23
A detailed overview of politeness research can be found in Eelen (2001) and
Mills (2011 [in press]).
24
Relying on Leech (2007), Kádár (2010a) argues that there is no clear border
between politic and politeness behaviour, but rather these two behavioural types
are the ends of a politic–polite scale.
25
An essential part of this paper was also published in the monograph Peng (2000).
26
It should be noted that when we refer to certain tools of ‘Chinese politeness’ we
do not intend to claim that these tools are necessarily unique to the Chinese
language.
27
It is pertinent to note that in line with historical pragmaticians such as Bax (2010)
we could also argue that the Brown and Levinsonian strategic approach is some-
what problematic if applied to historical data because in historical societies,
including historical China, politeness was often more ritualized and deferential
than ‘rationality-driven’ (cf. Chapter 3). While many of the Brown and Levinsonian
strategies can be identified in historical Chinese data, they are often applied
differently from Brown and Levinson’s framework. To pick an example, let us
take “Strategy 7: Impersonalize S [speaker] and H [hearer]” (Brown and
Levinson, 1987: 190–1); according to Brown and Levinson, it is “one way of indic-
ating that S doesn’t want to impinge on H” and so it is a way “to phrase the FTA
[face-threatening act]”. This strategy is regularly applied in historical Chinese
texts, as the following extract from a historical Chinese letter demonstrates:
ࣹۘང‫ޣך‬᠙ԶচϐǴሎୌ੻คఱ‫خ‬ǼȐȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝเቅ‫ڈ‬ўȑ
I prithee my loving friend judge this and forgive me, and my eternal gratitude
to you shall never cease! (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Response to Prefect Liu;
cited from Kádár, 2009: 124–5)
The author of this letter-fragment needs to decline an important invitation and

in order to decrease the impact of the refusal he impersonalizes the utterance by
referring to the other as ai-wo-zhe ང‫( ޣך‬lit. ‘the one who loves me’). As this
form of reference is nominalized, that is, it is not a term of address, it has imper-
sonalizing effect. This technique functions here in a Brown and Levinsonian way;
however, in many other cases it functions as a non-face-saving act, as the following
extract demonstrates:
؇λӵܴ۬‫ک‬၃Ǵ؇ᢠႥ਋Ǵຳᑲ॥ࢬǴᇂ‫׹׵‬ϐຽៜΨǶȐȜഓᗶ
ଈЁᛊȝΞเȑ
The verses of yourself and Magistrate Shen Xiaoru all have profound mean-
ing, perfect rhythm, free-flowing style and sophisticated text – their floating
sounds even rival the verses of Li Bai and Du Fu of old [i.e. the two perhaps
most renowned Chinese poets, translators’ remark]. You, gentlemen, can
rightly be acclaimed as heroes of poetry. (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Repeated
answer to Jiang Yunbiao; cited from Kádár, 2009: 82)
This extract, written by the same author, is also impersonalized. When praising
the addressee and a third referent (Magistrate Shen Xiaoru), the author names
the latter but not the addressee. Here he uses a popular Classical Chinese tech-
nique of depersonalization via ellipsis, that is, he refers to the poems of the
recipient and Shen Xiaoru as Shen Xiaoru mingfu he shi ؇λӵܴ۬‫ک‬၃
(lit. ‘poems by revered Magistrate Shen Xiaoru with’); the word ‘with’ (he ‫)ک‬
indicates that the author’s appraisal also refers to the recipient, but the recipient
is not explicitly referred to. This impersonalization does not have any obvious
strategic goal – it is simply part of the ongoing ritual and deferential discourse
(see more on this issue in Chapter 3). This phenomenon supports the afore-
mentioned claim that it is somewhat problematic to apply the Brown and
Levinsonian framework on historical data (though the same problem can
happen in contemporary data).
28
In line with post-modern theorizations we argue that speech acts per se are not
polite; for example, Watts’ monograph (2003: 69) convincingly demonstrates
that no speech act is inherently polite or impolite.
29
The exploration of Chinese ‘face’ began in 1944 with Hsien Chin Hu’s ground-
breaking paper. From the 1970s onwards, a wide range of publications were
devoted to the exploration of Chinese ‘face’, such as Ho (1976), King and Myers
(1977), Bond and Lee (1981), Greenblatt et al. (1982), Dien (1983) and Hwang
(1987). See more on this issue in Chapter 4.
30
In Chinese ‘face’ has different emic equivalents with quite different meanings;
cf. Haugh and Hinze (2003).
31
A detailed overview of these debates and other related issues can be found in
Xu’s (2000) authoritative monograph.
32
Supposedly from the Tang Dynasty onwards.
33
The relationship between Classical and vernacular Chinese is often compared
with that between Classical and spoken Arabic. A detailed comparison of Classical
and vernacular Chinese can be found in Norman (1988).
34
For example, popular crime fictions included deliberately Classical parts such as
court reports, and Classical genres such as essays included reported speech
coined in a vernacular way. Also, discussing certain topics necessitated a more
Classical style in vernacular genres and vice versa in Classical genres.
35
It should be noted that although some Chinese academic works contrast Classical
Chinese and vernacular as the languages of the ‘ruling elite’ and the ‘oppressed’
(e.g. Zhang, Z., 1995), in reality both of these written styles belonged to the elite,
as the aforementioned scalar relationship may also indicate. This is because
in historical China literacy rate was relatively low, and also ‘proper’ writing in
vernacular style necessitated a strong command of Classical Chinese. Thus, for

example, ‘popular’ literature was also read by the literati only.
36
More information on this corpus is available in the following website: <http://
khnt.hit.uib.no/icame/manuals/HC/INDEX.HTM>
37
These letters were translated to English as part of a long-term research
project supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund and The Chiang
Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Taiwan (see
Acknowledgements). Most of these letters were/will be published in three
collections, including Kádár (2009, 2010b) and a forthcoming collection. Along
with this corpus the present book includes some individually chosen works
such as (16) in Chapter 3.
38
Historical Chinese epistolary collections, unlike their European counterparts
(e.g. Fitzmaurice, 2002), usually do not include subscriptions (nor superscrip-
tions), and so it is usually difficult to date them.
39
While it is difficult to date the most recent handwritten edition of Xue-guanhua
(cf. Setoguchi, 2003) due to lack of data, on the basis of the manuscript’s style
(e.g. calligraphy, layout and depilation) we estimate the text to be an eighteenth-
century one.
40
It is pertinent to note that apart from Ryūkyūan textbooks there are other inter-
cultural sources that could have been relevant for the present study, namely,
textbooks written by and for missionaries in China (cf. Pennycook and Coutand-
Marin, 2003). While due to limitations of our data collecting capacity this group
of works has been left untouched in the present work, it would be an interesting
task for future research to explore the education of politeness in missionary
textbooks.
41
There are nine Chinese dialectal groups (cf. Norman, 1988), that is, our contem-
porary data is limited on two of them.
Chapter 3
Politeness in Historical China
1 Introduction
In this chapter, following a brief overview of relevant literature, we will

survey politeness in historical China, first mapping its general characteristics
and then deconstructing the myth that the historical Chinese were de facto
polite. Section 2 reviews the ‘system’ of formal politeness: first we examine
self-denigrating and addressee-elevating honorific and formal forms and
then polite linguistic strategies in the speech acts of refusals, apologies
and requests. It is argued that Chinese politeness – in line with politeness
in many other historical societies – was ritual and deferential. The label
‘deference’ is used in a Goffmanian sense: “deference behaviour on the
whole tends to be honorific and politely toned, conveying appreciation of
the recipient” (1967: 60).
Section 3 re-explores the myth of the ‘polite historical Chinese’. We first
demonstrate that there is an important truth value in John Barrow’s
(cf. Chapter 1) stereotyping report on the refined and hierarchy-oriented
historical Chinese behaviour. Chinese politeness was rather unequally
distributed, in the sense that honorific lexical items ‘belonged’ to certain
social groups by both social rank and education. Also, historical politeness
was ‘asymmetrical’: even in equal social relationships, interactants pre-
ferred to use honorifics in an unequal way. However, in line with our
critical discursive stance, we draw attention to the ambiguity of this phe-
nomenon. While ‘hierarchy’ dominated ‘civil’ discourse, several groups
challenged this notion to some extent: honorific style did not apply in
various contexts.
2 Literature Overview
Before exploring politeness in China it is worthwhile to briefly survey the

research literature in the field. In spite of the importance of China in world
Politeness in Historical China 39
history, little attention has been devoted to historical Chinese politeness.

The few studies on this topic include Chinese and Japanese works, notably
Guoyue Peng’s studies (1998, 1999, 2000) published in Japanese, a mainland
Chinese monograph by Yuan (1994), and some specialized dictionaries
such as Ji, C. (2000) and Hong (2002). Unfortunately, none of these studies
are sociopragmatics-based and they do not discuss issues that could be
categorized as ‘politeness research’ in a discursive – or even pragmatic –
sense. Peng’s most comprehensive work, a monograph published in 2000,
explores historical Chinese politeness from a cognitive perspective: relying
on the semantic meaning of honorifics it reconstructs the cognitive features
of historical Chinese politeness. In spite of its great scholarly value Peng’s
work has little to offer in terms of discursive behaviour, as it presupposes
that honorifics per se are polite. Yuan’s (1994) monograph published in
Chinese is a similarly important source, which overviews the history of
Chinese honorific terms of address by means of philology. Again, this work
is not a pragmatic study, and so it does not reveal much about politeness-
related issues. Finally, the dictionaries edited by Ji, C. (2000) and Hong
(2002) should be mentioned here because they are perhaps the most
important lexical sources for the expert of historical Chinese honorifics.
Western literature is as limited as its Sino-Japanese counterpart. The
so-called first pragmatics-based publication on historical Chinese politeness
is Skewis’ (2003) notable article, which explores directives in the Qing
Dynasty novel Honglou-meng (cf. Chapter 1). Although this is a thought-
provoking article, its framework is rather ‘traditional’ in the sense that it
relies on prescriptive politeness frameworks. Altenburger’s (1997) German
monograph is also an illuminating contribution to the field, and studies
historical Chinese forms of address, without – unfortunately for the polite-
ness researcher – applying a politeness theoretical framework. Perhaps the
only attempt to apply discursive theorizations on historical Chinese data
was made by Kádár (2007a, 2007b, 2008, 2009) whose studies primarily
examine terms of address and their discursive application, and thus are
limited in scope.
While Yueguo Gu’s research paper (1990), perhaps the most influential
study on Chinese politeness research, does not discuss historical issues
in depth, it should also be listed here because it was the first study that
introduced the historical Chinese phenomenon of addressee-elevation and
self-denigration to Western readership.
Considering the limited nature of the literature, it can be argued that the
present chapter fills an important knowledge-gap by attempting to overview
historical Chinese politeness.
3 Historical Chinese Politeness
In many historical societies politeness was equated with rituality and defer-
ence. For example, Jucker’s illuminating paper demonstrates that curteisie,
the Middle English equivalent of ‘politeness’, was a kind of
discernment politeness, where linguistic forms are chosen in response to

the social context, and not as a strategy to avert a face threat. (2010: 196)
The label ‘discernment’ refers to the Japanese sociolinguist Sachiko Ide’s

definition (1989), according to which linguistic politeness has an import-
ant ‘non-strategic’ or discernment aspect and used in accordance with
social rather than psychological context, without the basic motivation to
save face (i.e. doing facework in a Brown and Levinsonian sense). Thus, the
basic meaning of ‘politeness’ in many Medieval societies like the English
was the acknowledgement of the other’s social status through rituality – and
one’s own status through ritual self-display – even though Jucker (above)
also notes that this does not mean that strategic politeness or facework did
not exist, simply it was less salient than in modern times. Although no
comparative historical intercultural study has been dedicated to this issue,
Bax in his groundbreaking paper notes the following:
Brown and Levinson have rightly stressed the universality of face-

work/politeness. Still, from the angle of cultural and historical variation,
modern Western rationality-driven, hearer-oriented politeness appears to
be the exceptional case. I venture to think that ritual methods exemplified
by temporally, geographically, and culturally distinct varieties such as, on
the one hand, early modern European epistolary politeness and, on the
other, the elaborate ‘oriental’ polite forms, beautification strategies, and
ceremonious routines found throughout the Near, Middle, and Far East
are closer to the generic standard approach, i.e. ritual self-display, than
are the over time rationalised interaction rituals of the West. (2010: 79)
Bax’s claim seems to be supported by Chinese data: historical Chinese

politeness was deferential, that is, it was predominantly expressed by ritually
used honorifics and other deferential discursive strategies.
In historical China, the acknowledgement of the other’s social status
through deferential language use was the motor of politeness behaviour.
Social status supposedly gained such a prominent role in politeness behaviour
and lexicon due to the individual’s subordinated role in society. As Grasso

and colleagues note,
In China the group was always paramount and the individual conse-
quently and often mercilessly subordinated to it. Each individual had to
contribute to the general welfare and do nothing to disrupt the order
and stability deemed so vital to the functioning of the system on which
community life depended. The individual first was subordinated to the
family, the basic economic, political, and moral institution in Chinese
society. It was the family, not the individual, that owned property, paid
taxes, and frequently took responsibility for the legal or moral transgres-
sions of one of its members. (2004: 12)
That is, even the smallest predetermined social unit, the family, was a strictly
hierarchical community; as Che states, status in the family was governed by
age hierarchy, or “the dominance of the older generations, the parents in
particular” (1979: 30) and sex hierarchy, that is, male dominance. Out of
the family the individual was subordinated to other social groups, which all
had similarly hierarchical internal structures. Roughly speaking, Chinese
society itself was a large patriarchal hierarchical pyramid, its patriarchal
figure being the emperor. This hierarchical structure blocked the develop-
ment of individualism even in late imperial times. As Alagappa notes,
there seems to be a general consensus that Chinese civil society during

the late imperial era interacted closely with state actors, leading some to
argue that Chinese civil society differed in fundamental ways from the
developing in Europe. Although the commercialization and urbanization
of Chinese economy led to a rapid development in a variety of associ-
ations . . . they were more closely tied to the state, in a distinctly hierarchical
relationship, than their counterparts in Europe were. (2004: 423)
It should be noted that this historical Chinese social model was not particu-
larly ‘oppressive’ (as Chinese Marxists often claim) and not even ‘exotic’.
The notion of ‘freedom’ simply was not linked with individuality, which is
quite similar to many other historical societies such as Medieval European
ones. As Fromm rightly notes,
Medieval society did not deprive the individual of his freedom, because
the ‘individual’ did not exist. (1941: 43)
While this might be a strong claim, we should indeed be aware that our
contemporary understanding of social ‘freedom’ may not apply to histor-
ical times. Historical individuals were not robots: people acted individually
and freely, but the fate of the individual was usually linked to that of their
community. This is not to mean, however, that differences did not exist
across historical societies; an obvious difference between China and
the West is that in Europe the role and perceptions of individual(ism)
dramatically changed during the Renaissance, while in China the subor-
dinate role of the individual was never questioned before the appearance
of British gunboats and the subsequent defeat of the country.1 That is, on
the eve of the Chinese empire the individual was still as subordinated
to community as it was several centuries before. Consequently, as its social
and interpersonal function remained identical, politeness was also rather
conservative, its norms and forms being quite similar to that of previous
centuries.2
Due to the fact that group membership, and in a wider sense social role,
was (and, to some extent, continues to be) relatively important in China, in
politeness behaviour the speaker/writer addressed the recipient’s social
role rather than individual characteristics. To provide an example, let us
cite the following lines from a love letter:
(1)!ҷ‫ޱۺ‬ঙǴҏᡏയதǴ१઀ค৫ǶǾ !!!!໡ΓుठǴόཎ
௣ϡǴԜ੿τᄀΡϻǾȐȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝ஌ഋ
ߎ៩ȑ
[I] respectfully hope that [your] precious health, my dear, is in fine
fettle, and that [you] are eating and sleeping well. . . . [Indeed, you
are] an outstanding person of refined insight, [and you are not only]
worthy to [be praised as] the first beauty and talent but also [you]
possess the most stouthearted spirit . . . (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat,
Letter to Chen Jinying, cited from Kádár, 2009: 134–6)
This love letter – which would be perhaps much too platonic for our age,
even though it was written to a high-class courtesan (!) – interestingly dem-
onstrates the significance of social values in historical Chinese politeness.
The author addresses his lover as fangqing ‫ޱ‬ঙ (lit. ‘fragrant minister’,
trans. ‘my dear’); this term of address appeals to both the recipient’s
physical features (she is ‘fragrant’, that is, beautiful) and her claimed social
role (she is claimed to be a ‘minister’, that is, high ranking). On the level
of discursive strategies the author deferentially compares the recipient to

a lunyuan ௣ϡ (bu-kui lunyuan όཎ௣ϡ, lit. ‘to be worth to lunyuan’),
that is, a person who passed the imperial official examinations with the best
result. Since women were not allowed to take part in examinations, this
reference implies that she is a most beautiful and talented woman who in
the society of females has a role whose importance is on a par with a lunyuan
among males (and hence the above translation of lunyuan as ‘first beauty
and talent’).
Explorations of historical Chinese texts reveal that the social role of the
recipient was acknowledged in historical China by means of a twofold tech-
nique: the self-denigration of the speaker/writer and the elevation of the
addressee. This phenomenon is defined as ziqian Ծᖰ (‘self-humiliation’)
and tazun д൧ (‘other-respect’) in Chinese.3 By ritually denigrating their
own social role and elevating that of the addressee, the speaker addressed
the most important socio-cognitive value of the recipient, group member-
ship (cf. Peng, 2000), and consequently elevation and denigration became
the basic means of expressing politeness. Also, these forms were socio-in-
dexical in the sense that they defined the relationship between the speaker/
writer and the addressee, and so they also expressed ritual self-display (e.g.
fangqing in (2) is a slightly patronizing masculine form of address used
towards females). It should be noted here that elevation/denigration is
not a China-specific phenomenon but a somewhat representative feature
of politeness in traditional East Asian ‘sinoxenic’ cultures (i.e. cultures
influenced by the Chinese written culture). For example, a more widely
known ‘equivalent’4 of this phenomenon is the Japanese kenjoˉgo ᖰ侎ᇟ
and sonkeigo ൧ལᇟ. Also, this phenomenon has equivalents in Medieval
Western societies such as ‘humility’ – though, of course, major differences
could be found between historical Chinese and Medieval Western mani-
festations of ritual politeness.5 For instance, Jaeger, in his thought-provoking
monograph on Medieval court values, cites the following words of the
British statesman Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c.1471–1530):
To be humble to superiors is duty; to equals is courtesie; to inferiors, is

nobleness; and to all, safety. (2000: 39)
Due to the fact that Chinese does not allow morphosyntactic changes like
Japanese and Korean, this twofold concept manifests itself in discourse
through a large lexicon of honorifics and various discursive strategies.
3.1 Lexical manifestations of historical Chinese politeness

3.1.1 Honorific forms of address
On the lexical level, the most frequently used honorifics are terms of
address, which:
a) denigrate the speaker/writer and their intimates/belongings

b) elevate the addressee and their intimates/belongings, or (indirectly) a
third-revered person.
For example, the term xiaoren λΓ (lit. ‘small person’, that is, ‘this worth-
less person’) denigrates the speaker and gaojun ଯ։ (‘high lord’) elevates
the speech partner. Xiaonü λζ (lit. ‘small woman’, that is, ‘worthless
daughter’) denigrates the speaker’s daughter and qianjin ίߎ (lit. ‘thousand
gold’, that is, ‘venerable daughter’) elevates the addressee’s daughter.
Interestingly, indirect honorific terms of address also exist in reference to
inanimate entities such as the house of the speaker/writer (e.g. hanshe
ൣް, lit. ‘cold lodging’) and that of the addressee (e.g. guifu ຦۬,
lit. ‘precious court’).
No quantitative study has been carried out so far to estimate the number
of such honorific forms in Chinese, but it can be argued without the risk
of exaggeration that there were several thousand terms of address.6 This
number suggests that addressing others properly was a pivotal part of polite
communication. As members of different social groups had to be addressed
in different ways (see more in Section 4.1 below), and they were also
expected to use different self-denigrating forms when referring to them-
selves in polite discourse, the number of elevating/denigrating forms of
address was naturally extensive. Furthermore, the Chinese were rather
productive in creating honorific terms of address: as Kádár (2007b) argues,
new terms were continuously coined and others fell out of daily usage.
Let us demonstrate the function of elevating denigrating terms by citing
extracts from dialogues and letters:
(2)!೭ৎูѐΑъၩǶ΋ВӣٰǴ‫ـ‬Αλ༠ᇥǺȨλΓ‫ډ‬ৎ
‫ע‬ਜߞᆶεྭ࣮Α!Ǿ!ȩ)Ȝϲи໺ȝಃΟӣ*
This young male servant was away for a half year. One day he came
back and when he saw Little Tang he said: “This humble person
came home in order to give this letter to Your Highness . . .”
(Shengxian-zhuan, chapter 3)
(3)!ၘࣔགᖴόᅰǴѝᇥǺȨࡑܺᅈࡕǴᒃ஥λХ‫۬ډ‬і
ᖴǶȩ)ȜआኴფȝಃΟΜӣ*
Jia Zhen was expressing his gratitude endlessly, saying: “Please wait
until the time of the mourning is over and [I will] personally bring
[my] worthless son to [your] noble dwelling to respectfully say thanks
to you.” (Honglou-meng, chapter 20)
(4)!೭В҅Ԗᒃ϶ᎃٰٚቼລǴѦय़ৎΓٰӣᇥǴᇥԖ୯మ
ӽБΡ‫ޜ܄‬Ǵ๏঩Ѧଌٰ΋ҽࠆᘶǴᒃٰລ഻Ƕ঩Ѧ߆
ௗ຾ٰǶ‫ޜ܄‬ᇥǺȨ঩Ѧε഻Ƕз॔ϦёѳӼǻȩ
)ȜᔮϦӄ໺ȝಃ΋ӣ*
On this day the relatives and neighbours came to congratulate; a
family member who was receiving the guests said that Xingkong
Abbot of the Guoqing Temple came to congratulate in person and
brought a generous celebration gift to the squire. The squire invited
him in. Xingkong said: “[I wish you] great happiness, Squire. Is the
Young Lord in good health?” (Jigong quanzhuan, chapter 1)
(5)!ѠᎯόٰǴӳॣӃԿǴҭ‫ى‬аัኃϒᚶǶოҖࡽ೏௘‫ى‬
‫ޣ‬ӃளǴ၈ឦ༿л౧۹ϐ‫گ‬Ƕ)Ȝᎄ݈ᐏৎਜȝणᑜύ஌
ଘ߄‫*׌‬
[You, my] honoured friend, have not [yet] arrived, but the good
news [of your plan to come hither] has reached [me], and this is
sufficient to slightly comfort my [troubled] heart. The burial site has
been obtained by a swifter customer, and this is certainly the fault of
[your] humble elder brother’s carelessness. (Family Letters of Zheng
Banqiao, A letter written to younger cousin Hao from my post in Fan County,
cited from Kádár, 2010b: 13–14)
In (2) the speaker refers to himself as xiaoren λΓ (‘this worthless person’)

and elevates his interlocutor as daye εྭ (lit. ‘great grandfather’, that is,
‘Your Highness’); this extract exemplifies the use of direct elevating/deni-
grating forms of address. In (3) the speaker refers to his son as xiaoquan
λХ (lit. ‘small dog’, that is, ‘my worthless son’), which illustrates indirect
self-denigration, that is, when one denigrates one’s intimates (and, conse-
quently, oneself). Furthermore, the speaker refers to the other’s home as
fu ۬ (lit. ‘court’, that is, noble dwelling), which is an example for the
elevation of a non-animate belonging of the recipient (his home). In (4)
the Abbot refers to the addressee’s son as linglang-gong з॔Ϧ (lit. ‘ruling
young lord’, ‘Young Lord’), which is thus an example of the indirect

elevation of the addressee’s family member.7 Finally, (5) is an example for
the use of honorific forms of address in written discourse; here the author
refers to the recipient as taijia ѠᎯ (lit. ‘Your Excellency’, ‘my honoured
friend’) and to himself as yuxiong ༿л (lit. ‘crazy elder brother’, ‘humble
elder brother’).
Due to the important role of family in Chinese society, the above-discussed
system of direct and indirect honorific social indexing had different lexicons
for familial and non-familial settings. That is, different forms of address
were used towards family members and non-family addressees, and the
category of familial forms of address also had different subcategories: patri-
archal and matriarchal relatives, as well as the relatives of one’s spouse,
were addressed/referred to by different lexicons.8 Familial forms of address
were also used towards non-kin in emotive discourse. This latter type of the
addressing phenomenon, ‘quasi-familial’ addressing, is illustrated by the
following extract:
(6)!ӛдᇥၰǺȨ፣‫׌‬Ǵգ᠋‫ך‬ᇥǶգӵϞӣѐǴ‫ں‬٣Р
҆ǴᕴаЎകᖐ཰ࣁЬǶ!Ǿ!ȩ)ȜᏂ݅ѦўȝಃΜϖӣ*
He said to him: “Wise younger brother, listen to what I say. You
would better return home now, respectfully take care of your
parents, and make [your] literary studies a priority . . .” (Rulin
waishi, chapter 15)
In this interaction, the speaker refers to the addressee as xiandi ፣‫( ׌‬lit.
‘wise younger brother’), and so symbolically includes him in the circle of
his kin, hence expressing both emotive closeness and deference.
The system of historical Chinese honorific forms of address are summa-
rized in Table 1.
3.1.2 Honorific verb forms

Along with terms of address, another important historical lexical tool for
elevation and denigration is the group of honorific verb forms, that is,
forms that deferentially describe the actions of the speaker and the
addressee. Examples for verb forms occur in the extracts above, such as
kouxie іᖴ (lit. ‘thanking with prostration’) in (3) and fengshi ‫ں‬٣ (lit.
‘offering service [respectfully with] two hands’, that is, ‘respectfully take
Table 1 Historical Chinese terms of address
Politeness in Historical China

Direct elevating Direct Indirect elevating Indirect denigrating Indirect elevating Indirect denigrating Quasi-familial Quasi-familial
t.o.a. (term of denigrating t.o.a. (ref. t.o.a. (ref. t.o.a. (ref. t.o.a. (ref. elevating denigrating
address) t.o.a. animated entity) animated entity) unanimated entity) unanimated entity) t.o.a. t.o.a.
daren εΓ xiaoren λΓ zun-furen ൧ϻΓ yuqi ༿‫!ۀ‬ guifu ຦۬! hanshe ൣް! xianxiong ፣л yuxiong ༿л
(lit. ‘great man’, (lit. ‘small man’, (lit. ‘revered lady’, (lit. ‘foolish wife’, (lit. ‘precious court’, (lit. ‘cold lodging’, (lit. ‘wise elder (lit. ‘this foolish
Your Honour) this humble your wife) humble wife) your home); my humble home); brother’) elder brother
person) yayi Уཀ! biyi ሄཀ! of yours’)
(lit. ‘refined (lit. ‘humble
opinion’, your opinion’)
opinion)
47
care’). In order to illustrate the simultaneous application of elevating/

denigrating forms, let us cite the following extract:
(7)!ኧՉ‫ں‬թǴ‫׆‬ջ‫ڮ‬ᎯǼ)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝᆶᖴЧࠄ*
[I write these] few lines to respectfully inform [you of this matter,
and I] sincerely hope [you will] immediately prepare for travel.
(Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Letter to Xie Bingnan; cited from Kádár,
2009: 143–4)
In this letter subscription the author uses the forms fengbu ‫ں‬թ (lit. ‘offering
a declaration respectfully with two hands’, that is, respectfully inform some-
body about a matter) and mingjia ‫ڮ‬Ꭿ (lit. ‘ordering chariot’, that is, prepare
for travel). The first form deferentially lowers the action of the speaker/
writer, while the second one elevates that of the addressee (a relatively poor
person) by deferentially describing his departure to that of a high-ranking
person who gives orders to his chariot driver(s) before a journey.
Elevating/denigrating verb forms are less frequent in the data studied
than terms of address. This is perhaps partly because the use of verb forms
necessitated a good command of Classical Chinese literature: explorations
of vernacular texts seem to suggest that honorific verbs were popular
among the educated elite, while in the data studied lower educated speak-
ers rarely apply these forms. Another, related, reason is that these forms are
considerably more frequent in letters and other monologic genres than in
novels and similar dialogic genres. Due to the ‘written style’ of these forms,
in dialogic interactions they are used only in relatively formal contexts or
interactions of significant power difference.
3.1.3 Other lexical items

There are various lexical items that can gain honorific meaning when used
in deferential contexts. Unlike forms of address and verbs, many of these
‘unconventional’ terms do not have honorific semantic meaning but
express deference when used in reference to the interactants or another
revered person. In Kádár (2010a) these forms have been studied in detail
and here we only introduce the most important types of expressions belong-
ing to this category.
a) A basic type of ‘unconventional’ deferential expression is that of

terms which express some positive (elevating) or negative (denigrating)
semantic values but are not honorific formulae; cf. the following
extract:
(8)!྽ֽ‫ޣ‬ςѨ‫ځ‬යǴค‫܁‬਒ᢀ‫ޣ‬ᜤઓ‫ځ‬ΝǶ)ȜഓᗶଈЁ
ᛊȝเٜᒴং*
If those to whom this joyous matter happens are unable to predict
its time, one cannot wonder that a bystander cannot foretell it.
(Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Answer to Ruan Xihou; cited from
Kádár, 2009: 190)
The author of this letter-fragment discusses the birth of the addressee’s

child. In order to express politeness towards the younger and hence
somewhat lower ranking correspondent, the author refers to him and
his wife by using the expression dangju-zhe ྽ֽ‫ޣ‬. The literal meaning
of this word is ‘authorities’; it describes authorities in general and it is
rarely used as an honorific expression in other historical sources, nor it
is defined as an honorific expression by specialized dictionaries (e.g.
Jiang, 2002). However, in the present context the author uses this expres-
sion in an ‘irregular’ way, in order to express polite meaning by symboli-
cally elevating the addressee and his wife to the rank of ‘authorities’.
b) The above category of nominal expressions has verb counterparts, as

illustrated by the following example:
(9)!ཎ⼴ᆢϐ҂ૈǴ২៮ฅԶ໾ձǶ)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝเഋ
യ༜*
[I] feel ashamed that [I] could not persuade your highly talented
self to stay and could do naught but say farewell with dejection in
my heart. (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Answer to Chen Shengyuan;
In this letter, written to a rank-equal fellow office assistant, the author

uses the expression zhiwei ⼴ᆢ, which literally means ‘retaining a
man of talent’ (trans. ‘persuade your highly talented self to stay’). This
expression is not a formulaic honorific expression, and in Classical
texts it is used as a political ideal for rulers who should retain men of
talent. Yet, in the present context it conveys some elevating meaning
because it symbolically draws a parallel between the addressee and a
man of talent.
c) Another noteworthy type of ‘unconventional’ honorific forms is the

class of onomatopoeic words; see the following example:
(10)!ӃᒵԜЎǴ໩ଭሀ΢Ǵբጪჿϐ໺ൂՖӵǻ‫ڛڛ‬Ǽ
)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝᆶЦӓΓ*
[Yet,] first [I] record this poem and entrust a courier to respect-
fully present it to you. Is it fit even to be used as [an artless and
functional] note [to keep you abreast of my experiences here]?
Hah-hah! (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, To Wang Jiren; cited from
Kádár, 2009: 74–5)
In this letter, written to a friend, the author denigrates the value of his
own poem by symbolically comparing it with an official note or circular
(chuandan ໺ൂ), which is claimed to be a worthless genre. And, in
order to reinforce this denigrating strategy, he applies the onomato-
poeic word hehe ‫‘( ڛڛ‬hah-hah’), thus conveying a humorous self-den-
igrating meaning in the given context.
d) There is a large group of idiomatic expressions, usually consisting of four

Chinese characters (defined in Chinese as si-zi shuyu Ѥӷዕᇟ or ‘four-
character expressions’); many of these formulaic expressions can express
honorific meaning. In particular, certain idiomatic expressions are fre-
quently used in honorific contexts as the following two extracts illustrate:
(11)!Դ ߄ ‫ ژ‬р ฽ ௵ ௘ Ǵ Ԗ ӵ எ ར Ǵ ђ ϐ ॸ ଭ ԋ Ў Ǵ
྽ҭӵࢂǶ)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝเ৪լৎ*
[You,] venerable uncle, wield the brush with consummate skill and
create as if from memory, akin to the men of old who could write
even whilst in the saddle. (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Answer to
Xu Kejia; cited from Kádár, 2009: 60–1)
(12)!Ԃⓢаλ၃ΒകǴஅᏢϻΓǴளЙࠑ‫ځ‬ਏᡮ‫ב‬ᗒओǻ
)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝൺҺ᝵஫*
Also, [I am] sending you two of [my] worthless poems, [yet I am
afraid that I am only mimicking your magnificent style and] act
like a servant girl who tries to behave in a ladylike manner – [I]
pray you will not laugh [when reading it and will see that] it merely
attempts to imitate your style [in the manner of the ugly woman
who mimicked the beautiful lady’s behaviour forgetting about the
fact that she is displeasing to the eye]. (Letters from Snow Swan
Retreat, Answer to Ren Su’an; cited from Kádár, 2009: 69–70)
In the first extract, cited from a letter written to a relative, the author uses
two proverbs, youru-sugou Ԗӵஎར (trans. ‘create as if from memory’)
and yima-chengwen ॸଭԋЎ (trans. ‘[akin to the men of old who could]
write even whilst in the saddle’), which elevate the addressee in the given
context. In the second extract, a letter written to a friend, the author uses
the following two idioms in order to refer to himself: bi-xue-furen அᏢϻ
Γ (trans. ‘act like a servant girl who tries to behave in a ladylike manner’)
and xiaopin-wangchou ਏᡮ‫ב‬ᗒ (trans. ‘it merely attempts to imitate
your style [akin to the ugly woman who mimicked the beautiful lady’s
behaviour forgetting about the fact that she is displeasing to the eye]’). In
the present context these Classical idiomatic expressions convey denigrat-
ing contextual meanings – both of them deferentially claiming that the
author’s abilities cannot be compared to that of the recipient.
The honorific category defined as ‘other lexical items’ is even more ‘written’
in style than honorific verb forms: such expressions are hardly used in dia-
logic vernacular texts. Furthermore, the use of these forms necessitated an
excellent command of Chinese literature – idiomatic expressions were
acquired as part of Classical education – and so these forms were used by
members of the learned elite only.
To sum up this overview of honorific and other lexical forms, the import-
ance of honorifics seems to demonstrate that historical Chinese politeness
was deference-based. Also, these forms were ritually used in the sense that
by self-denigration and addressee-elevation the speaker/writer designated
their relationship with the addressee, and – more importantly – displayed
their social status, and consequently these forms often seem to occur in
‘out-of-context’ settings from a contemporary perspective. For example,
many would agree that an emotive and personal context like (1) does not
necessitate the use of honorifics.
Perhaps, it would be a mistake to put every lexical form of deference under
the umbrella of elevation and denigration: for example, euphemisms (wanci
஀ᜏ) also constitute an important part of the historical Chinese honorific
lexicon. However, some enquiries into such seemingly non-elevating/
denigrating lexical categories reveal that they are often related with the
elevation/denigration phenomenon. For example, many Chinese euphem-
isms expressed some elevating or denigrating meaning (cf. Hong, 2002):
qingbei ໼፸ (lit. ‘collapse [of a person belonging to the] older genera-
tion’) is a euphemism used when one’s senior dies, that is, it conveys
elevating meaning (Hong, 2002: 344). In a similar way, as example (6)
above has demonstrated, many terms of endearment were elevating and
denigrating in nature.
3.2 Discursive strategies of historical Chinese politeness

If we approach historical Chinese strategies by means of our simplistic
definition, that is, observe politeness strategy as a conventional act (cf.
Chapter 1), it becomes evident that historical Chinese politeness strategies
usually occur in deferential contexts. Consequently, they mostly express
elevating and denigrating meanings and co-occur with honorific forms. In
order to illustrate the ritualized–deferential character of strategies, let us
focus on the discursive work of speech acts in refusals, requests and
apologies.
3.2.1 Refusals
Historical Chinese refusals are illustrated by the following interaction:
(13) 1.!‫׹‬ϿঙၰǺȨλᨷ๷ωჲᏢǴεΓᇤߍ຀ӜǴ৮‫ځ‬Ԗ
࣐ᙚᛊǶȩ
Du Shaoqing said: “This humble nephew [of yours] lacks learning,
Your Highness erroneously appraised [him, and he] is afraid that
[you will] recommend him undeservedly.”
2.!‫׵‬εΓၰǺȨόѸϼᖰǴ‫ߡך‬ӛ۬ᑜ‫่ڗ‬Ƕȩ
High Official Li responded: “[You] need not be modest, I will
recommend you to the local authorities.”
3.!‫׹‬ϿঙၰǺȨεΓࠟངǴλᨷଁό‫ޕ‬ǻՠλᨷᗸജϐ
‫܄‬Ǵ૛ഁᄍΑǴ߈ΞӭੰǴᗋ‫؃‬εΓќೖǶȩ
Du Shaoqing said: “How would this humble nephew [of yours] dis-
regard the loving care of Your Highness? But this humble person
has a rude character, [he] has been accustomed to rustic life, and
recently [he] is suffering from many illnesses, and so [he] neverthe-
less begs Your Highness to recommend somebody else.”
4.!‫ ׵‬ε Γ ၰ Ǻ Ȩ Ш ৎ η ‫ ׌‬Ǵ ࡛ ᇥ ள ό ޭ ଺ ‫ ۔‬ǻ

‫ך‬ೖ‫ޑ‬όৡǴࢂाᙚ‫ޑ‬Ǽȩ
High Official Li said: “Who could a young man who was born in
the family of officials say that he does not want to become an
official? I did not make a mistake [when selecting you] and I shall
recommend you!”
5.!‫ ׹‬Ͽ ঙ ൩ ό ඪ ӆ ᇥ Α Ǵ ‫ ׵‬ε Γ ੮ ๱ Ր Α ΋ ‫ ڹ‬Ǵ

৾р೚ӭ၃Ўٰፎ௲Ƕ)ȜᏂ݅ѦўȝಃΟΜΟӣ*
Du Shaoqing did not dare to say aught else. High Official Li made
him stay until late in the evening, asking his comments on various
poems and prosaic texts. (Rulin waishi, chapter 33)
In this interaction Du Shaoqing tries to ritually decline High Official Li’s

offer to recommend him to an official post. Along with using various hon-
orific forms of address and verb forms,9 he strategically emphasizes his own
lack of talent, refers to his own unfortunate circumstances and acknow-
ledges the interlocutor’s goodwill; these are typical ritualized strategies
used in refusals (cf. Kádár, forthcoming). Thus, here we can not only
see ‘cooperation’ between formulae and strategies, but the strategies
themselves are also denigrating and elevating in nature.
The same phenomenon can be observed in written discourse, as
illustrated by the following letter-fragment:
(14)!Ⴜϐ௽࣪ǴࣁᗉғВǴߚࣁ଺ғВΨǶ‫܍‬ፏϦటტ‫ך‬Ǵ
ႼՖඪᜏǻϻ‫܌‬ᒏტ‫ޣ‬ǴѸ‫ځ‬ΓԖቺёॊǴՏё൧Ǵ
‫ۈ‬ё଺ტǶӵႼϐሄЪ೦‫ޣ‬ǴՖტϐԖࠌǻ
)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝᜏტ*
The reason for this servant’s return to the provincial capital was to
avoid instead of holding a birthday celebration. I was honoured by
your intention to celebrate my birthday, gentlemen, and how durst I,
this humble man, decline it? However, if you want to celebrate
someone, he must have merit worthy of praise and rank to respect,
and only then can he be honoured. What kind of celebration can be
held for a vulgar and poor person like my humble self? (Letters from
Snow Swan Retreat, Declining the offer of a birthday celebration; cited from
Kádár, 2009: 129)
In a similar way to (13), a couple of conventional strategies are used here,

which are elevating and denigrating and which co-occur with deferential
forms. A typical example is the rhetorical question ‘how durst I decline it?’
(pu he gan ci ႼՖඪᜏ, lit. ‘this humble servant how dare decline?’) It is
pertinent to note that this letter is written to colleagues who were younger
than the author and were the author’s equals; that is, this declining is not
really face-threatening in the historical Chinese context as no rank differ-
ence applies here (unlike in 13). The fact that the author nevertheless makes
use of such deferential strategies seems to demonstrate that historical
Chinese conventional strategies were elevating/denigrating in nature, and

also that they were applied somewhat independently of context, that is,
were ritualized.
3.2.2 Apologies
The same phenomenon can be observed in the speech act of apologies.
(15)!ၘ೨ԆѺৰբඞᇥȅȨό‫ޕ‬ϻΓᎯ‫ډ‬ǴԖѨᇻ߆Ǵ৯࿾
৯࿾Ƕȩ)ȜआኴფȝಃΜΒӣ*
Jia She quickly made a deep bow with his two hands respectfully
folded in front: “[I] did not know about your esteemed presence,
Lady, [I] failed to run to greet you, forgive [my] fault, forgive [my]
fault.” (Honglou-meng, chapter 12)
In this example, along with referring to his ignorance, the speaker blames
himself, which is a typical strategy used in apologies (cf. Kádár, 2007a); he
ritually accuses himself for his failure to run and greet the addressee. As
according to traditional Chinese etiquette it is the lower ranking person’s
duty to proceed towards the higher ranking one, this self-blaming expresses
self-denigration. In line with the previous examples, this strategy co-occurs
with honorific forms of address and verb forms, as well as the repeated defer-
ential routine form of apology shuzui ৯࿾ (lit. ‘pardoning a crime’).10
The next example is a brief model letter that demonstrates the function
of the speech act of apology in monologic genres:
(16)!ࢄВӭ໯ǴᎈࣗၸࡋǶಉ౧‫ق‬ຒǴ೿όᒬ᝺Ƕරٰ‫ـ‬ፏ
ΓᇥǴБ‫ځޕ‬җǴคӦ৒‫ي‬Ǵᄏ৵ЀᑈǶǾ!ҷఈϘܴǴ
ό፥࿾ೢǶុ྽य़ᖴǴӃ‫ރ‬ᒌҙǶҷோ⸟ჸǶό࠹Ǵ
ᙣ‫ރ‬ǶȜᎈࡕѨᘶᖴਜȝ
Yesterday, having drunk too much, [I] was intoxicated as to pass
all bounds; but the rude and coarse language [I used was uttered
in] an unconscious state. Only after hearing others speak [on the
subject] on the next morning [I] realised what had happened, where-
upon [I] was overwhelmed with regret and felt unbearable shame . . .
[I] humbly long for [your] benevolent understanding [and wish
that you will be as kind as to] not hold [my insignificant self]
responsible [for what happened]. Soon [I will] apologise in person,
first [I] humbly submit this letter. [I will be] respectfully awaiting
[your] inspection [of this matter]. [Now I shall] say no more.

[I humbly] submit this notice. ([Model] Letter for Expressing Apology
after Behaving Rudely whilst being Drunk)11
This letter – a document from the famous Dunhuang ඩྦྷ corpus that was
found by the Hungarian–British sinologist Sir Aurel Stein (1862–1943)12 –
is an exceptionally early document from the perspective of our database
that consists mostly Qing Dynasty materials: it is dated from the ninth
century. It is nevertheless cited here because it is perhaps the only Chinese
model letter for apologizing, and also because it is written in a considerably
colloquial Classical style (a regular feature of Dunhuang materials), and
thus stylistically it is quite similar to late imperial epistles. In this letter,
just like in (15), strategies and forms of address collaborate. For example,
the author refers to his own shame, hence lowering himself; he also uses a
wide variety of honorific forms such as verbs like fuwang ҷఈ (lit. ‘humbly
bowing and await’, that is, humbly longing for).
3.2.3 Requests
Finally, along with refusals and apologies, let us cite a case of request; as
the following longer extract demonstrates, historical requests worked quite
similarly with other speech acts:
(17)!ЪৎໂλძǴߚό‫تە‬Ƕકаϣηޮੰ‫ރ‬ℒǴҒԑϐ
‫ں‬ǴϔՀϐᏹǴаզϚ১ζҺϐǴᒿठᑈമԋ੯Ǵҭό
‫ה‬ኇཥԶ௭ᙑǶӢৎ҆ఈ৊ࣗϪǴཁ‫ڮ‬ፌፌǴόளς‫ܭ‬
࣪ύ೔ளܿࡼǴ҅బคज़໾ᚶΨǶВ߻ςᒪႼᘜৎௗ
౱ǶԿࢭߐǴᔈ௭ՃᒥഌǶ‫ى׆‬Πжً៝፶Ǵঈೲฦ
ำǴ߾གྣ‫ܒ‬ϐፉӭ‫خ‬ǶȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝเЦ‫ق‬ӵ
[My situation is] that in my hometown there lives a little woman
who is suitable for bearing male children. Now, my humble wife lies
sick on the woven bamboo mat of her bed. She, a young girl without
domestic help, [loyally undertook the service] of offering delicious
food [to my mother] and managing the housework for her, and
finally she has fallen ill from overwork. I would certainly not neglect
my wife and take a concubine, in the manner of people who cast off
that which is old and only feel love for that which is new. However,
my mother yearns for a grandson and she has repeatedly ordered
me [to father an heir]. Thus, I can do naught but find a worthless
concubine from here, the provincial capital, which dampens my
spirit. A few days ago I dispatched my servant to return to my home-

town and escort my concubine hither. When they arrive at Tianjin
they will have to disembark and strike out overland. Prithee, sir, hire
a cart on my behalf, in order to deliver them hither with Godspeed.
If you act thus, my heart will be full of gratitude for your caring
friendship. (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Answer to Wang Yanru;
Again, in this letter of request written to a friend, some ‘collaboration’ can

be observed between honorific forms and strategies. For example, in order
to ‘smoothen’ the request for the recipient to escort his concubine to the
capital, the author denigrates his concubine both by using various denigrat-
ing forms of address and by strategically describing the decision to marry
her as an unfortunate event, hence denigrating both the concubine’s per-
son and the marriage itself.
The present section has so far demonstrated that historical Chinese strate-
gies were often elevating/denigrating and collaborated with honorifics. It
is pertinent to add that frequently elevation and denigration became the
very message of deferential discourse – that is, elevation/denigration
became an ‘oversized’ strategy – as illustrated by the following example:
(18)!ђΓЁᛊǴอࣺኧՉǴߏόຫ൯Ǵа‫ځ‬Ҕ฽⛼৘Ǵ௶٣
ᙁዅǶ‫܌‬ᒏᜏǴၲԶςǴค‫ڗ‬ЯϧߏΨǶႼૅύคਜǴ
๙Πค฽Ǵࣺ‫ޕ‬ᄣ‫܌‬ట‫ق‬Զόૈ࿯ǴᒿԖຫЯЁᛊϐ
ѦǴԶѨЯೕંྗᛣ‫ޣ‬ǴࢂࡺόёаЁᛊӜǶฅΞόள
όᠷ‫ځ‬ӜǴซϐढᡀ‫ࡼࣣ׸‬ΨǴόၸܿՋϐձԸǶणε
ϻ‫ـ‬ϐǴѸ௝ሷԶၸǶ‫ى‬ΠΏట઩ᢀǴ৮҂࿏௙Јϐ
ᡮǴᙯമ௙ဎԶઢǶ)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝᆶЦԋϐ߄‫*׌‬
The men of ancient times wrote short letters of a few lines, and even
their long epistles exceeded not a page; they selected their words
with skill and expressed themselves in a succinct manner. With a
verbose and tedious style one cannot achieve [what Master Confucius
called] “concise and lucid writing”. My humble self does not possess
much literary skill and cannot write in an appropriate manner:
[I] can only express myself in a long-winded way and [I] know not
how [to write in] a succinct manner. Therefore, [my writings] are
longer than letters should be, and [their style] fits not the rules of
the art, and so [I would not even] dare to call them letters. Never-
theless, [I] can do naught but call them so when writing thus,
although [my ‘letters’ and those of the ancients are] as different as

the two women of the Eastern and Western villages of the Zhuluo
Mountain were: [both having] the name Shi [but the Western Shi
being beautiful whilst the Eastern Shi was ugly]. [Furthermore, my
letters cannot be claimed to be adequate due to my inappropriate
style: even the Western Shi, who was beautiful could have not caught
the eye of] the High Official Fan if she had been clothed in filthy
rags – in fact, he might have stopped his nose when passing her. If
you, sir, still wish to study [my letters in depth], [I] am afraid that
you will not find any beauty in them and in reading them your sides
will split with laughter. (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Declining the
offer of a birthday celebration; cited from Kádár, 2009: 45–7)
This letter exemplifies the simultaneous manifestation of elevation and

denigration on the strategic and the lexical levels. Most importantly, the
‘central’ deferential discursive strategy of the letter is the inappropriateness
of the author’s letters compared with that of the ancients. This is expressed
by drawing a deferential analogy between the relative quality of the author’s
letters compared to those of the ancients and the relative beauty of the
so-called Western Shi (Xi Shi Ջࡼ) compared with the unattractive
Eastern Shi (Dong Shi ܿࡼ), an ancient anecdote from the Taoist Classic
Zhuangzi ಷη.13 Along with this discursive strategy the author uses several
honorifics (e.g. the self-denigrating form of address pu Ⴜ, lit. ‘your servant’)
and idioms that gain honorific implication in the present context, such as
wanxia-wubi ๙Πค฽ (lit. ‘there is no [appropriate] brush [writing] under
my wrist’, that is, ‘cannot write in an appropriate manner’).
3.3 Historical Chinese politeness – Preliminary conclusions

The present section has illustrated that historical Chinese politeness was
deferential and ritual in a Goffmanian (1967) sense: along with various
honorifics it necessitated the proper application of elevating/denigrating
strategies. Deference was primarily expressed through ritual elevation and
denigration, considering the socio-cognitive (cf. Peng, 2000) importance
devoted to status in historical Chinese society.
In fact, interactants could use formal tools of politeness to go beyond
contextual requirements, hence expressing either emergent politeness in a
second-order sense (although there might be no clear-cut border between
‘politic’ deference and second-order politeness) or some other discursive
message. Here we may recall Jucker’s (2010) argument that historical
languages were predominantly but not exclusively ‘discernment’ based.

It is, however, somewhat problematic to capture instances of ‘surplus polite-
ness’ (Locher, 2004: 73) in the historical Chinese data because historical
Chinese politeness was ritualized, in that the psychological context was not
as important as the social one, and is difficult to analyse psychological inten-
tion behind linguistic choices in many cases. In this respect it seems to be
proper to observe the relationship between politic and polite behaviour
(Watts, 2003) in a scalar way, politic and polite behaviour being the two
extremes of the scale. This is also useful because ‘strategic’ surplus manifes-
tations of politeness are not necessarily intellectually strategic: some spon-
taneity is the natural concomitant of ritualized politeness (cf. Mills, 2003,
who questions the role of intellectual design in politeness behaviour). Also,
as Goffman (1967: 23) notes, “spontaneously expressed feelings are likely
to fit into the formal pattern of the ritual interchange more elegantly than
consciously designated ones.” The best way to capture utterances that are
closer to the polite end of the politic–polite scale is to focus on utterances
in which there is either an obvious marked imbalance between the context
and the utterance’s deferential content, or others in which the speaker/
writer invests ‘extra energy’ to convey deference (see more below).
For example, letter (18) above was written to the nephew of the author
who was of significantly lower rank than the author due to age and status
difference. Also, in Chinese families members of the older generations
rarely used deferential language towards members of younger generations.
Thus, the context does not necessitate a particularly deferential tone, and
on the basis of philological evidence (cf. Kádár, 2009) it can be argued the
author abundantly applied deferential forms and strategies due to strategic
consideration, in order to enforce the social ties between his nephew and
himself: this letter was written as part of social discourse among intellec-
tuals who lived in Peking and had to rely on each other’s connections in
order to develop their careers.
Along with such conventional messages that convey surplus or second-
order politeness, another noteworthy case is when deference and surplus
politeness are conveyed by unconventional means such as ‘mock impolite-
ness’ or ‘banter’ (cf. Culpeper, 1996: 352), that is, “is impoliteness that
remains on the surface, since it is understood that it is not intended to
cause offence”. As it was discussed in detail in Kádár (2010a), in some cases
politeness was expressed through mock impoliteness, as illustrated by the
following extract:
(19)!ഋᒥЁᛊǴӜ᎜྽ਔǶฅଯԾՏ࿼ǴெᏀӵߎǴόޭᇸ
‫׫‬΋҄Ǵ‫ى‬ΠࢣҭԖԜᘮǼ)ȜഓᗶଈЁᛊȝเ೚ဢ‫*׸‬
Chen Zun [of old] gained a great reputation amongst his genera-
tion for [his expertise in] letter writing. However, he formed an
overtly high opinion of himself and he spared his ink as if it was
gold, not willing to send a letter to anyone [if it were not necessary].
[I wonder,] sir, whether you are not on the edge of falling into the
error of his conceit? (Letters from Snow Swan Retreat, Answer to Xu
Jiacun; cited from Kádár, 2009: 165–6)
In (19), written to a friend, the author makes an analogy between the

behaviour of Chen Zun ഋᒥ (his exact dates are unknown), a renowned
Han Dynasty (206 bc–ad 220) man of letters, and that of the addressee.
This reference expresses a seemingly ‘negative’ meaning. That is, the
author – longing for the correspondent’s letter – symbolically reprimands
him for sparing his ink like Chen Zun, and wonders whether the correspond-
ent does not “fall into the error of Chen’s conceit”. However, at the same
time the author emphasizes the great expertise of Chen in epistolary art,
and so by symbolically scolding the addressee for behaviour that resembles
that of Chen Zun, he conveys a secondary deferential elevating meaning
by comparing the correspondent’s talent to that of Chen. This utterance is
perhaps polite in a second-order sense rather than being merely deferen-
tial, considering that the author invests extra energy (which must have been
evident to the reader) by conveying his discursive meaning in an unusual
way, going beyond the plain requirements of the given interaction. This
‘investment’ of energy seems to fit in Leech’s (2008: 92; see also Leech,
1983) definition of “maximizing polite beliefs”, that is, the belief that what
happens is favourable to the addressee. In the case of (19), the fact that
the author invested extra work in this letter for the addressee must have
demonstrated his polite belief to the recipient.14
It might be noted, although this theme is not strictly related to the
discussion of this chapter, that along with expressing politeness, formal
forms and strategies could also be used to express deferential but
non-polite meanings such as negative emotions, as illustrated by the
following extract:
(20)!Ͽ ෞ ༾ ༾ հ ઢ ၰ Ǻ Ȩ ձ ঁ ‫ ذ‬ω ٰ ᔈ ᖐ ਔ Ǵ ൩ ा ֋
‫ڮ‬ᚒ৒ܰΑǴΠ‫۔‬මᔈၸ‫!!!!ࣽڋ‬Ǿ!!!!ȩ)ȜᒬШࡡ‫ق‬ȝ
ಃΜ΋‫*ڔ‬
Shaoyou said with a cold smile: “When other examinees take part
in such an examination, they shall answer the questions easily
after receiving the task. This humble official has already passed the
exam . . .” (Xingshi hengyan, chapter 11)
Here the speaker talks with the maid of his fiancée. He is infuriated by the
request to answer certain questions before being allowed to his fiancée’s
room – a playful intellectual test made by the fiancé for the wedding night –
and so he applies a deferential but intentionally cold tone, and uses the
official non-familial self-denigrating form xiaguan Π‫‘( ۔‬humble official’)
as part of this style choice. Although some politeness is needed towards the
representative of one’s fiancée, such an honorific form obviously goes
beyond interactional requirements, in particular because it is a non-familial
form used in a familial context.
Although instances of ‘surplus’ politeness and others of sarcasm like (20)
above can be found in the data studied, they are relatively rare; formal
politeness is predominantly used in a ‘proper’, merely deferential, way.
As it was already noted, this interrelation between formularized politeness
and deference is quite typical to historical politeness across cultures (cf.
various studies in Culpeper and Kádár, 2010). In this respect, historical
Chinese politeness seems in accord with politeness in Medieval European
societies, in that deference is expressed through the denigration of the self
and the elevation of the other, although arguably this phenomenon is more
salient in Chinese than in its Western counterparts. A noteworthy example
for the salience of elevation and denigration is the way in which personal
pronouns were evaluated in historical China. That is, pronominal forms
were regarded as terms that do not convey elevation and denigration and
which are consequently open to interpreted as impolite, as illustrated by
the following citations:
(21)!ၘ᚟Ϧࣁ࣬ВǴԖБγ‫ۉ‬೚ǴჹΓ҂჋ᆀӜǴค຦፠ࣣ
ᆀȨ‫ך‬ȩǴਔΓᆀϐȨ೚‫ך‬ȩǶ
In the days when Jia Weigong was minister, there was an official
called Xu, who did not address [himself in his] personal name
when talking with people, did not [observe] rank, but always called
himself wo [first-person pronoun], so the men of that time called
him ‘Xu-wo’ [ironically: ‘Xu who only uses wo’]. (Mengxi bitan ფྛ
฽ፋ, chapter 18.1, originally quoted in Lü, 1985: 35)
(22)!‫ـ‬ϦঙόࣁᘶǴค຦፠ࣣȨԟȩϐǶ
[When he] met with dukes and ministers, [he] did not adhere
to politeness, did not [observe] ranks, but [he addressed] every
person with ru [historical second-person pronoun]. (Sui shu ໙ਜ,
chapter 78; originally quoted in Lü, 1985: 35)
These extracts show that pronouns such as wo ‫( ך‬I) and ru ԟ (thou) were
open to be evaluated as impolite because they did not express elevating/
denigrating meaning. Thus, the Chinese seem to have had some aversion
towards using personal pronouns and even in familial settings preferred
applying some quasi-familial forms of address. As argued in Kádár (2007b),
this does not mean that personal pronouns were not used at all in historical
Chinese interactions – even some examples, especially informal ones, in
this chapter include some pronominal forms – but they often co-occurred
with elevating/denigrating forms of address.
After this overview of historical Chinese politeness, let us re-explore the
myth of ‘polite historical Chinese’.
4 Historical Chinese Politeness Behaviour Revisited
Let us recall the fact that late imperial Chinese society was a patriarchal
and hierarchical one. As it will be argued in the present section, in this
hierarchical system, politeness was rather unequally distributed between
‘powerful’ and ‘powerless’ social groups, which seems to confirm stereo-
typical views on historical Chinese politeness behaviour. However, it will
also be demonstrated that the system of linguistic politeness was subject to
challenges.
4.1 The unequal distribution of politeness

Due to the hierarchical nature of Chinese society, the rights and possibil-
ities of the powerful and the powerless in terms of politeness were rather
different.
4.1.1 Rights
By ‘rights’ we mean that forms of address were distributed in an unequal
way. If one explores historical sources such as the Qing Dynasty philologist
Liang Zhangju’s ఉക႐ (1775–1849) Chengwei lu ᆀᒏᒵ (Record of Terms
of Address) it becomes evident that different social groups were prescribed to
use different lexicons of elevating and denigrating terms of address.
Historical Chinese elevating and denigrating forms of address were dis-
tributed between three major social groups: the powerful, the powerless
and women.15 The group of powerful included different subgroups such as
the emperor, members of the imperial family, officials, clerical people and
eunuchs. These subgroups had elaborate self-denigrating terminologies
and were entitled to be addressed by similarly elaborate terms of address.
For example, Buddhist priests were addressed by forms such as wushi րৣ
(‘my master’) and referred to themselves by using forms like pinseng ೦Ⴖ
(‘this poor monk’). Also, different in-group honorific forms of address
were available for members of powerful groups, as demonstrated by the
following example:
(23)!ЦᖐΓၰǺȨգ೭ՏӃғ຦‫ۉ‬ǻȩ
! ‫ڬ‬຾‫ޕ‬дࢂঁᖐΓǴߡԾᆀၰǺȨఁғ‫ڬۉ‬Ƕȩ
)ȜᏂ݅ѦўȝಃΒӣ*
Wang juren [a second-degree graduate] said: “May I ask your
precious name, sir?” Zhou Jin knew that he is a second-degree
graduate, therefore [he used the proper] address to himself, saying:
“The family name of this later-born person is Zhou.” (Rulin waishi,
chapter 2)
In this interaction Zhou Jin uses the form wansheng ఁғ (lit. ‘later born’)
to refer to himself, which is a form used only between fellow-officials.16
In contrast with this abundant lexicon, members of powerless groups –
peasants (nong ၭ), craftsmen (gong π) and merchants (shang ୘), that is,
those who according to the Confucian ideology are subordinated to the
powerful – had a relatively limited lexicon: most frequently, they referred to
themselves as xiaoren λΓ (‘worthless person’). In interactions between
powerful and powerless, the powerless party was expected to use honorific
forms towards the powerful one, while the latter was not to respond by
using honorifics.17 Insofar as powerless people interacted in-group, they
either used quasi-familial forms of address, or terms of address appropriate
to a given institutional context; for example, an innkeeper was expected to
address his guest as keguan ࠼‫( ۔‬lit. ‘guest official’, that is, my dear guest),
unless the guest was member of a powerful group (in this latter case (s)he
had to be addressed in accordance with her or his rank).
Finally, in traditional China women belonged to families and their ranks
were determined by that of their father’s or husband’s family. Consequently,
females were to be addressed in accordance with their social ranks gained
through birth or marriage. On the other hand, they referred to themselves
in uniform gendered (feminine) ways (cf. Kádár, 2005), by using the forms
nu ѩ (‘maidservant’) and qie ‫‘( ڿ‬concubine’), although there were ways
of showcasing one’s social rank acquired through birth/marriage, as

illustrated by the following example:
(24)!ϻ Γ ၰ Ǻ Ȩ Խ ‫ ٰ ڮ ں ڿ‬ᘜ Ǵ ό ‫ ܟ ޕ‬ϻ Ֆ ӧ ǻ ȩ

)ȜᖙখϸঞȝಃΖΜ΋ӣ*
The lady said: “This humble concubine of your minister returned
on order, and she wonders where her clumsy husband is?” (Xue
Gang fan Tang)
Here the female speaker refers to herself as chenqie Խ‫( ڿ‬lit. ‘concubine of
the minister’) when interacting with the emperor, hence referring to her
social rank, while still using the common female form qie.
This elaborate system of terms of address was meant to maintain and con-
serve historical Chinese hierarchical social order. According to the Confu-
cian ideology, which “merged political-literary criteria in definitions of
status” (Carlton, 1990: 101), proper language use should promote social
order as it acknowledges and consequently reinforces social ranks (cf. Gu,
1990). Considered from a Goffmanian (1974) perspective, by using this
elaborate system of social indexing, interactants ‘framed’ themselves and
their interlocutors as members of powerless or powerful groups. In a sim-
ilar way, by gendered honorifics females framed themselves as members of
the (ultimately) subordinated class of women.18
It is thus not surprising that the proper use of terms of address was a must
for every language user independent of the given person’s level of educa-
tion. In order to illustrate this, let us cite the following section from the late
imperial vernacular novel Di gong’an (cf. Chapter 1), which was analysed in
Kádár (2008: 149–50):
(25)!ٗ ঁ Դ ᅇ ᠋ ‫ ـ‬ᑜ ϼ ྭ ໺ д Ǵ ς ᓵ ள ӵ ԝ ‫ ޑ‬΋ ૓ Ǵ

ᏯᏯჂჂ‫ޑ‬ၤӧਢ߻ၰǺȨλΓଯৎᲃ‫ޑ‬βπǴ
‫ـ‬ϼྭፎӼǶȩ
Having heard the district magistrate call him, the old man became
terrified and trembled with fear as he knelt in front of the bench
and said: “This worthless person is the undertaker of Gaojia-wa. I
respectfully greet Your Honour.”
! ‫إ‬ϦǾୢၰǺȨգћϙሶǴ྽βπ൳ԃΑǻȩ
Judge Di asked: “What is thy name, and how long hast thou been
the undertaker?”
! ٗΓၰǺȨԴᅇ‫ۉ‬ഏǴћഏε഻Ƕȩ
The man said: “This old man hath the family name Tao, his name is
Tao Daxi.”
! ೭၉ᗋ҂ᇥֹǴ‫ٿ‬਒ৡΓസၰǺȨգ೭Դ‫ކ‬ᓐǴӳεᖌ
ໆǼϼྭ߻य़ǴඪᆀȬԴᅇȭǴѺգΒԭӉ‫׺‬Ǵ࣮գᇥ
ԴόԴΑǼȩ
But before he could even finish his words, the two constables stand-
ing by his side cried: “Thou, old-dog-head, what an outrageous
impertinence this is! In front of His Honour thou durst address
[thyself] as ‘old man’, let us beat thee two hundred times with the
bamboo, and we will see whether thou wilt yet assert that [thou art]
‘an old man’, or not!”
! βπ‫ـ‬ৡΓ༙സǴςᓵளय़ӵβՅǴᇴ๱‫ׯ‬αǺȨλΓ
၀ԝǶλΓ྽βπǴԖΟΜԃΑǶϼྭϞВԖՖ֊‫ڦ‬ǻȩ
ȐȜ‫إ‬ϦਢȝಃϤӣȑ
The undertaker, turning pale as he saw that the constables were
barking at [him] so angrily, became more humble and said: “This
worthless person should die for his guilt. This worthless person has
been an undertaker for the last thirty years. How can I serve Your
Honour?” (Di gong’an, chapter 6)
In the course of this courtroom interaction the speaker (the old under-
taker) makes a communicational mistake by referring to himself by using
the term of address laohan Դᅇ (‘this old man’), which is deferential
but informal and semantically implies that the speaker is old (and hence
high-ranking). Laohan is not only improper here because it contradicts the
rules of the ongoing institutional discourse, but also because it is an
in-group powerless form of address, that is, it is ‘improperly’ applied here
all the more because this term presupposes that the magistrate also belongs
to the group of the powerless. Thus, the personnel of the court evaluate this
form as impolite and threaten the speaker, who then refers to himself in a
‘proper’ way, by using the formal self-referring form of address xiaoren
(‘worthless person’, see above).
4.1.2 Possibility
‘Possibility’ refers to the fact that many of the forms and strategies of polite-
ness were available only to members of the learned elite. As was already
mentioned above, the application of certain deferential forms and strategies
such as idiomatic forms and literary analogies necessitated strong command
of Classical Chinese literature, and obviously they were unavailable to illiter-

ate people (at least 80 per cent of society but probably significantly more19).
Thus, in a way somewhat similar to the application of certain groups of hon-
orific forms of address, the use (or lack of command of) ‘refined’ forms and
strategies were parts of the social ‘framing’ procedure. That is, just as Ide
(1982: 378) argued in the case of Japanese honorifics, forms that required
education served social “self-presentation”.
In sum, it can be argued that historical politeness was unequally
distributed in Chinese society. While this fact in itself is not unique, con-
sidering that in every Community of Practice politeness is a discursive
resource (Thornborrow, 2002) and is consequently unequally distributed,
the inequality discussed here is considerably more significant than inequal-
ity in contemporary societies, communities and communities of practice.
In fact, the very notion of equality does not seem to exist in historical
China. Even in interactions in which the participants were of equal social
rank and on close terms, asymmetry manifested itself in communication:
for example, in (6) above the speaker addresses his friend by means of
the quasi-familial form of address xiandi ፣‫‘( ׌‬wise younger brother’).
Although this term conveys deference, simultaneously it frames the addressee
as lower ranking than the speaker because in the historical China context
younger age implies lower status.
The discussion so far has confirmed stereotypical views on historical
Chinese politeness behaviour. In what follows, let us analyse cases in which
the norms of politeness are defied in historical interactions.
4.2 Historical politeness defied

John Barrow’s (cf. Chapter 1) generalization of Chinese abusive language
as “very unusual” is perhaps rooted in his lack of command of Chinese.
In vernacular data such as novels one can find many encounters containing
rudeness like this one:
(26)!Ꮉၲٰ࣮࣮‫ډ‬ξߐΠǴ‫ߐঁٿ‬ηᇻᇻӦఈ‫ـ‬Ǵ৾๱Ԯ⣽
ٰ‫ډ‬ξߐΠǴᝏՐᎹඵుǴߡസၰǺȨգࢂՕৎ‫׌‬ηǴ
ӵՖளឳᎈΑ΢ξٰǻգ໪όይǴΨ‫ـ‬৤ֽ㚊ຠ‫ޑ‬᐀
ҢǺȬՠΥ‫ۘک‬ઇ‫י‬ൌଚǴ،ѺѤΜԮ⣽ǴᇴрӽѐǶ
ӵߐηᕵ৒ᎈ‫ޑ‬ႶΓΕӽǴΨൌΜΠǶȭգ‫ז‬ΠξѐǴ
ថգ൳ΠԮ⣽Ƕȩ
! ! Ꮉඵు΋‫ۘک଺߃ޣ‬ǴΒٰᙑ‫܄‬҂‫ׯ‬Ǵ࿒ଆᚈ౳ጜ
ၰǺȨ‫ޔ‬াၖǼգ‫ঁٿ‬ाѺᲅৎǴॻߡ‫ک‬գትѺǶȩߐ
η‫ـ‬༈ᓐόӳǴ΋ঁ०Ψ՟ΕٰൔᅱӽǴ΋ঁ຀‫ܦ‬Ԯ⣽
ᝏдǶඵుҔЋ႖ၸǴ໒ϖࡰǴѐٗߐηᖍ΢ѝ΋ඓǴ
Ѻள⥊⥊⾱⾱!Ǿ!)ȜН⠪໺ȝಃѤӣ*
Lu Da arrived swiftly at the gate of the Temple. The doormen who
were watching him from the distance picked up their bamboo poles,
stood before the gate and stopped him shouting: “Thou art a
Buddhist disciple, how durst thou ascend the mountain of our
temple dead drunk? Thou art not blind, how canst thou not read
what is written on our warehouse: ‘Any monk who breaks the regu-
lation of abstinence shall be beaten forty times with the bamboo
and shall be driven out. If a doorkeeper allows a drunken monk
enter the Temple, he shall be beaten ten times.’ Go downhill at
once! We will be merciful and give you a few strokes only.”
Now, Lu Zhishen was first a freshly ordinate monk, and his old
aggressive character did not change yet.20 He thus stared wildly at
the men and scolded them: “Sons of bitches!21 Wanna beat ’em?22
Now I’ll smash ye!” The doorkeepers saw that trouble was coming,
so one ran towards the temple to report the matter to the superin-
tendent as quickly as if he were flying, while the other grabbed his
pole and tried to stop the monk. Zhishen lifted his hand to clear
him out of the way, giving such a strong push on his face with his five
fingers that the doorman fell back . . .
As this extract illustrates, the inhabitants of old China were not always as
polite and harmless as John Barrow represented them. The crazy monk
Lu Zhishen Ꮉඵు, hero of the Ming Dynasty novel Shuihu-zhuan Н⠪໺
(Water Margin Story), could provide a sound example of rudeness in any
culture.23
The existence of rude language in Chinese might not be too surprising,
considering that the existence of rudeness is the intercultural standard and
a language completely exempt of rudeness, in particular swearwords, would
be somewhat ‘exotic’.24 A more noteworthy fact is that in many historical
Chinese interactions one can find a certain lack of deferential forms,
defying the meticulous Chinese deferential system.
A simple case of this lack of deference is impolite interactions when
speakers refuse to properly use honorifics in order to offend somebody,
as illustrated by the following extract:
(27)!ٗԴஇཇу‫ࡗۻ‬ǴߡၰǺȨϙሶȬλ‫ۆ‬Ǵλ‫ۆ‬ȭǼࢂλ
‫ۆ‬Ǵό‫ךډ‬ৎٰΑǶ‫ঁࢂך‬ԭ‫ۉ‬ΓৎǴό᐀ளλ‫ࢂۆ‬ϙ
Χࠔભ!Ǿ!ȩ)ȜᒬШࡡ‫ق‬ȝಃ΋‫*ڔ‬
That old woman became even more furious, saying: “What kind of
‘Young Lady, Young Lady’! A Young Lady would not come to my
home. I am a commoner, I dunno nothing of such a thing . . .”
(Xingshi hengyan, chapter 1)
In this interaction the old woman who is the antagonist of the story
questions the protagonist’s right to be referred to as xiaojie λ‫( ۆ‬lit. ‘small
elder sister’, a form used in historical China towards, or in reference to,
women of high rank), hence humiliating her.
A considerably more complex issue is that in some hierarchical settings,
typically family discourse, which in theory necessitate deference, honorifics
and deferential strategies are simply ignored. Although Confucian sources
emphasize the necessity of respect towards older family members, many
authentic sources such as family letter collections like Zeng Wenzheng-
gong jiashu මЎ҅Ϧৎਜ (The Family Letters of Zeng Wenzheng-gong)
written by the famous statesman Zeng Guofan ම୯᛫ (1811–1872), con-
tain relatively few honorifics and deferential strategies, as illustrated by
the following extract:
(28)!߻Рᒃ௲‫ت‬Ꭶᠣϐ‫ݤ‬Ǵ‫ت‬໻੮΢যᠣǴόૈҔН੆೸Ƕ
Յ໳‫ޣ‬ӭǴ໵‫ޣ‬ϿǶΠযᔕࡑΟΜϤྃ‫ۈ‬੮Ƕ
‫؂ت‬ௗৎߞǴ༮‫ځ‬ό၁Ǵ༓ࡕ‫׳‬ᜫ၁ҢǶ‫ت‬ᙣ࿪Ƕ
Previously my father taught this son how to [properly] cultivate his
beard, and this son of yours has only kept his moustache and may
not soak it with water. Many of [the whiskers in my moustache]
are blond and only a few are black. I plan to wait until I reach my
thirtieth year and then I will start to grow a beard. Whenever this
son of yours receives letters from his family, he is angry at himself
for not being clear [in his own letters], and hereafter he will be
even more determined to write clearly. Your son respectfully sends
[this letter]. (Cited from Kádár, 2010b: 63–5)
This is the closing section of a letter written to the author’s parents. As a

generic rule, the closing of letters is usually heavily loaded with honorifics
(cf. Kádár, 2010b), which would seem to be all the more reasonable here
due to the significant power difference between parents and children in
the Chinese cultural context. However, the author uses only one standard
closing form, jinbing ᙣ࿪ (‘respectfully sending’), and the denigrating
politeness strategy of claiming that his writing lacks clarity (xian qi bu-xiang
༮‫ځ‬ό၁, that is, “he is angry at himself for not being clear [in his own
letters]”). Apart from these elements the letter is written in a fairly ‘plain’
style, for example, the author refers to himself and his actions by using
non-denigrating forms like nan ‫‘( ت‬this son of yours’) and jie ௗ (‘receive’),
and refers to his parents by using non-elevating forms such as jiaxin ৎߞ
(‘family letter’). As explorations of the Zeng Guofan corpus reveal, this
plain style was not at all interpreted as impolite by Zeng’s parents.
The same lack of deference can be observed in dialogic accounts on
family discourse:
(29)!ስ ‫ ۆ‬΋ ‫ ܎ ע‬Ր Ǵ ઢ ၰ Ǻ Ȩ գ Ъ ઠ Ր Ǵ ֘ ‫ ך‬ᇥ ၉ Ƕ

ऩࢂձ‫ޑ‬٣‫ך‬όᆅǴऩࢂࣁλ‫ޑॺۘک‬٣Ǵ
ӳИ٩‫ך‬೭Χ๱Ƕȩ!Ǿ
Aunt Feng grabbed him and said with a smile: “Stoppeth thou for a
while. If this is aught else I don’t care, but if this matter is related to
those small monks its outcome will depend on me.”
! ၘ⪮ઢၰǺȨ‫ך‬ό‫ޕ‬ၰǴգԖҁ٣գᇥѐǶȩ
)ȜआኴფȝಃΒΜΟӣ*
Jia Lian said with a laugh: “I don’t know, speakest thou about this
matter.” (Honglou-meng, chapter 23)
This interaction occurs between husband and wife. Traditionally, the matrimo-
nial relationship is seen as a hierarchical one, the wife being somewhat subor-
dinated to the husband. The interactants of extract (27) are high-class persons
belonging to a rather conservative family and it could be rightly assumed that
they have good command of politeness norms. However, neither the wife
nor the husband uses any honorific form or deferential strategy, and still
obviously the wife’s ‘plain’ tone is not interpreted as impolite by the husband
(in fact, we have no evidence that ‘plain’ is not ‘politic’ in this context’).
The same phenomenon can be even more frequently observed in
the discourse of low-ranking/less-educated people, even among non-kin.
The following interaction is a particularly thought-provoking case: the
second interactant, owner of a small inn and hence member of a ‘power-
less’ group – after realizing that the first interactant is a rather simple
person in spite of being a clerical person, and also he is in an intoxicated
state – switches to a tone used between rural people:
(30)!ಷৎ࣮‫ـ‬Ꮉඵు೭૓ኳኬǴᖂॣӚձǴߡၰǺȨգाѺ
ӭϿଚǻȩ
The peasant, seeing that Lu Zhishen was in an [intoxicated] state like
this and his voice is unordinary, said: “Thou wantest how much?”
! ඵుၰǺȨҶୢӭϿǴε࿙ѝ៝ᑔٰǶȩ
)ȜН⠪໺ȝಃΟӣ*
Zhishen said: “Asketh thou not, just bringeth thou a large cup of
warm sake.” (Shuihu-zhuan, chapter 3)
Owners of inns were usually expected to use deferential forms towards their
guests, in particular if the given guest belongs to a high social group
(cf. Kádár, 2005). Lu Zhishen would be entitled to be addressed with defer-
ential forms and strategies as he is a clerical person and also since the inn is
in the neighbourhood of a large temple complex. However, in spite of his
direct tone the owner does not seem to be impolite: as it is his interest to
sell his goods it is improbable that he would like to offend Lu, and Lu
Zhishen’s reaction also demonstrates that he does not object to this plain
amiable tone.
The most plausible explanation for the phenomenon of lack of deference
is that historical Chinese politeness came into function only if rank had to
be acknowledged. In (25)–(27) the relationship between the interactants
is rather informal. This might be due to the given speech community’s
customs, as in (25) and (26), or emergent contextual factors as in (27).
Interestingly, the same interactants or interactants in the same roles switch
to deferential tone in other settings where the lack of acknowledgement
of the other’s rank would threaten the other’s face; for example, in some
other letters addressed to the wider family rather than to his parents
and brothers, Zeng Guofan uses more honorific forms and strategies in
reference to his parents; in non-private interactions Aunt Feng uses honor-
ifics towards Jia Lian; and in crowded inns other innkeepers address Lu
Zhishen deferentially. This demonstrates that historical Chinese politeness
was quite different from modern perceptions of politeness. Referring to
Bax’s (2010) argument, it seems that politeness in historical China, in
a similar way with politeness across many historical cultures, was less
rationalized, its primarily goal being ritual (self-)display. Insofar as no
such display was required, politeness did not usually come into play, or if
so it was marked.
5 Conclusion
The present chapter has overviewed the formal aspects of politeness in

historical China. It has been argued that historical Chinese politeness
was deferential. We have also explored the truth value of stereotypical
descriptions of historical Chinese politeness behaviour. In what follows, let
us overview politeness in modern and contemporary China and explore the

changes caused by the defeat of China and subsequent historical events.
Notes
1
We do not intend to claim that the subordination of the individual to group
ended with historical times. While this topic is beyond the scope of this volume,
it could be argued that in many respects in China individuality has a different
interpretation than in, for example, Europe. An excellent and detailed analysis
of this issue can be found in Tsai (2010).
2
While the exploration of this issue is beyond the scope of the present work, it is
interesting to note that historical Chinese politeness – roughly spanning the
period from the Han Dynasty to late imperial times – cannot be effectively peri-
odized because it is rather uniform in style. For example, many of the deferential
forms used in Han Dynasty texts were still in use in late imperial times. See more
on this issue in Kádár (2007b).
3
Interestingly, in Chinese there is no generally accepted terminology for elevating
and denigrating phenomena, unlike, for example, in Japanese. The above-cited
terms are the most frequently used ones; however, denigration and elevation are
also referred to as qingzi ᇸԾ (lit. ‘making oneself light’) and zhongta ख़д (lit.
‘making the other heavy’); see more on terminological issues in Kádár (2007b).
4
It would be an oversimplification to equate the Chinese denigration/elevation
phenomenon with the Japanese sonkeigo and kenjoˉgo because the Japanese system
is considerably more complex from a stylistic perspective than its Chinese
counterpart; see more on Japanese honorific language, for example, in Kikuchi
(1997) and Minami (1999 [1987]).
5
One fundamental difference is that humility (or humilitas in Latin) is a Christian
value with religious implications, while the Chinese notion of denigration/
elevation was not particularly religious (see more on the ideologization of this
phenomenon in Chapter 5).
6
Specialized dictionaries such as Ji, C. (2000) and Hong (2002) list several
thousand historical terms of address. However, these sources rightly note that this
huge lexicon was not in use in a single period and also some of the forms were
used in writing only while others are colloquial forms.
7
Also, the Abbot addresses the interlocutor in an elevating manner by using the
official title yuanwai ঩Ѧ (‘squire’). On the application of official titles as elevat-
ing forms of address see more in Kádár (2007b).
8
On historical familial terms of address and politeness in Chinese family more
information can be found in Lin (1998) and Liu (2000).
9
For example, elevating/denigrating terms of address such as daren εΓ
(i.e. ‘Your Excellency’), verb forms such as chui’ai ࠟང (lit. ‘condescend love’,
that is, ‘to provide tender care’) and formulaic/idiomatic expressions such as
wucai-xuming ᇤߍ຀Ӝ (lit. ‘pick false reputation by mistake’).
10
The honorific form of address used in this extract is furen ϻΓ (‘lady’), and
the verb form is jiadao Ꭿ‫( ډ‬lit. ‘the arrival of a respected person’). On the
aforementioned ritualized forms of apology more information can be found in

Kádár (2007a). It should be noted that by repeating the apology formula shuzui
the speaker expresses politeness (cf. Kádár, 2010a).
11
The original text of this letter can be found in the British Library’s webpage of
the ‘Tunhuang Project’ <http://idp.bl.uk/>.
12
An excellent and detailed introduction of the life of Stein and the Dunhuang
corpus can be found in Mirsky’s (1998) monograph.
13
Analogy is a frequently used politeness strategy in historical Chinese; cf. Kádár
(2010a).
14
As a matter of course, the author could only take the ‘risk’ of being evaluated as
impolite in emergent discourse with the knowledge that the recipient is well-
learnt in Classical literature and thus will understand the flattering secondary
message of the letter. Historical enquiries suggest that this letter was received
positively; cf. Kádár (2010b).
15
This categorization does not include familial forms of address. Within family,
terms of address were distributed in an unequal way: lower ranking family mem-
bers were expected to use elevating/denigrating forms towards higher ranking
family members, while the latter were expected to respond with non-honorific
and familializing/patronizing forms; see also Section 3.2.
16
Cf. Chengwei lu (Zhonghua edition, p. 503).
17
Most frequently in such interactions the powerful party avoided addressing the
powerless one, or used personal pronouns.
18
As Joseph (1997: 81) notes about females in historical China, “For centuries, the
lives of Chinese women were circumscribed by ideology, and practices that
resulted in gender inequality and female subordination. All individuals in
Chinese society were bound by Confucian notions of hierarchy and practices of
patriarchy, patrilocality, and patrilineage. The family patriarch (usually the eldest
male) wielded enormous power over the lives of those in his sphere of influence,
determining who they married, whether and what kind of training they received,
and what work they undertook. Marriage patterns, which mark a pivotal family
and social event in all societies, reveal how Chinese females were particularly
disadvantaged in this system. At marriage, women moved from their homes to
those of their husbands.”
19
We could not find a reliable estimation of the level of illiteracy in the period
studied in the present volume. However, there is a consensus in the field that
the literacy level by 1949, the Communist takeover, was below 20 per cent and
we have no reason to suppose that literacy was higher than this in late imperial
times.
20
By mentioning the “change” of character the author of this text refers to the
religious practice of Buddhist monks, which aims to change one’s bad habits.
21
It is difficult to adequately translate the expression zhiniang-zei ‫ޔ‬াၖ in the
Chinese text because there is some debate in the field about its proper meaning:
some translate it as ‘son of a bitch’ while others translate it as ‘pervert’. While
both translations seem to be appropriate for an abusive term of address used
towards Buddhist monks, we believe the first translation is more accurate and
adopt it here.
22
Zhishen uses the dialectal first-person pronominal form sajia ᲅৎ (cf. Kōsaka,
1992), which is supposedly used in the present context in order to accelerate the
rudeness of the utterance (cf. Kádár, 2007b).
23
In fact, historical Chinese had a surprisingly extensive rude lexicon, an issue that
has been studied in detail elsewhere (Kádár, 2007b).
24
It should be noted that we have encountered claims that some societies lack
swearing; for example, the Finnish scholar Mirva Nurmi in the website <http://
www.uta.fi/FAST/> claims that “swearing is still not universal. Several speech-
communities such as the American Indians, the Japanese and many others do
not swear.” While this statement is at least partly problematic as the Japanese
do swear, it would be interesting to observe this situation in other societies.
Unfortunately, we were unable to find any scholarly work on swearing in
American Indian communities, though documentary works such as Lame Deer,
Seeker of Visions (by Richard Erdoes, published in 1972 by Simon & Schuster,
New York) seem to confirm this view.
Chapter 4
Politeness in Contemporary China
1 Introduction
The present chapter will survey contemporary Chinese politeness norms

and practices. After a brief review of literature on contemporary Chinese
politeness in Section 2, we provide an overview of the normative politeness
practices of contemporary Chinese in Section 3. We first examine the shift
in lexical manifestation of politeness by tracking the changes in various
address terms and politeness formulae. We show that other linguistic tools,
such as particles, discursive moves and discursive strategies, have gradually
become the dominant form of politeness expressions in contemporary
China. In this section, we also explore how these additional linguistic tools
are used in speech acts of request, refusal and apology. Section 3 ends with
an examination of how linguistic features and contextual elements were
called upon to indicate politeness in two Chinese newspapers.
Sections 4 and 5 demonstrate that normative behaviour can become quite
ambiguous in contemporary China, which is similar to what was argued
about historical Chinese behaviour. Section 4 first shows that Chinese
politeness practice is ‘asymmetrical’ in the sense that, like politeness prac-
tice in historical China, there is no equal footing between the interactants
in terms of politeness expressions. The hierarchical structure between the
interactants needs to be acknowledged and the use of politeness resources
is unequal. The section also presents an analysis of how the asymmetrical
use of politeness between the ‘powerful’ and the ‘powerless’ affects the
perception and application of politeness.
In Section 5 we further explain that the seeming anomalies of politeness
behaviour have taken over the traditional norms of politeness in contem-
porary China after a series of large-scale ideological campaigns launched
by the CCP since 1949. This constituted one of the myths of Chinese
politeness – the lack of formal politeness in social interaction in
contemporary China. One of the main arguments we want to make is
that the gulf between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Chinese politeness is actually
the form of linguistic politeness: the disappearance of honorific and defer-
ential forms and the emergence of new expressions of politeness. This
chapter aims to describe the various new forms of linguistic politeness in
contemporary China. Furthermore, the present chapter argues that despite
differences between the historical and contemporary politeness systems,
the cultural norms governing politeness practice in contemporary China
remain relatively similar to those in historical China; however, the ideological
shift forced changes in the linguistic expressions of politeness. This point of
view will be further elucidated upon in the subsequent chapters of the
present book.
2 Previous Studies on Politeness in Contemporary China
Since Yueguo Gu’s pioneering paper (1990), contemporary Chinese

politeness research has become a field of enormous size, and it is beyond
the scope of the present chapter to survey it (readers with interest in this
issue may consult Kádár and Pan, 2011 [in press]). Instead of a comprehens-
ive review, in what follows, we will briefly list some of the most important
‘areas’1 of contemporary Chinese politeness research:
z Chinese ‘face’ research: ‘Face’ research has a long history within Chinese
studies. A pivotal contribution to this area was written by LuMing Mao
(1994), which reviewed the validity of Brown and Levinson’s definition
of ‘face’ from a Chinese perspective. It was followed by several prominent
contributions such as Zhai (1994, 2006), Lee-Wong (2000), Ji, S. (2000),
Haugh and Hinze (2003) and Hinze (2007).2 The contributions by
Michael Haugh and Carl Hinze are particularly noteworthy because they
problematized the applicability of the term ‘face’ itself in the Chinese
(and Japanese) context(s). It should be noted that along with these
predominantly sociopragmatic studies a multidisciplinary research-trend
on Chinese ‘face’ has also been developed; a cornerstone in this area is
Bond’s monograph (1991).
z Research on Chinese polite speech acts and other forms of intracultural politeness
behaviour: Along with studies specializing in ‘face’, a large number of
other studies examined forms of verbal Chinese politeness. Some of the
most important contributions include Zhan (1992), Zhang, Y. (1995),
Pan (1995), Hong (1996), Li and Li (1996), Chen (1996) and Liang (1998).
The perhaps most extensive inquiry into contemporary intracultural
Politeness in Contemporary China 75
Chinese (im)politeness was written by Pan (2000c); this monograph was

primarily engaged in the challenging of intercultural stereotypes about
contemporary China.
z Intercultural and cross-cultural research on Chinese politeness: Due to the
increasing importance of China in economic, cultural and other fields,
inter- and cross-cultural research on Chinese politeness is quite popular.
Some of the most prominent studies on this topic include Ting-Toomey
et al. (1991), Chen (1993), Yeung (1997) and Spencer-Oatey (1997). An
authoritative volume, Culturally Speaking, was edited by Helen Spencer-
Oatey in 2000; while this collection of papers does not focus solely on
Chinese, it includes different Chinese-related contributions such as the
study by Spencer-Oatey et al. (2000), which overviews and compares
evaluative judgements of compliments in Britain and China.
The existing literature on Chinese politeness does not make a clear distinction
between historical and contemporary Chinese. Furthermore, some studies use
contemporary Chinese data while referring to traditional Confucian and other
ideologies, and also they make use of mixed contemporary–historical lexical
items, to draw conclusions on contemporary Chinese politeness by means
of traditional notions and style. This trend was recently challenged by
two previously mentioned studies (Pan and Kádár, 2011 [in press]; Kádár
and Pan, 2011 [in press]): as we argued in these works, in order to avoid
prescriptive accounts on Chinese politeness a contrastive historical versus
contemporary approach is needed. This is because traditional notions and
language use have little practical impact on contemporary Chinese society
per se, even though some social subgroups might be devoted to the revival
of traditional values. Therefore, accounts of Chinese politeness based on
traditional morality and language unavoidably represent Chinese politeness
in an idealized way.
3 Normative Politeness Practices in Contemporary China
3.1 Departure from the traditional

As briefly discussed in Chapter 2, contemporary Chinese can be surprisingly
different from its historical counterpart. In order to demonstrate this point,
we begin this chapter by citing an excerpt from a video clip of a contem-
porary Chinese wedding ceremony, which seems to us to demonstrate that
many of these deferential ways of politeness practice are untraceable in
contemporary China.
The wedding ceremony studied took place in a large restaurant in Beijing,

China, in December 2007. A platform was set up in the middle of a huge
dining hall in the restaurant, and the couple stood on that platform while
the master of ceremonies led the wedding celebrations. After the formal
ceremony was over, the newlywed couple stepped down from the platform
and started walking towards the table where the parents of the bride and
the groom were sitting. According to the Chinese tradition, the newlywed
couple must serve tea to their parents-in-law at this point in the ceremony
as a symbol of the union of their families; the most important persons in
this ceremony are the bride and her in-laws because in Chinese society the
bride ‘leaves’ her own family and ‘enters’ into that of her fiancé. In the
videotape, the bride walked towards her father-in-law, with a cup of tea in
her hand:
(1) [In Mandarin]

1. Bride:!‫ݿݿ‬ǴፎസૡǼ
Father, please drink tea!
2. Father-in-law: [Drank the tea and gave her a red envelope
containing ‘lucky money’, that is, money given as a present at
ceremonies.]
Then the bride walked up to the mother-in-law.
3. Bride: ༰ǴസૡǼ
Mother (informal expression), drink tea!
4. Mother-in-law: ࠋǴሗζǼ
Yes, daughter/sweetheart!
[gave her a hug3 and a red envelope with ‘lucky money’]
In this exchange between the bride and her parents-in-law, one cannot
observe any honorific form of address, or other lexical items that indicate
self-denigration/other-elevation. Although the first utterance seems to be
more deferential than the second one – since it employs a more formal
register of the address term baba ‫‘( ݿݿ‬Father’) and a polite marker
qing ፎ (‘please’) in the sentence “Father, please drink tea!” – neither of
these terms is honorific. Baba is a contemporary colloquial familial form of
address, which unlike historical in-group forms do not elevate the recipient.
Qing had some elevating meaning in historical texts but it does not imply,
even symbolically, any rank difference in modern interactions.
The second utterance is even less forthcoming in terms of deference:
“Mother [informal], drink tea!” sounds slightly rude. First, this utterance is
an imperative. Secondly, there is no linguistic politeness marker present:

the speaker uses a ‘bald-on-record’ strategy (to use Brown and Levinson’s
1987 term) without adding any formulaic polite expression. Thirdly, in
terms of power relation, it is uttered by the powerless towards the powerful:
based on the traditional Chinese hierarchy, the newlywed daughter-in-law
has the lowest status in her husband’s family.4 Thus, from a sociopragmatic
perspective the bride’s offer to the mother-in-law seems to lack politeness
and to violate every rule of ‘proper’ politeness behaviour. Furthermore,
from an intracultural perspective, this utterance violates the traditional
Chinese way of offering tea to the mother-in-law on such a formal occasion
as a wedding.
However, neither the father- nor the mother-in-law seemed at all offended.
This is clearly indicated by the mother-in-law’s reactions: her tone of voice
(exaggerated tone when calling the bride ‘daughter’), her use of a form of
endearment, her gesture (hugging, which is very unusual for a Chinese
speaker of that generation) and the fact that she presented a gift (although
it should be noted that this is a somewhat conventionalized act, that is,
it would be rude from the mother-in-law not to give such a gift to her
daughter-in-law).
It is thus obvious that contemporary Chinese politeness differs from
historical politeness in terms of deference. It is less clear, however, what it
offers instead of deference: that is what the norms of contemporary polite
interactions are. In this chapter we will make an effort to highlight some
key features of contemporary Chinese politeness practices and to identify
main characteristics of politeness behaviour in this era. As we will discuss in
more detail in Chapter 5, contemporary Chinese linguistic politeness has to
be overviewed in light of the political events that have taken place since the
foundation of the Republic of China. In this section we would only like
to point out briefly that the contemporary Mainland Chinese is a ‘dual’
politeness system, which was influenced by strong anti-traditionalist think-
ing and education from the early 1950s to the late 1980s, and since the
1990s by a mixture of traditionalist, Communist and capitalist ideas and
values. Thus, the anomalous features of contemporary Chinese politeness
will be explained by means of some retrospection to historical events that
took place in contemporary China.
3.2 Lexical manifestation of politeness

In line with Chapter 3, we begin the overview of contemporary Chinese
politeness by focusing on the manifestations of politeness on the lexical
level, including terms of address and other lexical items. We also explore
additional linguistic tools that are used in polite discourse.
3.2.1 Terms of address

3.2.1.1 Tongzhi ӕ‫‘( ד‬comrade’)
The system of address terms has undergone the most drastic changes during
contemporary times. After the People’s Republic of China was founded, the
elaborate system of honorific denigrating and elevating terms of address dis-
appeared from colloquial speech in a short period of time (even though, as
Chapter 5 argues, its disappearance had already begun in Republican times,
and so this period only solidified changes that began much earlier). Histori-
cal terms of address were replaced by a single, uniform, and unisex term of
address and title, tongzhi ӕ‫‘( ד‬comrade’), the Chinese equivalent of the
‘universal’ Communist terminology. It should be noted though that this
term was neither the ‘invention’ nor the sole ‘property’ of the Communists.5
As Scotton and Zhu noted, “the promotion of tongzhi as ‘comrade’ by the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is an instance of lexical planning involving
a change in semantic focus” (1983: 479). That is, the word tongzhi as a lexical
item has gone through a series of changes in its meaning and usage.
Many studies investigated the use and change of the term tongzhi. Vogel
(1965) discussed how it became popularized in personal relationships in
post-1949 China. Fang and Heng (1983), Scotton and Zhu (1983) and
Ju (1991) tracked the semantic change in tongzhi over the period from 1949
to the Open Door Policy era. Lee-Wong (2000) examined the correlation
of use of tongzhi in requests as a politeness indicator. Summary of these
studies show that:
1. Tongzhi as a lexical item existed before the CCP, but was not used at
a societal level as a common term of address until the 1950s, when
it gradually became the official term of address in formal and official
occasions as well as a common term of address in social settings. Its usage
was spread by the CCP for two main purposes: (a) to replace the titles
for owners and employers such as laoban Դ݈ (‘proprietor’), and all
then-still extant honorific titles such as xiansheng Ӄғ (‘mister’), taitai
ϼϼ (‘madam’), xiaojie λ‫‘( ۆ‬miss’), and (b) to promote ‘equality’
between all members of the masses by giving equal footing to everyone.
2. During the period of 1949–1965, the Chinese masses used tongzhi as a
replacement for honorific titles. The usage of tongzhi became unmarked
during this time period. Titles for property owners were no long in use,
but titles for professions such as laoshi Դৣ (‘teacher’), juzhang ֽߏ
(‘bureau head’) were still in use.
3. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), tongzhi became more
widely used and gained a strong connotation of revolutionary solidarity
and intimacy. All professional titles were usually replaced by tongzhi,6
which hence became a default form of address. At the same time, since
manual forms of work were appraised by the Communist (Maoist) ideo-
logy, the working class title shifu ৣഡ (‘master’) became a popular title.
4. After the Cultural Revolution, from 1976 to mid-1980s, the use of tongzhi
was shifted to certain domains and it became a marker of some formality
and distance that is a distant but polite term of address. It lost its con-
notation of intimacy and revolutionary solidarity. Titles for professions
were revived during this time.
Most studies on tongzhi focus on language change embodied by this term

of address, and all these works conclude that Chinese honorific terms of
address were replaced by tongzhi by the late 1980s. From a sociopragmatic
point of view, tongzhi has interesting implications. It was adopted in line
with the CCP’s egalitarian ideals of the new social order and promotion of
equality among its members in particular, and society in general. Thus,
tongzhi as a term of address is meant to attend to the positive face of the
hearer and to reinforce solidarity. That is, it is ‘systematically’ different from
historical deferential terms of address, which semantically imply difference
between the interactants.
However, these studies also pointed out that while tongzhi was promoted
as a term of address to replace honorifics, the Chinese cultural norms
of acknowledging the hierarchical order between interactants were still
observed. As Fang and Heng show, the new tendency in contemporary
China was for the selection of linguistic forms of address to be governed,
by and large, by the relation between superiors and subordinates, and
the need to distinguish people’s social status in terms of post and rank,
and age (1983: 498). Therefore, with tongzhi as an overarching term
of address for most social occasions, there appeared a variety of subsystem
terms of address under the umbrella term tongzhi. Scotton and Zhu (1983:
484–5) documented this phenomenon in the following way:
1. Tongzhi ӕ‫( ד‬title alone): ‘comrade’

2. Wang-tongzhi Цӕ‫( ד‬surname and title): ‘Comrade Wang’
3. Wang Weiguo-tongzhi Цፁ୯ӕ‫( ד‬full name and title): ‘Comrade

Weiguo Wang’
4. Zhuren-tongzhi ЬҺӕ‫( ד‬two titles): ‘Comrade Director’
These variants of tongzhi were used to signal degree of formality as in the

Cases 1 and 2, and acknowledging power difference in Cases 3 and 4. Case
3 is used by someone in a higher position to a lower position person,
and Case 4 is from the lower position to the higher position). In a way the
traditional feature of the importance of hierarchy did not cease to exist, in
spite of all the efforts of the CCP to promote equality among its members
and the Chinese masses in general.
The above-mentioned studies demonstrated the change of the use of
tongzhi up to the late 1980s. Since the 1990s, there has been another realm
of change for the system of address terms in Chinese. Since tongzhi denoted
a revolutionary tone, after the 1980s and the onset of China’s market-
oriented reforms, the status of this term has gradually decreased, and the
term itself has been falling out of popular usage. Based on our 1992 data of
working meetings within government organizations in a southern Chinese
city, the term tongzhi was rarely used in such discussions. Tongzhi was used
only in making announcements as in the following example:
(2) [At a city planning committee meeting, when discussing Chinese

New Year preparation activities.]
ЬҺǺȨ೭ԛ‫ࡾޑ‬࿯ࢲ୏җλ‫׵‬ӕ‫ד‬Ь࡭Ƕȩ
Chair: “Comrade Little Li will be in charge of this year’s New Year
activities.”
The chair of the committee used the form xiao-Li-tongzhi λ‫׵‬ӕ‫‘( ד‬Little
[i.e. Petite] Li tongzhi’) to make the announcement. Tongzhi in this case indic-
ates a sense of formality. This format of adding prefixes such as lao Դ (‘old’)
or xiao λ (‘little’) before a surname is common to indicate age difference
between the speaker and the addressee. It is pertinent to note here that in
Chinese culture seniority is respected: older age means higher rank in the
hierarchical structure in a dyadic interaction. Therefore, the prefix lao fulfils
a deferential function in these compound forms of address, showing respect
to the addressee, while the above-used xiao is a term of endearment that
shows benevolence from someone in a position higher than the addressee.
Due to linguistic changes, although tongzhi remains in use as a respectful
term of public address among middle-aged Chinese and members of the
Communist Party of China, it has fallen out of use in daily interaction.7

However, based on our database of newspapers and television news, the
term is still used on formal occasions and in written documents within
the Communist Party.
3.2.1.2 Titles for professions

Using job title as a term of address was a common practice observed in con-
temporary China (see Blum, 1997), but its usage quickly expanded in the
post-Cultural Revolution era. One reason was the diminished use of tongzhi,
which left a void and created the need for a generic, polite form of address.
In its place, job titles such as buzhang ೽ߏ (‘department head’) and zhuren
ЬҺ (‘chief’) became the dominant forms of address in the workplace.
Our data of bank business meetings and governmental meetings recorded
in 1992 shows that surname plus job titles, such as Li-juzhang ‫ߏֽ׵‬
(‘Bureau Chief Li’), were the most prevalent forms of address in such
settings. The following example shows how a branch chief (Chen-kezhang
ഋࣽߏ) addressed another branch chief in a bank business meeting with
a group of mid-level managers.
(3) [In a meeting]

ഋࣽߏǺȨЦࣽߏǴ‫׵‬࿶౛ᇥ‫ॺך‬Ѹ໪ΟϺֹԋൔ߄Ƕȩ
Branch Chief Chen: Branch Chief Wang, Manager Li said that we
must complete the reporting form in three days.
In this example, Branch Chief Chen addressed another employee of equal

rank by using his surname and job title Wang-kezhang Цࣽߏ (‘Branch
Chief Wang’). The speaker also used the format of surname plus job title
to refer to a person who was not present: Li-jingli ‫׵‬࿶౛ (‘Manager Li’).
This example shows that tongzhi was already no longer a common term of
address in the workplace in contemporary China at the time of recording
this interaction.
The use of job title as a term of address was first confined to the workplace,
particularly in governmental organizations or official settings, sometimes
together with tongzhi as discussed above. But their usage quickly extended
to other domains of social interaction, including non-workplace interactions
or personal interactions, especially among one’s acquaintances. During our
field observations, we noticed that the format of surname plus job title was
preferred among acquaintances in all public domains, including social
events such as dinner banquets and other gatherings.
During the economic reform period of 1979 to present, business as a

profession suddenly gained its popularity and had a positive spin among
the Chinese. As a result, job titles that are associated with business profes-
sions have become popular terms of address. For example, jingli ࿶౛
(‘manager’) and laozong Դᕴ (‘general manager’) are some of the most
common terms of address in current Chinese communication. This is
evidenced in our data of business meetings and workplace interaction in
business companies.
3.2.1.3 Xiansheng Ӄғ (‘mister’) and xiaojie λ‫‘( ۆ‬miss’)

As with tongzhi, the traditional honorific terms of address xiansheng Ӄғ
(lit. ‘first-born’, ‘mister’) and xiaojie λ‫( ۆ‬lit. ‘little elder sister’, ‘miss’)
have also been going through semantic changes since 1949 (Fang and
Heng, 1983, and Ju, 1991). According to Lee-Wong (2000), these two terms
went through three semantic shifts:
1. Pre-1949 revolution: these terms were associated with upper social class,
wealth and high status.
2. Post-1949 revolution: demise of these forms as terms of address with the
exception of using xiangsheng as a term for distinguished scholars or
academics at universities. With the abolishment of class distinctions (at
least in theory), these two terms, together with other ‘elitist’ address
forms, were dropped from colloquial.
3. The Open Door Policy with its emphasis on free market economy saw a
revival of these forms, albeit with semantic shifts (Lee-Wong, 2000:
156–7).
Lee-Wong concluded that xiansheng and xiaojie were the rough equivalents
of English ‘Mr’ and ‘Miss’ respectively at the time of her research in the
mid-1990s.
Based on our research, these two terms have gone through more changes
since the Open Door Policy or the Reform Era. While they are often used
in service encounter interactions, they became more general terms of
address and lost their traditional honorific functions. The term xiaojie
has gone through even more semantic shifts and has acquired the negative
connotation of ‘prostitute’. The ambiguity in the use of these traditional
forms of address often results in conflict if not embarrassment between
interactants. For example, when living in China in the early 2000s, Kádár
overheard the following interaction in an eatery at a train station:
(4) [interaction between a customer and a food server]

A: λ‫ۆ‬Ǵፎٰ΋\Ǿ^
Miss, please bring me a . . .
B: ᇥϙሶǻፔࢂঁλ‫ۆ‬ǻ
What did you say? Who is a miss?
In this eatery, noticeably a low-cost state-owned place in a train station

where the employees could afford to not be too ‘politic’ at that time, the
waitress reacted abruptly to the customer’s form of address, even though
the customer was obviously trying to be deferential. The customer would
not have been in a better position if he had used the other available (non-
gendered) form of address, fuwuyuan ୍ܺ঩ (lit. ‘employee’), because it
sounds quite rude in service settings if used directly towards the addressee.
This aversion towards formal terms of address is rooted in the fact that
the use of many traditional forms, which have been reintroduced to the
colloquial in contemporary Chinese, is rather ambiguous. As shown in this
train station eatery example, many Chinese try to avoid using the address
form xiaojie λ‫‘ ۆ‬miss’ because of the negative connotation associated
with it. However, there is no other generally adopted synonym for ‘miss’ in
contemporary Chinese, which often results in conflict.
3.2.1.4 Familial terms of address

Familial or kinship terms of address have always been an important invent-
ory in Chinese vocatives, partly because of the value and importance placed
on family and familial relationships in Chinese culture (see Liu, 1988,
Zheng, 1987, and Zhao and Gao, 1990). Kinship terms of address are often
used with non-kin but close relationships such as those of close friends
and neighbours. Lee-Wong (2000) argued that in contemporary Chinese
kinship terms of address were not considered appropriate terms of address
in public places like a department store or market place. However, our ana-
lysis of data shows that when traditional honorific terms of address lost their
function and when the connotation of the new form tongzhi became fuzzy
and ambiguous, kinship terms of address gained popularity in informal
social interactions, as expressions conveying a friendly and polite gesture.
The most commonly used kinship terms are dage εঢ (lit. ‘big brother’,
that is, ‘great or high-ranking brother’), dajie ε‫( ۆ‬lit. ‘big sister’), which
are used to address males and females who are similar in age and rank
range. It is pertinent to note that age and rank difference can be acknow-
ledged in this system of terms of address: for example, dasao ε༳ (‘big
sister-in-law’) can be used to address women of higher age and rank. These
kinship terms can be used in interactions even between strangers to signal
deference or as a strategy to claim closeness. In one of our previous studies
(Pan, 1995, 2000c), we found that the kinship term a’sao ߓ༳ (‘big
sister-in-law’8) was used strategically by salespersons in privately owned
stores in South China to claim familiarity with the customer as a way to show
politeness and to persuade the customer. The following excerpt exemplifi-
ers this strategic usage. The interaction took place in a privately owned
clothing shop. Two female customers were shopping for sweaters and were
hesitating over whether to make a purchase. The interaction took place in
both Mandarin and Cantonese:
(5) [Interaction at a women’s clothing shop]

1. Saleswoman [Cantonese]:!ߓ༳Ǵ‫ګ‬ҹ勃Ƕ
Sister-in-law, this one is pretty.
2. Customer 1 [Mandarin, to Customer 2]: ाόाǻ
Should I buy it or not?
3. Saleswoman [Cantonese]: ᆉ୚Ǵঈশգ୚Ƕ߯୚Ǵ
! ! ੿߯⍪ӧߓ༳ҽ΢Ƕ
OK, I’ll give you a discount too. Really,
I’m doing this just as a favour for this
sister [referring to Customer 2].
4. Customer 2 [Cantonese]: ⍪ߓ༳ҽୟǴ൩ѳঈգ୚Ƕ
(She) is giving face to the sister-in-law,
and is giving you a discount too.
5. Customer 1 [Cantonese]: ΞѳǶ
Give me a discount too.
6. Customer 2 [Cantonese]: ൳ᒲୟǻ
How much money?
7. Saleswoman [Cantonese]: ΎΜϖǶ
Seventy-five [yuan].
8. Customer 2 [Cantonese]: ΎΜϖǶ
Seventy-five [yuan].
In Line 1, the saleswoman first uses the kinship term of address a’sao ߓ༳!
(‘sister-in-law’) to address the customer. Then she uses it again in Line 3, in
order to ‘give face’ to the customer in the moment when the customers
showed hesitation. In Line 3, she deliberately used the metapragmatic
discourse on face (zenhai tai hai a’sao fen seung ੿߯⍪ӧߓ༳ҽ΢,
‘Really, I’m doing this just as a favour for this sister’) to make a claim of
the importance of Customer 2. By addressing the customer as a’sao, she
strategically claims a close relationship with the customer and implicitly
turns an ‘outside relation’ into an ‘inside relation’.9 In this way, a’sao
becomes markedly polite, and it aids the saleswoman to successfully
persuade the customers to buy the sweaters. Indeed, the customers find it
hard to turn down the offer of a discount, due to the face-giving strategy
that the sales woman used.
The change in the system of Chinese terms of address during the 60-year
period from 1949 to 2009 is a telling example of the impact societal changes
have had on the contemporary Chinese politeness system. This change
has constantly posed a challenge even for native speakers of Chinese.
In Chapter 3, we suggested that the proper use of terms of address was
particularly important in historical China. In contemporary China there
are much fewer terms of address in comparison with historical times, and
their application is governed by complex unwritten rules (lit. in historical
China these rules were determined by manuals such as the Chengwei lu,
cf. Chapter 3). Most importantly, many Chinese try to avoid using formal
terms of address when interacting with strangers in contexts that necessitate
some deference. For instance, when asking one’s way, (a) is preferred to (b):
(6)
(a) ፎୢǴᒤϦ࠻ӧΒኴ༏ǻ
Please let me ask, is the office on the second floor?
(b) ӃғǴፎୢǴᒤϦ࠻ӧΒኴ༏ǻ
Sir/Mister, please let me ask, is the office on the second floor?
The use of address terms, however, is just one aspect of polite communication
in a language. Changes in Chinese linguistic politeness can also be observed
in other aspects as described in the following sections.
3.2.2 Other lexical items

As mentioned in Chapter 3, historical Chinese had an extensive self-
denigrating and other-elevating lexicon, which is thus a salient feature of
the historical system. Keeping in mind the richness and importance of
polite lexicons in Chinese politeness phenomena, let us now consider the

change and loss of some of the lexical polite expressions and the resulting
impact on Chinese politeness behaviour.
With the change in political system and social order in 1949, there
erupted massive changes in language use and linguistic politeness. In her
study of general trends of Chinese linguistic changes under the Chinese
Communist rule, Chi (1956, 1957) cogently and poignantly demonstrated
the developments in Chinese linguistic changes in the early 1950s, and
concluded that the developments of linguistic changes were
heterogeneous in the sense that forces bearing upon the language come
from diverse directions and they are violent because the Communist
revolution is the greatest and most violent revolution in the history of
China. (Chi, 1956: 11)
Based on Chi’s studies (1956, 1957), it can be argued that there were three
forces influencing linguistic changes in post-1949 China:
1. The natural pressure for new terms and expressions brought forth by
new political and social needs: a desire for progression to transform ‘old
China’ into a ‘new China’.
2. Functional changes in meaning and construction: language was used as
weapon to carry out the ‘psychological warfare’ the CCP was waging in
the interests of their doctrine.
3. The large number of a new kind of speakers: a big section of the
population, whose voices had been unheard except in their own
small farms or shops, suddenly became articulate (even though this
does not mean that they gained any freedom or right to individual
discourse in a modern democratic sense). The mobilization of the voice
of the masses due to the inversion of social order introduced many
linguistic changes.
To meet these new practices and new sociopragmatic requirements, many

new terms and expressions were created in Chinese language. There were
three main characteristics of linguistic change under the Communist rule
(cf. Chi, 1956 and 1957). First, many new expressions were created to arouse
certain emotions and induce certain actions, such as jieji-chou ໘ભϜ
(‘class hatred’), fanshen-funü ᙌ‫஁ي‬ζ (‘turn-over/liberated women’)
and nongmin-da-fanshen ၭ҇εᙌ‫‘( ي‬great turn-over of the peasants’).
This group of terms focuses on the division of the old ruling class and the
new ‘liberated’ people. Second, many militant terminologies were applied
to everyday civilian activities, such as da-youji Ѻෞᔐ (‘fight guerrilla
warfare’), zhandou-qifen ᏯЏ਻‫‘( ݗ‬war atmosphere’). Finally, there was
heavy use of extravagant terms both in praise and blame, such as zui-weida-de
ന଻ε‫‘( ޑ‬greatest’), zui-guangrong-de നӀᄪ‫‘( ޑ‬the most glorious’)
used in reference to the CCP and zui-yeman-de നഁ᡿‫‘( ޑ‬most savage’)
used in reference to ‘class enemy’. This group of words has an effect of
extreme dichotomy.
The Cultural Revolution politicalized and polarized Chinese language
use even more. Mao Zedong’s quotations in his ‘Little Red Book’ (Hong-
bao-shu आᝊਜ)10 were cited and imitated by Communist Party members as
well as common people nationwide. Mao’s revolutionary terminology was
incorporated by his dutiful cadres into the people’s vocabulary (Chuang,
1968). Revolutionary terminology and expressions became the standard
and common usage in people’s daily life.
As a result of these linguistic changes, lexical items that indicated social
classes such as laoye/shaoye Դྭ/Ͽྭ (‘master’, ‘young master’) were
dropped or became labels for old social class. Words that indicated private
ownership or wealth (e.g. dizhu ӦЬ, ‘landlord’, and funong ൤ၭ, ‘wealthy
peasant’) became terms of abuse and labels of the ‘anti-revolutionary’ class in
the Cultural Revolution.
Consequently, traditional politeness formulae and lexicons were seen
as a reflection or reminder of ‘old China’. Self-denigration and other-
elevation vocatives and conventional polite expressions, such as qing ፎ
(‘please’), xiexie ᖴᖴ (‘thank you’), duibuqi ჹόଆ (‘sorry’), disappeared
from daily usage and were reserved for use in very formal communication
or in written genres only. For daily interactions, it was regarded as old-
fashioned or even ‘petite bourgeois’ to use conventional polite expressions.
Instead, common speech, that is, the plain speech without explicit and
formal politeness formulae of workers, peasants and soldiers (gong-nong-
bing πၭծ), or the ‘uneducated masses’, was held as the standard. Let us
use one example from our personal history interview data to show this
trend. The person being interviewed grew up in Beijing, the capital, and he
was a university professor in one of the best universities in Beijing during
the Cultural Revolution. The following is a recap of his story.
During the Cultural Revolution, all university administrations in Beijing
were replaced by the so-called gongren xuanchuandui πΓ࠹໺໗, that is,
‘workers propaganda team’.11 One day, the leader of the workers propaganda
team held a meeting with the university faculty. The first statement he
made was:
(7) գॺࢂ‫ޕ‬᛽ϩηǴ‫ঁࢂך‬εԴಉǶ‫ך‬ᖱ၉൩ࢂಉǶ
You guys are intellectuals, and I’m just a big old crude guy. I speak in
a crude manner.
The word he used for describing his lack of refined language is cu ಉ

(‘crude’) which has the connotation of ‘vulgar’ and ‘sexual’ (it occurs,
for example, in terms like cukou ಉα, or ‘foul language’). The university
faculty members at the meeting were shocked to hear this statement, but
the leader went on and on to rave about how cu his speech was in contrast
to that of the educated people. The professor being interviewed used this
as an example to show the decline of the refined language in the education
circle since and after the Cultural Revolution and to show how vulgar
language ideologized as the ‘voice of the masses’, and common speech, got
the upper hand in language use in China.
From a sociolinguistic point of view, common speech should not be
viewed as less polite or less effective, as language use does vary by social class
(Labov, 1972). What is interesting in the Chinese case is that common
speech is a term equivalent to speech that employs lexicons with strong
revolutionary flavour, suggestive of the Communist ideology. This consti-
tutes an important characteristic of the politeness practice in contemporary
China. That is, changes in mundane politeness formulae. Ji and colleagues
(1990) gave a convincing account of changes in politeness formulae in the
post-revolutionary period. They argued that there were two sets of routine
politeness formulae:
1. Those that were used before the revolution and continued to be used
after it. This group of polite formulae included those that were used in
informal social interactions and involved personal communication.
Examples can be found in:
(1) Chi le ma? ӞΑ༏ǻ

Have you had your meal? (greeting)
(2) Ni dao nar qu? գ‫ډ‬ব‫ٽ‬ѐǻ
Where are you going? (greeting)
(3) Hao zou! ӳ‫!و‬
Well walk! (leave-taking)
(4) Man zou! ᄌ‫!و‬

Slow walk! (leave-taking)
2. Those that were created and used only after the revolution. The second
set of polite formulae consisted of those that were commonly used in
formal social situations such as public speeches, official documents and
formal letters. This set of politeness formulae used the old politeness
formulaic patterns, but inserted revolutionary vocabulary. For instance,
a traditional politeness formulae for an apology would be like one of the
following two:
(1) Qing yu haihan. ፎϒੇ఼Ƕ

Please be magnanimous enough to forgive.
(2) qing duo baohan. ፎӭх఼Ƕ
Please be magnanimous enough to tolerate.
These traditional formulae were placed with new lexicons such as the
following indicated:
(1) Qing piping bangzhu. ፎ‫ץ‬ຑᔅշǶ

Please criticize help.
(2) Qing piping zhizheng. ፎ‫ץ‬ຑࡰ҅Ƕ
Please criticize correct.
(based on Ji et al., 1990: 63–5)
Ji and colleagues’ study is pertinent to our concern in this book for several
reasons. First of all, the first group of politeness formulae was originally for
informal social interactions, but they were elevated to be the norm of
formal polite practice in the post-revolutionary period largely due to the
abandonment of traditional politeness expressions. Moreover, the tradi-
tional formulae of politeness with a new lexicon were used mainly in writings
and in documents. This indicated that in daily interaction, there was no set
of established politeness formulae. In addition, we can argue that, to fill
this void, politeness formulae for informal social interactions became the
common and prevalent forms of politeness. This is evidenced in our data-
base. We will use one interaction between an employee and her supervisor
that took place in a post office in 1992 to illustrate this point. The employee
was sitting at a counter, selling stamps. Her supervisor walked into the post
office. The interaction was in Cantonese.
(8) [Interaction in a post office]

1. Employee: ഺǴ१՘ؒ֔ǻ
Hey, have you had your meal + tone word?
2. Supervisor: १՘Ƕ
Yes, I have.
This interaction demonstrates several interesting points. To begin with, the

employee did not address her supervisor by using any term of address.
She simply greeted him by an informal word wei ഺ (‘hey’). Second, the
employee used the traditional greeting formulae si-jo mei ya १՘ؒ֔
(‘Have you had your meal?’) in the workplace, where one would expect to
see the use of more formal politeness formulae, since it was work time. This
is a good example of how the politeness formulae for informal interactions
exemplified in asking if someone had taken his meal became normative
practice in the post-Cultural Revolution era. One would wonder if the
employee showed adequate politeness towards her employer. In fact, what
makes the employee’s behaviour polite or appropriate in this instance are
the fact that she was the one who initiated the greeting, her use of informal
register wei ഺ, and the tone word ya ֔ at the end of the greeting. In other
words, the order of speaking (who initiates the greeting and who speaks
first in a meeting) and the informal tone of the utterance signalled politeness
in this case. This brings us to the next point of discussion: other politeness
tools in contemporary Chinese.
3.3 Additional politeness tools

With the disappearance of honorific terms of address and deferential lexical
items, other linguistic tools became available to fulfil the function of polite-
ness practice. Based on our fieldwork and analysis of recorded interactions,
we observed many discursive strategies that were used in place of traditional
honorifics or lexical politeness. Some of the most frequently used discursive
strategies include the use of tone words, topic introduction, order of speaking,
question–answer pattern, turn-taking, small talk, code-switching, joking tone,
bantering, irony, teasing or mocking. We will discuss some of these tools in
this subsection.
3.3.1 Particles
Particles (e.g. ya ֔, a ୟ, aya ࠋ֔) play a special role in politeness
practice in contemporary Chinese. Lee-Wong’s (2000) empirical study
shows that some sentence final particles in Mandarin can be used as polite-
ness hedges to reduce the illocutionary force of direct requests. A recent
study (Pan, 2011a [in press]) on Cantonese politeness shows that conven-
tional polite lexical items are being replaced by other forms of expressions
(in particular, particles) for politeness in interaction.
To prove this point, Pan conducted detailed analyses of 20 survey
interviews with Chinese speakers: 10 in Mandarin and 10 in Cantonese.
Pan carefully examined the polite features exhibited in the interviewers’
utterances and the interviewees’ utterances. It was found that, overall, there
were hardly any conventional or traditional polite lexical items used except
for two words qing ፎ (‘please’) and xiexie ᖴᖴ (‘thank you’), and they
were used only by the interviewers at the beginning and the end of an
interview, as in the following excerpt:
(9) [Interaction in a survey interview]

Interviewer: ӳǴ‫ך‬ाୢ‫ޑ‬ୢᚒ೿ୢֹΑǴᖴᖴգǶ
OK. I have asked all my questions. Thank you.
Interviewee: [silence]
It should also be noted that the two polite expressions qing ፎ ‘please’ and
xiexie ᖴᖴ ‘thank you’ were scripted in the interview protocol and the
interviewers were trained to follow this protocol. In this sense, the inter-
viewers’ use of these polite expressions is a prescribed use of politeness.
On the contrary, the interviewees did not use any conventional polite
lexicons. Instead, they used a variety of particles to indicate their compli-
ance or to show politeness. In interviews in Cantonese, the interviewees
strategically used the particle gam ⧍ before providing personal opinions
to interview questions to help prefacing personal opinions or mitigating
negative responses as in the following example:
(10) [Interaction in a survey interview. Interviewer asked if the interviewee

would participate in a survey.]
Interviewee: ୖуፓࢗǴ⧍‫ך‬᝺ள‫ך‬Ǵদ཮ѐ㽪୚‫ך‬Ƕ
To participate in a survey, then, I feel, I don’t think I would go
(+ tone word).
In this utterance, the interviewee used the particle gam ⧍ to preface his
negative response (‘I don’t think I would go’) to the interviewer’s question.
As different studies show (e.g. Li, 2003, and Pan, 2008), explicit expressions
of personal views are not favoured by Chinese speakers, at least in the

public domain, as they are often seen as face-threatening. Expressing
negative feedback is even more so. Thus, in this case, the interviewee
used gam ⧍ as a form of facework to mitigate the face-threatening act of
expressing negative feedback. He also used two tone words ge la 㽪୚ at the
end of his utterance. The combination of tone words and particles softened
his negative feedback.
The interviewers strategically used tone words and particles as well.
Different analyses show that the interviewers frequently used gam ⧍ before
a request to reduce the impact of requesting personal information or per-
sonal opinions in a semi-public domain like an interview. All phenomena
point to the fact that an extensive amount of particles, and not conventional
polite lexicons, are being employed in contemporary Chinese to commun-
icate politeness.
3.3.2 Turn-taking
The order of speaking and turn-taking is of interest in our investigation of
politeness practices because turn-taking can be employed as an interactional
strategy to show politeness and to acknowledge power hierarchy in differ-
ent social settings. In the Chinese context, interactants who are acquainted
with each other, such as in the workplace, among friends and in a family
situation, need to observe the unspoken rule of who speaks first in a given
situation. For example, in a dyadic interaction such as student–teacher
interaction, the one in a lower position initiated the greeting, but not the
topic of conversation. When a student and a teacher met on a campus,
the student normally greeted the teacher first. The teacher returned the
greeting. But the teacher was the person who introduced a new topic in
the conversation (Scollon and Scollon, 1991).
Careful examination of Chinese official meetings recorded in the 1990s
shows that turn-taking is a subtle way to signal power hierarchy. Participants
of these events took up speaking turns based on their official rank, and the
amount of speaking time contributed to the topic under discussion was
in accordance with their position in the power hierarchy. The higher the
position a speaker occupied in the ranking system, the more speaking
turns and speaking time he or she had. The amount of speaking time and
the number of speaking turns for each participant can be charted in a
descending order that parallels the ranking order of the participants at
a meeting (see Pan, 1995 and 2000c for more detail).
Let us consider one meeting discussion to illustrate this point. The
following extract is from a city government committee meeting discussing
how to decorate the conference room. There are four participants in this
discussion. It is interesting to observe how their speaking turns correlate
with their position in the official rank system.
(11) [At a city government committee meeting discussing how to

decorate the conference room. The discussion was in Cantonese.]
Participants: Liu – male, secretary, 35 (the top position)

Fan – male, deputy secretary, 28
Wu – female, staff member, 28
Lee – male, staff member, 31
1. Liu: ᐉᚐǴᐉᚐ᏾ӳؒǻ
Banner, is the banner ready yet?
2. Fan: ᜐঁ᏾ᆙᐉᚐǻ
Who is doing the banner?
3. Wu: ‫ך‬᏾ᆙঁᐉᚐǶ‫ך‬ς࿶᏾ӳ䠙Ƕ‫ך‬ћᥝቪΜԯǶ
I’m doing the banner. I already did it. I asked him to write
a ten-metre [banner].
4. Fan: ΜԯёૈϼߏளӧǶ
Probably ten metres is too long.
5. Wu: দ΋‫ۓ‬Ǵᢥ䘇Ǵ㽪Ǵদ΋‫ۓ‬Ƕ྽ฅদ΋ኬ୚Ǵ
! ! Ӣࣁ‫ګ‬䛧Ԗᩙӭӷ!!!!Ǿ!!!ख़ԖࠐǴӵ݀գѺᐉࡸ!!!Ǿ
Not likely, what, so, not likely. Of course it’s not the same,
because it has many words. . . . Moreover if you put it up
horizontally . . .
6. Fan: գǴΜԯǴୢᚒ߯䛧ঁ཮᝼࠻㮅দ㮅εࡸᥝǶ
You, ten metres . . . The problem is whether the conference
room is big enough to hang it.
[A few more exchanges between Fan and Wu, disagreeing on how

to hang up the banner]
7. Liu: ѺᐉࡸǶ‫ך‬ӦǴԶৎǴ࣪ٚᜐ၉‫ך‬ӦԾρѺᐉࡸ
! ! Ǿ!ୢᚒ߯գा᏾ঁαဦǴգԖᢲ⍪Π䛧Տ࿼ǻ
Put it horizontally. We, now, the provincial [government]
said we’d put it up horizontally ourselves . . . The problem
is you’ll make the slogan, but did you take a look at the
location?
8. Lee: ⍪䠙ǴԖΜԯǶ
Yes, there is ten metres.
9. Wu: Μԯ䘄䘄ӳǶ
Ten metres is just right.
In this extract, Liu, the committee secretary who had the highest rank
among the speakers, brings up a new topic in Line 1 about getting the
banner ready for decoration. Fan, the deputy secretary, immediately asks a
follow-up question in Line 2 and Wu responds in Line 3. Each of them
speaks in the order of their ranking position. Then there was some
disagreement between Fan and Wu regarding how to hang up the banner,
and they did not reach an agreement. Liu intervenes in Line 7: he first
states his agreement with Wu, that is to put up the banner horizontally.
Then he quotes a higher authority – the provincial government, in Line 7 –
to support his decision. By quoting the higher authority, the current speaker,
Liu, shifts his footing (Goffman’s term, 1981) from a principal to an animator,
thus framing his decision-making power as not coming from himself, but
from the higher authority. He is just exercising the power allocated to him
by the rank hierarchy. As soon as Liu makes the decision, Fan does not raise
any more issues. Lee and Wu concur with Liu’s decision.
This example shows that turn-taking is one of the tacit ways to show defer-
ence to a person in a higher position. Speaking out of turn in the hierarchy
would violate the norms of politeness. During one of Pan’s field trips to
China in the late 1990s, she gave a lecture at a university in Guangzhou. An
official dinner was arranged with the university staff after the lecture. The
same speaking pattern described above was observed for the dinner-table
conversation among participants. The participants took turns to speak
in accordance with their rank, especially at the beginning of the dinner.
However, during the conversation, one junior staff member asked Pan a
question about doing research and then made a relative lengthy comment
on how difficult it was to write a research paper. The department dean later
apologized to Pan, saying that the junior staff member did not know how to
be polite (bu dong limao όᔉᘶᇮ, that is, ‘don’t know polite rituals’),
because during this occasion it was not his turn to speak (lun bu dao ta
shuohua ፺ό‫ډ‬дᇥ၉, that is, ‘it’s not his turn to speak’). The junior
staff member clearly spoke so much that it violated the norm of politeness
practice on this occasion. This shows how important it is to observe the
normative speaking pattern in the interaction in order to show deference
and politeness.
3.3.3 Small talk

The employment of small talk (e.g. conversation on topics other than those
related to the intended action) is not something new or specific to contem-
porary Chinese politeness, because small talk has always been an important
element in interpersonal communication in any language. Tannen (1990)
explicated that small talk served the interactional function of showing
involvement in interpersonal communication. The point we want to make
is that with the decrease of lexical politeness items in Chinese, small talk
gained a significant role in discursive politeness in Chinese face-to-face
interaction. Yanyin Zhang (1995) noticed that small talk was a central
component of Chinese indirectness when redressing a face-threatening
act such as a request. Small talk even became part of ritual greetings in
daily life. For example, expressions like Chi le ma? ӞΑ༏ǻ (‘Have you
eaten?’) and Ni qu nar? գѐٗ‫ٽ‬ǻ (‘Where have you been?’) were used
phatically as greetings between acquaintances in contemporary Chinese
until the Open Door Policy period. These phatic expressions originally
functioned as ‘small talk’ and gradually became ritualized and routine in
social interactions.
The ritualized usage of small talk can be shown in two examples here.
The first is an encounter between two professionals in an academic confer-
ence. Pan recently met a professor from China at a linguistics conference
in America. The Chinese professor gave Pan her name card. Pan looked at
the card and read out her university “Wuhan Technology University.” The
professor said:
(12) ჹǴ‫ࢂך‬வ‫ݓ‬ᅇٰ‫ޑ‬ǶգΠԛӣ୯Ǵ΋‫ݓٰۓ‬ᅇ‫ވ‬Ƕ
Yes, I am from Wuhan. When you return to China next time,
definitely visit Wuhan.
One can notice a few interesting points here. First, the professor did not
use any honorific terms or deferential expressions. Instead, she used a
phatic expression (an invitation) to show her friendliness and politeness.
This ritualized invitation serves the function of an English polite expression
‘Very nice to meet you’ in this context.
Amazingly, the same strategy can be used in a formal context. The second
example below is a formal meeting between high-ranking US and Chinese
government officials taking place in the fall of 2009. Pan was called into
an assignment of interpreting a senior level meeting between a deputy
secretary of a US government department and a Chinese delegation led
by a vice minister of a Chinese government ministry. After the two parties
exchanged gifts at the meeting, the Chinese vice minister said to the US
deputy secretary:
(13) ‫׆‬ఈգૈѐύ୯ୖᢀǶѐύ୯‫ޑ‬ਔংǴ΋‫ۓ‬ाѐܼԀ࣮
࣮ǶܼԀࢂύ୯‫ޑ‬ӜയђᙬǶԖѡύ୯ђ၉ᇥǴ΢ԖϺ
୸ǴΠԖ᝵ܼǶё‫ܼـ‬ԀԖӭሶऍ᜽Ƕ
Hope you will be able to visit China. When you visit China, you must
visit Hangzhou. Hangzhou is China’s historical sight. There is an
old saying: above there is Heaven, below are Suzhou [another city
famed for its beauty, translators’ note] and Hangzhou. It shows how
beautiful Hangzhou is!
Notice the parallel between the two examples in terms of syntactic structure,
semantic meaning and pragmatic function. The two ritualized invitations
are delivered by using the structure yiding-lai . . . wan/kankan ΋‫!ٰۓ‬Ǿ!
‫ވ‬0࣮࣮ (lit. ‘definitely come to [name of a place] to play/visit’). The
adverb yiding ΋‫‘( ۓ‬definitely’) gives a tone of emphasis to the statement.
The semantic meaning of the statement is to invite someone for a visit.
These two invitations may seem quite irrelevant and totally off topic at the
moment of the conversation, but they function to express the speaker’s
goodwill and courtesy. In fact, they are conventionalized small talk and have
acquired the function of phatic expressions.
These two examples demonstrate how small talk became conventionalized
polite expressions. To some extent, the ritualized or routine use of small talk was
taken as the norm for politeness practices in social interaction and in business.
Not observing this practice would be deemed to be a violation of politeness
rules in contemporary China, as is shown in Pan and her colleagues (2002), in
which the authors showed three Hong Kong business telephone conversa-
tions to a group of professionals in Peking for review and comments.
In one of the telephone conversations, a Hong Kong information tech-
nology professional was calling his client. Once he identified the caller and
himself, he went straight to introduce the purpose of his calling without any
small talk as in Example 14.
(14) [An IBM representative calling his client. Italics indicates code-
switching from Cantonese to English.]
1. ԐఃǶদ၀ǴCarrie‫س‬দ‫ࡋس‬ǻ
Good morning. May I speak to Carrie?
2. գӳǴCarrieǶ
Hello, Carrie.
3. ‫!سך‬IBM networking 㽪 EricǶ

This is Eric from IBM networking.
4. ‫ך‬Ѻႝ၉ঈգǴӕգconfirm΋㜰ǶգถВௗ՘ႝတǴ
! ԶৎrunᆙWorld One ImageǴ‫س‬দ‫س‬ǻ
I’m calling to confirm with you. You connected your computer
yesterday, and are now running World One Image, right?
When the Beijing professionals heard this conversation, they immediately

pointed out that the conversation sounded very cold and too business-like.
They commented that it lacked personal feelings (meiyou ren-qingwei ؒԖ
Γ௃‫)ښ‬, and they themselves would not make a telephone call to their
clients without small talk such as asking how they were doing (wenhou-yixia
ୢং΋Π). Whether the Beijing professionals would actually do what they
said (attending to small talk) is not as important as what they perceived as
the norms of politeness practice. This reaction is a good example of how
small talk was held as the norm when politely opening a conversation or
interaction.
To sum up, the diminishing and gradual disappearance of honorifics
and traditional polite lexicons in Chinese polite communication boosted
the application of other discursive tools in social interaction to indicate
politeness. This aspect of politeness communication has gained popular-
ity, particularly in informal situations and daily interactions. This phe-
nomenon is in line with Goffman’s view that deference and tact have a
sociological significance altogether beyond the level of table manners and
etiquette books (Goffman, 1971: 90) and Brown and Levinson’s original
view that politeness concerns the foundations of human social life and
interaction (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 1). So despite the destruction
of the traditional politeness system in Chinese, starting from the early
twentieth century in China, interpersonal interaction still requires some
form of politeness to meet the sociopragmatic requirements of power and
distance. Social interactions still need some form of linguistic strategy to
regulate the relationship between the speaker and the addressee. The shift
from honorifics and lexical politeness to other discursive tools is a response
to the change in Chinese society at the time on the one hand, and on
the other hand, to meet the requirements of social interaction. It should
be noted that we do not intend to suggest that in historical Chinese dis-
cursive strategies did not exist (Chapter 3 illustrated that they were in fact
quite important), but rather that they coexisted with honorifics and so even
if they were important they were not as salient as in modern times.
3.4 Politeness at discourse level

In this subsection, we will examine the three commonly used speech acts of
refusals, apologies and requests in contemporary Chinese to demonstrate
the above-mentioned shift from the reliance on honorific lexicons to dis-
cursive moves and discursive strategies in contemporary Chinese politeness.
Speech acts are utterances that perform an action, and thus are seen as
potential face-threatening acts in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness
model. Therefore, they are one of the most studied subjects in politeness
investigation.
3.4.1 Refusals
We illustrated in Chapter 3 that in historical Chinese politeness practice,
refusals were made by expressions that have other-elevating and self-
denigrating meanings and in conjunction with the use of honorific forms
of address and honorific verb forms. This feature is hardly evident in
contemporary Chinese refusals. The most salient feature of refusals in
contemporary Chinese communication is observed in discursive strategies
that constitute an indirect refusal. One such strategy is to provide an
irrelevant response to a request, which will lead to an indirect refusal.
To demonstrate this point, let us use some examples from Pan and her
colleagues’ research (Pan, 2011c [in press]; Chan and Pan, 2011 [in press])
on interviewing recent Chinese immigrants to the United States. Pan
and her team examined the linguistic features of monolingual Chinese
respondents as they answered interview questions and found that Chinese
respondents were more likely to provide very limited or ambiguous responses
to interview questions compared to their English-speaking counterparts. In
particular, when they provided a refusal to a request for survey participation,
their responses tended to be irrelevant and deviate from what the question
asked for. Example 15 is from an interview with a monolingual Chinese
speaker who was a recent immigrant to the United States and a female in
her 40s.
(15) [In Mandarin. INT: interviewer; R: respondent]

1. INT: ଷ೛ா೏ᒧύୖуऍ୯‫୔ޗ‬ፓࢗǴόࢂ‫ॺך‬ϞϺ
! ! ‫ޑ‬ፓࢗǴӵ݀දࢗ঩Ҭ๏գ೭࠾ߞ‫ک‬λнηǴ
! ! գֹ࣮Αϐࡕգ཮ୖу೭ঁፓࢗ༏ǻ
If you were selected to participate in the American
Community Survey, which is not the one that we are doing
today, after you read the letter and brochure that the
Census Bureau representative gives you, would you

participate in the survey?
2. R: ༕! Ǿ! ‫ך‬ό‫ޕ‬ၰдࢂόࢂ੿‫ࢂޑ‬Γαදֽࢗ‫ޑ‬Ǵ
! ! ‫ך‬ό‫ޕ‬ၰǶ
Eh . . . I don’t know if he is really a Census Bureau represent-
ative. I don’t know.
3. INT: ֹ࣮Α೭࠾ߞ‫ک‬λнηǴգᗋԖ೭Бय़‫៝ޑ‬ቾ
! ! ࢂ༏ǻ
Do you still have this concern after you read this letter and
brochure?
4. R: ჹǶ
Yes.
5. INT: ٗӵ݀дрҢπբจ‫ګ‬ǻ
So what if he shows his work ID?
6. R: ‫ך‬Ψࡐᜤ࣬ߞǶ
It’s still difficult for me to believe him.
7. INT: ٗգᗋࢂ᝺ளό΋‫ୖۓ‬уǻ
So you still feel that you are not likely to participate?
8. R: ჹǴ‫ך‬ό΋‫ୖۓ‬уǶ
Right, I’m not likely to participate.
In this interaction, the respondent tried to refuse to participate in the

survey. Her answer to the interview’s question in Turn 2 seems irrelevant
because she did not state if she would participate or not. She gave a long
pause before she stated her concern that the person who requested
her participation may not be a legitimate government representative. The
interviewer countered her doubt by asking one follow-up question: “Do
you still have this concern after you read this letter and brochure?” The
respondent gave a short answer: “Yes”. The interviewer probed further
by offering another scenario: “So what if he shows his work ID?” The
respondent still used her concern as a way to refuse: “It’s still difficult for
me to believe him.” After three exchange turns, the respondent still didn’t
give a clear answer whether she would participate or not. So by this time the
interviewer provided the answer for the respondent to confirm: “So you still
feel that you are not likely to participate?” The respondent confirmed:
“Right, I’m not likely to participate.” In this exchange, the respondent’s
refusal is not packaged in the various honorific forms of address or ritualized
strategies that characterize historical Chinese refusals. Instead, her refusal
is delivered through the discursive strategies of irrelevance and indirect-

ness in her responses to the interviewer’s questions. The interviewer had to
make inference from her responses to come to the conclusion that she was
not likely to participate in the survey.
The following is another example in which the respondent listed various
reasons as an indirect way to refuse to participate in the survey.
(16) [In Cantonese. INT: interviewer; R: respondent]

1. INT: ֹ࣮ϐࡕǴଷ೛ाգୖуऍ୯‫୔ޗ‬ፓࢗǴ
! ! գ᝺ள཮দ཮ୖу㽪‫ګ‬ǻ
After you read it (survey brochure), if you were selected to
participate in the American Community Survey, would you
participate?
2. R: Ӣࣁ‫ך‬मᇟদӳǴӳᜤୖу㽪Ƕ
It is difficult to participate because my English is not good.
3. INT: ⧍ӵ݀ග‫ٮ‬ύЎ‫׷ޑ‬਑ঈգǴգ཮দ཮ୖу㽪‫ګ‬ǻ
If we provide you with Chinese materials, would you
participate?
4. R: ‫ך‬ԃइε՘ǴᆒઓӚБय़೿দள୚Ǵᇟ‫ق‬ҭদ
! ! ளǴ໒ًΞদБߡǶ
I’m old, and my energy is low. My language is not good,
and I can’t drive.
5. INT: ⧍ӵ݀‫ॺך‬ஒ‫׷ޑ‬਑஌ঈգৎҾ‫ګ‬ǻ
Then what if we mail the materials to your house?
6. R: ख़‫س‬দளǴӢࣁ‫ך‬Ԗ΋‫ޑ‬ಒၡвा஥Ƕ
(I) still can’t do it, because I have to take care of the kids.
In this interview, the interviewer wanted to know if the Chinese respondent

was willing to participate in a survey or not. The respondent first gave an
ambiguous answer. He focused on the difficulty for him to participate
instead of stating a “No” to the question. To him it was impolite to say no to
an interviewer in this face-to-face interview. Then the interviewer asked a
follow-up question: “If we provide you with Chinese materials, would you
participate?”
The respondent listed four reasons for not being able to participate in his
short reply in Line 4: old age, low energy, poor language proficiency and
inability to drive. To the respondent, the facework of listing reasons softens
the impact of a refusal. But the interviewer needed to get a clear “Yes” or
“No” answer. She probed once more to address the four reasons that the
respondent listed: “Then what if we mail the materials to your house?” The
respondent then said: “(I) still can’t do it, because I have to take care of the
kids.” Notice here the refusal is followed by a new reason for not being able
to participate. It took three exchange turns for the respondent to give a real
answer. Another interesting strategy employed in refusal is that the respond-
ent emphasized external factors for his refusal: language barriers, old age,
time constraint, inability to drive. He never touched on the volition aspect
even though the question asked for his volition. He was using this strategy
as a polite way to deliver a refusal.
3.4.2 Apologies
Similar to refusals, routine forms of apology observed in historical Chinese
are rarely observed in contemporary Chinese. Many times, apologies are
delivered by means other than linguistic expressions, such as taking redres-
sive action or doing something for the person offended to mend the rela-
tionship. It is no wonder we had difficult time identifying apologies in our
rich data of naturally occurring conversation or interaction. From our per-
sonal history interviews, we found some interesting comments on Chinese
apologies. When asked how Chinese made apologies, one Chinese pro-
fessor clearly claimed: “zhongguoren buhui daoqian! ύ୯Γό཮ၰᄹ"
(‘The Chinese don’t [or don’t know] how to apologize!’)” This could be
an exaggerated statement or personal view on Chinese apologies, but to
some extent, this statement has a grain of truth in it. Even a recent Chinese
website12 lists various ways of avoiding making an apology in current China
and states that as time goes on there has formed a ‘no apology culture’ (bu
daoqian wenhua όၰᄹЎϯ) in contemporary China – even though this
is obviously an overexaggeration since, as far as we are aware, there is no
culture without apology.13
If an apology is delivered with ritualized forms like those in historical
Chinese, it would become marked behaviour and would lead to inter-
pretation of insincerity. The following is one example from a Chinese
discussion website14 in which a person makes excessive use of ritualized
apology forms.
(17) ჹόଆӚՏǴፎচፊ‫!ך‬Ǿ
ٗϺ‫פך‬Α΋ε୴ຠკࡐଯ䞅‫!ޑ‬Ǿ
วΑ΢ѐǴ่݀೏Γ֋‫ࢂޕ‬ȨλқȩǾ
ፎӚՏচፊ‫ޑך‬ค‫!ޕ‬Ǿ
ӛӚՏၰᄹ!Ǿ ჹόଆ!Ǿ
੿ࢂჹόଆୟ!Ǿ A։ٗ!Ǿ চፊ‫ ך‬Ǿ
I’m sorry, everyone. Please forgive me.
The other day I was very happy that I found many clips and sent them.
But I was accused as “stupid” . . .
Please everyone excuse my ignorance . . .
I apologize to everyone . . . I’m sorry . . .
I am really sorry . . . Gentlemen . . . please forgive me.
This passage was written by a Chinese girl. Notice the amount of ritualized
forms in this passage: almost every sentence starts with an apology (e.g.
duibuqi ჹόଆ, ‘I’m sorry’, and qing yuanliang ፎচፊ, ‘please forgive’).
However, the excessive amount of ritualized forms for apology does not
translate into a sincere apology, because the person makes use of these
forms to make ‘marked’ behaviour, or politeness in a Wattsian (2003) sense.
This unusual and marked use of apology gives the impression of her inten-
tion to be feminine by overdoing apologies.
3.4.3 Requests
Studies on requests in contemporary Chinese have a tendency to focus on
discursive strategies that indicate directness or indirectness in requests (e.g.
Lee-Wong, 1994a; Zhang, Y., 1995; Hong, 1996; Dong, 2008). These studies
did not examine honorific lexical items that indicated self-denigration and
other-elevation in requests. Rather they compared and contrasted what
discursive strategies were employed to make requests. This analytical focus
suggests that discursive strategies, instead of honorific lexicons, are more
prevalent in requests in contemporary Chinese.
For example, Zhang’s study showed that “rules operating on the directness-
indirectness distinction were different in English and Chinese” (Zhang, Y.,
1995: 82). English indirectness is manifested at the syntactic level, indicated
by a change in syntactic structure, such as the use of question format or
various conventional formats of indirectness. In contrast, the representa-
tion of Chinese indirectness occurs at the discourse level, realized either by
small talk or supportive moves. Another observation made by Zhang is that
Chinese indirectness is often associated with information sequencing. That
is, the very act of requesting is usually made after a considerable amount of
background information is provided.
This observation echoed Scollon and Scollon’s (1991: 115) description of

topic instruction in Asian cultures: “the Chinese and other Asians generally
defer the introduction of the topic until after a considerable period of
small talk.” Scollon and Scollon labelled this speech behaviour as the
“inductive pattern of topic introduction”, as opposed to the “deductive
pattern of topic introduction” ([1995] 2001: 75). This speech pattern and
the indirectness rules in Chinese point to the fact that discursive strategies
play a more crucial role in Chinese politeness than differing syntactic
structuring of an indirect sentence or honorific lexicons.
Although Hong’s (1996) study showed that a number of polite expressions
were often used in requests, including qing (‘please’), hao-ma/xing-ma/
keyi-ma ӳ༏0Չ༏0ёа༏ (‘OK/fine/alright’), neng/neng bu neng ૈ0
ૈόૈ (‘can’), xiexie ᖴᖴ (‘thanks’), these expressions are not honorific
forms of address or self-denigration and other-elevation lexicons. Instead,
they are either modal verbs (e.g. neng), or sentence final questions (e.g.
hao-ma/xing-ma/keyi-ma). They are often used discursively in requests to
reduce the imposition of face-threatening acts (to use Brown and Levinson’s
1987 term). This again suggests that discursive strategies are more observ-
able in polite requests than honorific lexicons.
It is important to point out that most studies on Chinese requests
employed the method of questionnaires or discourse completion tasks in
data collection, and they tended to generate group members’ perspective
on politeness behaviour. The group members’ view is an idealized and
very often stereotypical assumption of how one should perform or act in a
given situation (see also Pan, 2011b [in press]). When asked to produce a
speech act in an imagined situation, people normally call upon these sets
of assumptions and ideological accounts in producing an utterance. As a
result, the speech acts produced tend to be more formal, more polite or
more acceptable, such as using modal verbs, sentence final particles or
hedges, than the actual occurrences of speech acts.
In this regard, studies based on naturally occurring data presented a
slightly different picture of Chinese requests. Wierzbicka’s study (1996)
and Pan’s study (2000c) show that in the Chinese context a more direct way
of performing a speech act is preferred in close personal relationship or
between strangers. Chinese requests are often rendered in an imperative
structure, which can sound direct and abrupt to people from English-
speaking cultures. If one examines requests in interaction, it is more
obvious that Chinese requests and responses to requests are made of
minimum verbal exchange. The following are three requests recorded in
three different settings. The first request was made in a family dinner
conversation by a husband to his wife:
(18) [In Mandarin]

Husband: ৾ঁ݆ηٰǶ
Get me a cup.
Wife: [Gets up from the table and goes towards the cupboard.]
The second example is a request made in a service encounter in a post

office. The customer asked the service person for stamps.
(19) [In Mandarin]

Customer: ๏‫ך‬Ο஭ແ౻Ƕ
Get me three stamps.
The third example is from a workplace meeting. One government employee

asked his co-worker to hand him a notebook.
(20) [In Cantonese]

Co-worker: ঈঁᛛ‫ך‬Ƕ
Give me a notebook.
All three requests share the same syntactic structure. They were phrased
with an imperative. They did not consist of any hedge, or modal verb, or
sentence final particle to redress the face-threatening act as shown in those
studies using questionnaire data. In these three cases, the person who
complied with the request did not make any verbal acknowledgment. They
just performed the act being requested. Similarly, the person who made
the request did not give any verbal acknowledgement such as ‘thanks’ when
the other party completed the act. The sequence of request/compliance
was very brief without a long stretch of discourse or other strategies to
indicate politeness.
3.4.4 Summary
To summarize, while in historical Chinese honorifics and elevating/
denigrating lexicon were the linguistic tools frequently used to redress
the face-threatening act of a speech act, these features are not evident in
contemporary Chinese speech acts. Instead, discursive strategies, such as
pause, irrelevancy in the answer, listing external reasons, use of particles

and the number of turn exchanges, are important features employed to
mitigate the imposition of a face-threatening act in speech acts. This can be
one of the reasons that even formal aspects of politeness seem confusing
and misleading because, unlike historical Chinese politeness where the sys-
tem of elevating/denigrating honorifics and vocatives was well established,
there is no systemic framework to describe these discursive strategies in
contemporary Chinese politeness.
3.5 Name, title, font, size, colour: Everything counts

So far we focused mainly on discussion of verbal interaction. We now turn
our attention to an empirical study of written text (newspapers) to demon-
strate how contextualized elements play an equal, if not more important,
part in politeness practice. The data for the study came from two Chinese
newspapers: People’s Daily (Renmin ribao Γ҇Вൔ, the Chinese central
government’s newspaper) and Guangzhou Daily (Guangzhou ribao ቶԀВൔ,
a local governmental organisation’s newspaper) collected during the period
of the transition of Hong Kong’s sovereignty from Britain to China (June
and July 1997). The rationale behind the selection of these two newspapers
during that time period was that these newspapers targeted different
audiences (national vs local), and so they should yield some interesting
comparisons in the use of linguistic politeness strategies. Also choosing the
Hong Kong Handover time frame as the period for data sampling made it
possible to compare reports on the same event or activities related to the
same event made by two different newspapers.
The data sampling period was two months from 1 June to 31 July 1997. In
order to gain a better coverage for this two-month period, it was envisaged
that the data set should cover every day of the week (i.e. Monday to Sunday)
and the same number of days from each month. Thus for each of the two
newspapers, eight days (four for each month) were chosen to represent the
data set. Both newspapers were examined for the eight-day period to look
for evidence of recurring genres.
One dimension which is measurable and upon which we can base our
analysis is how ‘face’ or importance is given to a piece of news or a news-
maker in a newspaper. Therefore, we first looked into two specific linguistic
features of newsmaker referencing, and then compared the placement of
news stories, and fonts and size in the headlines of various news stories
across genres. These features are by no means exclusive elements for the
study of linguistic politeness in newspapers; we bring up these issues as
a way to show that many contextualized elements are called into politeness
practice.
3.5.1 Referencing the newsmaker

Studies of newsmaker labelling categorize newsmakers into two broad
groups: the knowns and the unknowns (e.g. Bell, 1991, and Jucker, 1996).
In Chinese newspapers, the known figures are mostly government officials,
and their activities and statements make up most of the news stories on the
cover page of People’s Daily. In Guangzhou Daily, however, the unknowns,
such as common citizens, are very often the newsmakers. As news is about
people, and most news stories focus on people – what they say, what they do,
or what has happened to them (Jucker, 1996) – expressions referring to
newsmakers convey a huge amount of information concerning current
politeness practice. So our analysis first focuses on how a newsmaker is
referred to in a news story.
There are four main ways of referring to a newsmaker: names (nickname,
given name, surname, full name), names plus title (surname plus title, full
name plus title), names with descriptive labels before or after the name
(e.g. Chinese President, Jiang Zemin Ԣᐛ҇), and pronouns (cf. Jucker,
1996). The sampled data shows that reference to newsmakers in these two
newspapers and the position of the newsmaker are correlated.
In terms of the position of the newsmaker, the known figures, such as
Chinese and foreign government officials in the two newspapers are mostly
referred to by their full names and descriptive labels, or titles (e.g. President
Jiang Zemin, that is, Zongshuji Jiang Zemin ᕴਜ૶Ԣᐛ҇, and Prince
Charles, that is, Chali-wangzi ࢗ౛Цη). There is, however, a difference
between People’s Daily and Guangzhou Daily in the reporting of government
officials. For Chinese government officials who hold two job titles (e.g. one
job title with the government, and one job title with the Communist Party),
People’s Daily uses the government job title (e.g. president) to refer to
Chinese government officials while Guangzhou Daily uses an in-group
form of address or the Party job title (e.g. tongzhi, that is, ‘comrade’, and
dangwei-shuji ល‫ہ‬ਜ૶, that is, ‘Party Secretary’) to refer to the government
officials. This distinction between in-group and out-group audience of
the two newspapers is thus indicated by referencing the same newsmaker in
different ways.
The unknown figures of ordinary citizens as the newsmakers are referred to
by their full names, nicknames, or surnames. But there is a clear distinction
in tones and associated meanings in using these three kinds of names.
Full names convey a neutral tone. Negative figures such as criminals are
labelled very often by surnames only. Nicknames, such as ‘A Ling’ ୟ࣓ to
refer to a person named Ye Min-ling ယ௵࣓ (a ୟ is an endearing prefix
used before names, ‘Ling’ is the shortened version of the given name
‘Min-ling’) are used very common in Cantonese dialect as a term of
endearment. Nicknames frequently appear in Guangzhou Daily to label local
newsmakers, but are never used for outside figures or government officials.
(Cf. Appendix III for a detailed account of referencing the newsmaker.)
There also seems to be a dichotomy between Chinese/foreign and
positive/negative in referencing newsmakers. Chinese newsmakers are
often labelled by full names plus descriptive labels, while foreign news-
makers are often referred to by their surnames and sometimes with titles.
Positive figures are mentioned using full names and nicknames, and
negative figures (criminals, negative figures in history) are often referred to
by only surnames, and sometimes by full names. This dichotomy between
Chinese/foreign, positive/negative in newspaper discourse is parallel to
the consideration of inside and outside relations in face-to-face interaction.
As Pan discussed elsewhere (Pan, 2000c), the distinction between inside
and outside relationships is an important concept and one of the deciding
factors in Chinese politeness phenomenon. Different rules are applied
in an inside as opposed to an outside relationship when choosing face
strategies. In-group members are treated with elaborate face strategies
showing respect or involvement according to the hierarchical structure
between the interlocutors. In newspaper discourse this inside and outside
distinction is indicated through the subtle means of newsmaker labelling.
3.5.2 Importance of placement, font size and colour

Scollon and colleagues (2000) show that there is a clear generic variability
in Chinese newspapers in the placement of the news, headline presentation,
textual frame, point of view, tone, quotation, formulas and vocabulary.
The physical elements in presenting a news story indicate the significance
given to a certain type of news story, and thus can be treated as a kind of
politeness strategy.
In People’s Daily, the major news events and news reports of government
officials are placed on the front page as important news. For a special event,
the headline is printed in red colour. Other genres of news stories are
carried on special sections such as international news, editorials, theory
discussion, sports, society and culture. These types of news rarely appear on
the front page. There seems to be a consistent use of fonts in the headline
in the reporting of major news events, news reports and news in brief. The
most frequently used fonts are STB (simplified thick bolded) and STU
(simplified thick unbolded) for these genres. STB is a thick bold font for
simplified Chinese characters, and STU is a thick unbolded font also for
simplified Chinese characters. These two fonts appear to be square and
formal, and have been adopted as the standard printing styles in Chinese
public signs too. It seems that STB and STU are the fonts associated with
news reporting in headlines of major news events, news report, international
news and sports news.
The size of the characters in headlines also suggests how importance
is attached to the government news stories. For major news events and
news reports on a government officials’ meeting, the size is biggest of all
(size 45–65), while for news in brief, the size is smaller (size 15). For head-
lines in international and sports news, the size is 20–40 (see Appendices IV
and V for details on variation in use of fonts and size).
The use of fonts and size and placement of news are not so consistent in
Guangzhou Daily. The front-page news in Guangzhou varies from local news
to sports news. The central government’s lines are not treated uniquely,
and there is no fixed font for any one type of genre. For instance, IB
(intensified bolded) font is found mainly in headlines in major news events,
news reports and local news, but other fonts (e.g. IU ‘intensified unbolded’,
MSB ‘medium small bolded’), are also used in these news stories. By
comparison, Guangzhou Daily is more colourful than People’s Daily.
Headlines and advertisements are printed in red, blue, yellow, green
and black colours.
We presented this empirical study here not as a textual analysis of news-
papers, but as a way to show that many other contextual, textual and pre-
sentational cues have been called upon to satisfy the needs of politeness
practice in contemporary China. One argument that can be made from
this study is that the traditional cultural norms of respecting hierarchy
and the distinction between in-group and out-group relations are still
intact and observed in contemporary China, and that they are still an
important component in politeness practice. In other words, while the
social practice regarding politeness behaviour has changed, the cultural
norms have remained relatively stable.
3.6 Summary
So far we have discussed various linguistic tools for Contemporary Chinese
politeness. With the decline of the use of honorifics and deferential lexical
items, discursive strategies and contextual elements have become increas-

ingly important in contemporary Chinese politeness practices. In this
section, we demonstrated that even the discursive moves in face-to-
face interaction and visual cues in text have become part of the linguistic
tools to express politeness. This tendency can be fuzzy and confusing
because we lack an overarching framework to describe this phenomenon.
We believe this is one of the main reasons for the myth about the discrepancy
between historical and contemporary Chinese politeness: the discrepancy
was mainly formed based on the assumed Chinese politeness (i.e. historical
politeness practices) and the actual Chinese politeness (i.e. contemporary
politeness practices). In what follows we will turn our attention to another
characteristic of Chinese politeness: asymmetricality in the use of polite
expressions.
4 Asymmetrical Use of Politeness
The movement advocated by the Chinese Communist government to

reform the Chinese language resulted in the abandonment of the use
of lexicons that indicated power hierarchy, but it did not change the
fundamental view of hierarchy. In other words, only the ways of expressing
Chinese (im)politeness changed while the fundamentals remained
unchallenged. The traditional hierarchical structure was simply replaced
by a new hierarchical structure. This is evidenced in the asymmetrical
use of politeness in Chinese, be it historical or contemporary. In a way,
Chinese politeness practice has always been unevenly distributed and
asymmetrical.
Scollon and Scollon ([1995] 2001) were among the first scholars to point
out a unique characteristic of Chinese politeness: asymmetrical use of
politeness strategies between the interlocutors. They called it a hierarchical
politeness system. That is, there is always some kind of hierarchical order
between two speakers in Chinese culture. The hierarchy can be based on
rank, age, gender or social status. The person in the higher position of the
hierarchical order uses one set of politeness strategies (usually positive
politeness or involvement strategies), and the person in the lower position
uses another set of politeness strategies (usually negative politeness or
independence strategies). This hierarchical politeness system is based on
the recognition of and respect for social differences that place one in
a superordinate position and another in a subordinate position (Scollon
and Scollon, [1995] 2001: 55).
What has become intriguing through empirical studies of contemporary

Chinese interactions is that the asymmetrical power relation also leads to
the lack of politeness on the part of an interlocutor who is in a superordinate
position. Similar to historical Chinese politeness, the lack of politeness is
often observed in contemporary Chinese in the speech of the ‘powerful’
(i.e. the person higher in the hierarchy). In addition, the use of conven-
tional polite expressions is associated with the ‘powerless’ (i.e. the person
lower in the hierarchy). This phenomenon is widely observed across the
social settings of official and business meetings, family gatherings and
service encounters (see Pan, 1995, 2000b, 2000c). Sun’s study (2008) also
demonstrated that when the service person was associated with an institu-
tion and thus was perceived as more ‘powerful’, there was a tendency for
the service person to use simply ‘bald-on-record’ strategy, and the customer
tended to use more polite expressions in acquiring the service. Let us
consider one example from our database on service encounters.
(21) [Interaction in a post office, C#20, female, in her 20s.]

1. C#20: ୟ࠰Ǵদ၀Ǵӆঈ΋ҁ䛧ঁǶ
Auntie, sorry to bother you. Give me one of those.
2. Clerk: ແ౻ሽҞ߄ǻ
The stamp price list?
3. C#20: দǶ
Yeah.
[The clerk shows the customer the stamp price list.]
In this interaction, the female customer’s request was markedly polite by

using a formulaic polite expression (“May I ask”, or “Sorry to bother you”),
which was not found in most customers’ requests, particularly male customers’
requests in our dataset. Another politeness marker is the kinship address
term ‘auntie’ used by customers to address the clerk. The extended use
of kinship terms in Chinese to address non-kinship interactants is a way
of showing respect if the addressee is older, or showing friendliness and
closeness if the addressee is of the same age or younger (Chao, 1976; Zhao
and Gao, 1990). On the contrary, the clerk did not use any formulaic
polite expressions throughout her interaction with this customer and other
customers as well. This example shows that the lack of politeness on the
part of the ‘powerful’ is accepted and perceived as the norm. If the ‘power-
ful’ party demonstrates politeness, it is deemed overpolite.
A more recent study conducted by Pan and her colleagues (Pan et al.,
2006) has confirmed the asymmetrical use of polite expressions and the
divide between the ‘powerful’ and the ‘powerless’ in politeness practice. The
research is based on a multilingual project undertaken at the U.S. Census
Bureau. In that project, a survey advance letter for an important national
survey called the American Community Survey (ACS)15 was translated from
English into Chinese and three other languages.16 The U.S. Census Bureau
commissioned the study to conduct cognitive interviews to pretest the
translations in the target languages to ensure that the translated letter
was accurate and culturally appropriate. Twenty-four recent Chinese immig-
rants, who varied in age, educational level, gender and length of stay in
the United States, were selected to participate in the study. The Chinese
speakers were asked in an interview setting to comment and evaluate the
translation of the ACS advance letter to see if it was clear and easy to under-
stand. They were also asked to comment on the cultural appropriateness
of terms and expressions, including appropriate politeness, used in the
ACS letter signed by the U.S. Census Bureau director. Their comments on
the first paragraph of the letter were very revealing in terms of perception
of politeness. The first paragraph of the letter stated:
Dear Resident:
The U.S. Census Bureau is conducting the American Community Survey.
A Census Bureau representative will contact you to help you complete the
survey. I would appreciate your help, because the success of this survey
depends on you.
This beginning paragraph was translated into Chinese as the following

version:
(22) ൧ལ‫҇ۚޑ‬Ǻ
ऍ୯Γαදֽࢗ҅ӧ຾Չ΋໨Ȩऍ୯‫୔ޗ‬俵ࢗȩǶ΋Տ
Γαදֽࢗ‫୍ܺޑ‬ж߄཮ᆶாᖄᛠǴᔅշா༤ቪ၀ፓࢗ
ୢ‫ڔ‬Ƕ‫ߚॺך‬தགᖴா‫ޑ‬ᔅշǴӢࣁҁ໨ፓࢗ‫ޑ‬ԋф‫ڗ‬
،‫ܭ‬ா‫ޑ‬Ѝ࡭Ƕ
The Chinese translation of this paragraph contains several linguistic
politeness features: the use of an honorific term zunjing de ൧ལ‫ޑ‬
(‘honourable’) in the salutation, the use of the formal and polite second-
person pronoun nin ா, expression of appreciation (women feichang ganxie
nin de bangzhu ‫ߚॺך‬தགᖴா‫ޑ‬ᔅշ, ‘We are very much thankful
to your help’), and the elevation of the other (yinwei ben xiang diaocha de
chengkong qujue yu nin de zhichi Ӣࣁҁ໨ፓࢗ‫ޑ‬ԋф‫ڗ‬،‫ܭ‬ா‫ޑ‬Ѝ࡭,

‘because the success of this survey depends on your support’).
The Chinese speakers in our interviews commented that the letter was
written in too polite a tone and sounded unnatural in Chinese. They com-
mented that the director of a government agency would not normally thank
the people, or show open appreciation to the people. Some of them even
laughed when they read this paragraph and said that US government
was too polite. This intercultural finding demonstrates that the Chinese
speakers perceive politeness practice as related to the hierarchical structure
of power relations. The use of traditional polite expressions is a symbol
of the ‘powerless’ – to be used to plead for something. Its usage does not
necessarily apply to the ‘powerful’.
In sum, Chinese politeness communication seems a one-way street: there
is an obvious lack of politeness on the part of the ‘powerful’, while the
conventional polite lexicons or expressions are used by the ‘powerless’ or
are reserved for very formal occasions. Thus conventional polite lexicons
can function to distance or classify speakers. Though not unique to con-
temporary Chinese, as similar phenomenon was also observed in historical
Chinese, this phenomenon of asymmetrical use of politeness dominates
polite communication in most settings between two unrelated parties. This
can be puzzling to many who view politeness as a two-way street.
5 When Anomalies Become the Norm
When discussing the lack of politeness, it is necessary to point out that

the lack of formal politeness in contemporary Chinese may have been
perceived as a deviation from the norm when it first appeared. It may have
been considered ‘rude’ or ‘inappropriate’. But when it has been in practice
for a long enough time period, the ‘anomaly’ may become the norm and
the norm may become the anomaly. This indicates the dynamics and
fluidity of politeness practice, which is the point we want to argue here.
That is, politeness practice is not fixed: it evolves over time.
In what follows, we will analyse one interaction, a service encounter
interaction in a post office, to demonstrate the acceptance of the lack
of politeness in social interaction. We observed the post office clerk inter-
acting with 22 customers. Described below is a typical interaction between
the clerk and her customers.
(23) [An interaction of buying stamps in a post office: Customer 20

(C#20) is a male in his 30s. He approaches the counter while the
clerk is talking to the researcher. He hesitates a little. The interac-

tion is in Cantonese.]
1. Clerk: ाᢥ䘇!Ǵգᖱ୚Ƕ
What do you want? Speak out!
2. C#20: . . . [Inaudible]
3. Clerk: ΖΖԃǴ䛧ঁୟǻ
That one (stamp album) for ’88?
4. C#20: ୟǶ
Yeah.
5. Clerk: ΖΖԃǴ䛧ঁແ౻㽪ഽǶ
There are no stamps in the stamp album for ’88.
6. C#20: ‫ޕך‬ၰ୚Ƕ
I know.
7. Clerk: ‫ޜ‬қᛛ䍐㽪ኞǶ
It’s blank.
8. C#20: ভǴভǶ
Oh, oh.
[The clerk goes to look for the stamp album and hands it over to
the customer. The customer pays the money. End of interaction.]
In this interaction, neither of the interactants used any honorific or

deferential lexicons or polite lexicons such as the equivalent of ‘please’ in
English. The post office clerk was very abrupt in her initiation of the
interaction. Her first utterance jiu meye, nei gong la ाᢥ䘇Ǵգᖱ୚"
(‘What do you want? Speak out!’) was direct and did not seem like an offer
to help. The sharp falling tone on the sentence final particle la ୚ even
indicated her impatience. This linguistic behaviour of the clerk can be
deemed as ‘rude’ when considered from the perspective of ‘Western’ ser-
vice encounters in which at least a normative politic behaviour is expected.
But the customer did not seem to be offended by this abruptness and
continued to make his request in a low voice. During the entire interaction,
the customer passively reacted to the clerk’s utterance for clarification
(Turn 3), or for explanation (Turn 5, and Turn 7). He simply said a ୟ
(‘yeah’), ngo jidou la ‫ޕך‬ၰ୚ (‘I know’) and og, og ভǴভ (‘oh, oh’) in
his reply to the clerk’s utterances.
From this example, as well as from our observation and analysis of data in
service encounters, we can conclude that the lack of politeness seems to be
the normal practice in Chinese state-run service encounters during the

Cultural Revolution and post-Cultural Revolution periods. As a result, the
practice of using deferential words, conventional polite expressions was not
expected or anticipated in social interactions. This point can be augmented
by another case in which we observe a reverse trend in politeness practice,
in the sense that the traditional or conventionalized polite expressions were
perceived as ‘anomalies’.
This is a case study of a consultation service that Pan provided for an
American telecommunications company in the United States in the early
2000s. The telecommunications company was expanding its service to cover
the growing Chinese community in United States, and had hired Chinese-
speaking sales representatives who were relatively recent immigrants to the
United States (between 1990 and 2000). The company provided on-site job
training to enhance their Chinese-speaking sales representatives’ professional
performance, including politeness performance. The company also hired
an external language and cultural expert to serve as a consultant to help
the training manager monitor the sales representatives’ performance after
the training. One important element in their training program was the
use of appropriate politeness in talking to customers. After the sales
representatives went through the training program, the training manager
and the consultant monitored their conversations with customers and
rated their performance on a scale of 0–3 (0 was the lowest score, and 3 was
the highest). They were rated on several dimensions: professionalism,
effectiveness in providing service and courtesy/politeness.
The first consultant the company hired was a translator and a Chinese
news reporter. He conducted the monitoring and evaluation of the Chinese-
speaking sales representatives’ work performance. Both the manager and
the consultant gave very low rating for the sales representatives’ politeness
performance. The consultant’s conclusion to the company was that “Chinese
people went through the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese are very rude
because the Cultural Revolution destroyed all the courtesy and politeness
norms and practices.” His recommendation was to repeat the training
program for the sales representatives until they “got it”. So the sales
representatives went through another round of training. They were evalu-
ated one more time and still failed the performance evaluation. The Chinese-
speaking sales representatives were very frustrated with the training program.
One woman even yelled: “Mark me down if you will. I can’t do it.”
The American company hired a second consultant, Pan, who observed
and monitored ten Chinese-speaking sales representatives’ calls for three
days. Of these ten people, nine got zero points in the item of politeness
level in their performance chart, which had been developed by the training
manager. Only one person got one out of three points for this item. As
a result, they all failed in their performance evaluations, because their
politeness level was not up to the company’s standards. After reviewing the
training manuscript and monitoring the telephone conversations between
the sales representatives and their customers, Pan found that there were
several mismatched assumptions and practices.
First, the sales representatives were given a Chinese script directly
translated from the English script. The script required that the sales
representative must do the following:
1. State his/her name right after the caller answered the phone. The sales
representative must say something like: Ni hao. Wo shi x, shi Meiguo AT&T
gongsi dalai-de. գӳǶ‫ࢂך‬xǴࢂऍ୯AT&TϦљѺٰ‫ޑ‬Ƕ (‘Hello,
I’m x, calling from the American AT&A company’) to identify him/
herself. This is common practice in American business telephone calls.
2. Use politeness markers such as the equivalent of English ‘Please’ at every
possible chance, and at the beginning of every request.
3. Say ‘Thank you’ at every possible chance – in other words, after each
turn of the customer’s talk.
Second, the dimension of sales representatives’ politeness performance

was rated on how many times they used “please” and “thank you” and if they
stated their name at the beginning of the phone call.
Third, the calls monitored were very polite by Chinese standards, and
most of the sales representatives succeeded in signing up their customers
for the company’s service. That is, the sales representatives were effective at
their work.
The sales representatives’ resistance in adopting the prescribed politeness
practice obviously indicates that the use of conventional polite expressions
or polite lexicons is not a common practice or norm any more. Its usage
can entail other negative meanings or associations, such as distancing,
fakeness, pretentiousness or aloofness. When sales representatives used
these polite terms such as “please” and “thank you” excessively in their
conversation with customers, they would sound fishy and give the impres-
sion of setting up a trap to get customers to buy some service, because these
expressions were deemed as unnatural in daily conversations and very
distant from their normal polite practice. So in spite of the rigid training,
the Chinese-speaking sales representatives still refused to use “please” and
“thank you” or to state their name at the beginning of the phone call.
Instead, they used other forms of polite expressions that were commonly
found in contemporary Chinese communication, including repetition of a
verb (e.g. kankan ࣮࣮, that is, ‘see, see’, niannian ‫ۺۺ‬, ‘read, read’),
repetition of adjective phrases (e.g. haohao ӳӳ, ‘good, good’, xingxing
ՉՉ, ‘fine, fine’), tag questions (e.g. Hao bu hao? ӳόӳ?, ‘Is that OK?’),
small talk, as well as marked change of tone of voice, intonation, rate of
speech, and strategic pauses. Pan noticed that sales representatives were
actively engaged in small talk with customers and those who could maintain
a longer conversation with their customers were often successful in getting
the customers to sign up for the company’s service. Sales representatives
constantly used the company’s name instead of their personal name for
self-identification at the beginning of the call.
After the analysis of the training material and the conversations between
the sales representatives and their customers, Pan summarized the
aforementioned linguistic features that departed from the conventional
politeness expressions and the strategies the sales representatives used in
their conduct of the phone call. Pan provided one consultation session for
the training manager and her supervisor on how these linguistic features
and strategies served the function of politeness in contemporary Chinese.
Pan’s recommendation was to reframe the training and adopt a different
perspective in viewing politeness practice. She also recommended revising
the training manual and script to incorporate the linguistic features and
strategies gleaned from those successful sales representatives rather than
repeating the same training program or script for all representatives. The
training manager and her supervisor were very receptive to this approach
and there was even a sense of relief in their facial expressions. Pan followed
up with the training manager and her supervisor three months later and
learned that the revised training program was well-received by trainees and
they were satisfied with the results.
This case study of naturally occurring interactions between the Chinese-
speaking sales representatives and their customers provides good insight
into an explanation of how anomalies became the norm in contemporary
China. The first consultant’s conclusion about the ‘rude’ Chinese is
also illustrative because it represents a common view or perception of
contemporary Chinese politeness after the Cultural Revolution. From
another analytical angle, this common view confirms our argument that
lack of politeness became the norm in interactions, particularly between
unrelated parties in an outside relationship.
Lack of formal politeness is also common in close relationships. One
phenomenon observed is the frequent use of impolite terms or impolite
expressions to express solidarity among friends and acquaintances. Lin-

guistic strategies, such as joking, verbal attacking, bantering, irony,
mocking and even cursing, were popular ways of showing positive polite-
ness. This is because these linguistic features were viewed as closer to the
speech of the masses who were less educated. Again, the use of these
linguistic politeness strategies is in line with the ideology of the Chinese
Communist government’s language reform campaign to replace the old
traditional way of speaking with the common speech of workers, peasants
and soldiers during the period of early Communist rule and the Cultural
Revolution.
Analysis of several family dinner conversations in our dataset indicates
this trend. For instance, in one family, an older sister (in her 30s) asked her
younger brother (in his 30s) to buy her a handbag because the younger
brother was going to visit a factory that was known for producing brand
name handbags:
(24) [An older sister asked her younger brother for a favour. The
interaction was in Mandarin.]
1. Sister: ๏‫ך‬ວঁхǶ
Buy a handbag for me.
2. Brother: ό๏գວǴգό‫ޕ‬ၰाວϙሶኬ‫ޑ‬хǶ
I won’t buy, you don’t know what kind of handbag
you want.
3. Sister: ፔό‫ޕ‬ၰǶ
How could one?
4. Brother: գό‫ޕ‬ၰǶ
So you don’t know.
5. Sister: գວόວ֔ǻ
You buy it or not?
6. Brother: գ֋ນ‫ך‬ाϙሶኬ‫ޑ‬х‫ך‬ωૈວǶ
Tell me first what kind of handbag you want – I can
only buy it then.
7. Sister: ٗ‫ך‬൩֋ນգᶆǶ
OK, I will tell you then.
In this interaction, the two adult siblings were playfully exchanging verbal
fights. The sister asked the brother a favour. The brother refused bluntly,
and in addition, he accused the sister of lacking knowledge of her own

preference. The sister insisted that he buy her a handbag in Line 5. The
brother gave in and provided a condition (Ni yao gaosu wo yao mai shenme-
yang de bao գ֋ນ‫ך‬ाϙሶኬ‫ޑ‬х ‘you have to tell me what kind of
handbag you want’). The sister only responded to his condition in Line 6
(Na wo jiu gaosu ni bei ٗ‫ך‬൩֋ນգᶆ ‘I will tell you then’) but she did
not provide any information of what kind of bag she wanted.
The point we want to make is not that verbal fights are specific to
contemporary China (they existed in historical China, as well), as studies
show that verbal fights in some communities can be a method of socializa-
tion (e.g. Schiffrin, 1984). Thus, as our database shows, in contemporary
China verbal fights are frequently employed in interactions between
in-groups as politeness practice and they became markedly polite in that
they indicated camaraderie and closeness.
To a large extent, the lack of politeness is held as ‘non-offensive’ or
normal in many situations. We demonstrated, through a case study
and naturally occurring interactions, that the use of conventional polite
expressions is often seen as ‘excessive’ and sometimes, not polite, in con-
temporary China. We will further explore this point in the next section.
6 Politeness in Flux
What we have focused on thus far are politeness phenomena during the
early Communist rule, the Cultural Revolution and early post-Mao eras,
which can be characterized as lacking conventional politeness and using
discursive politeness strategies to replace lexical politeness in traditional
Chinese. Since the onset of the economic reform, Chinese politeness
communication has been through another changing phase. China’s Open
Policy allowed joint-ventures between foreign businesses and Chinese entre-
preneurs, which inevitably led to constant interaction between the Chinese
and the outside world. One severe criticism that the Chinese faced when
communicating with the outside world was the lack of politeness in verbal
interaction. Chinese newspapers reported many instances where foreign
visitors were treated rudely in state-run stores. Then there was an outcry
for restoring public order and social demeanour. In 1981, nine Chinese
government organizations jointly issued a proposal17 to promote civilized
and polite behaviour among the Chinese people and particularly the Chinese
youth. The proposal was quickly endorsed by the Chinese Communist
Central government and led to a nationwide campaign of Wu-jiang Si-mei

ϖᖱѤऍ (‘Five Stresses and Four Beautifications’),18 which put an
emphasis on being civilized and polite, having good behaviour in public.
This was perhaps the Chinese government’s first effort to restore proper
behaviour and proper use of language to Chinese communication and
social interaction in the public sphere. Although large in scale, the
campaign aimed at a very abstract level and lacked specifics that ordinary
Chinese people could follow. The stress on being polite was an abstract
idea. This requirement did not specify how to be polite, thus leaving it open
for interpretation.
At the same time, joint-ventured businesses and foreign companies
relentlessly trained their Chinese employees in social etiquette, including
how to be polite, how to wear a smiling face and how to act properly. This
trend of politeness movement is more concrete and specific. For example,
many training programs specifically taught Chinese employees how to say
‘hello’ (Nin hao ாӳ, using the deferential second-person pronoun with a
soft rising intonation) and xiexie (‘thank you’, see above). Although stilted
and unnatural to many Chinese people (see our case study in Section 5)
polite vocatives and expressions were introduced and reinforced in joint-
ventured service industries such as fancy hotels and restaurants.
These two efforts to restore and promote polite and proper behaviour to
the Chinese public followed a top-down model. The efforts were either
from the central government to reinforce politeness as a social and political
campaign or from foreign employers to promote politeness as an employ-
ment requirement. This model strongly embodies an unbalanced power
relation, and it can ultimately lead to a power struggle in language use.
The case study on the American telecommunication training program
cited in Section 5 is a good example of this kind of power struggle in
language use.
The use of explicit polite terms is also seen as a double-edged sword and
mostly for business gains. One Chinese website on current business
practices19 recommends 40 polite expressions, using traditional honorific
terms, self-denigration and other-elevation vocatives and phrases. For
example, the website states that one should use jiuyang Φһ (lit. ‘admired
long’, ‘I’ve heard about you for a long time’) when meeting someone for
the first time, and use lingtang з୸ (‘your honourable mother’) to refer to
the addressee’s mother and gongzi Ϧη (‘your precious son’) to refer to the
addressee’s son. All these polite formulas are honorifics and deferential
expressions in historical Chinese. The irony is that these terms are very far
from the current practice of language use in China. So after making the
recommendations, the website provides a commentary:
(25) ᇥ࠼঺၉٠㠀Ԗϙሶ֚ᜤ‫ޑ‬Ǵซ‫ࢂځ‬୘Γ‫ࢂ׳‬Ᏸߏ೭΋
঺Ƕӵ݀୘཰Չࣁύ㠀Ԗ࠼঺၉ǴΓᆶΓϐ໔‫ޑ‬ᖄᛠஒค
‫ݤ‬໩ճ຾Չ!Ǿ!Ƕՠ౜жΓཇٰཇόӞ࠼঺၉೭΋঺Ƕ
࠼঺၉ёаᇥࢂ΋‫ע‬Ԗ㝫य़Θέ‫ޑ‬ΘǶܻ϶ϐ໔ϕ࣬
ᇥ٤࠼঺၉Ǵόፕଯܴᆶց೿ค䝃ε໡Ƕՠऩࢂಞᄍ‫ע‬
࠼঺၉ࡸӧ቏ᜐǴ৮‫܂‬൩཮ᡣΓౢғ೹߆‫ܡ‬ଭ‫ޑ‬ӑຝԶ
όߞҺϐǶ࠼঺၉ࡽࢂҬሞЋ๙ύόёલϿ‫מޑ‬ѯǴΨ
ࢂӒᓀ‫ޑ‬Ћࢤϐ΋Ƕ
It is nou hard to use polite words or expressions: businessmen, in
particular, are very good at using them. If no polite words are used
in the conduct of business, it is impossible to have interpersonal
contact . . . However, people in the modern days are getting tired of
these polite expressions.
It can be said that polite language is a double-edged sword. It
doesn’t do much harm if polite expressions are used among friends,
even if they are not used properly. But if someone uses it habitually
and constantly, it will give an impression of flattery and untrustwor-
thiness. Polite expressions are indispensable techniques in social
interaction, but they are also one of the dangerous means.
Although this is a popular culture view of politeness practice in contem-

porary China, it does, to some degree, reflect the current perception of the
revival of traditional polite formulas. The use of traditional honorific terms
of address, and self-denigration and other-elevation lexicons and expressions,
is perceived to have negative meaning.
In this sense, a more natural way to show politeness is still through discurs-
ive moves and discursive strategies in interactions. In the following we will
analyse two interactions taking place in two time periods to show the change
in trend from obvious lack of politeness in service encounters to showing
involvement through discursive moves and strategies to signal politeness.
The following two examples are taken from two datasets recorded in two
separate time spans. The first example was recorded in 1990 and the
second in 1998. The two interactions were selected for their similarities
in many aspects: both took place in a state-run department store, which
represented the interactional norms of state-run business in contemporary
China, both interactions involved purchasing clothes, and both involved
female customers and female service persons.
(26) [Buying clothes in a state-run department store in a southern city

in China. The customer (C) is a female in her early 40s; The
service person (SP) is a female in her 30s. The interaction is
in Cantonese.]
1. C: [Pointing at the sweaters on display]
ঈ‫ঁך‬ҹհऽ⍪ΠǶ
Give me that sweater to look at.
2. SP: [The service person takes down the sweater and places it on
the counter. The customer examines it.]
3. C: գԖᢲεዸ䛥㽪ǻ
Do you have a larger size?
4. SP: [Shakes her head to indicate “no”]
5. C: [Pointing at another sweater on display] 䛧ҹ‫ګ‬ǻ
How about that one?
6. SP: 䛧ҹख़ಒ୚Ǽ
That one is even smaller!
7. C: ‫ګ‬ҹΗᒲ֔ǻ
How much is this one?
8. SP: ΐΜΖ૨Ƕ
98 yuan.
[Customer gives the service person a 100 dollar bill. The service
person hands over the change and the sweater to the customer.]
This interaction is presented here to reiterate the prevalence of the lack of

politeness in service encounters in state-run businesses in contemporary
China in the period spanning the Cultural Revolution to the 1980s and
early 1990s. As we showed in Section 5, interactions between unrelated par-
ties with an asymmetrical power relationship do not follow the ‘typical’ norms
of polite – or more precisely, politic – behaviour. In such cases, the ‘lack of
politeness’ seems to be the norm rather than the exception, at least since
the Cultural Revolution. In this interaction, the service person in the depart-
ment store barely spoke. She did not show any interest or any involvement
with the customer. Even when the customer asked for help in Line 5 (Go gin
ne? 䛧ҹ‫ګ‬ǻ, that is, ‘how about that one?’), the service person just brushed
aside the customer’s request in a scorning tone, by saying “Go jin zong sai la!
䛧ҹख़ಒ୚Ǽ(‘That one is even smaller!’)”. The customer did not seem
to be offended. She just asked for the price of the sweater and paid for it.
The adoption of the Capitalist ‘Open Door Policy’ led to changes in both
the politics and practice of politeness. The next example recorded in 1998
demonstrates this trend:
(27) [Buying clothes in a state-run department store in Guangzhou. The

customers are two females. Customer 1 (C#1) is in her early 40s;
and Customer 2 (C#2) is in her late 30s. The clerk is a female in her
30s. The interaction is in both Mandarin [M] and Cantonese [C].]
1. C#1: [M] ൩೭ঁқՅǴԖؒԖ೭ᅿᚑՅୟǻ
This white colour, do you have such a colour?
2. C#2: [C] Ԗᢲ‫ګ‬ᅿᩙՅ䛥঺း?
Do you have suits in this colour?
3. Clerk: [C] ‫ګ‬ᅿқǻ
This one?
4. C#1 & C#2: [C] ߯Ƕ
Yes.
5. Clerk: [C] Οቷ೿ёа୚Ƕ
San Chang Brand is not bad.
6. C#2: [C] ভǶ
OK
7. Clerk: [C] գाऀεዸ୚Ƕ
You need a large size.
8. C#1: [M] ‫!ך‬Ǿ
I...
9. C#2: [C] уεዸ୚ǴӴ!Ǿ
She has to wear extra large size, she . . .
10. C#1: [C] ୟǴεዸǻ
Large size?
11. [To C#2]: [M] εዸǴգΨࢂεዸǴࢂ༏ǻ
Large size? You are also large size, right?
12. C#2: [M] ‫ঁٗך‬εዸǶ
The large size fits me.
13. C#1: [M] ୟǴٗ‫ך‬ёૈуεǶ
Ah, then maybe I need extra large.
14. Clerk: [M] уε֔ǻ

Extra large?
15. C#1: [M] уεǴуεǴуεǶ
Extra large, extra large, extra large.
16. Clerk: [M] ೭ঁؒԖᑿη֔Ǵᑿη፤ֹΑǶ
There are no pants to go with the tops. Pants are
sold out.
In this example, the interaction follows the same pattern as the one
presented in Example 20 in that the customer initiated the interaction by
making a request. The clerk responded to the customer’s request by either
an utterance for clarification or an action. However, here we can observe
two kinds of linguistic politeness behaviour which are different from
the previous examples. One is that the store clerk engages more with the
customers. For instance, she volunteers information and comments in
three speaking turns: San Chang dou hoji la Οቷ೿ёа܎ (‘San Chang
Brand is not bad’) in Turn 5, Nei jiu cun daa maa la գाऀεዸ୚
(‘You need a large size’) in Turn 7, and Zhe ge meiyou kuzi ya. Kuzi mai wan le
೭ঁؒԖᑿη֔Ǵᑿη፤ֹΑǶ(‘There are no pants go with the
tops. Pants are sold out’), in Turn 16. This active involvement seems to
indicate her goodwill towards the customers.
The second noticeable linguistic behaviour is code-switching between
Mandarin and Cantonese in both the clerk’s and the customers’ speech.
Both the customers and the clerk tried to accommodate each other.
The customers switched to Cantonese to accommodate the clerk, and
the clerk used Mandarin to accommodate the customers. This mutual
accommodation was pragmatic in function, for the purpose of making
things easy for the business transaction. It also served an important func-
tion of politeness, because it signalled the willingness of both parties to find
ways to carry out the interaction with each other (see also Pan, 2000a).
The 1999 case cited above is no doubt more politic in a present-day
sense than the interaction recorded in 1990. This suggests some change
in politeness practice due to the economic reform in China. Besides the
influence from the outside or business world during the Reform period,
another trend worth mentioning is the change in Chinese family structure
due to China’s so-called One Child Policy20 adopted in the late 1970s. As a
result of this family planning policy, the traditional large Chinese families
gave way to small one-child-only families. Being the only child, the younger
generation has had all the attention from their parents and two sets of
grandparents. This change of family structure shifts power relation in

Chinese families. A new wave of individualism coloured by Chinese charac-
teristics exhibits itself in the sphere of language use. One example can
be found in a recent study (He, 2008) on Chinese compliments among
the One Child Policy generation. The study indicates that there is shift
from the traditional practice of refusing compliments as a way to show
modesty to accepting compliments – a practice close to that of English-
speaking cultures.
7 Conclusion
The practice of politeness in contemporary China has moved away

from highly ritualized and highly lexicalized polite expressions to highly
contextualized and discursive use of linguistic resources. These discursive
strategies appear to be subtle and are not conventional polite expressions.
They have not been the main focus in the investigation of Chinese polite-
ness. However, as we demonstrated in this chapter, discursive strategies
are used systematically in contemporary Chinese politeness practice. This
revelation helps explain some of the misperceptions and conflicting
views of Chinese politeness: while the traditional cultural values of the
importance of hierarchy and in-group relationship still influence Chinese
politeness phenomena, the actual practice of Chinese politeness has shifted.
In other words, it is mainly the expression of politeness that has taken a
new form. It is not so much the practice of politeness that has changed.
Acknowledging this shift will be crucial in dispelling the myth of Chinese
politeness. This is because many assumptions or perceptions of Chinese
politeness are based on historical polite expressions which fell out of use in
contemporary Chinese.
Notes
1
The term ‘area’ occurs here in quotation marks because these are in fact not
distinct ‘subfields’ but rather interdependent research areas.
2
A large-scale contribution to this field is now in progress (see Pan and Kádár,
forthcoming).
3
Hugging in public is very unusual in China among the older generation.
4
In traditional China, when a woman gets married, she is married into the
husband’s family, and thus becomes a member of the husband’s family. Thus,
in theory at least, she will no longer have any status in her parents’ family but
will gain rights in that of her husband.
5
In fact, tongzhi originates in the Confucian Classic Lunyu ፕᇟ (Analects), literally
meaning ‘[people with] the same spirit, goal, ambition’. It was initially used in
the works of Dr Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Nationalist Party. Yet, Nationalist
Party members often applied this form as a noun rather than a title or form of
address, like ‘Mr Chang is a loyal and reliable comrade’ (see also Chapter 5),
and also the Nationalist Party largely abandoned this form soon after it fled to
Taiwan, in order to separate themselves from the ‘Red Bandits’ (hongfei आঘ), as
they called the Communists. The CCP adopted the term, and it was generally
accepted as an honorific term of address characteristic of ‘revolutionary’ solidar-
ity, equality, respect and intimacy among the revolutionary ranks (Fang and
Heng, 1983: 496).
6
This is due to the large-scale breakdown of administrative organizations at
all levels in China during the Cultural Revolution. This was a period when
everyone wanted to be associated with the working class and be part of the
revolution.
7
More precisely, it has fallen out of use in its conventional sense: due to semantic
changes, this term means ‘homosexual’ in the language use of contemporary
youth.
8
The prefix of a ߓ conveys the meaning of endearment in Southern Chinese
dialects.
9
For more detailed discussion on the distinction between inside and outside
relations in Chinese interaction, see Pan, 2000c.
10
The book’s official title is Mao-zhuxi yulu ЛЬৢᇟᒵ (Quotations by President
Mao).
11
This was one of the measures taken by Mao Zedong during the Cultural
Revolution to ‘re-educate’ the educated class in China.
12
<http://www.360doc.com/content/06/0807/20/9807_175796.shtml>
13
We are grateful to Michael Haugh for noting this point during a discussion with
Dániel Z. Kádár. As he noted, quite convincingly to us, in cultures such as
contemporary Chinese apology is expressed by indirect speech acts. For example,
in Chinese it is possible to express an apology by being markedly kind towards
the other after the act that necessitates apology occurred.
14
<http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=477799374>
15
The American Community Survey is a demographic survey conducted by
the U.S. Census Bureau. It is the largest demographic survey in the United
States.
16
They are Korean, Russian and Spanish.
17
On 25 February 1981, the China Federation of Trade Unions (Zhongguo quan-
guo zong-gonghui ύ๮ӄ୯ᕴπ཮), the Central Committee of the Communist
Youth League (Zhongguo gongqing-tuan zhongyang weiyuanhui ύ୯Ӆߙიύ
ѧ‫ہ‬঩཮), the All China Women’s Federation (Quan Zhongguo funü lianhe-
hui ӄύ୯஁ζᖄӝ཮) and nine other units, in response to the CCP Central
Committee’s call to strengthen the construction of socialist spiritual civilization,
jointly issued the proposal Wujiang-Simei.
18
The Five Stresses are Jiang wenming, jiang limao, jiang weisheng, jiang zhixu, jiang
daode ᖱЎܴǵᖱᘶᇮǵᖱፁғǵᖱજ‫ׇ‬ǵᖱၰቺ (‘stress on being civilized,
on being polite, on keeping clean, on being orderly and being ethical’). The
Four Beautifications are Yuyan mei, xinling mei, huanjing mei, xingwei mei
ᇟ‫ق‬ऍǵЈᡫऍǵᕉნऍǵՉࣁऍ (beautification of language, heart,
environment and behaviour).
19
<http://www.cnpension.net/syylbxpd/bxyx/scyx/xxcl/2008-11-13/673062.
html>
20
One Child Policy refers to a family planning policy enforced by the Chinese gov-
ernment since the late 1970s as a means to slow down the fast-growing Chinese
population. It stipulates that only one child is allowed per couple.
Chapter 5
The Transitional Period:

What Happened to Honorifics?
1 Introduction
The previous chapters described two entirely different politeness systems.

On the one hand there is the historical Chinese politeness system with its
ritualized deference-oriented system, in which forms and strategies are
jointly and systematically used in order to emphasize difference between
the speaker and the hearer, hence expressing politeness. In contrast with
this tradition is the system of contemporary Chinese, which substitutes
the traditional deferential system with various lexicons and strategies, and
in contemporary unrelated out-group settings it is often the ‘lack of
politeness’ that we could define as the norm.
But are these systems really that different? While this question will be
analysed in more depth and more systematically in Chapter 6, it is interest-
ing to briefly consider it here. If we recall the comparative overview
made in the previous chapters, while differences between historical and
contemporary Chinese politeness are unprecedented, they have much in
common. Most importantly, as demonstrated in Chapter 4, the cultural
norms of historical and contemporary Chinese are often fairly similar,
that is the gap between these two systems mainly manifests itself in (a) the
linguistic inventories of politeness, and (b) the ‘scope’ of politeness. By
the latter point we mean that in contemporary China politeness is not
needed in many settings, which would have necessitated honorific/
deferential language in historical interactions. But, the basic concepts of
politeness such as hierarchy remained relatively unchanged. Along with
this similarity, another noteworthy resemblance between the historical and
contemporary politeness systems is their ambiguous nature: real politeness
behaviour often goes against norms. While this is a universal characteristic
of linguistic politeness (Mills, 2003 demonstrates that politeness behaviour per
se is never exempt of from ambiguities), it can be argued that the ‘lack of
politeness’ was already present to some extent in historical Chinese interac-

tions (see, for example, 28 and 29 in Chapter 3). In many historical genres
honorifics and deferential strategies seem to be absent or at least scarce, despite
the fact that historical Chinese politeness was an ‘honorific-rich’ language.
This is not to argue that there are no marked differences between historical
and contemporary Chinese politeness systems: the development of an
‘honorific-rich’ language1 into an ‘honorific-poor’ one is an event that
cannot be underestimated, and which has many consequences such as the
loss of honorific indexicality (cf. Chapter 2). What makes the difference
between historical and contemporary systems more glaring is – as Section 2
of this chapter argues – the fact that the disappearance of historical Chinese
expressions of deference cannot be clearly reconstructed. While between
1949 and 1976 the Communist government took a basically hostile attitude
towards traditional deference, it is not clear on the basis of the data available
whether historical politeness disappeared during this time or earlier.
Furthermore, even if we put the blame on a series of historical events – such as
Communist anti-traditionalist campaigns – for the disappearance of historical
politeness, from an intercultural comparative perspective it is still problematic
how these events could have such an effect. For example, as it will argued
later in this chapter, in North Korea honorifics and deferential language are
still in use (cf. Lee, 1990, and Kumatani, 1990), despite the fact that Korea
has been ruled by an extremist Communist government for the past almost
70 years, that is, North Korean anti-traditionalist education must be consid-
erably more influential than its Chinese counterpart. On the other hand, if
we observe overseas Chinese-speaking communities without Communist his-
tory, such as Singapore, it becomes evident that their politeness systems are
not considerably different from that of the Mainland Chinese, that is, they
are ‘honorific-poor’. (While there are not many studies devoted to this topic,
an excellent paper by Lee (2011 [in press]) on Singaporean (im)politeness
provides interesting data for this intercultural comparison.)2
In spite of the obvious gap between historical and contemporary systems
it is illogical to treat them separately, and regard the disappearance of hon-
orifics and other historical tools of deference as a miraculous event. It is a
plausible hypothesis that the seeds of the large-scale change, which took
place during the twentieth century – mostly during the transitional period,
as we define it – were present in the historical system of politeness, that is,
historical Chinese was inherently vulnerable to social changes. Following
this logic, while for certain reasons (that will be discussed in Section 2 below)
the disappearance of historical politeness cannot be precisely reconstructed,
the driving forces behind this event can be explored, and they, in turn, give
The Transitional Period 129
explanation for the ‘miraculous’ collapse of the historical system. While

this approach is to some extent speculative, retrospection is often the
answer to mysteries; as Agatha Christie’s renowned detective Hercule Poirot
argued in a murder case without any evidence: “the whole importance of
the case lies . . . in the character of the dead man . . . because Simeon Lee
was a certain kind of man, he set in motion certain forces, which forces in
the end brought about his death” (2004: 527–8).
The present chapter follows the above train of thought. Section 2 deals
with the problematic aspects of analysing the transition of Chinese politeness
from a historical to modern/contemporary system, that is, focusing on data
from the ‘transitional’ era we point out why it is difficult to reconstruct the
collapse of historical Chinese politeness. Section 3 surveys the ideological
background of the events studied and argues that the changes were at least
partly ideological in nature. Following this, Section 4 examines the events
studied from a linguistic viewpoint, and demonstrates that the corruption
of historical Chinese politeness began earlier than the defeat of the country
and the establishment of foreign colonies, by citing interactions from the
Ryūkyūan textbook Xue-guanhua/Gaku-kanwa (Learn Guanhua).
1.1 Why honorifics?

Before delving into the analysis, one point that has to be addressed is our
focus on honorifics in this chapter. It might appear an unbalanced approach
that in the previous chapters we dealt with both honorifics and strategies,
and in the present one we largely ignore the latter and study the historical
Chinese honorific system and its diachronic development (more precisely,
disintegration). Our reason for this shift of focus is that strategies of
politeness are not that intriguing from the perspective of the formation of
historical to modern Chinese politeness. As the previous chapters argued,
strategies of politeness existed and were important in historical China,
and simply they became more salient in contemporary communication, as
default tools to express politeness. The fact that strategies became pivotal in
communication is a natural concomitant of the loss of the previous default
tool of politeness, honorifics.
This does not mean that there are no differences between historical and
contemporary Chinese strategies of politeness. As Chapter 3 argued,
historical strategies were primarily used in elevating/denigrating contexts (or,
vice versa, deferential contexts necessitated the use of deferential strategies),
while this is not typical to their contemporary counterparts. Also, the
existence of some modern strategies, most typically the use of particles, is
not often observed in historical data, partly due to generic and stylistic
issues.3 However, arguably most of the strategies that we introduced as
‘contemporary’ in Chapter 4 are based on historical, if not ancient,
patterns. To give just a few examples, the proper approaches to turn-taking
and small talk are discussed in ancient etiquette manuals, such as the Book
of Rites (Liji ᘶ૶),4 while other tools that seem to be ‘modern’ – such as
bantering – have quite similar historical counterparts (the reader may recall
a case of bantering discussed in Chapter 3, cf. Extract 19). In other words,
the key to understand the transition of historical into modern is the analysis
of the collapse of the historical honorific system.
2 The Problem with Data from the Transitional Period
What makes the examination of the Transitional data problematic is that

there is little evidence for the collapse of historical politeness. More
precisely, there is little evidence in the sense that one cannot make a clear
diachronic mapping of this process.
In fact, in every ‘honorific-rich’ language such as Japanese (Pizziconi,
2011 [in press]) the frequency of honorifics and other deferential devices
depends on genre and context, and analyses of the increase or decrease of
deferential tools can only capture major sociolinguistic trends in a language –
if such trends can be captured at all. This is valid to historical Chinese: as
was argued in Chapters 2 and 3, historical Chinese expressions of deference
were used or neglected depending on context and genre.
The ‘data problem’ discussed here is, however, somewhat different
from the context/genre issue: it is primarily related to literary style. Let us
recall the introduction made in Chapter 2: after the May Fourth Movement
Classical Chinese lost its status as the official medium of writing, its role
being taken over by the vernacular that imitates spoken language for ideo-
logical reasons, that is partly to create a ‘new’ literature for modern times,
and partly to increase literacy in China. In the beginning (1910s and 1920s)
this new vernacular was heavily loaded with Classical elements but with the
passing of time it became more and more vernacularized. But, irrespective
of stylistic intermix, in pieces written in the new vernacular deferential
expressions are relatively scarce. In order to demonstrate this point, let us
study an extract from the renowned Chinese author Lu Xun:
(1)!҆ᒃ‫ٽֻک‬ΠኴٰΑǴдॺεऊΨ᠋‫ډ‬ΑᖂॣǶ
! ȨԴϼϼǶߞࢂԐԏ‫ډ‬ΑǶ‫ך‬ჴӧ഻៿‫ޑ‬όளΑǴ‫ޕ‬ၰ
Դྭӣٰ!Ǿ!ȩ໑βᇥǶ
! ȨߓǴգ࡛‫ޑ‬೭ኬ࠼਻ଆٰǶգॺӃ߻όࢂȬঢ‫׌‬ȭᆀ
‫ڥ‬ሶǻᗋࢂྣᙑǺȬِঢ‫ٽ‬ȭǶȩ҆ᒃଯᑫ‫ޑ‬ᇥǶ
! Ȩߓ֔ǴԴϼϼ੿ࢂ! Ǿ! ೭ԋϙሶೕંǶٗਔࢂ࠸ηǴ
όᔉ٣! Ǿ! ȩ໑βᇥ๱ǴΞћНғ΢ٰѺࡱǴٗ࠸ηࠅ
্ಚǴᆙᆙ‫ޑ‬ѝຠӧдङࡕǶȐȜࡺໂȝ2:32ȑ
Mother and Hong’er came downstairs, they also heard our voice.
“Revered Old Lady. I received the letter well in advance. I am really
delighted, learning that the Master will come back.” Runtu said.
“Ah, how can you be this polite. Didn’t the two of you address each
other as ‘elder’ and ‘younger brother’ previously? Just go on as
before, call him ‘Brother Xun’.” Mother responded gladly.
“Oh, mine, Revered Old Lady is really . . . What kind of custom would
that be? Back to those days we were kids, we did not understand
nothing . . .” Responded Runtu, and called Shuisheng to come
forward and greet [mother reverentially] with two hands in front
of his chest. But the small child was shy, hiding behind his back.
(Hometown, 1921)
This is a noteworthy extract. Lu Xun, the author of the short novel Hometown,
had outstanding skill in Classical Chinese literacy but was also one of the
most important promoters of the modern vernacular style (cf. von Kowallis,
1996). The interaction takes place between the high-ranking imagined
protagonist (the author), his family and Runtu – a childhood friend of
the protagonist with low social rank. Runtu, in front of the family of the
protagonist, acknowledges their social rank difference by making use of
formal style. It is pertinent to note that prior to this event the interactants
spoke in a more informal style, that is, the present interaction is perhaps
markedly polite in a Wattsian (2003) sense. Interestingly, the extract includes
a metapragmatic interaction on polite style: the protagonist’s mother, evalu-
ating Runtu’s style as unnecessarily polite, encourages him to switch to a
more formal tone, but Runtu in his turn politely refuses this. However, in
spite of the fact that this is a markedly polite and formal interaction, it con-
tains relatively few honorific expressions – the forms of address laoye Դྭ
(‘master’) and lao-taitai Դϼϼ (‘revered old lady’). Instead of using
honorifics and other traditional tools of deference, politeness is expressed
through a number of strategies such as the emphasis of the speaker’s respect
by unfinished sentences, emotive exclamations (aya ߓ֔), and so on.
While the markedly decreased occurrence of traditional deferential
expressions could be explained by the fact that traditionally vernacular
novels contain fewer honorifics than other written genres, in historical

marked interactions like this one honorifics were used, as the following
interaction demonstrates:
(2)!ٗεᅇ᠋ளࢂֺԢǴၤӧӦΠǴٗٚޭଆǴᇥၰǺȨλ
ΓȬԖ౳ό᛽ੀξȭǼ΋ਔߵᘡлߏǴఈΩ৯࿾Ƕȩ
ȜН⠪໺ȝಃ34ӣ
That large guy, hearing that it is Song Jiang, fell on his knees
prostrating, declining to stand up, and said: “This worthless person
[is as fool as the one in the saying] “who has eyes but does not see the
Sacred Mount Tai”! I was bold enough to annoy my higher ranking
elder brother, and I humbly ask him to excuse my fault.” (Shuihu-
zhuan, chapter 23)
This interaction, cited from the Ming Dynasty novel Shuihu-zhuan (cf.
Chapters 2 and 3), is marked: the speaker insulted the hearer without
knowing that he is the head of the gang of rebels that he wants to join, and
in (2) he apologizes for his fault. The speech act of apology is similarly
marked with Runtu’s change of tone in (1), and the obvious difference
here is that the speaker uses various honorific and deferential expressions,
such as the self-denigrating form xiaoren λΓ (‘worthless person’), the
idiomatic expression youyan-bu-shi-Taishan Ԗ౳ό᛽ੀξ (lit. ‘having eye
not seeing Mountain Tai’) that express elevation as it compares the
addressee to the Sacred Mountain Tai, and a ritualized self-denigrating
formula of apology. In sum, it can be argued that in modern vernacular
the number of honorifics, and other traditional tools of deference, is
considerably fewer than that in historical vernacular counterparts.
The lack of honorifics in the modern vernacular becomes even more
evident if one compares genres that were vernacularized with others that
remained relatively conservative during the Republican Era. An illuminating
example is that of letters: during the first half of the twentieth century cer-
tain traditional epistolary genres such as private letters became vernacular,
while others such as political letters were still written in an archaizing quasi-
Classical style up to 1950s (and continue to be written in some cases
in Taiwan even today, see more in Kádár, 2010b). In order to illustrate the
difference between these genres, let us cite two letter fragments written in
1924 and 1925:
(3)!ರηлǺգ‫ךߞޑ‬ԏ‫ډ‬ΑǶȜཥᎿٚȝྣ‫ࢂٯ‬ѤД΋
ဦр‫ހ‬ǴόၸϞพӢዺηϼӭȐԖ‫ٿ‬஭ъȑǴ
ว ዺ Ξ ᒨ Α ٤ !Ǿ !գ ‫ ډ‬Ꮏ ္ ٰ Ǵ ࡐ ӳ Ƕ ‫ ך‬Ѥ Д Ο ဦ ‫ډ‬

യྛǴԖΟѤϺ઼ᔖǶӆ཮Ǽ! ΋ΟǵΟǵΒΎ‫ڹ‬ǳ٥η!
Ȝठঐರηȝ
Brother Shenzi: I received your letter. The “New Li Village” will be
published on the 1st of April, but as the manuscript of this issue
is large [two and half author’s sheets] the publication has been
delayed . . . it is great that you will come to Li Village. On the 3rd
of April I will go to Shengxi, staying there two or three nights. See
you! On the night of the 27th of March, in the 13th year [of the
Republic of China] Yazi (Letter to Ling Shenzi)
(4)!ᄃϻΓ᠙Ǻ‡ᆪҸདӃғࠉ઻Ǵϡ‫ؼ‬ᗊ഼ǴրលཞѨࣗ
ѮǴჴుภϪǴৎ҆ҭుࠉேǶǾǳҁᔕॅ࿵ᒃठ౼
൧ǴோӢ٣‫܌‬ᡟǴόёӵᜫǶǾࠄఈੂ႟Ǵ੝ႝႭটǶ
ֺቼសǳ2:36ԃ9Д36В
Respectfully to Lady Liao: I was deeply grieved to hear [the sorrowful
news of] the decease of the revered Zhongkai. The sudden decease
of a man of virtue [like him] is an unperceivable loss for our party
[i.e. the Kuomintang] and it does not only fill me with sorrow, but
also my humble mother cries bitter tears . . . I originally planned to
proceed to Guangdong to offer funeral sacrifices in person, but since
I am restrained by official matters I cannot act as I hoped . . . Facing
to the South5 with tears on my face, I respectfully send this telegram
in order to convey my condolences. Song Qingling 25.08.1925
Both of these letters were written by intellectuals who had some role in the
birth of the Republic of China and consequently had positive attitude
towards language reforms. Letter (3) was written by Liu Yazi ࢛٥η
(1887–1958), poet, man of letters and political activist of the Republican
times, to a literary friend, colleague and Jiangsu Province compatriot Ling
Shenzi ঐರη. The author of letter (4) is Song Qingling ֺቼស (1893–
1981) wife of the founder of the Republic Sun Yat-sen; this letter of condolence
was written to the widow of Liao Zhongkai ᄃҸད (1877–1925), a Kuomint-
ang leader who was assassinated. The style of these letters is considerably
different in terms of formal deference. Letter (3) does not include honorif-
ics except the quasi-familiar address form xiong л (‘elder brother’), and in
general its style is rather informal. Letter (4) on the other hand is heavily
loaded with honorific expressions such as the elevating form of address
yuanliang ϡ‫( ؼ‬lit. ‘original good’, man of virtue) used in reference to the
deceased person, the self-denigrating form of address jiamu ৎ҆ (lit.

‘home mother’, humble mother) referring to the author’s mother, and the
conventional verb form jian ᠙ (lit. ‘[to send for someone’s] examination’,
respectfully to). Also, the author uses various conventional forms that
express deference such as chiyan Ⴍট (lit. ‘to gallop to extend one’s
condolence’, that is, convey condolences), which emphasizes the author’s
humility by referring to her (symbolical) intention to hurry towards the
recipient.
The obvious difference between these two letters is of course partly due
to the context: a formal letter of condolence obviously requires more
formality than a casual letter written to a friend. However, a considerably
more important difference is stylistic: Liu Yazi’s letter is written in the
vernacular – in line with the custom of intellectuals in the 1920s to write
informal epistolary genres in the vernacular – while Song Qingling’s letter
is an intermix of Classical and vernacular, being somewhat closer to
Classical Chinese, which is typical of formal letters of that time.6 In other
words, the different genres of these letters necessitate different major styles
(Classical–vernacular vs vernacular), which manifests itself in a funda-
mentally different language in terms of deference. The point that the use
of Classical–vernacular intermix, or that of the ‘plain’ new vernacular,
counts more than mere contextual factors like the content of the message
is supported by the fact that in historical Chinese informal letters written to
friends honorifics and other deferential tools were present, even if they
were not as frequent as in formal genres (cf. Kádár, 2010b). On the other
hand, if we observe modern Mainland Chinese letters of condolence
written in vernacular, they turn out to be sparing with honorifics as other
vernacular genres, as the following extract demonstrates:
(5)!ٰߞԏ‫ډ‬Ƕள‫ޕ‬գ҆ᒃѐШǴ‫ך‬ΜϩൿภǴ‫ޑך‬Јύ‫׳‬
ࢂᜤ‫ڙ‬όςǶѝӢؒૈᒃԾୖуԴΓৎ‫ޑ‬ရᘶǴ
ుࣁᒪᏬǶ
I received your letter. Learning that your mother passed away I feel
great sorrow, in my heart I feel endless pain. As I cannot participate
at your revered mother’s funeral I feel great sorrow. (Model
letter, retrieved from <http://wenda.tianya.cn/wenda/thread?tid=
1ec60c10e2855d85>)
This vernacular letter is in fact no less deferential than (4). However,

deference is primarily expressed through emotive discourse, including,
for example, adverbs like shifen Μϩ (absolutely), and not through
honorifics – in the extract above the only honorific is lao-renjia ԴΓৎ (lit.
‘old person’, your revered mother).
To sum up, traditional tools of deference are largely missing from
vernacular works irrespective of their date of writing, a fact that seems to
be confirmed by our ‘transitional’ database. Thus, the disappearance of
honorifics and other deferential tools is not a gradual and reconstructable
process – this is the quintessence of the ‘data problem’. A logical deduction
that can be made on the basis of this phenomenon is that the disappearance
of historical forms of politeness is due to style, more precisely style as a
representing medium of certain ideologies. We may recall the fact that the
new vernacular was not identical to the historical baihua, and it was created,
at least partly, with the goal of decreasing illiteracy by making the written
word similar to the colloquial. So, in order to understand what happened
with historical Chinese politeness it is necessary to overview the linguistic–
ideological changes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
3 Politeness and Ideology in China
So far, for the sake of systematic comparison, we have treated historical and
contemporary Chinese politeness as ‘autonomous’ linguistic politeness
systems basically independent of ‘external’ – or non-linguistic – influences.
However, in order to understand the polite behaviour in a given culture,
society or a community of any size, it is necessary to look into the major
dominant politeness ideologies that form the group’s politeness norms. In
fact, such an ideological overview is particularly important in the case of an
intracultural comparison since, as was noted above, many of the changes
studied here are ideological in nature.
As different scholars argue (see Eelen, 1999, and Mills and Kádár, 2011
[in press]), it is oversimplification to equate politeness behaviour with
a given ideology because in reality several ideologies interact in social
politeness, and also because ruling ideologies may differ across minor (sub)
groups and communities of practice within a society. Also, ruling ideologies
often belong to the elite and not the whole of the society. Thus, it seems
impossible to say that politeness in a given society, especially in such a large
country as China, is or was solely ruled by X ideology, and we do not intend
to create such a simplistic view. Instead, we follow the views of historical
politeness experts, such as Held (1999) and Watts (1999), who focus on the
ideologies of the ruling elite, which unavoidably influence the politeness
behaviour of lower classes to some extent. In other words, we focus on the
‘mainstream’ ideological background of individual politeness behaviour

without excluding or denying the existence and influence of other ideolo-
gies, as well as interaction and struggle between ideologies (see more on
this issue in Fitzmaurice, 2010). This is a feasible way for us all the more
because we are interested in the diachronic change of Chinese politeness
norms, which meant the challenge of the ideologies and language use of
the social elite.
3.1 Politeness ideology in historical China

In the case of historical China the aforementioned ruling ideology should
be Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism, which – roughly speaking –
dominated the thinking of the elite with some interruptions from the
time of the third century bc to 1911. Therefore, in order to overview the
politeness norms in late imperial China we have to examine the Confucian
perception and ideologization of ‘proper’ politeness.
Confucianism or Rujia Ꮒৎ is based on the philosophy of Confucius
(Kongzi Ͼη, that is, Master Kong or Kong Qiu ϾЫ, 551–478 bc), an
ancient thinker who after failing to spread his ideas among the ruling
circles took many disciples and became the most influential teacher of
his time. When referring to Confucianism as a ‘philosophy’ rather than
religion we mean that it is a system of moral principles aimed at maintain-
ing harmony within the family, community and state, rather than a religion
in the Judeo-Christian sense (see a detailed introduction to Confucianism
in, for example, Yao, 2000). Confucianism was rejected by the first Chinese
Qin Dynasty, which united the country in 221 bc, but after the fall of Qin it
became the ‘official’ state ideology. While its official status was challenged
from time to time, during the Song Dynasty it gained its final shape as the
ideology of the Chinese elite, in the form of the so-called Neo-Confucianism
(Lixue ౛Ꮲ). Neo-Confucianism, along with both reforming and conserving
certain Confucian ideals, imported elements from two other philosophies and
religions, namely, Taoism (Daojiao ၰ௲) and Buddhism (Fojiao Օ௲);
cf. Chan (1963). In terms of social philosophy Neo-Confucian thinkers
reinforced the ancient ideals of social hierarchy, and so conserved polite-
ness ideologies until the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
As Confucianism is a social philosophy, it is not coincidental that politeness
issues gained particular importance in Confucian treatises. The Confucian
Classics, as well as later treatises on proper behaviour, did not define any
notion identical to the word ‘politeness’ (or the modern Chinese limao ᘶᇮ,
‘politeness’). Instead, they described appropriate social communication as
part of the moral concept of li ᘶ. Li is a complex notion, which means,

among other things, ‘(religious) rites’, ‘social rules’ and ‘respect’ (cf. Gou,
2002); actually, li is not restricted to proper communication only, but also
includes the performance of rites before the spirits of ancestors and other
aspects of rituality (see Kádár, 2007b). Yet, if we limit our study to the com-
municational aspect of li, its most important prescription is the following:
in the course of proper communication one should be deferential by
denigrating oneself and elevating one’s speech partner.
As this phenomenon was thoroughly discussed in Chapter 3, we now
focus on the way in which Confucian works treat it, as well as its social–
ideological implications. The following renowned examples demonstrate
the ideologization of elevation and denigration:
(6)!\Ǿ^! ࢂࡺ։ηόԾε‫ځ‬٣ǴόԾۘ‫ځ‬фǴа‫؃‬ೀ௃Ƕၸ
Չѷ౗Ǵа‫؃‬ೀࠆǶᄆΓϐ๓ԶऍΓϐфǴа‫؃‬Π፣Ƕ
ࢂࡺ։ηᗨԾ‫ڒ‬ǴԶ҇ལ൧ϐǶȐȜᘶ૶ȝʏ߄૶ȑ
[. . .] Accordingly, the superior man does not elevate himself in his
doings or overvalue his own merit, hence seeking the truth. He does
not aim to make extraordinary actions, but instead seeks to occupy
himself only with what is substantial. He displays prominently the
good qualities of others, celebrates their merits, and underestimates
his own wisdom. Although thus the superior man denigrates
himself, the ordinary people will respect and honor him. (Book of
Rites, Biaoji)
(7) !\Ǿ^!όඪᏰख़٣Ǵ‫܌‬аԾ‫ڒ‬Զ൧Ӄ઒ΨǶ
ȐȜᘶ૶ȝʏ߷ကȑ
He does not dare to venture into important matters without [the
ancestors’] authorization [through sacrifices], and thus denigrates
himself and elevates his ancestors. (Book of Rites, Guanyi)
(8) !։ηལԶคѨǴᆶΓబԶԖᘶǴѤੇϐϣǴࣣл‫׌‬ΨǶ
)ȜፕᇟȝXII.5ȑ
The gentleman is reverent and does nothing amiss, is respectful
towards others and observant of the rites, and all within the Four
Seas are his brothers. (Analects XII.5, translation of James Legge)
(9) !ϻᘶ‫ޣ‬ǴԾ‫ڒ‬Զ൧ΓǶȐȜᘶ૶ȝʏԔᘶ΢ȑ
Li means the denigration of the self and the elevation of the other.
(Book of Rites, Quli, part one)
These citations from the Classics Book of Rites (Liji ᘶ૶) and Analects
(Lunyu ፕᇟ) demonstrate that, according to Confucian thinking, one
should denigrate oneself (zibei Ծ‫ )ڒ‬and elevate the other (zunren ൧Γ),
in order to gain respect. Further, one should avoid elevating oneself (zida
Ծε), which is in breach of proper behaviour. By acting in such a way one
will not only gain ‘social capital’ – to use Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977) term –
and maintain harmony with his family, as illustrated by the first and the
second examples, but will also attain more divine goals such as social
harmony and prosperity as shown by Example 8. In fact, as Example 9
demonstrates, the denigration of self and the elevation of others is a kind
of quintessence of li on the level of language and behaviour.
Considering the close ties between denigration/elevation and li, it is
useful to examine the relationship between li and social power, in order
to gain insight into the real social function of the historical Chinese
elevation/denigration phenomenon. In fact, li is not a socially ‘harmless’
notion but a political concept, by means of which the ‘wise ruler’ and his
advisers will be able to lead the country in an effective way, as illustrated by
the following brief citations:
(10)!
ηГǺ΢ӳᘶǴ߾҇ವඪόལǶȐȜፕᇟȝXIII.4ȑ
Confucius said: ‘If a superior man loves li, the people will not dare
not to be reverent.’ (Analects XIII.4)
(11)!ηГǺ΢ӳᘶǴ߾҇ܰ٬ΨǶȐȜፕᇟȝXIV.41ȑ
The Master said: ‘When those above are given to the observance of
the rites, the common people will be easy to command.’ (Analects
XIV.41)
As these citations demonstrate, li is a concept of governance that aids the

ruler to properly command his subjects, by making the commoners respect
the elite. What is interesting to note here is that both of the citations make
it quite clear that only the upper classes need to understand li, while
members of lower classes need only to be deferential. From this social
perspective, li has a similar role to notions of ‘politeness’ in other societies,
in particular historical ones, that is, it is a power resource for the ruling
elite.7 Due to the fact that historical Chinese politeness behaviour was
associated with the Confucian ideology through the notion of li, harsh
critiques against Confucian ideological views, which characterized the birth
of modern China, made historical Chinese politeness vulnerable and
subject to criticism, as we will argue in the conclusion of Section 3.
Before moving on to the discussion of modern Chinese ideologies of

proper behaviour, let us recall the argument of Chapter 3, that is elevation
and denigration was unequally distributed in historical Chinese society
in several ways. This seems to confirm that the ideologization discussed
here was rather effective, and it is thus not really surprising that li and
its criticism gained much more attention in modern times than notions
of ‘politeness’ in many other societies.
3.2 Politeness ideology in modern and contemporary China

The founder of the Republic of China Sun Yat-sen was a (Neo-)Confucian
thinker who argued in favour of applying Confucian traditions in order to
modernize China (cf. Gregor, 1981). Consequently, the official ideology of
the Republican Era can be characterized as a blend of modernization and
traditionalism. This, however, does not mean that traditional social and
linguistic–ideological values remained unchallenged – as was already
mentioned in Chapter 1, many of these ideologies supposedly disappeared
during the first half of the twentieth century. Most importantly from the
perspective of the present research, language became an important point
of criticism for those young radical thinkers such as Hu Shi (cf. Chapter 2)
who played leading roles in the May Fourth Movement. The Movement was
a literary and intellectual revolution, which among different political goals
such as the freedom of speech aimed to attain the reformation of written
medium. As a consequence of the Movement, in 1920 Classical Chinese lost
its role as the official language and was replaced with vernacular.
We have no evidence as to whether traditional politeness was a subject of
criticism during the May Fourth Movement or not. It seems to be quite
certain though that many traditional forms of address that expressed
inequality became unpopular during the attempt to modernize Chinese
society and literacy; but historical politeness, unlike the matter of ‘official’
medium of writing, was not an issue during this period. In other words, the
May Fourth Movement might have had its impact on politeness in a ‘natural’
way, that is, the ‘disappearance’ of many forms of politeness could be
simply due to the fact that Classical Chinese, which conserved many tradi-
tional forms, fell out of usage – a problem that was discussed in Section 2.
It is pertinent to note that along with language reform there were other
events that could influence the development of politeness; for example, the
birth of feminism during the 1910s and 1920s and the rise of gender equality
in education after the Movement (Lee, 1995: 356) could play an important
role in the disappearance of gendered speech. This is because, as it was
discussed in Chapter 3, traditional gendered honorifics emphasized

inequality between males and females by (even if symbolically) represent-
ing the female speaker as the powerless party.
After the period of the May Fourth Movement the next major challenge
of historical ideologies came after the CCP led by Mao Zedong took over
political power from the Nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949.
During the first period of early Communist rule (1949–1969), the main task
of the new Chinese government in terms of ideology was to spread idea
of ‘equality’ – and implement it in practice by the forced centralized
redistribution of values. The Communist Party launched a series of political
campaigns and societal reforms to instil a new ideology of equality among
social classes, thus representing a direct challenge to the traditional Confucian
social ideology.
One important aspect of such reforms was the Chinese language ‘reform’
started after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Although
language control existed in China since the first Qin Dynasty or perhaps
even earlier, the language politics starting in 1949 was perhaps the most
influential attempt to centralize language since the Qin Dynasty:8 it included
the standardization of the Chinese language, the simplification of Chinese
characters and the Romanization of the Chinese Alphabet (Zhou and Sun,
2004). Having a unified national language rather than scattered dialects
was promoted because a standardized form of speech would “give greater
cohesion to the already unprecedented political, economic and cultural
unity” of the People’s Republic of China, which was plainly an ideological
position of the Chinese Community Party (Mills, 1956: 518). China’s
language policy since 1949 has had the mission of
changing perceptions of tradition, modernization, state-building, and

nation-building . . . [which] all tend to empower one single standard
language politically, legally, socio-economically, and even aesthetically.
(Zhou and Ross, 2004: 16)
The Chinese language reform campaign had a huge impact on linguistic

politeness. Since one of the goals of the language reform was to popularize
common speech and promote a common language to the young genera-
tion via education (Chou, 1958), the language of the elite was gradually
losing its supremacy in Chinese society. Unlike the May Fourth Movement
this anti-traditionalist movement had no spontaneous character: its purpose
was to deprive the old intellectual and commercial elite of its wealth and
power. Since the May Fourth Movement was simply anti-traditionalist and
wanted to reform language for the sake of language users, the leaders of the
Movement did not criticize the language use of the elite apart from generic
issues. On the other hand, the Communists stigmatized the traditional
politeness as ‘bourgeois’ and encouraged its abandonment.
During the second period of 1966–1976, which is known as the Cultural
Revolution period, the Communist ideology, and anti-traditionalism,
became more radical. While anti-traditionalism had been in the air since
the Communist takeover, the Cultural Revolution was a focused political
and ideological campaign against traditional Chinese culture (though in
reality it served as a means for Mao to get rid of his political enemies). Dur-
ing this period, the government aimed to completely supplant traditional
Chinese norms of politeness behaviour from language use.9
The ‘fight’ against traditional politeness may understandably appear
somewhat unusual for those who are not specialized in Chinese cultural
studies. In fact, if one observes the language reforms of Communists in East
European countries, such as Hungary (see, for example, Ogiermann and
Suszczyńska, 2010 [in press]), except for forcing people to abolish certain
‘feudal’ forms of address and adopt the collective ‘comrade’, they were not
too concerned about politeness issues. Although rudeness in service and
public areas rapidly increased in countries where communism gained
power, it was a mere consequence of the loss of the individual’s rights as
citizen, customer, and so on. Thus, the centralized abolition of historical
politeness during the Cultural Revolution is a unique phenomenon, and
it was supposedly due to the fact that the Cultural Revolution was philo-
sophically bound to Maoist ideas, that it was quite different from political
movements in other Communist countries. During the years of the Cultural
Revolution Sino–Russian relationships became rather hostile, and Mao
and the circle of his followers – designating the Russian Communists as
‘revisionists’ – made an effort to implement extremist Maoist social philosophy
in practice. In the Maoist philosophy the problematization of historical
politeness had long been present, as the following citation demonstrates:
(12)!ॠ‫ڮ‬όࢂፎ࠼Ӟ໭Ǵόࢂ଺ЎകǴόࢂᛤฝ㻝޸Ǵόૈ
ٗኬ໡ठǴٗኬவ৒όॐǴЎ፦ரரǴٗኬྕ‫ؼ‬ৰቀ
ᡣǶॠ‫ࢂڮ‬ኪ୏Ǵࢂ΋ঁ໘ભ௢ᙌќ΋ঁ໘ભ‫ޑ‬ኪਗ਼‫ޑ‬
Չ୏Ƕ
Revolution is not entertaining guests or having dinner parties. It is
not writing a paper, nor is it working on a painting or embroidery.
It cannot be done in a refined, calm and composed manner.
It cannot be done in a cultured and polite way. Nor can it be done

in a temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous
fashion. Revolution is a rebellion. It is a violent action by one social
class against another social class.10
This passage from Mao Zedong, written as early as 1927, denounced every
aspect of the Chinese cultural view regarding polite behaviour, such as
being refined, kind, courteous and restrained. It is interesting to note that
Mao – unlike some other dictators such as Hitler – was an educated person
(Short, 2001): he was well versed in Classical Chinese literature and culture.
Thus, the fact that politeness was present in Maoist ‘philosophy’ might have
some significance. That is, it can be rightly supposed Mao was familiar with
the norms of historical Chinese politeness and their social power and role.
This seems to be demonstrated by the fact that the famous passage above
represents traditional politeness as a social factor that cannot coexist with
revolution.
This renowned quote of Mao was chanted as a slogan by Red Guards11
during the Cultural Revolution as they raided ordinary households one
after another in order to get rid of the “Four Olds” (Si-jiu Ѥᙑ) of
Maoist philosophy, that is “old thinking”, “old customs”, “old culture” and
“old tradition” (jiu sixiang, jiu xiguan, jiu wenhua, jiu chuantong, ᙑࡘགྷǵ
ᙑಞᄍǵᙑЎϯǵᙑ໺಍). Any household items, artefacts, books,
paintings that fell into these four categories were destroyed or removed
by Red Guards. Together with the removal of the “four olds”, gone are all
conventional expressions of politeness, which were deemed ‘counter-
revolutionary’ (Yuan et al., 1990).
The economic reform era of 1979 to present has witnessed a wave of
new ideologies and new practices rushing into China from the West, and
at the same time, a restoration of traditional practices as well as a yearning
for the revival of Confucian ideologies. After long years of isolationist
policies and practices towards the external economy adopted during the
Cultural Revolution, in 1978 the CCP implemented the so-called Open
Policy12 in order to reform the country’s socialist planned economy by
introducing foreign trade, foreign investment and a market economy.
With the arrival of foreign trade and foreign capital, in rushed countless
foreign goods and enterprises, such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Karaoke
bars. Transitions in social practices often lead to ideological shifts. Disillu-
sionment among the Chinese, especially the younger generation, with the
Communist ideology has left “an ideological vacuum which the Party has
been slow to fill. In the meantime the youth have turned towards music,
dance, religion and materialism” (Howell, 1993: 251). This is the period
that the old, the new, the Chinese and the Western ideologies are all pres-
ent and contested. As we discussed in Chapter 4, the shift in ideology has a
huge impact on contemporary Chinese politeness behaviour, which has
many ambiguous features.
In fact, it is difficult to decide whether the May Fourth Movement or the
Cultural Revolution had larger impact on Chinese politeness, and which
one is ‘responsible’ for the gap between historical and contemporary polite-
ness in China. On the basis of the previously mentioned intercultural
resemblance of (im)politeness in foreign Chinese-speaking communities
such as the Singaporean and Mainland China it seems that most of the
changes took place during the Republican Era, while Communist language
‘reforms’ only reinforced changes that started during Republican times.
This might be the reason why Singaporeans, as Lee (2011 [in press]) notes,
being aware of certain problems of Chinese (im)politeness behaviour try to
beautify Singaporean communication style on the one hand, while many
of them hold Mainland Chinese in contempt as ‘rude people’, on the
other. The above-mentioned intercultural hypothesis is supported by two
interrelated facts:
1. During the Republican Era China was relatively open in comparison with
Communist times, and there was an active interaction between Mainland
Chinese and foreign Chinese communities (Dikötter, 2008).
2. Most ‘overseas’ Chinese communities have no Communist history, and
even if Communism had some influence in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and so
on, it never become an official ideology in these communities.
Thus, it can be at least supposed – though there is no direct evidence for

this claim – that Republican language reforms had more influence on
the language use of overseas Chinese communities than Communist ones.
Having argued thus, the impact of Communism – such as the use of
rudeness as ‘psychological warfare’ (cf. Chapter 4) – on Chinese politeness
cannot, and should not, be underestimated, as it explains the major inter-
cultural differences between the Mainland Chinese and members of other
Chinese-speaking communities.
3.3 Summary
To sum up the present section, during the twentieth century historical
Chinese politeness was subject to major challenges. Since the very essence
of the historical system is the emphasis of difference between the interactants,
it is a logical consequence that it was strongly criticized during modern

reform attempts. Also, with the disappearance (more precisely, redistribu-
tion) of ancient differences between certain social classes, historical
politeness – which aimed to maintain this order – had to disappear. Thus
it can also be argued that historical Chinese politeness, due to the fact
that it embodied Confucian class ideologies, was vulnerable to large-scale
ideological and subsequent social changes.
While the reconstruction of the large-scale change in Chinese politeness
practice through ideological lenses is more reliable than merely relying on
data (cf. Section 2) and, indeed, mainly ideological changes bear the
responsibility for the gap between historical and contemporary Chinese
politeness – this approach is still not without problems. This is because one
may rightly ask why honorifics and other forms of traditional elevating/
denigrating expressions of deference did not disappear from North Korean
language use, despite the fact that in North Korea Communist education
(based on the Communist theorizations of Kim Il-sung, 1912–1994 and his
son Kim Jong-Il, 1941–)13 is considerably stronger than in Mainland China,
and the ‘Communist’ reshaping of language use and linguistic ‘warfare’
were (and, perhaps, continue to be) as important in North Korea as in
China (cf. Anderson, 1948). However, honorifics and traditional forms of
deference are not disappearing in North Korean – rather, they have even
become intensified in a specific but recurring discursive domain, namely,
the exaltation of the two Kims. Also, while there is not much information
available on the speech style of ordinary North Koreans, it is certain that
honorifics and other forms of deference are quite popular in official inter-
actions in the North Korean Communist Party.14
This fact makes it necessary to consider the question as to how ideological
changes could cause major changes in Chinese politeness. That is, without
denying the influence of ideologies we need to look into the characteristics
of Chinese deferential language and try to explain why it could be more
vulnerable to socio-ideological influences than, for example, Korean.
4 The Vulnerability of Historical Chinese Politeness
4.1 Grammaticalization
The resistance of Korean – and the vulnerability of Chinese – is due to
grammaticalization. In Korean (and Japanese), honorifics are not confined
to the word level as in Chinese but they are systematically built into the
grammar. Speakers of Korean and Japanese (two languages with somewhat
similar honorific systems, cf. Kim, 2011 [in press]) can eliminate many
ostentatious (or ‘feudal’) expressions from everyday speech, but it is not
easy to discard ‘common’ honorifics in these languages because honorific
forms and inflection are profoundly built in as a well-defined subsystem of
the grammar (Lee, 1990; Kumatani, 1990). So, certain interactional situations
necessitate the use of ‘proper’ honorific inflection and deferential forms
(Kim, 2011 [in press]), and deferential style is thus not necessarily a logical
or ‘volitional’ choice, to use the Japanese sociolinguist Sachiko Ide’s (1989)
term – even though recent studies on Japanese demonstrate this is a norm
and not a rule because the interactants can deviate from ‘proper’ style for
strategic reasons (see, for example, Cook, 2008).
In Chinese, on the other hand, deference is ungrammaticalized due
to the morphosyntactic characteristics of Chinese that does not allow
honorific inflection. For the Chinese speaker, the choice of a certain form
is a basically ‘volitional’ activity, due to which communicational failures are
relatively likely to occur, as (25) in Chapter 3 demonstrated. While ‘improper’
choice of honorific style is an extant phenomenon in Japanese and Korean,
the speakers of these languages have a considerably easier task than histori-
cal Chinese speakers had – even if such a comparison is tentative – since in
case of uncertainties they can still follow the rules of grammar. In order to
demonstrate this, let us cite Ide’s (1989: 227) renowned example:
(13) *‘Sensei-wa kore-o yonda.’

prof.-TOP this-ACC read-PAST
*‘The professor read this.’
(14) ‘Sensei-wa kore-o o-yomi-ni-natta.’
REF. HONO. PAST
‘The professor read this.’
(TOP = topic; ACC = accusative; HONO = honorific; REF. = referential)
While in certain situations the Japanese speaker can choose (13), as far
as deferential style is required (e.g. the teacher is present) they need
to use (14). And, in (14) the elevating honorific form o-yomi-ni-natta
啴侇喩喕喔喍喉 is grammaticalized, that is, the only somewhat ‘freely’
chosen form is sensei Ӄғ (lit. ‘first-born’, that is, teacher), which is an
honorific form of address/reference. In fact, even sensei is grammaticalized
to some extent in the sense that, like certain forms of address which became
pronouns,15 sensei became a kind of default form of reference for teachers:
depending on the context a ‘teacher’ could be elevated by using different
marked forms such as sensei-sama Ӄғ䃫 (‘revered teacher’), X-sensei

(a more personalized form), and so on. In other words, sensei is mainly
deferential because it refers to a socially revered profession and not because
of its concrete semantic meaning (older age would imply higher rank),
which seems to be demonstrated by the fact that a simple Google search of
the sentence Sensei no baka! Ӄғ喘喚啵Ǽ (‘Sensei is an idiot!’) retrieved
approximately 220,000 results. In short, (14) demonstrates that speakers of
Japanese and Korean, which have grammaticalized honorific/deferential
systems, have relatively easy tasks in contexts that require deference: they
only have to follow certain grammatical rules and conventions.
On the other hand, even if this is a speculative retrospection, a historical
Chinese speaker would need to choose from a number of available forms to
utter the same sentence as (14):
(15)!Ӄғ᠐೭ጇЎകǶ
Teacher (HONO.) read this essay. (Constructed)
(16)!ৣР‫҅ܬ‬೭ጇЎകǶ
Teacher (HONO.) read (HONO.) this essay. (Constructed)
(17)!ৣߏ᠙᠐‫ܟ‬ЎǶ
Teacher (HONO.) read (HONO.) this essay (HONO.). (Constructed)
In (15)–(17) the speaker uses three different deferential elevating forms –

xiansheng Ӄғ (lit. ‘first-born’), shifu ৣР (lit. ‘teacher father’), and
shichang ৣߏ (‘teacher superior’) – to refer to the teacher. All of these
forms are equally elevating, and the speaker has to choose between them
depending on their relationship with the referred person; for example,
shifu has some emotional connotation, xiansheng describes a formal teacher–
student relationship, while shichang emphasizes rank difference between
the speaker and the referred person. Also, it is the speaker’s choice to deter-
mine whether they want to use other tools of deference, depending on the
context and personal strategic choices and reasons of self-representation,
due to the fact that, as it was noted in Chapter 3 (see also Kádár, 2007b), in
historical Chinese only the use of proper forms of address is compulsory in
most contexts. For example, (15) is appropriate in a deferential contexts,
but its level of deference can be increased if the speaker uses verbal elevat-
ing verb forms such as fuzheng ‫( ҅ܬ‬lit. ‘correct with an axe’) and jian
᠙᠐ (lit. ‘examined by reading’, ref. a higher ranking person’s reading of
an essay written by a lower ranking one); again, there is only some stylistic
difference between these forms, jian is a bit more formal than fuzheng, and
so they are chosen according to personal preference. It is also worth noting

that there is an option to transform ‘essay’ (wenzhang Ўക) into an
honorific form by replacing it with forms like zhuowen ‫ܟ‬Ў (lit. ‘clumsy
text’, used in reference to the essay of the speaker or that of somebody
related to the speaker).
As this description demonstrates, historical Chinese speakers were rela-
tively ‘free’ to choose between deferential forms (except some institutional
contexts like (21) in Chapter 3) and to decide upon what types of forms are
needed in an utterance except forms of address. This is not to argue that
Japanese or Korean honorific style lacks freedom but, as (14) demonstrates,
there are standard grammatical ways to describe certain things, and in
fact deference could and can not be conveyed without applying these gram-
maticalized forms (see Kim, 2011 [in press]). That is, grammaticalization
provides a certain ‘protection’ against diachronic changes: even if the
social values expressed by elevating and denigrating forms are criticized,
it is impossible, for example, to divinize leaders without using honorific
inflection; consequently, while some ‘feudal’ forms may disappear the sys-
tem remains largely unchallenged, as the North Korean case demonstrates.
On the other hand, in Chinese it is possible to express deference with a
critically decreased lexicon of forms of address, and by omitting honorific
verbal forms, as the following extract demonstrates:
(18)!Դৣ᠐Α೭ጇЎകǶ
Teacher (HONO.?) read this essay. (Constructed)
This is the contemporary Chinese equivalent of (15)–(17), which is

acceptable in deferential contexts. If the speaker wishes to add to the
deferential value of the utterance they can use strategies such as in the
following example:
(19)!ԴৣࣗԿ᠐Α೭ጇЎകǶ
Teacher (HONO.?) even read this essay. (Constructed)
In both (18) and (19) the standard laoshi Դৣ (‘teacher’) is used; this
professional title is an honorific but it does not reveal any information as
to the relationship between the speaker and the referred person, and in
modern Mandarin there is no alternative form for ‘teacher’ in deferential
contexts. In (19) some extra deferential value is added to the sentence
by the conjunctive adverb shenzhi ࣗԿ (‘even’), which is not an honorific
but a strategically used grammatical form that emphasizes the teacher’s
extra effort.
In sum, (15)–(19) represent what happened in Chinese that was

‘unprotected’ by grammaticalizedness: the huge honorific lexicon could
disappear except a few basic forms, and deference is expressed in other,
non-honorific, ways. Furthermore, as the following section will demon-
strate, the lack of grammatical encoding already influenced language
behaviour in historical China.
4.2 Historical Chinese politeness behaviour and (the lack

of) grammatical encoding
As Chapter 3 demonstrated, historical Chinese politeness behaviour was
rather ambiguous in the sense that in certain contexts honorifics and other
forms of deference could be omitted without becoming rude or impolite.
In many contexts, such as family interactions cited in Chapter 3, the lack
of honorifics is thus ‘systematic’ – even if this is against the norms of
‘appropriateness’ as defined by the Confucian Classics, and so it is an
anomaly of Chinese language behaviour in a somewhat similar way with its
modern counterpart. However, the use of honorifics and other deferential
tools in historical Chinese corpora is often more ambiguous and cannot be
defined as a simple ‘anomaly’. That is, the quantity of politeness forms
vary by genre, context, and even by author. While this phenomenon is
understandable, all the more because authors could ‘play’ with the quantity
and frequency of these forms as they were ungrammaticalized, in order to
be able to reconstruct the discursive use of Chinese forms of deference we
have to explore texts written without any literary purpose, that is, exactly to
represent spoken language. In this sense, Xue-Guanhua (Learn Guanhua),
the textbook written to Ryūkyūan students (cf. Chapter 2), is a most reliable
source (although Xue-Guanhua also includes a few sample letters, it pre-
dominantly consists of dialogues).
The analysis of Xue-Guanhua reveals that due to the lack of grammaticaliza-
tion honorifics were used quite ‘loosely’, and became rather formularized, as
early as the Qing Dynasty. The following interaction, taking place between a
Ryūkyūan speaker and a Chinese Mandarin, illustrates this phenomenon:
(20) 1.!֋ນ! ‫ޑॺך‬ಭǴ᡼‫ݲ‬೭‫܃‬ξଣӦБǶ৮‫ڹ܂‬໔Ԗၖ

ಭٰǴόߡளࡐǶ‫؃‬ԴྭϺৱǴ঑‫ޑךܫ‬ಭǴ຾ѐٚ
य़᡼‫ݲ‬ǴؒԖυ߯Ƕ
[The Ryūkyūan] says: Our ship is anchored near Yishan Temple.16
We are afraid that in the night a pirate ship may come, which makes
us greatly worried. We humbly beg for Your Honour’s mercy to
allow us enter the internal harbour, hence avoiding evils.
2. ୢ!գॺԴྭǴࢂϙሶ߻ำǻ
Question: What is the rank of your leader?
3. เ!ࢂεϻǶ
Reply: Senior official.
4. ୢ!գ‫ډ‬ύ୯଺ϙሶǻ
Question: What do you intend to do in China?
5. เ!ࢂ୯Цৡٰ΢٧຾ଅ‫ޑ‬Ƕ
Reply: We are sent by the king [of the Ryūkyūs] to proceed to the
capital in order to pay tribute.17
6. ୢ!գ‫ډ‬ύ୯ǴԖ൳ᎁΑǻ
Question: How many times have you visited China?
7. เ!‫ך‬வٰόම‫ډ‬ၸǴ೭ٚ΋ᎁࢂ߃ٰ‫ޑ‬Ƕ
Answer: I have not previously visited. This is my first time here.
8. ᇥ!գωٰ൩཮ᇥ‫۔‬၉Ǵࢂᖃܴ‫ޑ‬ΓΑǶ
[The official] says: You just arrived and can already speak
Mandarin. You are a clever person.
9.เ!ଁඪǼ‫ך‬ό཮ᖱǴᇥ‫ޑ‬၉όܴқǶ‫؃‬Դлඹ‫ך‬ᙯ
! ‫ق‬ǴόฅǴό᐀ள၁ಒǶ
Answer: How dare I [accept your praise]! I cannot speak and
what I say is unclear. I humbly beg you, respected elder brother,
to communicate on my behalf, otherwise I will not be able to
understand the details [of what is said]. (Interaction no. 19)
This exemplary formal interaction takes place between an imagined

Ryūkyūan interpreter – probably the escort of a Ryūkyūan group that
reached Fuzhou City first on their route to the capital – and a Chinese
local official.
There is an obvious inequality in the interaction. The Ryūkyūan inter-
preter speaks in a deferential tone and the Chinese official responds by
using a ‘plain’ style devoid of forms of deference: the only manifestation
of politeness is in Turn 8 in which the official appraises the interpreter’s
fluency in Chinese, which is a conventional Chinese complimenting
strategy. This is understandable, considering that it is the official who can
decide whether or not the Ryūkyūan ship may enter the harbour, and also
up to Turn 6 the official asks routine (impersonal) administrative questions
only. The interpreter’s style is more unusual though: he uses noticeably few
honorifics and conventional tools of deference, in a rather formularized
manner. Deferential forms – occurring in Turns 1 and 9 only – are used in
a quite mechanical way; qiu laoye tian’en ‫؃‬ԴྭϺৱ (lit. ‘to beg a revered
person’s heavenly kindness’) is a standard form to facilitate requests
addressed to officials or members of the imperial court, and qigan ଁඪ
(lit. ‘how dare [I]’) is also a routine form to decline compliments. The only
expression used creatively is laoxiong Դл (‘revered elder brother’): by
applying a quasi-familiar form of address the speaker presumably attempts
to personalize the tone of the interaction. Apart from these honorific forms
the Ryūkyūan speaker’s utterances are without honorifics, and it seems
that he applies formularized tools of deference at strategic points of the
interaction, that is, to facilitate a request (Turn 1) and to strengthen
personal ties (Turn 9).
The facts that honorifics and deferential forms scarcely occur and are
used quite conventionally in strategic points of the interaction reveal a
‘weakness’ of the Qing Dynasty Chinese politeness. If using some proper
elevating/denigrating expressions and other formulas at proper points of
interactions was sufficient to maintain polite tone, and the use of personal
pronouns was not evaluated as offending anymore (compare with Exam-
ples 21 and 22 in Chapter 3), it seems that the honorific system became
corrupted. Such a decline could not have started in a language with grammati-
calized deference, simply because in certain interpersonal relationships
honorific style would be necessary. It is interesting, for example, to observe
the way in which Setoguchi (2003), the Japanese translator of Xue-Guanhua,
translated Line 7 of the above interaction:
(21)!‫د‬喙߃喫喐ύ㡚喕㡌喴喨喁喉Ƕ啽営喨喑䗂喉啽喒啶啬
喴喨喅喽Ƕ
Watashi ha hajimete Chūgoku ni mairimashita. Kore made kita koto ga
arimasen.
I have not previously visited. This is my first time here.
(Setoguchi, 2003: 46)
In the Japanese version, along with the deferential masu 喨喃 inflection

deference is expressed by the self-denigrating verb (kenjō-dōshi ᖰ侎୏ຒ)
mairu 㡌喵 (‘to visit’). This illustrates the difference between languages
with grammaticalized deference and Chinese: while in (20) the Ryūkyūan
speaker can afford to omit honorifics and forms of deference as he simply
responds an administrative question, in Japanese the interactional relation-
ship necessitates using linguistically encoded – that is, grammaticalized –
forms of deference.
It should be emphasized that the claim that the decline had already
begun during the Qing Dynasty – which seems to be supported by Peng’s
(1999) quantitative honorific research – does not mean that honorifics

were not widely used in this period. For example, Xue-Guanhua contains
some interactions in which honorifics and other forms of deference are
used in an innovative way, which seems to demonstrate that the historical
system was still very much alive in this period. In order to illustrate this
point, let us cite the following interaction in which the crew of a Ryūkyūan
ship discusses their harbouring with a Chinese navy patrol:
(22) 1.!գॺࢂ຾ଅ‫ޑ‬ಭሶǻ
Are you a tributary ship?
2. ࢂΨǶӈՏஒྭ‫ډ‬௯ಭǶԖϙሶ٣௃‫ګ‬ǻ
Yes. In what matter do you, revered officers, [wish to] visit our
humble ship?
3.‫۬۔ںࢂॺך‬ৡٰǴੇ΢ْঝ‫ޑ‬ঝಭǶ࣮‫ـ‬գॺᝊಭ
! ӧ೭ٚǴ୍ѸᚺၸٰǶ!Ǿ
Humbly receiving the order of the local authorities we patrol.
Seeing your revered ship here we must board your ship. (Interac-
tion no. 22)
In this interaction, along with using some conventional honorifics, the

Ryūkyūan speaker(s) denigrate their ship as bichuan ௯ಭ (lit. ‘humble ship’)
and the patrolmen elevate the Ryūkyūan ship as baochuan ᝊಭ (lit. ‘treasure
ship’). Although these forms can be observed in other historical texts
(cf. Ji, C., 2000) they are relatively rare, and so their use in this interaction
demonstrates that ‘rare’ forms were still made use of in Qing times. If,
however, this was the situation, it seems to us to demonstrate that the system
of honorifics – still usable in a ‘flexible’ way – smoothly operated before
the large social change in modern times occurred.
The present description does not and cannot reconstruct the process
of the decline of honorifics. We would even argue that such a decline is
tendency only; and indeed historical evidence (e.g. Extract 20 above)
supports the existence of this tendency. The existence of this change dem-
onstrates that in the Qing Dynasty the first signs of the corruption of the
historical system of deference were already present in Chinese language.
5 Conclusion
Returning to the logic of Hercule Poirot, the dead man, in our case historical
Chinese politeness, had some characteristics that induced his death, should
certain events pass. In other words historical Chinese politeness was a ‘time-
bomb’ for two interdependent reasons, namely, that it was anchored to
Confucian ideologies and also because it was ungrammaticalized. The
lack of grammaticalization manifested itself in the fact that the system
of historical politeness became corrupted by the Qing Dynasty, and the
major changes that took place during the twentieth century could easily
result in what we defined as a “large gap” between old and new previously
in this book.
Since the aim of the present volume is to demonstrate the difference
between old and new and reconstruct the reasons behind this difference,
it is necessary to conclude the analysis at this point. However, it should be
noted that an important research question remains unanswered. While
we problematized quantitative reconstructions of the historical decline of
honorifics and other forms of deference, we acknowledged the validity of
the decline theory and demonstrated that some corruption of the old sys-
tem can be observed in historical texts. However, this does not give an answer
to the question as to why honorifics began to decline exactly during the
Qing Dynasty. Answering this question will be a task for future research.
Notes
1
The label ‘honorific-rich’ in the present case should also include traditional
deferential strategies.
2
An exception is Taiwanese, which is often treated as a politeness system quite
distinct from Mainland Chinese (Chan, 1998), but Taiwan was ruled by the
Japanese for 50 years (1895–1945) and so Taiwanese language use was arguably
effected by Japanese norms of ‘proper’ behaviour.
3
In Classical Chinese texts relatively few discourse particles are used, as these were
regarded as colloquial, and even in vernacular texts their number is relatively
few, compared with contemporary audio-recorded data.
4
For example, it is interesting to recall Pan’s case in which a junior university staff
was evaluated as a person who “doesn’t know polite rituals” as he did not follow
the proper norms of interacting with senior people. Such norms are elaborately
discussed in the Book of Rites; to give a simple example, one may refer to the
renowned passage from the Quli Ԕᘶ (Summary of the Rules of Property) chapter
(section 14) of the Liji, according to which ᒉ‫ޣߏܭ‬ǴѸᏹΗ‫׺‬аவϐǶߏ‫ޣ‬
ୢǴόᜏᡣԶჹǴߚᘶΨǶ(“When one takes counsel with an elder, he must
carry a stool and a staff with him [for the elder’s use]. When the elder asks a ques-
tion, to reply without acknowledging one’s lack of skill and [ritually] declining
answering, one goes against propriety.”)
5
‘South’ has a symbolical – and twofold – meaning here: on the one hand, it refers
to the direction of Guangdong (south of China and the recipient’s location), and
on the other it is the traditional Chinese direction of afterlife.
6
This style survived in Taiwan where formal letters are still written in the same
archaizing style.
7
Nevertheless, it should be added that the notion of li is relatively ‘democratic’
in the sense that in historical China – in particular from the Han Dynasty
onwards – rank was primarily gained through learning and participation in
official examinations and not by birth. Thus, it is somewhat different from, for
example, the notion of ‘being a gentleman’, which originally was a right that
could be gained through birth only (cf. Watts, 1999).
8
The First Emperor of Qin (Qin Shihuang છ‫ࣤۈ‬, r. 221–210 bc) made perhaps
the most influential centralization ever in the history of China, centralizing
writing, language, measures, and so on. See more in Clements (2006).
9
Even so, as Kádár and Pan (2011 [in press]) note, these attempts to completely
exile traditional norms and expressions from language use remained somewhat
unsuccessful.
10
See Report on Investigating Hunan Peasants’ Movement (Hu’nan nongmin yundong
kaocha baokao ෫ࠄၭ҇ၮ୏Եჸൔ֋), March 1927, in Selected Works of Mao
Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967).
11
Red Guards were civilians, mostly students and other young people, who were
‘mobilized’ by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution in order to fight
against the ‘enemies’ of Maoism.
12
‘Open Policy’ refers to the set of policies adopted by the China’s reformist
leadership since the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the
CCP in December 1978, in order to promote the expansion of economic
relations with the capitalist world economy. It consists of a set of subpolicies
in the spheres of foreign trade, foreign investment and foreign borrowing
(Howell, 1993: 3).
13
The ‘native’ or Korea-specific Communist ideologization of the two Kims is the
so-called ‘Juche theory’; see more in Park (2002).
14
We are grateful to Alan Hyun-Oak Kim for his insightful input on this topic
during an informal discussion.
15
See, for example, Vuestra Merced (‘Your Honour’) in Spanish that became
pronominalized as usted, see Bentivoglio (2002).
16
Yishan-yuan ‫܃‬ξଣ (Yishan Temple) is an area located in the modern Fuzhou
City.
17
During the time of this text the Ryūkyū Kingdom was a tributary of China,
frequently sending ‘tributes’ (symbolical present) to China in order to
acknowledge its supremacy.
Chapter 6
Deconstructing Chinese Politeness
1 Deconstructing Chinese Politeness
The object of study set out for this book is ‘Chinese politeness’. In the
preceding chapters we have shown that there is a gulf between historical
and contemporary Chinese politeness, and this gulf has caused mispercep-
tion and misrepresentation of this aspect of language use in China. As we
stated in Chapter 1, our purpose in this book is to bring a historical and
sociolinguistic/sociopragmatic perspective to trace the change and invest-
igate the similarities or differences between historical and contemporary
Chinese politeness. The approach we have taken so far is to deconstruct
the object of ‘Chinese politeness’. By using the label ‘deconstruction’ or
‘deconstructive approach’, we follow Scollon’s definition:
By deconstructive we would mean that one would begin with an object of

analysis – a text, a social practice, a concept which is taken as unassailably
true – and then begin to argue that this object is, in fact, not what it
appears. (1998: 272)
Following this line of argument we have contended that there is no

absolute or universal Chinese politeness. We have worked at decomposing
the concept of Chinese politeness by arguing that due to the gradual and
sometimes abrupt changes in social structure and political system, there is
discontinuity in Chinese linguistic politeness. Many concepts of Chinese
politeness, by making use of traditional Chinese politeness practices,
would only lend themselves to claims that indicate ideological positions
or cultural beliefs of what Chinese politeness should be. At the same time,
we have decomposed the notion of the lack of polite expressions in con-
temporary China, and have put in its place the concept of a system of
multiple and complex discursive strategies that is itself a manifestation
of politeness in a new form.
Deconstructing Chinese Politeness 155
By deconstructing Chinese politeness, we started to see the dynamics and

multiplicity of politeness. In Chapter 3, we demonstrated that traditional
Chinese was an ‘honorific-rich’ language and that historical Chinese polite-
ness was relatively rigid in terms of the use of honorific terms and deferen-
tial vocatives. However, there were various occasions where this norm was
challenged. In Chapter 4, we argued that contemporary Chinese had
become an ‘honorific-poor’ language and that the system of honorific terms
of address and deferential vocabulary had taken on new meanings and
implications. We explicated in Chapter 5 that Chinese politeness practices
changed over time due to shifts in ideological standing in recent Chinese
history. Moreover, the change or the result of the change was more
complex than it appeared: there existed linguistic vulnerability within the
structure of the Chinese language itself as well as societal forces that caused
the disappearance of historical Chinese politeness expressions and gave
birth to contemporary Chinese politeness, which expresses itself in very
‘untraditional’ forms of politeness. Before we make further inquiry into
whether historical and contemporary politeness should be treated as
two separate systems – a question that we will answer in the negative – let
us outline some key features of the similarities and differences between
the two.
2 Historical and Contemporary Chinese Politeness:

A Comparative Perspective
In the course of analysing politeness practices in historical and contempor-

ary China, we found an echo in Halliday’s (1978, 2010) systemic functional
linguistic theory. Halliday (1978) argued that text (or instances of language
use) is a systemic sample of a system called language. A language is always a
potential system because the environment and context in which a system
exists is constantly changing. The context of a language system is culture,
while the context of text is the situation in which instances of language
use occur. Repeated patterns of instances lead to the birth of a system
(Halliday, 2010).
Taking this view, we do find tendency and repeated patterns that could
lead to the birth of a potential new politeness system. Based on our analyses
of historical and contemporary Chinese data, we identified three main
sets of linguistic tools used to express politeness: honorifics and deference
lexicons, discursive strategies, and lack of polite expressions (though this
last set is an indefinite one). These three sets of linguistic tools were used to
express politeness in both historical and contemporary China. We cannot

claim that one, or two, or all of them completely disappeared in usage over
time. The major differences are in the scope (spread of usage), domain
(social settings), occasion (formal vs informal), and the type of relationship
(inside vs outside relation) in the application of these linguistic tools in
historical and contemporary China. The similarities and differences
between linguistic politeness in historical and contemporary China can be
summarized in Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1 summarizes the linguistic tools and domain range for the applica-
tion of these linguistic tools in interaction. As it shows, honorifics and
deference lexicons were the most prevalent forms of politeness in historical
Chinese. They were used in a wide range of domains and occasions. The
next set of tools in the diagram is discursive strategies which were applied
in many domains of interaction and they often occurred in combination
with honorifics and deference lexicons. The lack of politeness was found in
very limited domains, and mostly it was used in the discourse of low-ranking
and less-educated people, or in informal contexts such as family discourse.
Honorifics and
deference lexicons
[wide range of domains,
formal and informal occasions]
Discursive strategies
[some domains]
Lack of politeness
[limited domains]
Figure 1 Historical Chinese politeness: Linguistic tools and domain range

In contrast with historical Chinese politeness, contemporary Chinese

politeness shows a reverse tendency, and Figure 2 summarizes this tendency.
That is, honorifics and deference lexicons are reserved for very limited
domains and formal occasions. They have nearly fallen out of daily usage,
while the toolset of discursive strategies is on the rise and has been applied
in a variety of domains, for both inside and outside relations, and a variety
of occasions, both formal and informal. This set of linguistic tools is
the most prevalent compared to other means of linguistic politeness
for contemporary Chinese. The lack of politeness is also a widely observed
phenomenon. Its domain range is wide, but its usage is mostly observed in
unrelated outside relations (such as service encounters), or in asymmetrical
relations (the ‘powerful’ vs the ‘powerless’).
It can be concluded here that linguistic tools employed to signal politeness
have remained similar for historical and contemporary Chinese politeness,
but the scope and domain range for their usage have shifted. It should be
noted that the summaries presented here only represent tendency rather
than absoluteness. Evidently, we do not intend to claim that there is any
Honorifics
and deference
lexicons
[limited domains,
formal occasions]
Discursive strategies
[various domains,
inside and outside relations,
formal and informal occasions]
Lack of politeness
[wide range of domains, unrelated outside relations,
from the powerful to the powerless]
Figure 2 Contemporary Chinese politeness: Linguistic tools and domain range

clear-cut border between each set of linguistic tools, nor do we want to

conclude that historical or contemporary Chinese politeness practices
follow exactly the patterns described in the summary. However, our
analyses of historical and contemporary Chinese data demonstrated the
repeated patterns of decline of historical Chinese politeness features,
and these repeated patterns led to the birth of contemporary Chinese
politeness. Although we have enough evidence to suggest that contempo-
rary Chinese politeness is not operating in the same way as historical
Chinese politeness, we are not arguing that historical and contemporary
Chinese politeness are two totally separate systems.
3 System of Politeness and Its Interaction

with Other Components
This argument has left us wondering what holds traditional Chinese

politeness and contemporary Chinese politeness together as one system.
To answer this question, we need to take a step back to really understand
what interacts with linguistic politeness.
We find Larsen-Freeman and Cameron’s (2008) complexity theory on
language appealing and compelling in addressing the question raised
above. Their basic view of language is that there is no stability. Language
is a complex system of contextualized products of integration of various
activities by individuals in situated communication. Therefore, language
research should be grounded on three sets of principles. First, we need to
accept that change or dynamism is central to our object of concern. Second, we
must contend not only with dynamics and change, but also with complexity.
A system is always adapting to environment, but environment is always
changing, so a system is never established. Third, everything is interacting
with everything else, and interaction is the key. This dynamic process is
responsible for the patterns and orderly arrangement both in the natural
world and in the values of mind, society and culture. A researcher’s inquiry
is into this process that leads to a potential system (Larsen-Freeman, 2010).
In line with this view, we argue that politeness interacts with three main
categories of systems or practices: linguistic rules of a language, cultural
norms and social practices. As mentioned briefly in Chapter 2, a language
system has certain constraints on how politeness is expressed by means of
linguistic tools. The component of cultural norms embodies values placed
on certain dimensions of human interaction, such as the importance placed
on hierarchy, self-perception and its relation to group membership, and
Cultural norms
Politeness
Linguistic rules Social practices
Figure 3 Interaction of politeness and the three components
perception of interpersonal relationship. The component of social practices

reflects the ways of doing things in society and the changes that go along
with societal developments. The interaction of politeness with these three
categories can be summarized as in Figure 3.
As represented in Figure 3, politeness interacts with cultural norms
governing the human relations and membership in a cultural group.
Throughout the previous chapters, we have demonstrated that the
fundamental cultural norms of respecting hierarchy, distinction between
inside and outside relations, and the perception of the ‘powerful’ and
the ‘powerless’ have remained relatively constant and unchanged in his-
torical and contemporary China. It is the linguistic forms of acknowledging
these relations and expressing these values that have changed.
Politeness also interacts with linguistic rules of lexicon and grammar of a
language. When language is used to express politeness, there are certain
rules within the structure of a language on how to formulate the polite
expression. As we argued in Chapter 5, historical Chinese politeness was
prone to change due to the linguistic rule of the Chinese language of not
grammatically encoding deference in its morphosyntax structure. At the
same time, this very rule promoted the emergence of new lexical items
for politeness expressions because it is relatively ‘free’ within the Chinese
language to come up with new words or new combinations of words.
Moreover, politeness interacts with social practices. Societal changes
brought about by internal and external forces introduced new practices in
society and created new experiences for group members. We showed in
Chapters 4 and 5, along with new practices and new experiences through-
out time, new lexicons or new ways of expressing politeness were created to
reflect the changing and changed social practices and experiences.
It should be noted here that each of the three categories of cultural

norms, linguistic rules and social practices can be an independent system
and, at the same time, interact with others. A politeness system is rightly
situated in the middle of the interaction of these three systems and there-
fore, affected by and interacting with them.
Returning to our question of what holds historical and contemporary
Chinese politeness together, we would argue it is the component of cultural
norms that holds them intact. That is, the specific linguistic features
for expressing politeness change when significant social change and
ideological shift occur. However, cultural values that govern the use
of politeness in social interaction remain relatively constant over time in
the case of Chinese politeness. Politeness should be viewed not as a fixed
property of a language but rather as a social practice mediated by language
and governed by cultural norms. Taking this perspective, we were able
to sieve through the overt forms of linguistic expressions of historical and
contemporary Chinese politeness and find the common ground between
the two of them.
4 Balance between Inward and Outward

Pull Towards Analysing Politeness
The theoretical stance of viewing politeness as interacting with the afore-

mentioned three systems begs for sound methodology in the investigation
of politeness. In closing this book, we argue for a methodological balance
between an inward and an outward pull towards linguistic politeness. That
is, the methodological approach or analytical framework for politeness
research should connect the textual focus of study and the situational con-
text. Very often linguists and discourse analysts can be pulled down into the
vortex of linguistic analysis and can sometimes lose sight of the ways in
which texts are the tools of mediated action in social situations (Scollon,
1998). Scollon argues that
the methodological trick is not to be thrown off balance in either

direction. The trick is to maintain an interdiscursive tension between the
fine-grained analysis of specific mediated actions and a socioculturally
contextualized analysis of the historical and social production of the sites
of engagement. (1998: 269)
Our treatment of politeness in Chapters 3 and 4 has an inward pull of

linguistic analysis of texts and utterances, and at the same time, an outward
approach has been taken in Chapter 5 to connect the politeness practices
with situational context, historical events or the social practices of Chinese
society within which politeness is contextualized. By adopting both an
inward and an outward view of politeness, we dissected various components
of politeness and made a determination on which component of the
Chinese politeness system remained unchanged and which ones changed.
With this methodological approach, we can conclude that misperceptions
of Chinese politeness were formed largely due to the mismatch between
the unchanged cultural norms and the changed linguistic expressions of
politeness caused by changing social practices.
Appendix I
Chronological List of Chinese Dynasties
Xia হ c.2070–c.1600 bc
Shang ୘ c.1600–c.1046 bc
Zhou ‫ڬ‬ c.1046–256 bc
Qin છ 221–206 bc
Han ᅇ 206 bc–ad 220
Xi Han Ջᅇ (‘The Western Han Dynasty’) 206 bc–ad 8
Dong Han ܿᅇ (‘The Eastern Hàn Dynasty’) ad 25–ad 220
San’guo Ο୯ (‘The Three Kingdoms’) 220–265
Jin ਕ 265–420
Nan-Bei Chao ࠄчර
(‘Southern and Northern Dynasties’) 316–589
Sui ໙ 589–618
Tang ঞ 618–906
Wudai ϖж (‘Five Dynasties’) 906–960
Song ֺ 960–1279
Jin ߎ 1115–1234
Yuan ϡ 1260–1368
Ming ܴ 1368–1644
Qing మ 1644–1911
The Republic of China
(Continuing in Taiwan) 1912–
The People’s Republic of China 1949–
Appendix II
Simplified Chinese Transcript of

the Texts Studied1
Chapter 2
(2/1)!‫ى׆‬Πж勯傰僐ǴঈೲฦำǴ䞩གྣ‫ܒ‬ϐ俼ӭ‫خ‬Ƕ
)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝเЦ‫ق‬ӵȑ
(2/2) 䜀Αૈ㮅ೲࡋ΢ၡǴ俩ж‫ך‬ચ΋僐傰Ƕག倔ா‫ޑ‬䞄Ј
ᢳ϶俼Ƕ
(2/3) м 偊 Ǿ !ၰ Ǻ Ȩ ֋ λ া η Ǵ ћ λ Γ Ԗ ࣗ ٣ ǻ ȩ
)ȜᒬШ㚌‫ق‬ȝಃ24ӣȑ
(2/4) м偊!Ǿ!俦ǺȨλ‫ۆ‬ǴԖϙΧ٣௃ǻȩ
(2/5) 䜘ϙΧǻ
(2/6) ‫ך‬䜹ܴϺ΋ଆᄽ侤ǴՉόՉǻ
Chapter 3
(3/1) ҷ‫ޱۺ‬ঙǴҏᥟᴏதǴ१઀㛐৫Ƕ!!!!!Ǿ!!!!!໡ΓుठǴ
όཎ䧫ϡǴԜ੿τ䥬Ρϻ!!!!!Ǿ!!!!!ȐȜഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝ
஌劧ߎ亲ȑ
(3/2) 㤄ৎูѐΑъ僇Ƕ΋Вӣ䗂Ǵ佡Αλ༠俦ǺȨλΓ‫ډ‬
ৎ‫ע‬䜐ߞᢳε䮮࣮Αȩ)Ȝϲи䝀ȝಃΟӣ*
(3/3) 偓ࣔག倔ό㝀Ǵѝ俦ǺȨࡑܺ䭣ӟǴ㤓䥨λХ‫۬ډ‬і
倔Ƕȩ)Ȝ䵛㹪㮄ȝಃΟΜӣ*
(3/4) 㤄В҅Ԗ㤓϶儎ٚ䗂䥳偏ǴѦय़ৎΓ䗂ӣ俦Ǵ俦Ԗ㡚
మӽБΡ‫ޜ܄‬Ǵ䶒䠑Ѧଌ䗂΋ҽࠆ㝣Ǵ㤓䗂偏഻Ƕ
164 Appendix II
䠑Ѧ߆ௗ僳䗂Ƕ‫ޜ܄‬俦ǺȨ䠑Ѧε഻Ƕз॔ϦёѳӼǻȩ
)Ȝ䬵Ϧӄ䝀ȝಃ΋ӣ*
(3/5) Ѡ厌ό䗂ǴӳॣӃԿǴҭ‫ى‬аัኃϒᧃǶოҖࡽ೏௘
‫ޣى‬ӃளǴ俌㳩༿л౧۹ϐ‫گ‬Ƕ)Ȝ儒݈䪢ৎ䜐ȝण
䟼ύ஌ଘ߄‫*׌‬
(3/6) ӛд俦ၰǺȨ倹‫׌‬Ǵգ֘‫ך‬俦ǶգӵϞӣѐǴ‫ں‬٣Р
҆Ǵ䦧аЎക䜁䛳䜀ЬǶȩ)ȜᏂ݅ѦўȝಃΜϖӣ*
(3/7) 㹠Չ‫ں‬ѲǴ‫׆‬ջ‫ڮ‬厌Ǽ)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝᢳ倔Чࠄ*
(3/8) 㜾ֽ‫ޣ‬ςѨ‫ځ‬යǴ㛐‫܁‬਒佢‫ޣ‬劵ઓ‫ځ‬ΝǶ
)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝเٜ切ং*
(3/9) ཎ 䵃䶭 ϐ ҂ ૈ Ǵ ২ ៮ ฅ Զ 䝃㞄 Ƕ
)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝเ劧ᴏ㞠*
(3/10) Ӄ㢏ԜЎǴ勫卺㲏΢Ǵբ享ჿϐ䝀㡇Ֆӵǻ‫ڛڛ‬Ǽ
)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝᢳЦӓΓ*
(3/11) Դ߄‫ژ‬р㬖௵௘ǴԖӵஎ᫴Ǵђϐॸ卺ԋЎǴ㜾ҭӵ
ࢂǶ)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝเ৪լৎ*
(3/12) Ԃⓢаλ俉ΒകǴஅ䗄ϻΓǴளЙࠑ‫ځ‬ਏ北‫ב‬ϊओǻ
)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝᯕҺ亄஫*
(3/13) 1. ‫׹‬ϿঙၰǺȨλᨷ๷ωჲ䗄ǴεΓ信ߍ㱢ӜǴ
! ৮‫ځ‬Ԗ࣐૚䮱Ƕȩ
! 2.! ‫׵‬εΓၰǺȨόѸϼ倘Ǵ‫ߡך‬ӛ۬䟼‫ڗ‬䶌Ƕȩ
! 3.‫׹‬ϿঙၰǺȨεΓࠟ䮫Ǵλᨷ䤩ό‫ޕ‬ǻՠλᨷᗸ
! ജϐ‫܄‬Ǵ૛ഁ䧁ΑǴ߈ΞӭੰǴ㤆‫؃‬εΓќ侱Ƕȩ
! 4.! ‫׵‬εΓၰǺȨШৎη‫׌‬Ǵ࡛俦ளόޭ଺‫۔‬ǻ‫ך‬侱
! ‫ޑ‬όৡǴࢂा૚‫ޑ‬Ǽȩ
! 5.! ‫ ׹‬Ͽ ঙ ൩ ό ඪ ӆ 俦 Α Ǵ ‫ ׵‬ε Γ ੮ ๱ Ր Α ΋ ‫ ڹ‬Ǵ
! ৾р侪ӭ俉Ў䗂俩௲Ƕ)ȜᏂ݅ѦўȝಃΟΜΟӣ*
(3/14) ϛϐ௽࣪Ǵ䜀ᗉғВǴߚ䜀଺ғВΨǶ‫܍‬俪Ϧట㟃‫ך‬Ǵ
ϛՖඪ㼙ǻϻ‫܌‬倅㟃‫ޣ‬ǴѸ‫ځ‬ΓԖቺёॊǴՏё൧Ǵ
‫ۈ‬ё଺㟃ǶӵϛϐሄЪ偀‫ޣ‬ǴՖ㟃ϐԖࠌǻ
)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝ㼙㟃*
Appendix II 165
(3/15) 偓೨ԆѺৰբඞ俦ǺȨό‫ޕ‬ϻΓ厌‫ډ‬ǴԖѨ僴߆Ǵ৯
࿾৯࿾Ƕȩ)Ȝ䵛㹪㮄ȝಃΜΒӣ*
(3/16) ࢄВӭ卆Ǵᎈࣗ㠤ࡋǶಉ౧‫ق‬便Ǵ೿όᒬ佩Ƕර䗂佡
俪Γ俦ǴБ‫ځޕ‬җǴ㛐Ӧ৒‫ي‬Ǵ䧀৵Ѐ䲹Ƕ!!!!Ǿ! ҷఈ
ϘܴǴό健࿾倸Ƕ䶦㜾य़倔ǴӃ㠎ࠊҙǶҷோ儿ჸǶ
ό࠹Ǵ倚㠎Ƕ)ȜᎈӟѨ㝣倔䜐ȝ*
(3/17) Ъৎ䜍λ䣡Ǵߚό‫تە‬Ƕકа㚵η㣺ੰ㠎ℒǴҒԑϐ
‫ں‬ǴϔՀϐᏹǴаզϚ১ζҺϐǴ㼸ठ䲹㞇ԋ੯Ǵ
ҭό‫ה‬᫉ཥԶް㛻ǶӢৎ҆ఈ䣸ࣗϪǴཁ‫ڮ‬俸俸Ǵ
όளςΪ࣪ύ佥ள䛵ࡼǴ҅బ㛐ज़䝃ᧃΨǶ
В߻ς儃ϛ㛶ৎௗ౱ǶԿࢭ剫Ǵ䥷ްՃᒥ劥Ƕ
‫ى׆‬Πж勯傰僐ǴঈೲฦำǴ䞩གྣ‫ܒ‬ϐ俼ӭ‫خ‬Ƕ
)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝเЦ‫ق‬ӵ*
(3/18) ђΓЁ䮱Ǵอѝ㹠ՉǴ剟όຫ൯Ǵа‫ځ‬Ҕ㬖⛼৘Ǵ㤴
٣䳾ᲑǶ‫܌‬倅㼙Ǵ㠣ԶςǴ㛐‫ڗ‬Яϧ剟ΨǶϛૅύ㛐
䜐Ǵ๙Π㛐㬖Ǵѝ‫ޕ‬䰇‫܌‬ట‫ق‬Զόૈ乳Ǵ㼸ԖຫЯЁ
䮱ϐѦǴԶѨЯ佤ં঑䶬‫ޣ‬ǴࢂࡺόёаЁ䮱ӜǶฅ
Ξόளό㧪‫ځ‬ӜǴ㠌ϐ亃亼‫ࡼࣣ׸‬ΨǴό㠤䛵Ջϐ㞄
ԸǶणεϻ佡ϐǴѸ௝ሷԶ㠤Ƕ‫ى‬ΠΏట઩佢Ǵ৮҂
࿏௙Јϐ北Ǵ傶㞇௙ဎԶઢǶ)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝᢳЦ
ԋϐ߄‫*׌‬
(3/19)! 劧ᒥЁ䮱ǴӜ᎜㜾㟭ǶฅଯԾՏ࿼ǴெᏀӵߎǴόޭ
僅‫׫‬΋҄Ǵ‫ى‬ΠࢣҭԖԜᘮǼ)Ȝഓ咹傳Ё䮱ȝเ侪
ဢ‫*׸‬
(3/20) Ͽෞ༾༾հઢၰǺȨ㞄㚚‫ذ‬ω䗂䥷䜁㟭Ǵ൩ा֋
‫ڮ‬匉৒ܰΑǴΠ‫۔‬ම䥷㠤‫ !ࣽڋ‬Ǿ! ȩ)ȜᒬШ㚌‫ق‬ȝ
ಃΜ΋‫*ڔ‬
(3/21) 偓᚟Ϧ䜀࣬ВǴԖБγ‫ۉ‬侪Ǵ㛱Γ҂䤔㬏ӜǴ㛐偊偆
ࣣ㬏Ȩ‫ך‬ȩǴ㟭Γ㬏ϐȨ侪‫ך‬ȩǶ
(3/22) 佡Ϧঙό䜀㝣Ǵ㛐偊偆ࣣȨԟȩϐǶ
(3/23)! Ц䜁ΓၰǺȨգ㤄ՏӃғ偊‫ۉ‬ǻȩ
! !‫ڬ‬僳‫ޕ‬дࢂ㚚䜁ΓǴߡԾ㬏ၰǺȨఁғ‫ڬۉ‬Ƕȩ
! )ȜᏂ݅ѦўȝಃΒӣ*
166 Appendix II
(3/24)! ϻ Γ ၰ Ǻ Ȩ Խ ‫ ڮ ں ڿ‬䗂㛶 Ǵ ό ‫ ܟ ޕ‬ϻ Ֆ ӧ ǻ ȩ

)Ȝᖙ䞪ϸঞȝಃΖΜ΋ӣ*
(3/25)!!ٗ㚚Դ䬙֘佡䟼ϼ䮮䝀дǴς㜰ளӵԝ‫ޑ‬΋૓Ǵ㥾㥾
ჂჂ‫ޑ‬ၤӧਢ߻ၰǺȨλΓଯৎᲃ‫ޑ‬βπǴ佡ϼ䮮俩
ӼǶȩ
! !‫إ‬Ϧ!Ǿ!剱ၰǺȨգћϙΧǴ㜾βπΗԃΑǻȩ
! !ٗΓၰǺȨԴ䬙‫ۉ‬ഏǴћഏε഻Ƕȩ
! !㤄俏㤆 ҂ 俦 ֹ Ǵ 㝫 ਒ ৡ Γ സ ၰ Ǻ Ȩ գ 㤄 Դ ‫ ކ‬㛮 Ǵ
ӳε㧽ໆǼϼ䮮߻य़Ǵඪ㬏ȬԴ䬙ȭǴѺգΒԭӉ‫׺‬Ǵ
࣮գ俦ԴόԴΑǼȩ
! !βπ佡ৡΓ䠓സǴς㜰ளय़ӵβՅǴ὇๱‫ׯ‬αǺȨλ
Γ俗ԝǶλΓ㜾βπǴԖΟΜԃΑǶϼ䮮ϞВԖՖ֊
‫ڦ‬ǻȩȐȜ‫إ‬ϦਢȝಃϤӣȑ
(3/26) 吔㠣࣮࣮䗂‫ډ‬ξ剫ΠǴ㝫㚚剫η僴僴Ӧఈ佡Ǵ৾๱Ԯ
⣽䗂‫ډ‬ξ剫ΠǴ䧲Ր吔ඵుǴߡസၰǺȨգࢂՕৎ‫׌‬
ηǴӵՖள䮌ᎈΑ΢ξ䗂ǻգ勬όይǴΨ佡䥶ֽٚ偉
‫ޑ‬䩔ҢǺȬՠΥ‫ۘک‬ઇ‫י‬ӞଚǴ㜞ѺѤΜԮ⣽Ǵ὇р
ӽѐǶӵ剫η䵮৒ᎈ‫ޑ‬ႶΓΕӽǴΨӞΜΠǶȭգ‫ז‬
ΠξѐǴ华գΗΠԮ⣽Ƕȩ
! !吔ඵు΋‫ۘک଺߃ޣ‬ǴΒ䗂㛻‫܄‬҂‫ׯ‬Ǵ䱤ଆ㛇౳厐
ၰǺȨ‫ޔ‬া偑Ǽգ㝫㚚ाѺᲅৎǴॻߡ‫ک‬գ㽞ѺǶȩ
剫η佡㡆㛮όӳǴ΋㚚匫Ψ՟Ε䗂㟥䱖ӽǴ΋㚚㱢‫ܦ‬
Ԯ⣽䧲дǶඵుҔЋ႖㠤Ǵ䥾ϖࡰǴѐٗ剫η乀΢ѝ
΋ඓǴѺள⥊⥊偿偿!Ǿ!)ȜН䬹䝀ȝಃѤӣ*
(3/27)! ٗԴஇཇу‫ࡗۻ‬ǴߡၰǺȨϙΧȬλ‫ۆ‬Ǵλ‫ۆ‬ȭǼࢂ
λ‫ۆ‬Ǵό‫ךډ‬ৎ䗂ΑǶ‫ࢂך‬㚚ԭ‫ۉ‬ΓৎǴό䩔ளλ‫ۆ‬
ࢂϙΧࠔ䵠!Ǿȩ)ȜᒬШ㚌‫ق‬ȝಃ΋‫*ڔ‬
(3/28) ߻Р㤓௲‫ت‬䞇勬ϐ‫ݤ‬Ǵ‫ت‬㚶੮΢য勬ǴόૈҔН੆
೸ǶՅ㲢‫ޣ‬ӭǴ໵‫ޣ‬ϿǶΠয㢤ࡑΟΜϤ䤨‫ۈ‬੮Ƕ‫ت‬
‫؂‬ௗৎߞǴ༮‫ځ‬ό俘Ǵ༓ӟ‫׳‬ᄉ俘ҢǶ‫ت‬倚㻆Ƕ
(3/29)! 㚼‫ۆ‬΋‫܎ע‬ՐǴઢၰǺȨգЪઠՐǴ֘‫ך‬俦俏Ƕऩࢂ
㞄‫ޑ‬٣‫ך‬όᆅǴऩࢂ䜀λ‫ۘک‬䜹‫ޑ‬٣ǴӳИ٩‫ך‬㤄Χ
๱Ƕȩ!Ǿ
Appendix II 167
(3/30) ᤞৎ࣮佡吔ඵు㤄૓ኳ㪰Ǵ㞴ॣӚ㞄ǴߡၰǺȨգा
ѺӭϿଚǻȩ
! !ඵుၰǺȨҶ剱ӭϿǴε࿙ѝ勯䳳䗂Ƕȩ
! )ȜН䬹䝀ȝಃΟӣ*
Chapter 4
(4/1) 1. Bride: ‫ݿݿ‬Ǵ俩സૡǼ

2. Father-in-law: [Drank the tea and gave her a red envelope
containing ‘lucky money’, that is, money given
as a present at ceremonies.]
Then the bride walked up to the mother-in-law:
3. Bride: 䣜ǴസૡǼ
4. Mother-in-law: ࠋǴ剽ζǼ
(4/2) ЬҺǺȨ㤄ԛ‫ࡾޑ‬乳ࢲ㜥җλ‫׵‬ӕ‫ד‬Ь࡭Ƕȩ
(4/3) 劧ࣽ剟ǺȨЦࣽ剟Ǵ‫׵‬䶈౛俦‫ך‬䜹Ѹ勬Ο
! Ϻֹԋ㟥߄Ƕȩ
(4/4) A: λ‫ۆ‬Ǵ俩䗂΋\Ǿ^
B: 俦ϙΧǻ俳ࢂ㚚λ‫ۆ‬ǻ
(4/5) 1. Saleswoman [Cantonese]: ߓ༳-‫ګ‬ҹ勃Ƕ
2. Customer 1 [Mandarin,
to Customer 2]: ाόाǻ
3. Saleswoman [Cantonese]: ᆉ୚Ǵঈশգ୚Ƕ‫س‬୚Ǵ
! ! ! ੿‫س‬⍪ӧߓ༳ҽ΢Ƕ
4. Customer 2 [Cantonese]: ⍪ߓ༳ҽୟǴ൩ѳঈգ୚Ƕ
5. Customer 1 [Cantonese]: ΞѳǶ
6. Customer 2 [Cantonese]: Η冗ୟǻ
7. Saleswoman [Cantonese]: ΎΜϖǶ
8. Customer 2 [Cantonese]: ΎΜϖǶ
(4/6) (a)!俩剱Ǵ㚾Ϧ࠻ӧΒ㹪䠋ǻ
(b) ӃғǴ俩剱Ǵ㚾Ϧ࠻ӧΒ㹪䠋ǻ
(4/7) գ䜹ࢂ‫ޕ‬侸ϩηǴ‫ࢂך‬㚚εԴಉǶ‫ך‬侤俏൩ࢂಉǶ
168 Appendix II
(4/8) 1. Employee: ഺǴ१՘㠀֔ǻ

2. Supervisor: १՘Ƕ
(4/9) Interviewer: ӳǴ‫ך‬ा剱‫ޑ‬剱匉೿剱ֹΑǴ倔倔գǶ
(4/10) Interviewee: 㡌у俵ࢗ-⧍‫ך‬佩ள‫ך‬-দ㜘ѐ㽪୚‫ך‬Ƕ
(4/11) 1. Liu: 䃮匎Ǵ䃮匎᏾ӳ㠀ǻ
2. Fan: 㝨㚚᏾䴿䃮匎ǻ
3. Wu: ‫ך‬᏾䴿㚚䃮匎Ƕ‫ך‬ς䶈᏾ӳ䠙Ƕ
! ! ! ‫ך‬ћᥝ㛙ΜԯǶ
4. Fan: Μԯёૈϼ剟ளӧǶ
5. Wu: দ΋‫ۓ‬Ǵᢥ䘇Ǵ㽪Ǵদ΋‫ۓ‬Ƕ㜾ฅদ΋㪰
! ! ! ୚ǴӢ䜀‫ګ‬䛧ԖᩙӭӷǶख़ԖࠐǴӵ݀գѺ
! ! ! 䃮ࡸ!Ǿ
6. Fan: գǴΜԯǴ剱匉‫س‬䛧㚚㜘侠࠻㮅দ㮅εࡸᥝǶ
7. Liu: Ѻ䃮ࡸǶ‫ך‬ӦǴԶৎǴ࣪ٚ㝨俏‫ך‬ӦԾρѺ
! ! ! 䃮ࡸǾ! 剱匉‫س‬գा᏾㚚α㛦ǴգԖᢲ⍪Π䛧
! ! ! Տ࿼ǻ
8. Lee: ⍪䠙ǴԖΜԯǶ
9. Wu: Μԯ䘄䘄ӳǶ
(4/12) 㛱Ǵ‫ࢂך‬㚸‫ݓ‬䬙䗂‫ޑ‬ǶգΠԛӣ㡚Ǵ΋‫ۓ‬䗂‫ݓ‬䬙‫ވ‬Ƕ
(4/13) ‫׆‬ఈգૈѐύ㡚㡌佢Ƕѐύ㡚‫ޑ‬㟭ংǴ΋‫ۓ‬ाѐܼԀ
! ࣮࣮ǶܼԀࢂύ㡚‫ޑ‬Ӝᴏђ㭉ǶԖѡύ㡚ђ俏俦Ǵ
! ΢ԖϺ୸ǴΠԖ亄ܼǶё佡ܼԀԖӭΧऍ㠯Ƕ
(4/14) 1. ԐఃǶদ俗ǴCarrie ‫س‬দ‫ࡋس‬ǻ
2. գӳǴCarrieǶ
3. ‫!سך‬IBM networking 㽪!EricǶ
4. ‫ך‬Ѻ䰃俏ঈգǴӕգconfirm΋㜰ǶգถВௗ՘䰃丵Ǵ
! ! Զৎrun䴿World One ImageǴ‫س‬দ‫س‬ǻ
(4/15) 1. INT: ଷ侰ா೏㭊ύ㡌уऍ㡚‫ޗ‬㛂俵ࢗǴόࢂ‫ך‬䜹Ϟ
! ! ! Ϻ‫ޑ‬俵ࢗǴӵ݀දࢗ䠑Ҭ䶒գ㤄࠾ߞ‫ک‬λ㛘
! ! ! ηǴգֹ࣮Αϐӟգ㜘㡌у㤄㚚俵ࢗ䠋ǻ
2. R: ༕! Ǿ! ‫ך‬ό‫ޕ‬ၰдࢂόࢂ੿‫ࢂޑ‬Γαදֽࢗ
! ! ! ‫ޑ‬Ǵ‫ך‬ό‫ޕ‬ၰǶ
Appendix II 169
3. I: ֹ࣮Α㤄࠾ߞ‫ک‬λ㛘ηǴգ㤆Ԗ㤄Бय़‫ޑ‬勯
! ! ! 仵ࢂ䠋ǻ
4. R: 㛱Ƕ
5. INT: ٗӵ݀дрҢπբจ‫ګ‬ǻ
6. R: ‫ך‬Ψࡐ劵࣬ߞǶ
7. INT: ٗգ㤆ࢂ佩ளό΋‫ۓ‬㡌уǻ
8. R: 㛱Ǵ‫ך‬ό΋‫ۓ‬㡌уǶ
(4/16) 1. INT: ֹ࣮ϐӟǴଷ侰ाգ㡌уऍ㡚‫ޗ‬㛂俵ࢗǴ
! ! ! գ佩ள㜘দ㜘㡌у㽪‫ګ‬ǻ
2. R: Ӣ䜀‫ך‬म俟দӳǴӳ劵㡌у㽪Ƕ
3. INT: ⧍ӵ݀ග‫ٮ‬ύЎ‫׷ޑ‬਑ঈգǴ
! ! ! գ㜘দ㜘㡌у㽪‫ګ‬ǻ
4. R: ‫ך‬ԃ䵣ε՘ǴᆒઓӚБय़೿দள୚Ǵ
! ! ! 俟‫ق‬ҭদளǴ䥾傰ΞদБߡǶ
5. INT: ⧍ӵ݀‫ך‬䜹㩲‫׷ޑ‬਑஌ঈգৎҾ‫ګ‬ǻ
6. R: ख़‫س‬দளǴӢ䜀‫ך‬Ԗ΋‫ޑ‬䵿ၡвा䥨Ƕ
(4/17) 㛱όଆӚՏ-俩চ俷‫!ך‬Ǿ
! ٗϺ‫פך‬Α΋ε୴偉䡾ࡐଯ䞅‫ ޑ‬Ǿ
! 䠁Α΢ѐ, 䶌݀೏Γ֋‫ࢂޕ‬Ȩλқȩ Ǿ
! 俩ӚՏচ俷‫ޑך‬㛐‫ ޕ‬Ǿ
! ӛӚՏၰᄹ Ǿ 㛱όଆ Ǿ
! ੿ࢂ㛱όଆୟ!Ǿ!B։ٗ!Ǿ!চ俷‫!ך‬Ǿ
(4/18) Husband: ৾㚚݆η䗂Ƕ
(4/19) Customer: 䶒‫ך‬Ο䦄儌౻Ƕ
(4/20) Co-worker: ঈঁᛛ‫ך‬Ƕ
(4/21) 1. C#20: ୟ࠰Ǵদ俗Ǵӆঈ΋ҁ䛧㚚Ƕ
2. Clerk: 儌౻ᣴҞ߄ǻ
3. C#20: দǶ
(4/22) ൧ལ‫҇ۚޑ‬Ǻ
! ऍ㡚Γαදֽࢗ҅ӧ僳Չ΋勪Ȩऍ㡚‫ޗ‬㛂俵ࢗȩǶ΋
! ՏΓαදֽࢗ‫ܺޑ‬䞼ж߄㜘ᢳா世‫س‬Ǵ㩽շா༤㛙俗
170 Appendix II
! 俵ࢗ剱‫ڔ‬Ƕ‫ך‬䜹ߚதག倔ா‫ޑ‬㩽շǴӢ䜀ҁ勪俵ࢗ‫ޑ‬
! ԋф‫ڗ‬㜞Ϊா‫ޑ‬Ѝ࡭Ƕ
(4/23) 1. Clerk: ाᢥ䘇Ǵգ侤୚Ƕ
2. C#20: . . . [Inaudible]
3. Clerk: ΖΖԃǴ䛧㚚ୟǻ
4. ୟǶ
C#20:
5. ΖΖԃǴ䛧㚚儌౻㽪ഽǶ
Clerk:
6. ‫ޕך‬ၰ୚Ƕ
C#20:
7. ‫ޜ‬қᛛ䍐㽪ኞǶ
Clerk:
8. C#20: ভǴভǶ
(4/24) 1. Sister: 䶒‫ך‬䜘㚚хǶ

2. Brother: ό䶒գ䜘Ǵգό‫ޕ‬ၰा䜘ϙΧ㪰‫ޑ‬хǶ
3. Sister: 俳ό‫ޕ‬ၰǶ
4. Brother: գό‫ޕ‬ၰǶ
5. Sister: գ䜘ό䜘֔ǻ
6. Brother: գ֋侻‫ך‬ाϙΧ㪰‫ޑ‬х‫ך‬ωૈ䜘Ƕ
7. Sister: ٗ‫ך‬൩֋侻գ䠐Ƕ
(4/25) 俦࠼঺俏Ԃ㠀ԖϙΧ֚劵‫ޑ‬Ǵ㠌‫ࢂځ‬୘Γ‫ࢂ׳‬Ᏸ剟㤄΋
! ঺Ƕӵ݀୘䛳Չ䜀ύ㠀Ԗ࠼঺俏ǴΓᢳΓϐ剷‫ޑ‬世‫س‬
! 㩲㛐‫ݤ‬勫ճ僳ՉǶՠ䯢жΓཇ䗂ཇόӞ࠼঺俏㤄΋঺Ƕ
! ࠼঺俏ёа俦ࢂ΋‫ע‬Ԗ㝫य़Θέ‫ޑ‬ΘǶܻ϶ϐ剷ϕ࣬
! 俦٤࠼঺俏Ǵό侬ଯܴᢳց೿㛐䝃ε໡Ƕՠऩࢂ䜌䧁
! ‫঺࠼ע‬俏ࡸӧ቏㝨Ǵ৮‫܂‬൩㜘供Γ䜨ғ೹߆‫ܡ‬卺‫ޑ‬ӑ
! ຝԶόߞҺϐǶ࠼঺俏ࡽࢂҬ劤Ћ๙ύόёલϿ‫מޑ‬
! ѯǴΨࢂӒ劰‫ޑ‬Ћࢤϐ΋Ƕ
(4/26) 1. C: [Pointing at the sweaters on display]
ঈ‫ך‬㚚ҹհऽ⍪ΠǶ
2. SP: [The service person takes down the sweater and places
it on the counter. The customer examines it.]
3. C: գԖᢲε䱼䛥㽪ǻ
4. SP: [Shakes her head to indicate “no”]
5. C: [Pointing at another sweater on display] 䛧ҹ‫ګ‬ǻ
6. SP: 䛧ҹख़䵿୚Ǽ
7. C: ‫ګ‬ҹΗ冗֔ǻ
8. SP: ΐΜΖ૨Ƕ
Appendix II 171
(4/27) 1. C#1: [M] ൩㤄㚚қՅǴԖ㠀Ԗ㤄ᳪ匍Յୟǻ

2. C# 2: [C] Ԗᢲ‫ګ‬ᳪᩙՅ䛥঺伾@
3. Clerk: [C] ‫ګ‬ᳪқǻ! !
4. C#1 & C#2: [C] ‫س‬Ƕ
5. Clerk: [C] Οᢨ೿ёа୚Ƕ
6. C#2: [C] ভǶ
7. Clerk: [C] գाऀε䱼୚Ƕ
8. C# 1: [M] ‫!ך‬Ǿ
9. C# 2: [C] уε䱼୚ǴӴ!Ǿ
10. C#1: [C] ୟǴε䱼ǻ
11. [To C#2]: [M] ε䱼ǴգΨࢂε䱼Ǵࢂ䠋ǻ
12. C#2: [M] ‫ٗך‬㚚ε䱼Ƕ
13. C#1: [M] ୟǴٗ‫ך‬ёૈуεǶ
14. Clerk: [M] уε֔ǻ
15. C#1: [M] уεǴуεǴуεǶ
16. Clerk: [M] 㤄㚚㠀Ԗ但η֔Ǵ但η䟡ֹΑǶ
Chapter 5
(5/1) ҆㤓‫ֻک‬ΔΠ㹪䗂ΑǴд䜹ε䵟Ψ֘‫ډ‬Α㞴ॣǶ
! ȨԴϼϼǶߞࢂԐԏ‫ډ‬ΑǶ‫ך‬㡵ӧ഻㝔‫ޑ‬όளΑǴ
! ‫ޕ‬ၰԴ䮮ӣ䗂ȩ剳β俦Ƕ
! ȨߓǴգ࡛‫ޑ‬㤄㪰࠼ᣅଆ䗂Ƕգ䜹Ӄ߻όࢂȬঢ‫׌‬ȭ
! 㬏‫ڥ‬Χǻ㤆ࢂྣ㛻ǺȬِঢΔȭǶȩ҆㤓ଯ䞅‫ޑ‬俦Ƕ
! Ȩߓ֔ǴԴϼϼ੿ࢂ!!!!!Ǿǳ㤄ԋϙΧ佤ંǶٗ㟭ࢂ࠸
! ηǴόᔉ٣ȩ剳β俦㰢ǴΞћНғ΢䗂ѺࡱǴٗ࠸η㞊
! ্ಚǴ䴿䴿‫ޑ‬ѝ偉ӧдङӟǶ
! ȐȜࡺ䜍ȝ1921ȑ
(5/2)!ٗε䬙֘ளࢂֺԢǴၤӧӦΠǴٗٚޭଆǴ俦ၰǺ
! ȨλΓȬԖ౳ό侸ੀξȭǼ΋㟭ߵ䭌л剟ǴఈΩ৯
! ࿾ǶȩȐȜН䬹䝀ȝಃ34ӣ!ȑ
(5/3) ರηлǺգ‫ךߞޑ‬ԏ‫ډ‬ΑǶȜཥᎿٚȝྣ‫ࢂٯ‬ѤД΋
! 㛦р‫ހ‬Ǵό㠤ϞพӢዺηϼӭȐԖ㝫䦄ъȑǴ
! 䠁ዺΞ僷Α٤! Ǿ! գ‫ډ‬Ꮏٚ䗂ǴࡐӳǶ‫ך‬ѤДΟ㛦‫ډ‬
! ᴏྛǴԖΟѤϺ઼䨜Ƕӆ㜘Ǽ!΋ΟǵΟǵΒΎ‫ڹ‬䜦η
! )Ȝठঐರηȝ*
172 Appendix II
(5/4) ! ᄃϻΓ儿Ǻ‡剾Ҹ䦱Ӄғࠉ઻Ǵϡ‫ؼ‬ᗊ䛹Ǵ
! ր ᵫ 䨆 Ѩ ࣗѮǴ㡵ుภϪǴৎ҆ҭుࠉேǶǾ
! ҁ㢤ॅ㶛㤓ठ౼൧Ǵோ Ӣ ٣ ‫ ䷻ ܌‬Ǵ ό ё ӵ ᄉ Ƕ !Ǿ
! ࠄఈੂ႟Ǵ੝䰃卾টǶֺ䥳唚!1925ԃ8Д25В
(5/5) 䗂ߞԏ‫ډ‬Ƕள‫ޕ‬գ҆㤓ѐШǴ‫ך‬ΜϩൿภǴ
! ‫ޑך‬Јύ‫ࢂ׳‬劵‫ڙ‬όςǶѝӢ㠀ૈ㤓Ծ㡌уԴΓৎ‫ޑ‬
! ရ㝣Ǵు䜀儃ᏬǶ
(5/6) \Ǿ^!ࢂࡺ։ηόԾε‫ځ‬٣ǴόԾۘ‫ځ‬фǴа‫؃‬㛪
! ௃Ƕ㠤Չѷ౗Ǵа‫؃‬㛪ࠆǶᄆΓϐ๓ԶऍΓϐфǴ
! а‫؃‬Π倹Ƕࢂࡺ։η㨏Ծ‫ڒ‬ǴԶ҇ལ൧ϐǶ
! ȐȜᘶ૶ȝ߄૶ȑ
(5/7) \Ǿ^!όඪᏰख़٣Ǵ‫܌‬аԾ‫ڒ‬Զ൧Ӄ઒ΨǶȐȜ㝣侢ȝ
! ߷㚜ȑ
(5/8) ։ηལԶ㛐ѨǴᢳΓబԶԖ㝣ǴѤੇϐ㚵Ǵ
! ࣣл‫׌‬ΨǶȐȜ侬俟ȝXII.5ȑ
(5/9) ϻ㝣‫ޣ‬ǴԾ‫ڒ‬Զ൧ΓǶȐȜ㝣侢ȝԔ㝣΢ȑ
(5/10) ηГǺ΢ӳ㝣Ǵ䞩҇ವඪόལǶȐȜ侬俟ȝXIII.4ȑ
(5/11) ηГǺ΢ӳ㝣Ǵ䞩҇ܰ٬ΨǶȐȜ侬俟ȝXIV.41ȑ
(5/12)! ॠ‫ڮ‬όࢂ俩࠼Ӟ卅Ǵόࢂ଺ЎകǴόࢂ䶑㣣䶜޸Ǵ
! όૈٗ㪰໡ठǴٗ㪰㚸৒όॐǴЎ倽ரரǴٗ㪰㵍
! ‫ؼ‬ৰ䝠供Ƕॠ‫ࢂڮ‬ኪ㜥Ǵࢂ΋㚚劢䵠௢ᙌќ΋㚚劢
! 䵠‫ޑ‬ኪਗ਼‫ޑ‬Չ㜥Ƕ
(5/15) Ӄғ俭㤄ጇЎകǶ
(5/16) 㝃Р‫҅ܬ‬㤄ጇЎകǶ
(5/17) 㝃剟儿俭‫ܟ‬ЎǶ
(5/18) Դ㝃俭Α㤄ጇЎകǶ
(5/19) Դ㝃ࣗԿ俭Α㤄ጇЎകǶ
Appendix II 173
(5/20) 1. ֋侻! ‫ך‬䜹‫ޑ‬ಭǴ㵈‫ݲ‬㤄‫܃‬ξଣӦБǶ৮‫ڹ܂‬剷Ԗ

! ! 偑ಭ䗂ǴόߡளࡐǶ‫؃‬Դ䮮ϺৱǴ঑‫ޑךܫ‬ಭǴ
! ! 僳ѐٚय़㵈‫ݲ‬Ǵ㠀Ԗυ‫س‬Ƕ
2. 剱!գ䜹Դ䮮ǴࢂϙΧ߻ำǻ
3. เ!ࢂεϻǶ
4. 剱!գ‫ډ‬ύ㡚଺ϙΧǻ
5. เ!ࢂ㡚Цৡ䗂΢٧僳倶‫ޑ‬Ƕ
6. 剱!գ‫ډ‬ύ㡚ǴԖΗᎁΑǻ
7. เ!‫ך‬㚸䗂όම‫ډ‬㠤Ǵ㤄ٚ΋ᎁࢂ߃䗂‫ޑ‬Ƕ
8. 俦!գω䗂൩㜘俦‫۔‬俏Ǵࢂ䅊ܴ‫ޑ‬ΓΑǶ
9. เ! 䤩ඪǼ‫ך‬ό㜘侤Ǵ俦‫ޑ‬俏όܴқǶ‫؃‬Դлඹ‫ך‬
! ! 傶‫ق‬ǴόฅǴό䩔ள俘䵿Ƕ
(5/22) 1. գ䜹ࢂ僳倶‫ޑ‬ಭΧǻ
2. ࢂΨǶӈՏ㩲䮮‫ډ‬௯ಭǶԖϙΧ٣௃‫ګ‬ǻ
3. ‫ך‬䜹ࢂ‫۬۔ں‬ৡ䗂Ǵੇ΢ْঝ‫ޑ‬ঝಭǶ࣮佡գ䜹
! ! 㡸ಭӧ㤄ٚǴ䞼Ѹ䧯㠤䗂Ƕ
Note
1
The present Appendix includes only numbered examples from the main text of
the chapters. It should also be noted that while we include excerpts in Cantonese,
usually Cantonese texts are printed by using traditional characters.
Appendix III
Newsmaker Labelling in People’s Daily

and Guangzhou Daily
People’s Daily
Genres: Sports Editorial Theory Society & Int’l News Cover News Interview
culture news in brief story report
Labels:
NN% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
GN% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SN% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3
FN% 41 0 86 75 40 0 13 46 40
SNT% 32 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0
FNT% 3 0 0 19 31 0 0 0 3
DL% 3 0 0 0 4 0 0 3 7
DL FN % 22 0 0 0 24 0 49 44 27
DL SN % 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SN DL % 0 0 14 0 0 0 0 0 17
FN DL % 0 0 0 6 0 0 38 8 3
Total %* 100 0 100 100 100 0 100 100 100
Note: * may not equal 100% due to rounding

Appendix III 175
Guangzhou Daily
Genres: Sports Editorial Theory Society & Int’l News in Cover News Interview
culture news brief story report
Labels:
NN% 0 0 0 75 0 0 0 0 0
GN% 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SN% 5 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 62
FN% 83 5 91 10 33 33 21 39 12
SNT% 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 9
FNT% 0 74 7 0 0 0 0 33 0
DL% 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0
DL FN % 10 5 0 0 62 0 43 0 15
DL SN % 0 11 0 5 0 33 0 0 3
SN DL % 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 22 0
FN DL % 0 5 2 0 0 0 36 6 0
Total %* 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Note: * may not equal 100% due to rounding
Abbreviations
NN: nickname
GN: given name
SN: surname
FN: full name
SNT: surname + title
FNT: full name + title
DL: descriptive label
DLFN: descriptive label + full name
DLSN: descriptive label + surname
SNDL: surname + descriptive label
FNDL: full name + descriptive label
Appendix IV
Fonts in People’s Daily and Guangzhou Daily
People’s Daily
Labels:
IU
IB 1 (25%) 2 (22%) 1 (9%)
MSB
OC 1 (50%)
MC
IC 1 (9%) 1 (25%)
TU 1 (25%)
STB 1 (11%) 5 (100%) 4 (36%)
WTB
TB
STU 2 (50%) 5 (56%) 4 (36%) 3 (60%)
SU 1 (11%)
SEC
MU
MB
MTS 1 (50%) 1 (20%) 1 (25%)
CUR 1 (25%)
STA 1 (50%) 1 (50%)
WIC 1 (50%) 1 (20%)
ITA 1 (50%)
UNB 1 (25%)
SMS 1 (9%)
Total 4/ 2/ 2/ 2/ 9/ 5/ 11 / 5/ 4/
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Appendix IV 177
Guangzhou Daily
Genres: Sports Editorial Theory Society Int’l News in Cover News Interview
& culture news brief story report
Labels:
IU 1 (50%) 1 (33.3%)
IB 1 (100%) 1 (13%) 1 (50%) 1 (33.3%) 2 (25%)
MSB 1 (33.3%)
OC 1 (33%) 1 (20%)
MC 1 (20%)
IC 1 (33%) 1 (33.3%) 1 (20%) 1 (13%)
TU 1 (13%) 1 (20%) 4 (80%)
STB 2 (25%) 1 (20%) 2 (25%)
WTB 1 (33.3%) 1 (13%)
TB 1 (13%) 1 (20%)
STU 1 (33%)
SU 1 (33.3%)
SEC 1 (13%)
MU 3 (38%)
MB
MTS 1 (13%)
CUR
STA
WIC
ITA
UNB
SMS
Total 3/ 1/ 3/ 8/ 5/ 5/ 2/ 3/ 8/
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Abbreviations
IU: Intensified Unbolded Font
IB: Intensified Bolded Font
MSB: Medium Small Bolded Font
OC: Overlapped Circular Font
MC: Medium Circular Font
IC: Intensified Circular Font
178 Appendix IV
TU: Thick Unbolded Font

STB: Simplified Thick Bolded Font
WTB: ‘Wah Hong’ Thick Bolded Font
TB: Thick Bolded Font
STU: Simplified Thick Unbolded Font
SU: Small Unbolded Font
SEC: Semi-Circular Font
MU: Medium Unbolded Font
MB: Medium Bolded Font
MTS: Medium ‘Tei Shu’ Font (note: ‘Tei Shu’ is an archaic font of
Chinese language)
CUR: Cursive Font
STA: Standard Font
WIC: ‘Wah Hong’ Intensified Circular Font
ITA: Italic Font
UNB: Unbolded Font
SMS: Simplified Medium Standard Font
Appendix V
Font Size in People’s Daily and

Guangzhou Daily
People’s Daily
Size:
10
15 2 (50%) 1 (33.3%) 5 (100%)
20 5 (56%) 2 (50%)
25 1 (33.3%) 1 (11%) 2 (18%) 1 (20%)
30 1 (25%) 1 (100%) 3 (27%) 1 (20%)
35 1 (33.3%) 1 (11%) 2 (18%) 1 (25%)
40 1 (25%) 1 (100%) 2 (22%) 1 (25%)
45 2 (18%) 2 (40%)
50 1 (9%) 1 (20%)
55
60
65 1 (9%)
70
75
Total 4/ 1/ 1/ 3/ 9/ 5/ 11 / 5/ 4/
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
180 Appendix V
Guangzhou Daily
Size:
10 1 (14%)
15 1 (33.3%) 4 (80%)
20 1 (33.3%) 1 (14%) 4 (50%)
25 1 (20%) 1 (20%)
30 1 (33.3%) 1 (14%) 1 (20%) 1 (13%)
35 2 (29%) 1 (50%) 1 (33.3%) 2 (25%)
40 1 (33.3%) 1 (100%) 1 (33.3%) 2 (29%) 1 (20%) 1 (33.3%)
45
50
55 1 (33.3%)
60 1 (20%)
65 1 (20%)
70
75 1 (50%) 1 (33.3%) 1 (13%)
Total 3/ 1/ 3/ 7/ 5/ 5/ 11 / 3/ 8/
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Bibliography
Primary Sources1
Chengwei lu ᆀᒏᒵ (Record of Terms of Address), Qing Dynasty; modern edition used
for this volume: Beijing, Zhonghua shuju, 2002.
Guxiang ࡺໂ (Hometown), Republican novel by Lu Xun (1921); modern edition
used for this volume: Beijing, Remmin wenxue chubanshe, 2001.
Honglou-meng आኴფ (Dream of Red Chamber), Qing Dynasty; modern edition used
for this volume: Beijing, Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1957.
Hunan nongmin yundong kaocha baogao ෫ࠄၭ҇ၮ୏Եჸൔ֋ (Report on Investigat-
ing Hunan Peasants’ Movement), March 1927, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Peking,
Foreign Languages Press, 1967.
Jigong quanzhuan ᔮϦӄ໺ (The Story of Lord Ji), Qing Dynasty; modern edition used
for this volume: Shanghai, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1996.
Liji ᘶ૶ (Book of Rites), Zhou/Han Dynasty; modern edition used for this volume:
Taipei, Sanmin shuju, 2007.
Liu Yazi shuxin jilu ࢛٥ηਜߞᒠᒵ (Edited Collection of Liu Yazi’s Letters), Shanghai,
Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985.
Lunyu ፕᇟ (Book of Rites), Zhou Dynasty; modern edition used for this volume:
Taipei, Zhonghua shuju, 2010.
Rulin waishi Ꮒ݅Ѧў (The Scholars), Qing Dynasty; modern edition used for this
volume: Shanghai, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998.
Shengxian-zhuan ϲи໺ (Story of the Raising Immortals), Qing Dynasty; modern
edition used for this volume: Shanghai, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1996.
Shuihu-zhuan Н⠪ӄ໺ (Water Margin Story), Ming Dynasty; modern edition used for
this volume: Hangzhou, Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 1994.
Xingshi hengyan ᒬШࡡ‫( ق‬Everlasting Words That Awaken the World), Ming Dynasty;
modern edition used for this volume: Xi’an, Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1985.
Xue Gang fan Tang ᖙখϸঞ (Xue Gang Revolts against the Tang), Qing Dynasty;
modern edition used for this volume: Xi’an, Sanqin chubanshe, 2006.
Zhi Liao furen ԿᄃϻΓ (To Lady Liao), Letter by Song Qing Ling, in Xiexin-bidu ቪߞ
Ѹ᠐ (Basic Reading on Letter Writing), Beijing, Nongcun duwu chubanshe, 1992.
Secondary Sources
Agha, Asif (2007), Language and Social Relations, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press.
182 Bibliography
Alagappa, Muthiah (2004), Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and
Contracting Democratic Space, Alto Palo, Stanford University Press.
Altenburger, Roland (1997), Anredeverhalten in China um 1750, Bern, Peter Lang.
Anderson, Paul S. (1948), ‘Korean language reform’, in The Modern Language
Journal, 32, pp. 508–11.
Archer, Dawn (2005), Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640–1760):
A Sociopragmatic Analysis, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds) (2010), Institutional Polite-
ness in East and South East Asia, Special Issue of Journal of Asian Pacific Communication,
21/2, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca, and Maurizio Gotti (eds) (2005), Asian Business
Discourse(s), Bern, Peter Lang.
Barrow, John esq. (1804), Travels in China, London, T. Cadell and W. Davies; retrieved
from <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28729/28729-h/28729-h.htm>
Bax, Marcel (2010), ‘Epistolary presentation rituals: Face-work, politeness, and
ritual display in early-modern Dutch letter-writing’, in Culpeper, Jonathan, and
Dániel Z. Kádár (eds), pp. 37–86.
Bell, Allan (1991), The Language of News Media, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.
Bentivoglio, Paola (2002), ‘Spanish forms of address in the sixteenth century’, in
Taavitasainen, Irma, and Andreas Jucker (eds) Diachronic Perspectives on Address
Term Systems, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins, pp. 177–92.
Blum, Susan D. (1997), ‘Naming practices and the power of words in China’, in
Language in Society, 26, pp. 357–79.
Bond, Michael Harris (1991), Beyond the Chinese Face: Insights from Psychology, Hong
Kong, Oxford University Press.
— (1996), ‘Chinese values’, in Bond, Michael Harris (ed.) The Handbook of Chinese
Psychology, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, pp. 208–26.
Bond, Michael H., and Peter W. H. Lee (1981), ‘Face saving in Chinese culture:
A discussion and experimental study of Hong Kong students’, in King,
Ambrose Y. C., and Rance P. Lee (eds) Social Life and Development in Hong
Kong, Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, pp. 289–304.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
Bousfield, Derek (2008), Impoliteness in Interaction, Amsterdam and Philadelphia,
John Benjamins.
Bousfield, Derek, and Miriam A. Locher (eds) (2007), Impoliteness in Language –
Studies in Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, Berlin and New York, Mouton
de Gruyter.
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson (1978), ‘Universals in language usage:
Politeness phenomena’, in Goody, Esther N. (ed.) Questions and Politeness,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 56–311.
— (1987), Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
Carlton, Eric (1990), Ideology and Social Order, London, Routledge.
Chan, Anna, and Yuling Pan (2011 [in press]), ‘Analysis of Chinese speakers’
responses to survey interview questions in comparison to other language
speakers’, in Pan, Yuling, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds) Chinese Discourse and
Interaction: Theory and Practice, London, Equinox.
Bibliography 183
Chan, Marjorie K. M. (1998), ‘Gender differences in Chinese: A preliminary report’,

in Lin, Hua (ed.) Proceedings of the Ninth North American Conference on Chinese
Linguistics, Los Angeles, University of South California, pp. 35–52.
Chan, Wing-Tsit (1963), Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian
Writings by Wang Yang-ming, New York, Columbia University Press.
Chao, Yuen Ren (1976), Aspects of Chinese Sociolinguistics, Alto Palo, CA, Stanford
University Press.
Che, Wai-Kin (1979), The Modern Chinese Family, San Francisco, R & E Research
Associates.
Chen, Ping (1999), Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Chen, Rong (1993), ‘Responding to Compliments: A contrastive study of politeness
strategies between American English and Chinese Speakers’, in Journal of
Pragmatics, 20, pp. 49–75.
— (1996), Food-plying and Chinese politeness, in Journal of Asian Pacific Communica-
tion, 7, pp. 143–55.
Chen, Rong, and Dafu Yang (2010), ‘Responding to compliments in Chinese: Has
it changed?’, in Journal of Pragmatics, 42, pp. 1951–63.
Chi, Li (1956), General Trends of Chinese Linguistic Changes under Communist Rule,
Berkeley, East Asia Studies, Institute of International Studies, University of
California.
— (1957), Studies in Chinese Communist Terminology, Berkeley, East Asia Studies,
Institute of International Studies, University of California.
Chou, En-lai (1958), ‘Current tasks of reforming the written language’, in Reform of
the Chinese Written Language, Foreign Language Press, Peking, pp. 14–17.
Christie, Agatha (2004), Hercule Poirot’s Christmas: A Holiday Mystery, London,
Collins.
Chuang, Hsin Cheng (1968), The Little Red Book and Current Chinese Language,
Berkeley, East Asia Studies, Institute of International Studies, University of
California.
Clements, Jonathan (2006), The First Emperor of China, Phoenix Mill, Sutton
Publishing.
Collins, Daniel E. (2001), Re-Animated Voices: Speech Reporting in a Historical-Pragmatic
Perspective, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
Cook, Haruko Minagishi (2008), Socializing Identities through Speech Style: Learners of
Japanese as a Foreign Language, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters.
Culpeper, Jonathan (1996), ‘Towards an anatomy of impoliteness’, in Journal of
— (2009), ‘Historical pragmatics’, in Cummings, Louise (ed.) The Pragmatics
Encyclopedia, London, Routledge.
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds) (2010), Historical (Im)politeness, Bern,
Peter Lang.
Dien, D. S. F. (1983), ‘Big me and little me’, in Psychiatry, 46, pp. 281–6.
Dikötter, Frank (2008), The Age of Openness, China before Mao, Berkeley, University of
California Press.
Dong, Xiran (2008), ‘Chinese requests in academic settings’, in Chan, Majorie K. M.,
and Hana Kang (eds) Proceedings of the 20th North American Conference on Chinese
Linguistics, 2, Ohio, Ohio State University, pp. 975–88.
184 Bibliography
Eelen, Gino (1999) ‘Politeness and ideology: A critical review’, in Pragmatics, 91,
pp. 163–74.
— (2001), A Critique of Politeness Theories, Manchester and Northampton, St. Jerome
Publishing.
Fairbank, John K. (1953), Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the
Treaty Ports, 1842–1854, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
— (1978), ‘Foreign relations’, in Twitchett, Denis C., and John K. Fairbank (eds)
The Cambridge History of China, 10/1, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
pp. 29–34.
Fairclough, Norman (2001), Language and Power, London, Longman Education.
— (2003), Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research, London,
Routledge.
Fang, Hanquan, and J. H. Heng (1983), ‘Social changes and changing address
norms in China’, in Language in Society, 12, pp. 495–507.
Fitzmaurice, Susan (2002), The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English: A Pragmatic
Approach, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
— (2010), ‘Changes in the meanings of Politeness in eighteenth-century England:
Discourse analysis and historical evidence’, in Culpeper, Jonathan, and Dániel Z.
Kádár (eds), pp. 87–115.
Fromm, Erich (1941), Escape from Freedom, New York, Farrar & Rinehart.
Fung, Boong-yin ໳ᗶଟ (1999), Aomen jianshi ᐞߐᙁў (The Short History of Macau),
Hong Kong, Sanlian.
Geyer, Naomi (2007), Discourse and Politeness: Ambivalence in Japanese Face, London
and New York, Continuum.
Giles, Herbert A. (1912), China and the Manchus, manuscript retrieved from <www.
gutenberg.org/files/2156/2156-h/2156-h.htm>
Goffman, Erving (1955), ‘On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements of social
interaction’, in Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 18/3,
pp. 213–31.
— (1967), Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behaviour, New York, Random
House.
— (1971), Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order, New York, Basic Books.
— (1974), Frame Analysis, New York, Harper & Row.
— (1981), Forms of Talk, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gou, Chengyi ϭ‫( ੻܍‬2002), Xian-Qin lixue ӃછᘶᏢ (The Study of ‘Li’ in Pre-Qin
Times), Chengdu, Ba-Shu shushe.
Grasso, June M., Jay P. Corrin and Michael Kort (2004), Modernization and Revolution
in China: From the Opium Wars to World Power, New York, M. E. Sharpe.
Greenblatt, Sindey L., Richard W. Wilson, and Amy Auerbacher Wilson (1982),
Social Interaction in Chinese Society, New York, Praeger.
Gregor, James A. (1981), ‘Confucianism and the political thought of Sun Yat-Sen’,
in Philosophy East & West, 31/1, pp. 55–70.
Grice, Paul (1975), ‘Logic and conversation’, in Cole, Peter, and Jerry L. Morgan
(eds) Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Acts, New York, Academic Press,
pp. 41–58.
Gu, Edward X. (1999), ‘Cultural intellectuals and the politics of the cultural public
space in Communist China (1979–1989): A case study of three intellectual
groups’, in The Journal of Asian Studies, 58, pp. 389–431.
Bibliography 185
Gu, Yueguo (1990), ‘Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese’, in Journal of

Pragmatics, 14/22, pp. 237–57.
Gumperz, John (1982), Discourse Strategies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, Michael A. K. (1978), Language as Social Semiotic, Baltimore, University
Park Press.
— (2010), Putting Linguistic Theory to Work, Plenary talk held at the 2010 Annual
Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Atlanta, GA,
6–9 March.
Haugh, Michael, and Carl Hinze (2003), ‘A metalinguistic approach to deconstruct-
ing the concepts of ‘face’ and ‘politeness’ in Chinese, English and Japanese’, in
Journal of Pragmatics, 35/10–11, pp. 1581–611.
Hayashi, Shiro ݅Ѥ॔, and Fujio Minami ࠄόΒ‫( ت‬eds) (1974), Sekai no keigo
Шࣚ喘ལᇟ (Linguistic Politeness across the World), Tokyo, Meiji Shoin.
He, Yun (2008), ‘Buzz off or ‘Thank you’? Responses to Compliments in Contemporary
China, Paper presented at the 4th International Symposium on Politeness
Research: ‘East Meets West’, Budapest, Hungary, 2–4 July.
Held, Gudrun (1999), ‘Submission strategies as an expression of the ideology
of politeness: Reflections on the verbalization of social power relations’, in
Hickey, Leo, and Miranda Stewart (2006), Politeness in Europe, Clevedon, Multilingual
Matters.
Hinze, Carl (2007), ‘Looking into “Face”: The importance of Chinese mian and lian
as emic categories’, in Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca, and Maurizio Gotti (eds),
pp. 169–210.
Ho, David Y. F. (1976), ‘On the concept of face’, in American Journal of Psychology,
81/4, pp. 867–84.
Hong, Chengyu ࢫԋҏ (2002), Qianci, jingci, wanci cidian ᖰຒལຒ஀ᜏຒ‫ڂ‬
(Dictionary of Elevating and Denigrating Terms and Euphemisms), Beijing, Shangwu
yinshuguan.
Hong, Wei (1996), ‘An empirical study of Chinese request strategies’, in
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 122, pp. 127–38.
Howell, Jude (1993), China Opens Its Doors: The Politics of Economics Transition,
Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Hu, Hsien Chin (1944), ‘The Chinese concepts of “face” ’, in American Anthropologist,
46, pp. 45–64.
Hwang, Kwang-kuo (1987), ‘Face and favour: The Chinese power game’, in
American Journal of Sociology, 92/4, pp. 944–74.
Ide, Sachiko (1982), ‘Japanese sociolinguistics: Politeness and women’s language’,
in Lingua, 75, pp. 357–85.
— (1989), ‘Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of
linguistic politeness’, in Multilingua, 8/2–3, pp. 223–48.
— (2001), ‘Kokusaika-shakai no naka no kei-i-hyōgen: Sono kokusaisei to bunka
dokuji-sei 㡚ሞϯ‫ޗ‬㜘喘ύ喘ལཀ߄౜Ǻ喇喘㡚ሞ‫܄‬喒Ўϯ㧆Ծ‫( ܄‬Politeness in
internationalized society: On internationalizedness and individuality)’, in Nihon-
gogaku Вҁᇟ䗄 (Japanese Linguistics), 20/4, pp. 4–13.
Jacobs, Andreas, and Andreas H. Jucker (1995), ‘The historical perspective in prag-
matics’, in Jucker, Andreas H. (ed.) Historical Pragmatics. Pragmatic Developments in
the History of English, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins, pp. 1–33.
186 Bibliography
Jaeger, Stephen C. (2000), The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Forma-
tion of Courtly Ideals, 932–1210, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.
Jahn, Beate (2005), ‘Barbarian thoughts: Imperialism in the philosophy of John
Stuart Mill’, in Review of International Studies, 31/3, pp. 599–618.
Ji, Changhong ӓதֻ (ed.) (2000), Hanyu chengwei dacidian ᅇᇟᆀᒏεᜏ‫ڂ‬
(A Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Terms of Address), Shijiazhuang, Hebei jiaoyu
chubanshe.
Ji, Feng (2004), Linguistic Engineering, Honolulu, HI, University of Hawaii Press.
Ji, Shaojun (2000), ‘ “Face” and polite behaviours in Chinese culture’, in Journal of
Ji, Yuan F., Koenraad Kuiper, and Shaogu Shu (1990), ‘Language and revolution:
Formulae of the Cultural Revolution’, in Language in Society, 19, pp. 61–79.
Jiang, Zhusun ጯԮᇄ (2002), Shuxin yongyu cidian ਜߞҔᇟᜏ‫( ڂ‬A Dictionary of
Epistolary Phraseology), Shanghai, Shanghai cishu chubanshe.
Joseph, William A. (1997), China Briefing: The Contradictions of Change, New York,
M. E. Sharpe.
Ju, Zhucheng (1991), ‘The “depreciation” and “appreciation” of some address
terms in China’, in Language in Society, 20, pp. 387–90.
Jucker, Andreas H. (1996), ‘News actor labelling in British newspapers’, in Text, 16,
pp. 373–90.
— (2010), ‘ “In curteisie was set ful muchel hir lest”, Politeness in Middle English’,
in Culpeper, Jonathan, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds), pp. 175–200.
Jucker, Andreas H., and Irma Taavitsainen (2008), Speech Acts in the History of English,
Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
Kádár, Dániel Z. (2005), ‘Power and profit: The role of elevating/denigrating forms
of address in pre-modern Chinese business discourse’, in Bargiela-Chiappini,
Francesca, and Maurizio Gotti (eds) pp. 21–56.
— (2007a), ‘On historical Chinese apology and its strategic application’, in Grainger,
Karen, and Sandra Harris (eds) Journal of Politeness Research (Special Issue:
Apologies), 3/1, pp. 125–50.
— (2007b), Terms of (Im)politeness: On the Communicational Properties of Traditional
Chinese (Im)polite Terms of Address, Budapest, Eötvös Loránd University Press.
— (2008), ‘Power and (im)politeness in traditional Chinese criminal investigations’,
in Sun, Hao, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds), pp. 127–79.
— (2009), Model Letters in Late Imperial China: 60 Selected Epistles from Letters from
Snow Swan Retreat, München and Newcastle, Lincom.
— (2010a), ‘Exploring the historical Chinese polite denigration/elevation
phenomenon’, in Culpeper, Jonathan, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds), pp. 117–45.
— (2010b), Historical Chinese Letter Writing, London and New York, Continuum.
— (forthcoming), ‘Historical Chinese face-work and rhetoric’, in Pan, Yuling, and
Dániel Z. Kádár (eds).
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Jonathan Culpeper (2010), ‘Historical (im)politeness: An
introduction’, in Culpeper, Jonathan, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds), pp. 9–36.
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Sara Mills (2011a [in press]), ‘Introduction’, in Kádár, Dániel
Z., and Sara Mills (eds).
— (eds) (2011b [in press]), Politeness in East Asia, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press.
Bibliography 187
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Yuling Pan (2011 [in press]), ‘Politeness in China’, in Kádár,
Dániel Z., and Sara Mills (eds).
Kikuchi, Yasuto ๸ԣநΓ (1997), Keigo ལᇟ (Japanese Honorifics), Tokyo,
Kodansha.
Kim, Alan H. (2011 [in press]), ‘Politeness in Korea’, in Kádár, Dániel Z., and Sara
Mills (eds.)
King, Ambrose Y. C., and John T. Myers (1977), Shame as an Incomplete Conception of
Chinese Culture: A Study of Face, Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Social Research Center.
Kohnen, Thomas (2008a), ‘Directives in Old English: Beyond politeness?’, in Jucker,
Andreas H., and Irma Taavitsainen (eds) Speech Acts in the History of English,
Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins, pp. 27–44.
— (2008b), ‘Linguistic politeness in Anglo-Saxon England? A study of Old English
address terms’, in Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 9/1, pp. 140–58.
Kōsaka, Junichi ३㞯໩΋ (1992), ‘Suiko’ goi no kenkyū ‘Н⠪’ᇟ༼喘ࣴ‫( ز‬A Study of
the Vocabulary of the ‘Shuihu’), Tokyo, Kōsei kan.
Kumatani, Akiyasu (1990), ‘Language policies in North Korea’, in International
Journal of the Sociology of Language, 127, pp. 87–108.
Labov, William (1972), Language in Inner City: Studies in Black English Vernacular,
Oxford, Blackwell.
Lakoff, Robin T. (1973), ‘The logic of politeness; or, minding your p’s and q’s’, in
Corum, Claudia, T. Cedric Smith-Stark, and Ann Weiser (eds) Papers from the
Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago, Chicago Linguistic
Society, pp. 292–305.
— (1977), ‘What you can do with words: Politeness, pragmatics, and performatives’,
in Rogers, Andy, Bob Wall, and John P. Murphy (eds) Proceedings of the Texas
Conference on Performatives, Presuppositions, and Implicatures, Arlington, Center of
Applied Linguistics, pp. 79–105.
Lakoff, Robin T., and Sachiko Ide (eds) (2005), Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic
Politeness, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
Larsen-Freeman, Diane (2010), Complex, Dynamic Systems: A New Transdisciplinary
Theme for Applied Linguistics, Plenary address at the 2010 Annual Meeting of
American Association for Applied Linguistics, March 6–9, Atlanta, Georgia.
Larsen-Freeman, Diane, and Lynn Cameron (2008), Complex Systems and Applied
Linguistics, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Lee, Cher Leng (2011 [in press]), ‘Politeness in Singapore’, in Kádár, Dániel Z.,
and Sara Mills (eds).
Lee, Hyǒn-Bok (1990), ‘Differences in language use between North and South
Korean’, in International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 82, pp. 71–86.
Lee, Wong Yin (1995), ‘Women’s education in traditional and Modern China’, in
Women’s History Review, 4/3, pp. 345–67.
Lee-Wong, Song Mei (1994a), ‘Imperatives in requests: direct or impolite –
observations from Chinese’, in Pragmatics, 4, pp. 491–515.
— (1994b), ‘Qing/please – A polite or requestive marker? Observations from
Chinese’, in Multilingua, 13, pp. 343–60.
— (2000), Politeness and Face in Chinese Culture, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang.
Leech, Geoffrey N. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics, New York, Longman.
188 Bibliography
— (2007), ‘Politeness: Is there an East-West divide?’, in Journal of Politeness Research,

3/2, pp. 167–206.
— (2008), Language in Literature: Style and Foregrounding, London, Pearson.
Li, Qiang (2003), ‘The two distinct psychological spheres and opinion surveys in
China’, in Shehuixue Yanjiu (Sociology Research), Beijing, Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences, March Issue, pp. 40–4.
Li, Wei, and Yue Li (1996), ‘ “My stupid wife and ugly daughter”: The use of
pejorative references as a politeness strategy by Chinese speakers’, in Journal of
Asian Pacific Communication, 7, pp. 129–42.
Li, Xiaobing (2007), A History of the Modern Chinese Army, Lexington, University Press
of Kentucky.
Liang, Yong (1998), Höflichkeit im Chinesischen: Geschichte – Konzepte – Handlungsumster
(Politeness in Chinese: History – Concepts – Application), München, Iudicium.
Lin, Meirong ݅ऍ৒ (1998), Hanyu qinshu chengwei de jiegou fenxi ᅇᇟᒃឦᆀᒏ‫่ޑ‬
ᄬϩ‫( ݋‬A Structural Analysis of the Chinese Familial Addressing), Taipei, Daoxiang
chubanshe.
Lin, Xuan ݅ଈ (2006), Shuxin wenhua 䜐ߞЎϯ (Epistolary Culture), Shanghai,
Kexue puji wenhua chubanshe.
Liu, Hongli ቅֻ᜽ (2000), Xiandai hanyu jing-qian ci ౜жᅇᇟལᖰᜏ (Elevating and
Denigrating Expressions in Modern Chinese), Beijing, Beijing yuyan wenhua daxue
chubanshe.
Liu, Zaifu ቅӆൺ (1988), Chuantong yu Zhongguoren ໺಍ᆶύ୯Γ (Tradition and the
Chinese), Hong Kong, Joint Publishing.
Locher, Miriam A. (2004), Power and Politeness in Action, Berlin and New York,
Mouton de Gruyter.
— (2008), Advice Online: Advice-Giving in an American Internet Health Column,
Lowell, Julia (2006), The Great Wall, China against the World, New York, Grove Press.
Lü, Shuxiang ֈ‫ژ‬෩ (1985), Jindai hanyu zhidaici ߈жᅇᇟࡰжຒ (The Pronouns of
Vernacular Chinese), Shanghai, Xuelin chubanshe.
Mao, LuMing R. (1994), ‘Beyond politeness theory: “Face” revisited and renewed’,
in Journal of Pragmatics, 21/5, pp. 451–86.
Matsumoto, Yoshiko (1988), ‘Reexamination of the universality of face: Politeness
phenomena in Japanese’, in Journal of pragmatics, 12/4, pp. 403–26.
— (1989), ‘Politeness as conversational universals – Observations from Japanese’, in
Multilingua, 8/2–3, pp. 207–21.
Mills, Harriet C. (1956), ‘Language reform in China: Some recent developments’,
in The Far Eastern Quarterly, 15/4, pp. 517–40.
Mills, Sara (2003), Gender and Politeness, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
— (2011 [in press]), ‘Discursive approaches to politeness and impoliteness’, in
Linguistic Politeness Research Group (ed.) Discursive Approaches to Politeness,
Berlin and New York, Mouton de Gruyter.
Mills, Sara, and Dániel Z. Kádár (2011 [in press]), ‘Politeness and culture’, in Kádár,
Dániel Z., and Mills, Sara (eds).
Minami, Fujio ࠄόΒ‫( ت‬1999[1987]), Keigo ལᇟ (Japanese Politeness), Tokyo,
Iwanami Shoten.
Bibliography 189
Mirsky, Jeanette (1998), Sir Aurel Stein: Archaeological Explorer, Chicago, University of
Chicago Press.
Nakane, Ikuko (2006), ‘Silence and politeness in intercultural communication in
university seminars’, in Journal of Pragmatics, 38/11, pp. 1811–35.
Nevelainen, Terttu, and Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen (eds) (2007), Letter Writing,
Nitta, Jūsei ཥҖख़మ, Masayuki Zayasu ০Ӽࡹ‫ٺ‬- and Hisashi Yamanaka ξύΦљ
(1994), Okinawa no rekishi ؑ䵋喘㾹ў (The History of Okinawa), Naha, Okibunsha.
Nohara, Mitsuyoshi ഁচΟက (2005), Uchinaaguchi no shōtai 啰喋喔啬啺喋喘‫ࡑܕ‬
(Introduction into Uchinaan [Okinawan]), Naha, Higakyōbundō.
Norman, Jerry (1988), Chinese, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Nwoye, Onuigbo G. (1992), ‘Linguistic politeness and socio-cultural variations of
the notion of “face” ’, in Journal of Pragmatics, 18/4, pp. 309–28.
Ogiermann, Eva, and Małgorzata Suszczyńska (2010 [in press]), ‘On (im)politeness
behind the iron curtain’, in Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca, and Dániel Z. Kádár
(eds) Politeness across Cultures, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Pan, Yuling (1995), ‘Power behind linguistic behavior: Analysis of politeness
phenomena in Chinese official settings’, in Journal of Language and Social Psychol-
ogy, 14/4, pp. 462–81.
— (2000a), ‘Code-switching and social changes in Hong Kong and Guangzhou
service encounters’, in International Journal of Society and Language, 146,
pp. 21–41.
— (2000b), ‘Facework in Chinese service encounters’, in Journal of Asian Pacific
Communication, 10, pp. 25–61.
— (2000c), Politeness in Chinese Face-to-Face Interaction, Stamford, CT, Ablex.
— (2008), ‘Cross-cultural communication norms and survey interviews’, in Sun,
Hao, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds), pp. 17–76.
— (2011a [in press]), ‘Cantonese politeness in the interviewing setting’, in Journal
of Asian Pacific Communication, 21/2.
— (2011b [in press]), ‘Methodological issues in East Asian politeness research’, in
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Sara Mills (eds).
— (2011c [in press]), ‘What are Chinese respondents responding to? Discourse
analysis of question–answer sequence in survey interviews’, in Pan, Yuling, and
Dániel Z. Kádár (eds) Chinese Discourse and Interaction: Theory and Practice,
London, Equinox.
Pan, Yuling, and Dániel Z. Kádár (2011 [in press]), ‘Contemporary vs. historical
Chinese politeness’, in Janney, Richard W., and Eric Anchimbe (eds) Journal of
Pragmatics, Special Issue: Postcolonial Discourse.
— (eds) (forthcoming) Special Issue: Chinese Facework and Im/politeness, Journal of
Politeness Research, 8/1.
Pan, Yuling, Suzanne Wong Scollon, and Ron Scollon (2002), Professional Communi-
cation in International Settings, Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishers.
Pan, Yuling, Marjorie Hinsdale, Hyunjoo Park, and Alisú Schoua-Glusberg (2006),
‘Cognitive testing of translations of ACS CAPI materials in multiple languages’,
in Statistical Research Division’s Research Report Series (RSM#2006/09), Washington,
DC, U.S. Census Bureau.
190 Bibliography
Pan, Yuling, Ashley Landreth, Majorie Hinsdale, Hyunjoo Park, and Alisú Schoua-
Glusberg (2010), ‘Cognitive interviewing in non-English languages: A cross-cultural
perspective’, in Hardness, J., B. Edwards, M. Braun, T. Johnson, L. Lyber,
P. Mohler, B. Pennell, and T. Smith (eds) Survey Methods in Multinational,
Multiregional, and Multicultural Contexts, Berlin, Wiley Press, pp. 91–113.
Park, Han S. (2002), North Korea: The Politics of Unconventional Wisdom, Boulder, CO,
Lynne Rienner.
Peng, Guoyue ൹୯៌ (1998), ‘Kindai Chūgoku keigo no suichoku kūkan metafuā
߈жύ㡚ལᇟ喘ࠟ‫ޜޔ‬໔嘂嗠嗶嗃΋ (The imaginary world of politeness using
metaphors of vertical space in early-modern Chinese)’, in Chūgoku kankei ronsetsu
shiryō (China-related Research Materials Series), 40/2–1, pp. 70–8.
— (1999), ‘Chūgokugo ni keigo ga sukunai no ha naze? ύ㡚ᇟ喕ལᇟ啶Ͽ喔啮喘
喙喔喆ǻ (What is the reason for the small number of honorific forms in
Chinese?)’, in Gengo, 28, pp. 60–3.
— (2000), Kindai Chūgokugo no keigo shisutemu ߈жύ㡚ᇟ喘ལᇟ嗘嗚嗧嘁 (The
Polite Language System of Pre-modern Chinese), Tokyo, Hakuteisha.
Pennycook, Alastair, and Sophie Coutand-Marin (2003), ‘Teaching English as a
missionary language’, in Discourse, 24/3, pp. 337–53.
Pieke, Frank N. (2002), Recent Trends in Chinese Migration to Europe: Fujianese
Migration in Perspective, Geneva, International Organization for Migration, IOM
Migration Research Series 6.
Pizziconi, Barbara (2003), ‘Re-examining politeness, face and the Japanese
language’, in Journal of Pragmatics, 35/10–11, pp. 1471–506.
— (2011 [in press]), ‘Honorifics: The cultural specificity of a universal phenomenon
in Japan’, in Kádár, Dániel Z., and Sara Mills (eds).
Ruesch, Jurgen, and Gregory Bateson (1968 [1951]), Communication: The Social
Matrix of Psychiatry, New York, W. W. Norton & Company.
Schiffrin, Deborah (1984), ‘Jewish argument as sociability’, in Language in Society,
13, pp. 311–35.
Scollon, Ron (1998), Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction, New York, Addison
Wesley Longman Limited.
Scollon, Ron, and Suzanne Wong Scollon (1991), ‘Topic confusion in English-Asian
discourse’, in World Englishes, 10, pp. 113–25.
— ([1995] 2001), Intercultural Communication, Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishers.
Scollon, Ron, Suzanne Wong Scollon, and Andy Kirkpatrick (2000), Contrastive
Discourse in Chinese and English: A Critical Appraisal, Beijing, Foreign Languages
Press.
Scotton, Carol Myers, and Wanjin Zhu (1983), ‘Tóngzhì in China: Language change
and its conversational consequences’, in Language in Society, 12, pp. 477–94.
Searle, John (1969), Speech Acts, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Setoguchi, Ritsuko! 䐂㛍αࡓη (2003), Gaku-kanwa zenyaku: Ryūkyū kanwa kahon
kenkyū 䗄‫۔‬၉ӄ佾ǵ੥ౚ‫۔‬၉ፐҁࣴ‫( !ز‬The Complete Translated Xue-guanhua,
Research of Ryūkyūan Mandarin Textbooks), Ginowan, Gajumaru.
Shibata, Takeshi, Kunihiro Tetsuya, Fumio Inoue, and Daniel Long (2001), Sociolin-
guistics in Japanese Context, Berlin and New York, Mouton de Gruyter.
Short, Philip (2001), Mao: A Life, New York, Henry Holt & Co.
Bibliography 191
Skewis, Malcolm (2003), ‘Mitigated politeness in Honglou meng: Directive speech

acts and politeness’, in Journal of Pragmatics, 35, pp. 161–89.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen (1997), ‘Unequal relationships in high and low power
distance societies: A comparative study of tutor–student role relations in Britain
and China’, in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, pp. 284–302.
— (ed.) ([2000] 2008), Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across
Cultures, London and New York, Continuum.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen, Patrick Ng, and Li Dong (2000), ‘Responding to compliments:
British and Chinese evaluative judgements’, in Spencer-Oatey, Helen (ed.),
pp. 99–119.
Sun, Hao (2008), ‘Participant roles and discursive actions: Chinese transactional
telephone interactions’, in Sun, Hao, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds), pp. 77–126.
Sun, Hao, and Dániel Z. Kádár (eds) (2008), It’s the Dragon’s Turn: Chinese
Institutional Discourse(s), Bern, Peter Lang.
Swope, Kenneth M. (2002), ‘Deceit, disguise, and dependence: China, Japan and
the future of the tributary system’, in The International History Review, 24/4,
pp. 757–82.
Tannen, Deborah (1990), You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,
New York, Ballantine.
Têng, Ssu-yü (1944), Chang Hsi and the Treaty of Nanking, 1842, Chicago, University
of Chicago Press.
Terkourafi, Marina (2003), ‘Generalised and particularised implicatures of lin-
guistic politeness’, in Kühnlein, Peter, Hannes Rieser, and Henk Zeevat (eds)
Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John
Benjamins, pp. 149–64.
— (2005), ‘Beyond the micro-level in politeness research’, in Journal of Politeness
Research, 1/2, pp. 237–63.
— (2008), ‘Towards a unified theory of politeness, impoliteness and rudeness’, in
Bousfield, Derek, and Miriam A. Locher (eds) Impoliteness in Language, Berlin,
Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 45–76.
Thornborrow, Johanna (2002), Power Talk: Language and Interaction in Institutional
Discourse, London, Longman.
Ting-Toomey, Stella, Ge Gao, Paula Trubisky, Zhizong Yang, Hak Soo Kim, Sung-
Ling Lin, and Tsukasa Nishida (1991), ‘Culture, face maintenance, and styles of
handling interpersonal conflict: A study in five cultures’, in International Journal
of Conflict Management, 2, pp. 275–96
Tsai, Weipin (2010), Reading Shenbao: Nationalism, Consumerism and Individuality in
China 1917–37, London, Palgrave Macmillan.
Tsujimura, Toshiki 僫‫௵׸‬ᐋ (1971), Keigo shi ལᇟў (The History of [Japanese]
Linguistic Politeness), Tokyo, Taishukan.
Van Dijk, Teun A. (1995), ‘Discourse semantics and ideology’, in Discourse and
Society, 6/2, pp. 243–89.
Vogel, Ezra F. (1965), ‘From friendship to comradeship: The change in personal
relations in Communist China’, in China Quarterly, 21, pp. 46–60.
Volland, Nicolai (2009), ‘A linguistic enclave: Translation and language policies in
the early People’s Republic of China’, in Modern China, 35, pp. 467–94.
192 Bibliography
von Kowallis, Jon Eugene (1996), The Lyrical Lu Xun: A Study of His Classical Style
Verse, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.
Wakeman, Frederic (1985), The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial
Order in Seventeenth-Century China, Berkeley, University of California Press.
Waley, Arthur (1958), The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes, Alto Palo, Stanford
University Press.
Wang, Shuhan C. (2007), ‘Building societal capital: Chinese in the US’, in Language
Policy, 6, pp. 27–52.
Watts, Richard J. (1989), ‘Relevance and relational work: Linguistic politeness as
polite behaviour’, in Multilingua, 8/2–3, pp. 131–66.
— (1999), ‘Language and politeness in early eighteenth century Britain’, in
— (2003), Politeness, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, Etienne (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1996), Semantics: Primes and Universals, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Xu, Shiyi ৪ਔሺ (2000), Gu baihua cihui yanjiu lungao ђқ၉ຒ༼ࣴ‫ز‬ፕዺ
(An Overview of Research on Vernacular Chinese), Shanghai, Shanghai jiaoyu
chubanshe.
Yang, Anand A. (2007), ‘A (sub)altern(‘s) Boxers: An Indian soldier’s account of
China and the world in 1900–1901’, in Bickers, Robert A., and R. G. Tiedemann
(eds) The Boxers, China, and the World, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield,
pp. 43–64.
Yao, Xinzhong (2000), An Introduction to Confucianism, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
Yeung, Lorrita N. T. (1997), ‘Polite requests in English and Chinese business
correspondence in Hong Kong’, in Journal of Pragmatics, 27/4, pp. 505–22.
Yuan, Ji Feng, Koenraad Kuiper, and Shaogu Shu (1990), Language and revolution:
Formulae of the Cultural Revolution, in Language in Society, 19, pp. 61–79.
Yung, Judy (1999), ‘Chinese’, in Barkan, Elliott R. (ed.) A Nation of Peoples: A
Sourcebook on America’s Multicultural Heritage, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press,
pp. 119–37.
Yuan, Tingdong ૲৥ෂ (1994), Guren chengwei mantan ђΓᆀᒏᅐፋ (An Introduc-
tion into Historical Address Forms), Beijing, Zhonghua shuju.
Zhai, Xuewei ᆩᏢ଻ (1994), Mianzi, renqing, guanxi-wang य़ηǵΓ௃ǵᜢ߯ᆛ
(Face, Emotions and Connection-Networks), Zhengzho, He’nan renmin chubanshe.
— (2006), Renqing, mianzi yu quanli de zai-shengchan Γ௃ǵय़ηᆶ៾Κ‫ޑ‬ӆғౢ
(Reproduction of Emotions, Face and Authority), Beijing, Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Zhan, K. (1992), The Strategies of Politeness in the Chinese Language, Berkeley, Institute
of East Asian Studies, University of California.
Zhang, Yanyin (1995), ‘Indirectness in Chinese requesting’, in Kasper, Gabrielle
(ed.) Pragmatics of Chinese as Native and Target Language, Honolulu, University of
Hawaii Press, pp. 69–118.
Zhang, Zhongxing ஭ύՉ (1995), Wenyan he baihua Ў‫کق‬қ၉ (The Classical and
the Vernacular), Harbin, Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe.
Bibliography 193
Zhao, Guang-yuan ᇳӀᇻ, and Wenshe Gao ଯЎް (1990), Minzu yu wenhua ҇௼
ᆶЎϯ (Nationality and Culture), Nanning, Guangxi People’s Publishing House.
Zhao, Shugong ᇳᐋф (1999), Zhongguo chidu wenxue shi ύ୯ЁᛊЎᏢў (The His-
tory of Chinese Epistolary Literature), Shijiazhuang, Hebei renmin chubanshe.
Zheng, Dekun ᎄቺ‫( ڷ‬1987), Zhonghua minzu wenhua shi lun ύ୯҇௼Ўϯўፕ
(Introduction to the History of Chinese Nationality and Culture), Hong Kong, Joint
Publishing (H.K.).
Zhou, Minglang, and Heidi Ross (2004), ‘Introduction: The context of the theory
and the practice of China’s language policy’, in Special Issue: Language Policy in the
People’s Republic of China, Language Policy, 4/1, pp. 1–18.
Zhou, Minglang, and Hongkai Sun (eds) (2004), Language Policy in the People’s
Republic of China: Theory and Practice Since 1949, Norwell, MA, Springer.
Zhu, Yunxia (2005), Written Communication across Cultures: A Sociocognitive Perspective
on Business Genres, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
Note
1
The Classical Chinese (epistolary) sources and the intercultural source Xue-
guanhua can be found in the Secondary Sources list, see Kádár (2009, 2010b) and
Setoguchi (2003).
This page intentionally left blank
Index of Names1 and Subjects
address terms 1, 10, 11, 36, 39, 42–7, camaraderie 14, 118
53–7, 61–5, 76–85, 90, 98, 99, 103, Cameron, L. 158, 187
106, 120, 131, 133, 134, 139, 141, Cantonese 32, 84, 89, 91, 93, 96, 100,
145–7, 150, 155 104, 107, 113, 121–3
Agha, A. 18, 181 Carlton, E. 63, 182
Alagappa, M. 41, 182 Chan, A. 32, 182
Altenburger, R. 39, 182 Chan, W. T. 136, 183
ambiguous responses 98–101 Chao, Y. R. 110, 183
analogy 57, 59 Che, W. K. 41, 183
Anderson, P. S. 144, 182 Chen, R. 20, 74, 75, 183
anti-Manchu sentiment 7 Chen Zun ഋᒥ 58
anti-traditionalism 7, 8, 77, 128, Chi, L. 29, 86, 183
140, 141 Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi
apologies 22, 54, 55, 89, 94, 101, ጯϟҡ) 8, 140
102, 132 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 8, 73,
applied (yingyong ᔈҔ) genres 27 78, 79, 86, 140, 142
Ars Dictaminis 27 Christie, Agatha 128, 129, 183
asymmetrical use of politeness 38, 73, Chuang, H. C. 87, 183
109–12 Classical Chinese 26, 27, 33, 130, 131, 139
avoidance of conflict 14 ~ education/command of~ 48, 51, 65
~ intermix 134
Baetson, G. 30, 190 ~ style 55, 132
Bargiela-Chiappini, F. 19, 182 Collins, D. E. 21, 183
Barrow, John 12, 38, 65, 66, 182 colonization 129
Bax, M. 40, 69, 182 ~ philosophy/ideology 6, 7
beautification campaign 118, 119 ~ rhetoric 12, 33
Bell, A. 106, 182 Community of Practice 23, 30, 31, 65
Blum, S. D. 81, 182 Confucius see also ideology;
Bond, M. H. 31, 74, 182 Confucian 136
Bourdieu, P. 138, 182 Cook, H. M. 145, 183
British East India Company 5 Cooperative Principle 14
Brits/British 5–7, 12, 34, 42, 43, 75, 105 Culpeper, J. 17, 18, 58, 60, 183, 186
~ culture 14, 33 Cultural Revolution (Wenhua-geming
Brown, P. 14, 15, 22, 23, 40, 74, 77, 97, Ўϯॠ‫ )ڮ‬8, 30, 79, 81, 87–90,
98, 103, 182 114, 116–18, 121, 141–3
Bousfield, D. 15, 182 culture shock 7, 13
196 Index of Names and Subjects
‘data problem’ 130–5 grammaticalization (of deferential

default forms) 144–8
~ form of address 79, 145 graphic arrangement (and
~ interpretation 22, 23 politeness) 107, 108
~ politeness tools 129 Grasso, J. M. 41, 184
diglossia 26, 33 Grice, P. H. 14, 184
Dikötter, F. 143, 183 Gu, Y. 15, 22, 39, 63, 74
discernment 40, 58 Gumperz, J. 30, 185
discursive politeness research 13,
15–23, 38, 39 Halliday, M. A. K. 155, 185
distance 14, 25, 32, 79, 97, 112 Haugh, M. 22, 74, 185
Dong, X. 102, 183 Hayashi, S. 9, 185
Dutch 6 He, Y. 124, 185
Held, G. 135, 185
Eelen, G. 15, 17, 135, 184 Helsinki Corpus 27
email 30 Heng, J. H. 78, 79, 82, 184
Hickey, L. 9, 185
face 14, 24, 40, 74, 85 hierarchy 17, 22, 32, 38, 41, 61, 63, 67,
negative ~ 15, 22 68, 73, 77, 79, 80, 92, 94, 107–12,
physical ~ 119 124, 127, 136, 158, 159
positive ~ 15, 22, 79 Hinze, C. 22, 74, 185
~ saving 22, 85, 107 historical pragmatics 16, 17
~ threat 40, 53, 69, 92, 95, 98, 103–5 ~ data 21, 22, 25–9
facework 15, 24, 40, 92, 100 Hokkienese 28
Fairbank, J. K. 6, 33, 184 Hong, C. 39, 185
Fairclough, N. 19, 184 Hong, W. 32, 74, 102, 103, 185
familial setting 46, 61 Hong Kong 5, 6, 25, 32, 33, 96,
Fang, H. 78, 79, 82, 184 105, 143
Fitzmaurice, S. 27, 136, 184 ‘honorific-poor’ 1, 128, 155
formal (aspect of politeness) 21–4 ‘honorific-rich’ 1, 51, 128, 130,
Four Olds (Sijiu Ѥᙑ) 142 152, 155
honorific verb form 46–8, 51, 53, 54,
Gao, W. 83, 110, 193 98, 134
gendered language 62, 63, 84 Howell, J. 143, 185
genre/generic issues 3, 20, 26–9, 33, Hu Shi च፾ 33, 139
36, 50, 87, 105, 128, 130, 132, 134 Hungary 1, 141
‘applied’ (yingyong ᔈҔ) ~ 27
dialogic ~ 26, 48, 51, 68 Ide, S. 9, 15, 40, 65, 145, 187
epistolary ~ 27, 132, 134 ideology see also North Korean
formal ~ 134, 148 politeness and ideologies 1, 2,
monologic ~ 26, 48, 50 103, 135–44, 154, 155, 160
news ~ 107, 108 Communist ~ see also ‘Maoism’ 29,
Geyer, N. 19, 184 73–5, 79, 88, 117, 139–43
Goffman, E. 11, 15, 38, 57, 58, 63, 94, Confucian ~ 62, 63, 135–9, 152
97, 184 dominant ~ 19
Gong, Weizhai ᠭ҂ᗿ 27 ~al changes 4
idiomatic expressions (si-zi shuyu Lee, H. B. 128, 145, 187

Ѥӷዕᇟ) 50, 51, 132 Lee, W. Y. 139, 187
immigrants 32, 98, 111, 114 Lee-Wong, S. M. 22, 74, 78, 82, 83, 90,
imperialism 5–8, 12, 33, 34 102, 187
impersonalization 10, 36 Leech, G. N. 59, 188
indexicality 10, 11, 43, 46, 63, 128 letters 3, 10, 26, 27, 29, 33, 42–59,
individuality 41 132–4
institutional discourse 62, 64, 147 family ~ 67–9
interview 17, 30, 31 formal ~ 89
cognitive ~ 111 governmental ~ 110–12
history ~ 87, 88 love ~ 42
survey ~ 30, 91, 92, 98–101, 111, 112 Levinson, S. 14, 15, 22, 23, 40, 74, 77,
97, 98, 103, 182
Jacobs, A. 16, 21, 185 li ᘶ/limao ᘶᇮ 136–9
Jager 43, 186 Li, Q. 91, 188
Japanese (politeness/honorifics) 1, 9, Li, W. 32, 74, 188
14, 15, 43, 65, 70, 72, 74, 130, Li, Y. 32, 74, 188
144–7, 150, 152 Liang, Y. 74, 188
Ji, C. 39, 74, 151, 186 Liang, Zhangju ఉക႐ 61
Ji, S. 74, 186 Lin, X. 33, 188
Ji, Y. F. 29, 88, 89, 186 Lin Zexu ݅߾৪ 6
Jiang, Z. 49, 186 Liu Yazi ࢛٥η 132–4
Ju, Z. 78, 82, 186 Locher, M. 15, 24, 58, 182, 188
Jucker, A. 9, 16, 21, 23, 40, 57, 106, Lowell, J. 5, 188
185, 186 Lu, Xun Ꮉِ 33, 130, 131, 181
Kádár, D. Z. 10, 12, 13, 18–20, 22, 23, Macartney, George (Earl) 12
27, 29, 39, 42, 44, 45, 48–50, 53, 54, Macau 6, 32
56–63, 67, 69, 75, 75, 82, 132, 134, Malaysia 143
135, 137, 146,182, 183, 186–9, 191 Manchu 5–7, 34
kenjoˉgo ᖰ侎ᇟ 43 Mandarin Chinese 28, 32, 76, 84, 91,
Kim, A. H. 145, 147, 187 98, 104, 117, 122, 123, 147–9
Kim, Il-sung and Jhong-il 144 Mao, L. M. R. 22, 74, 188
Kohnen, T. 9, 187 Mao Zedong (Лᐛܿ)/Maoism 8, 79,
Korea 6 87, 140–2, 153
Korean see also ‘North Korea’ Matsumoto, Y. 15, 188
~ as an ‘honorific-rich’ language 1, May Fourth Movement (Wu-Si-
43, 145–7 yundong ϖѤၮ୏) 8, 25, 33,
Kumatani, A. 128, 145, 187 130, 139–43
Meiji Restoration (Meiji ishin
Labov, W. 88, 187 ܴ‫ݯ‬ᆢཥ) 9
lack of politeness 67–9, 73, 88, 110, Mills, H. C. 140, 188
112–18, 120, 121, 127, 132, 154–7 Mills, S. 13, 15, 18, 19, 58, 127, 135,
Lakoff, R. T. 9, 14, 187 186, 188
Larsen-Freeman, D. 158, 187 Minami, F. 9, 185
Lee, C. L. 128, 143, 187 mock impoliteness 58
198 Index of Names and Subjects
Nakane, I. 2, 189 requests 10, 11, 55–7, 78, 91, 92, 95,
native designation of ‘politeness’ see ‘li’ 98, 99, 102–4, 110, 113, 115, 121,
Neo-Confucianism (Lixue ౛Ꮲ) 136 123, 150
Nevelainen, M. 27, 189 revival of traditional values 75, 82,
Nitta, J. 28, 189 120, 142
Nohara, M. 28, 189 revolutionary terminology 86, 87
norms, ritual
cultural ~ 17, 79, 108, 158–61 ~ discourse 36
(im)politeness ~ 1, 2, 9, 11, 14, ~ greeting 95
17–21, 23, 28, 29, 42, 65, 73–7, 89, ~ invitation 95, 96
90, 94–7, 110, 112–21, 127, 135, ~ politeness 10, 38, 40, 43, 51–4, 58,
136, 141, 142, 145, 148, 155 95, 99, 101, 102, 124, 127, 137
sociopragmatic ~ 8 ~ self-display 40, 43, 96
Western ~ 13 ~ zed behaviour 1, 13
North Korea (~n politeness and Ross, H. 140, 193
ideologies) 128, 144, 145, rudeness 14, 65, 76, 77, 83, 88, 141,
147, 153 143, 148
novel 27–9, 33, 44–69, 131, 132 stereotypical ~ 2, 13, 65, 66, 143
~ as a norm 112–18
Ogiermann, E. 141, 189 Ruesch, J. 30, 190
Okinawa (see Ryu
ˉ kyuˉ) Russia 141
Open Door Policy 25, 78, 82, 95, 122 Ryuˉkyuˉ 28, 29, 148–51
Opium War 5, 6, 34
Schiffrin, D. 118, 190
Pan, Y. 12, 13, 20, 30–2, 74, 75, 84, 91, Scollon, R. 30, 31, 92, 103, 107, 109,
92, 94–6, 98, 103, 107, 110, 111, 154, 160, 190
114–16, 123, 182, 187, 189, 190 Scollon, S. W. 92, 103, 109, 190
particles 32, 73, 90–2, 103, 105, 129 Scotton, C. M. 78, 79, 190
Peng, G. 20, 39, 43, 57, 150, 190 Second World War 1, 9
personal pronouns 10, 60, 61, 147, 150 Setoguchi, R. 28, 29, 150, 190
Pieke, F. N. 2, 190 Shibata, T. 21, 190
Pizziconi, B. 18, 19, 22, 130, 190 Short, P. 142, 191
politeness in flux 118–24 Singapore 25, 128, 143
politic behaviour 18, 57, 58, 83, 113, Skewis, M. 39, 191
121, 123 small talk 90, 95–7, 102, 103, 117, 130
Polo, Marco 5 social
professional titles 81, 82 ~ differences between China and
‘psychological warfare’ (and (im) Europe 40–2
politeness) 86, 143 ~ elite 5–7, 9, 36, 37, 48, 51, 64, 135–41
Puyi ྑሺ!7 Song Qingling ֺቼស 133, 134
sonkeigo ൧ལᇟ 45
quantitative research (of Chinese Spencer-Oatey, H. 2, 75, 191
honorifics) 20, 44, 151, 152 standard see also ‘norms’ 115
generic ~ 40
referencing 106, 107 intercultural ~ 66
refusals 52–4, 98–101 social ~ 4
relational work see ‘facework’ ~ form 67, 140, 147, 150
repetition of expressions 116 ~ (im)politeness 28, 87
~ language 32, 87, 140, 147 verbal fight 117

~ printing style 108, 178 vernacular 26–8, 48, 134, 135
Stein, Aurel (Sir) 55 modern ~ 33, 130–2, 134, 139
stereotype Vogel, E. 29, 78, 191
(im)politeness ~ 2, 8, 12, 13, 16, 61, 65 von Kowallis, J. E. 130, 192
intercultural ~ 75 vulnerability (of historical Chinese
~ical assumption 103 politeness) 144–52
~ical behaviour 31
~ical representation 38, 65 Wakeman, F. 7, 192
Stewart, M. 9, 185 Wang, S. 32, 192
Sun, Hao 110, 191 Watts, R. J. 15, 18, 58, 102, 131,
Sun, Hongkai 140, 193 135, 192
Sun, Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan Wierzbicka, A. 103, 192
৊ύξ) 33, 133, 139 Wolsey, Thomas 43
Suszczyńska, Małgorzata 141, 189 workplace interaction,
written style (of politeness) 10, 48
Taavitsainen, I. 23, 186
Taiwan/Taiwanese 6, 25, 33, 125, 132, Xinhai Revolution (Xinhai geming
152, 153 ٌҮॠ‫ )ڮ‬7
Tannen, D. 30, 95, 191
Tanskanen, S.-K. 27, 189 Yang, D. 20, 183
television 29, 30, 81 Yao, X. 136, 192
Terkourafi, M. 15, 23, 191 Yeung, L. N. T. 75, 192
Thornborrow, J. 65, 191 Yuan, J. F. 142, 192
Ting-Toomey, S. 75, 191 Yuan, T. 39, 192
Tokugawa Shogunate (Tokugawa Yung, J. 32, 192
bakufu 㾇οჿ۬) 6
tone of voice (in polite Zeng, Guofan ම୯᛫ 67–9
communication) 77, 116 Zhai, X. 74, 192
Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing-tiaoyue Zhan, K. 74, 192
ࠄ٧చऊ) 5 Zhang, Y. 74, 95, 102, 192
Tsujimura, T. 9, 191 Zhao, G. 83, 110, 193
turn-taking 92–4, 130 Zhao, S. 27, 193
Zheng Chengkong ᎄԋф 6
unconventional deferential Zhou, M. 140, 193
expressions 48–50, 58, 59 Zhu, W. 78, 79, 190
Note
1
If a work is created by more than two authors, we only mention the first author’s name;
furthermore, this index does not include names mentioned in the footnotes.
Index of Chinese Expressions Studied
a ୟ (particle) 90 fangqing ‫ޱ‬ঙ (lit. ‘fragrant minister’,

aiya ࠋ֔ (particle) 90 that is, my dear [gendered
a’sao ߓ༳ (‘sister-in-law’) 84 elevating form of address]) 42
aya ߓ֔ (particle) 131 fengbu ‫ں‬Ѳ (lit. ‘offering a declaration
respectfully with two hands’, that
baochuan ᝊಭ (‘treasure ship’ is, respectfully inform somebody
[reference to the other’s about a matter [honorific verbal
ship]) 151 form]) 48
bichuan ௯ಭ (‘humble ship’ [self- fengshi ‫ں‬٣ (lit. ‘offering service
denigrating reference]) 151 [respectfully] with two hands’
bi-xue-furen அᏢϻΓ (‘act like a [honorific verbal form]) 46
servant girl who tries to behave in fuwang ҷఈ (lit. ‘humbly bowing
a ladylike manner’ [idiom with and await’, that is, humbly long for
polite implication]) 51 [honorific verbal form]) 55
biyi ሄཀ (‘humble opinion’ [self- fuzheng ‫( ҅ܬ‬lit. ‘correct with an axe’,
denigrating reference]) 47 that is, to correct [honorific verbal
buzhang ೽剟 (‘department head’) 81 form]) 146
chenqie Խ‫‘( ڿ‬concubine of the gam ⧍ (Cantonese particle) 91–2

minister’ [self-denigrating ganxie གᖴ (‘feel gratitude’) 10
reference]) 63 gaojun ଯ։ (lit. ‘high lord’ [elevating
chi le ma? ӞΑ༏ǻ (‘Have you had form of address]) 44
your meal?’ [greeting]) 88, 95 gongzi Ϧη (‘your precious son’
chiyan Ⴍট (lit. ‘to gallop to extend [elevating form]) 119
one’s condolence’, that is, to guifu ຦۬ (‘precious court’ [elevating
convey condolence) 134 form]) 44, 47
dage εঢ (‘big brother’) 83 hanshe ൣް (lit. ‘cold lodging’, that is,

dajie ε‫‘( ۆ‬big sister’) 83 my humble home [self-denigrating
daren εΓ (‘great man’, that is, Your form]) 44, 47
Honour [elevating form of Hao zou! ӳ‫‘( !و‬Well walk!’
address]) 46 [leave-taking]) 88
dasao ε༳ (‘big sister-in-law’ [elevating
form of address]) 83 jiamu ৎ҆ (lit. ‘home mother’,
daye εྭ (‘great grandfather’, that is, that is, my humble mother
Your Highness [elevating form of [self-denigrating form]) 134
address]) 45 jian ᠙ (‘send for someone’s examination’
duibuqi ჹόଆ (‘sorry’) 87, 102 [honorific verbal form]) 134
Index of Chinese Expressions Studied 201
jiandu ᠙᠐ (‘examine by reading’ mingjia ‫ڮ‬Ꭿ (lit. ‘ordering chariot’,

[honorific verbal form]) 146 that is, prepare for travel
jiaxin ৎߞ (‘family letter’) 68 [elevating verbal form]) 48
jinbing ໻㻆(‘respectfully send’
[honorific verbal form]) 67 Ni dao nar qu? գ‫ډ‬ব‫ٽ‬ѐǻ(Where
jingli ࿶౛ (‘manager’) 81, 82 are you going? [greeting]) 88, 95
jiuyang Φһ (‘I’ve heard about you for nin ா (deferential ‘you’) 10, 111
a long time’ [honorific verbal Nin hao ாӳ (deferential ‘hello’) 119
form]) 119 nu ѩ (‘maidservant’) 62
juzhang ֽߏ (‘bureau head’) 79
pinseng ೦Ⴖ (‘this poor monk’
keguan ࠼‫( ۔‬lit. ‘guest official’, that is, [self-denigrating form of
my dear guest [elevating form of address]) 62
address]) 62 pu Ⴜ (‘your servant’ [self-denigrating
kezhang ࣽߏ (‘branch chief’) 81 form of address]) 57
kouxie іᖴ (lit. ‘thanking with
prostration’ [honorific verbal qianjin ίߎ (lit. ‘thousand gold’, that
form]) 46 is, ‘venerable daughter’ [elevating
form]) 44
lao Դ (‘old’ [honorific prefix in terms qie ‫‘( ڿ‬concubine’ [self-denigrating
of address]) 80 form of address]]) 62
laoban Դ݈ (‘proprietor’) 78 qigan ଁඪ (‘how dare [I]’ [honorific
laohan Դᅇ (‘this old man’ verbal form]) 150
[self-denigrating form of qing ፎ (‘please’, ‘to invite’) 10, 76,
address]) 64 81, 87
lao-renjia ԴΓৎ (lit. ‘old person’, qing yuanliang ፎচፊ (‘please
your revered mother [elevating forgive’) 102
reference]) 135 qingbei ໼፸ (‘collapse [of a person
laoshi Դৣ (‘teacher’) 79, 147 belonging to the] older generation’
lao-taitai Դϼϼ (‘revered old [honorific euphemism]) 51
lady’ [elevating form of qiu laoye tian en ‫؃‬ԴྭϺৱ (‘to beg a
address]) 131 revered person’s heavenly
laoxiong Դл (‘revered elder kindness’ [elevating request]) 150
brother’ [elevating form of
address]) 150 ru ԟ (‘thou’ [historical second person
laoye Դྭ (‘master’ [elevating pronoun]) 61
form of address]) 131
laozong Դᕴ (‘general manager’) 82 shifu ৣഡ (‘master’) 79, 146
limao ᘶᇮ (‘politeness’) 136 shizhang ৣߏ (‘teacher superior’
linglang-gong з॔Ϧ (‘ruling [elevating form of address]) 146
young lord’, that is, Young shuzui ᠑࿾ (‘pardoning a crime’
Lord [elevating form]) 45–6 [apology formula]) 54
lingtang з୸ (‘your honourable
mother’ [elevating form]) 119 taijia ѠᎯ (lit. ‘Your Excellency’, my
honoured friend [elevating form
Man zou! ᄌ‫و‬Ǽ(Slow walk! [leave- of address]) 46
taking]) 88–9 taitai ϼϼ (‘madam’) 78
202 Index of Chinese Expressions Studied
tazun д൧ (‘other-respect’) 43 xiao-niangzi λাη (‘young

tongzhi ӕ‫‘( ד‬comrade’) 78–83 [commoner] lady’ [elevating form
of address]) 11
wansheng ఁғ (‘later born’ [self- xiexie ᖴᖴ (‘thank you’) 87, 91, 103
denigrating form of address]) 62 xiong л (‘elder brother’ [elevating
wanxia-wubi ๙Πค฽ (lit. ‘there is no form]) 133
[appropriate] brush [writing]
under my wrist’, that is, ‘cannot ya ֔ (particle) 90
write in an appropriate manner’ yayi Уཀ (‘refined opinion’,
[idiomatic expression with polite that is, your opinion [elevating
implication]) 57 form]) 47
wei ഺ (‘hey’) 90 youru-sugou Ԗӵஎར (‘create as if
wo ‫( ך‬first-person pronoun ‘I’) 10, 61 from memory’ [idiomatic
wushi րৣ (‘my master’ [elevating expression with polite
form of address]) 62 implication]) 51
youyan-bu-shi-Taishan Ԗ౳ό᛽ੀξ
xi ‫‘( ׆‬hope’, humble ‘please’) 10 (lit. ‘having eye not seeing
xiaguan Π‫‘( ۔‬humble official’ Mountain Tai’ [idiomatic
[self-denigrating form of expression with polite
address]) 60 implication]) 132
xiandi ፣‫‘( ׌‬wise younger yuanliang ϡ‫( ؼ‬lit. ‘original good’,
brother’ [elevating form of that is, ‘man of virtue’ [elevating
address]) 46, 65 form of address]) 133
xiansheng Ӄғ (‘mister’ [a deferential yuqi ༿‫‘( ۀ‬foolish wife’, that is,
form which has various humble wife [self-denigrating
meanings]) 78, 82, 145, 146 form]) 47
xianxiong ፣л (‘wise elder brother’ yuxiong ༿л (‘crazy elder brother’,
[elevating form of address]) 47 that is, humble elder brother
xiao λ (‘little’ [prefix in address [self-denigrating form of
terms]) 80 address]) 46, 47
xiaoje λ‫‘( ۆ‬miss’ [a deferential form
of address with potential impolite zhiwei ኑᆢ (lit. ‘retaining a man of
interpretation]) 1, 11, 67, 78, talent’, ‘persuade your highly
82, 83 talented self to say’ [expression
xiaonü λζ (lit. ‘small woman’, that is, with polite implication]) 49
‘worthless daughter’ [self- zhuowen ‫ܟ‬Ў (‘clumsy text’ [self-
denigrating form]) 44 denigrating form]) 147
xiaopin-wangchou ਏᡮ‫ב‬ᗒ (‘it merely zhuren ЬҺ (‘chief’) 81
attempts to imitate your style’ zibei Ծ‫‘( ڒ‬self-denigration’) 138
[idiomatic expression with polite zida Ծε (‘self-elevation’) 138
implication]) 51 ziqian Ծᖰ (‘self-humiliation’) 43
xiaoquan λХ (lit. ‘small dog’, that is, zunfuren ൧ϻΓ (‘revered lady’,
‘my worthless son’ [self- that is, your wife [elevating
denigrating form]) 45 form]) 47
xiaoren λΓ (‘this worthless person’ zunjing de ൧ལ‫‘( ޑ‬honourable’) 111
[self-denigrating form of zunren ൧Γ (‘other-elevation’) 138
address]) 11, 44, 45,47, 62, 132 zuxia ‫ى‬Π (‘sir’) 10

Daniel Z. Kadar, Yuling Pan - Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese (2011) PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Daniel Z. Kadar, Yuling Pan - Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese (2011) PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Politeness in Historical and

Historical Chinese Letter Writing

Yuling Pan and Dániel Z. Kádár

© Yuling Pan and Dániel Z. Kádár 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: 978-1-8470-6275-8 (Hardback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Appendix I: Chronological List of Chinese Dynasties 162

illustrate their argument. Non-Chinese speakers will be particularly struck

We would like to express our gratitude to the following colleagues who

1 Background and Objectives

As linguists and sinologists ourselves with fairly similar sociocultural back-

framework adopted and the aspects of politeness studied in the present

The Myth of Chinese Politeness:

Qing military officials were in warfare and Chinese classics on military

Anti-traditionalist sentiments arose first in 1919, during the so-called May

1949–1965: Early Communist period

After a series of campaigns the most determinative event in contemporary

2 Uniqueness of Chinese Politeness Practice

This large-scale change is a unique phenomenon because in other lan-

Example 2 is a contemporary Chinese translation of the utterance in

Again, Example 4 is a contemporary Chinese ‘translation’ of the utterance

2.1 Myths regarding historical and modern/contemporary

The exterior deportment of every class in China is uncommonly decent,

Although influenced by imperialist and colonialist rhetoric this passage

The present book is a primarily descriptive and comparative study of

3.1 Linguistic politeness research

3.2 The approach

the contextual aspects of historical texts, including the addressers and

Thus, we aim to explore how certain utterances, in retrospect, conveyed

With regard to the analysis of modern and contemporary data, we apply

‘politeness’ as a default working notion also implies that we do not claim

it is a particular way of representing some part of the (physical, social,

In accordance with this definition, along with focusing on standard norms

3.3 Previous studies in the field

Although the fundamental change in Chinese politeness is a noteworthy

4 The Aspects of Politeness Studied

That is, our database of extensive audio-taped interactions in contemporary

An honorific (Sometimes Honorable) is a word or expression that conveys

It is true that honorifics usually express deference (not necessarily politeness

in certain languages as meticulous systems with “intrinsic ranking of

This quotation demonstrates that it would be quite difficult to ‘overview’

To sum up, we will focus on the formal aspects of politeness, by means

If we suppose that this constructed utterance is made by a professor to

we need to make a brief note on our data-related terminology – more

5.1 Historical data

reliance on written data was originally seen as problematic for a number

Although it can be argued that our historical data is as ‘authentic’ (albeit

a) The two major interaction types, monologues and dialogues. Traditionally,

corpus due to different reasons. First, in traditional Chinese culture letter

(chidu mofan Ёᛊኳጄ) by scholars of Chinese. Consequently, this is an

a) It is a ‘pragmatic’ textbook, which teaches Chinese oral communication

The only ‘handicap’ of Xue-guanhua from the perspective of this volume is

5.2 Contemporary data

There may be divergence between individual experience and generalized

Mainland China in the past two decades. Although Chinese immigrants

5.3 Data from the ‘transitional’ period

‘transformation’ may not be the best expression to cover such an abrupt

a) Personal and political letters written by early modern intellectuals and

The author of this letter-fragment needs to decline an important invitation and

vernacular style necessitated a strong command of Classical Chinese. Thus, for