1、IOn Cultural Differences Between American and Chinese Face PerspectivesAbstract: Politeness is a symbol of human civilization and the feature of all the civilized society. It is not only universal but also culturally specific. Two countries like America and China have different cultures which lead t
2、o different realization on politeness. As one theory of politeness principle, the face perspective is also different. The paper introduces the different face perspectives between America and China and analyzes cultural differences behind them and their corresponding reasons. At first, this paper tri
3、es to introduce different concepts of face between America and China by quoting and analyzing some scholars opinions on face, such as Goffman, Brown cultural difference; face perspective; II从面子观看中美文化差异摘要：礼貌是人类文明的标志，也是所有文明的特征。礼貌既是一种普遍现象，又是一种个性化的交际原则。像中美这两个拥有不同文化背景的国家，其文化的不同必然导致人们对礼貌有着不同的认识。面子观，作为礼貌原则
4、之一，在这两个国家自然有着不同的理解。本文介绍了中美不同的面子观并分析了不同面子观背后反映出来的不同的文化和相应的原因。作者通过引用像高夫曼，布朗和列文森，以及胡先晋等学者的观点介绍了中美不同的面子观。接下来，文章探讨了不同面子观背后反映出的不同文化，比如：美国的个人主义和中国的集体主义的差异，美国的消极面子和中国的积极面子的差异，美国的平等性和中国的等级性的差异，并分析了造成这些差异成因，例如历史，文化，思维模式，民族性格以及传统意识等方面的原因。最后，本文建议，为了减少国际交流中的一些障碍，应当了解彼此的面子观，与美国人打交道时尽量直接点，与中国人打交道尽量委婉点。相信读者在此基础上能够更
5、好地理解中美的面子观，能够进行更有效的国际交流，以促进中美关系的发展。关键词：跨文化交际；文化差异；面子观IIIContentsIntroduction.11. An approach to different face perspectives.11.1 The American face perspective21.1.1 Erving Goffmans opinion on face perspective .21.1.2 Brown but most Chinese pick out cattle and hay, because cattle eat hay. Thus, a con
6、clusion can be drawn that Americans tend to see things as category while Chinese tend to see the relationship between things.There are two reasons can be used to explain why the good of the group is so important in China. First and foremost, Chinese people are deeply influenced by Confucianism. Conf
7、ucianism advocated great harmony, which emphasized the harmony and integrity among individual, group and the whole society. One should try his best to obey his community and society to the maximum extent. So Chinese face is based on collectivism and 7emphasizes that individual interest subordinates
8、to the general interest.Second, China has a feudal history of more than two thousand years. And the traditional idea of Chinese feudal society and policy has always held that farming overweighs commerce. Hu Wenzhong said, “In such an agricultural country, farmers were tied down to the land they live
9、d by from generation to generation. There was hardly any change among farmers, neither their social class nor locality, except for wars or famine”. (胡文仲，1988: 1) And then, interdependent relationships were formed between people and land, people and people. Thus, group relationships were getting clos
10、er and closer and society more and more stable. In this way, the Chinese had little opportunity to move away from the locality of their birth and have tended to spend their entire lives in the company of the same friends, neighbors, and relatives. When one was attached for life to a given group of p
11、eople, maintaining harmonious relationships among all its members became of paramount importance. Under this history background, collectivism is gradually formed. People take the group as the centre and personal feelings, desire and privacy are not important and should be given away when it comes to
12、 those of group.2.2 Negative Face vs. Positive FaceIt can be also inferred from the definitions of positive face and negative face by Brown and Levinson and different face perspectives between America and China that American pay more attention to negative face and Chinese pay more attention to posit
13、ive face because their different thinking patterns and different national characters.2.2.1 The American Negative Face & reasonsBased on the definition of negative face by Brown and Levinson, negative face refers that individual has autonomous freedom and rights and any individual behavior wont be interfered. It focuses on personal independence. Americans look forward to freedom and they have a mind of their own. They dont need nor like other people to tell them what to do. Even little kids have their own thoughts about things. At the same time, their parents will never
