Xiaoke Sun # Post 2
Politeness, which is regarded as a sign of good education, is highly praised in our society. Having acquired proficiency in different languages, I found out each language has its particular way to show politeness, explicitly or implicitly. For example, Mandarin has two different pronouns (“ni” and “nin”) of the second personal singular. By altering between them, speakers are able to show different levels of respect and politeness. The similar linguistic trait can be found in French. People use “vous” as a respectful form to address the second person singular, (as “nin 您” in Mandarin) while using “tu” (as “ni 你” in Mandarin) in the casual, or peer interaction. In English, however, only “you” is employed to address the person (or people) that the speaker is associating with, regardless of their age or social status. It is not to say that English lacks preciseness or politeness. Instead, it highlights the variety and complexity of linguistical features among different languages. The way to show politeness in English is unique in its use of conditional tense or in its increase of the length of sentence. This feature can be well explained by Alison’s example of using “Could I bother you to lend me your pen?” instead of shortly saying “Pen”.
Continue reading “Politeness Theory and Second Language Learning”
