礼貌原则视角下高校外国留学生服务网站英文公告的体裁分析

论文总字数：32756字

摘 要

近年来，外国留学生来华求学每年以两成以上的速度递增。 从现在的形势看， 这种急速递增的趋势还会继续， 中国已经成为外国留学的新热土。面对庞大的留学生群体，中国高校亟需为其提供各种各样的教育资源以及高质量的服务，大学网站英文版通知公告一栏与留学生在校的学习和生活息息相关，是留学生获取信息的最重要、最便捷的渠道之一，备受留学生们的瞩目。然而，相比中文网站的成熟和完善，英文网站的建设发展相对滞后，多有不足。学生对网站的印象会影响他们对于学校质量及学校机构本身的评价。大学正是通过网页与海外学生建立、保持良好的 关系并影响他们的行为。

本文从语言学的角度，将Leech的礼貌原则运用到对高校英文网站通知公告的编译工作中。本文作者结合对国内十所名校英文网站通知公告栏的观察以及自己作为学生的实际学习生活经历，根据通知的损益程度，将通知大致分成四类，分别给出对应的建议。这些建议将直接为高校英文网站的整体建设研究服务， 最终促进我国高校英文网站的建设，更好得为来华留学生服务。

关键词：礼貌原则；英文公告；在华留学生

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iii

Table of Contents iv

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Significance of the Study 1

1.3 Overview of the Chapters 1

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

2.1 Studies of Management and Services to International Students in China 3

2.2 Studies of College English Websites for International Students 3

2.3 Studies of English Notices Genre 3

2.4 Studies of the Application of Politeness Principle in Practical Writing 4

2.5 Leech's Politeness Principle and its Applicability 4

2.5.1 Six Maxims of Leech's Politeness Principle 5

2.5.1.1 Tact Maxim 5

2.5.1.2 Generosity Maxim 5

2.5.1.3 Approbation Maxim 5

2.5.1.4 Modesty Maxim 6

2.5.1.5 Agreement Maxim 6

2.5.1.6 Sympathy Maxim 7

2.5.2 Leech’s Pragmatic Scales 8

2.5.2.1 The Cost-Benefit Scale 8

2.5.2.2 The Optionality Scale 8

2.5.2.3 The Indirectness Scale 9

2.5.3 Applicability of Leech's Politeness Principle to English Announcements9

Chapter Three Research Methodology 11

3.1 Research Questions 11

3.2 Research Subjects and Data Collection 11

Chapter Four The Application of Politeness Principle in English Announcements12

4.1 Positive Announcements 12

4.2 Negative Announcements 12

4.3 Neutral Announcements 13

4.4 Announcements that Indicate Requirements, Prohibitions or Warnings 13

4.4.1 Three Ways to Indicate Negative Meanings in English 13

4.4.2 Defining the Politeness Degree of Warning Announcements 14

Chapter Five Conclusions 15

5.1 Summary 15

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study 15

References 16

Chapter One Introduction

• 1. Research Background

In recent years, international students studying in China have increased at a speed of more than twenty percent every year. Judging from the recent situation, the trend of rapid increasing will go on for a long time. China has become the new and hot land for students studying abroad. In such a situation, there is absolutely a need for Chinese colleges and universities to provide education resources and living assistance to the large number of international students. At the present times, the internet has played an increasingly important role in our daily life, so naturally the English websites have become one of the most important and convenient channels for international students to acquire information. The announcements boards on college English websites are closely bound up to students’ academic life and daily affairs, which usually get a lot of students’ attention. However, unlike mature and improved Chinese websites, there is a relative delay in the construction of English websites.

1.2 Significance of the Study

Students’ impression on the college websites has an influence on their evaluation of the quality of schools or school systems and their selection of a school. Colleges establish and maintain good relationships with international students and meanwhile influence their behavior to a great extent by colleges’ websites. The study of announcements boards on college English websites in this thesis will make contributions to the overall construction of college English websites by providing some useful recommendation, and eventually serve international students in China.

1.3 Overview of the Chapters

This paper consists five chapters. This chapter presents research background and significance of the study. Chapter Two provides the related literature and discusses the applicability of leech's politeness principle to English announcements. Chapter Three outlines the methods used in this study by identifying research questions and discussing research design and collection of materials. Chapter Four presents the application of politeness principle in English announcements. Chapter Five，finally, sums up the entire study, discusses limitations of this study, and offers suggestions for future research．

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Studies of Management and Services to International Students in China

Domestic researches in regard to foreign students in China are mainly related to those students’ cross-cultural adaptation, exploration of the teaching methods toward foreign students, investigation of present management situation about them and the coping approaches. Via individual case study, Deng Fuqing (2005) proposed that refining the school-running ideas and orientation, improving the quality of teaching and strengthening the management and service are the guarantee of good educational work for international students studying in China. However, researches about foreign student services websites are rare.

2.2 Studies of College English Websites for International Students

The domestic and overseas study of college English websites is mainly from the perspective of the overall construction of English websites, such as column setup, structure construction, information integrity, freshness of information and multimedia tools’ function. Pei Lei and Zhou Liqun(2014) put forward three chief problems in the construction of college English websites. The first one is that information is not reported timely and there is a lack of integration of academic achievements and information. The second is that information services provided for international students are not convenient, fast and complete enough. The last is that foreign readers have low acceptability to the translation and edition of writings, which is difficult to smooth intercultural communication. In addition, combining the present situation of the construction of Chinese college library websites in English, Zhang Yun (2013) takes Wuhan University library as an example, and makes some suggestions in the subject orientation, column setup, page design and other aspects. Among those studies, there is rare study about the language of a specific column on college English websites.

2.3 Studies of English Notices Genre

This article selects announcements boards on university English websites as a research object. The announcement is a kind of practical writing. The study of practical English writing at home and abroad primarily focuses on writing strategies and English teaching method. Yao Jiawu (2010) gives some suggestions in stylistic structure, writing basics, common sentence patterns and practical examples of announcement writing.

2.4 Studies of the Application of Politeness Principle in Practical Writing

"Politeness principle" is the classical theory in pragmatics, which is proposed and improved by several famous scholars such as Goffman, Brown, Levin-son and Leech starting from the 1950s of last century. Politeness is a common phenomenon in almost all communities of human society, which is the basic rule of human's social activities and a tool to maintain harmonious interpersonal relationships. Only by obeying the rule can people understand each other and smooth communication. The combination of practical writing and Leech's politeness principle in some researches is mainly embodied in business letter writing. Wang Jun (2011) proposes how Politeness Principle applied to business correspondence and achieves a conclusion that Politeness Principle plays a significant role in business exchange.However, researches that integrate English announcement writing with Leech's politeness principle are still vacant.

2.5 Leech's Politeness Principle and Its Applicability

Geoffrey Leech, an English linguist, believes that politeness is a supplement to conversational implicature theory. Polite speech deserves much attention when people observe communication. Politeness principle is principally about trying to make use of communicative strategies to maintain or to increase interpersonal harmony during the process of communication.

Certainly, politeness can be regarded as a part of cooperative principle because Grice（1967）only illustrates the literal meaning of words as well as its meaningful relationship. Grice also deciphers how the “implied meaning” emerges and how to understand it. But he doesn’t make it clear why the speakers should deliberately violate the principles of cooperation to deliver their real meaning. Leech discovered a more rational answer for them: for politeness. Therefore, he ulteriorly came up with the view that politeness is not subject to the principle of cooperation but deserves the equal status with it.

2.5.1 Six Maxims of Leech's Politeness Principle

The politeness principle consists of six maxims which run as follows:

2.5.1.1 Tact Maxim

(a)Minimize cost to other；(b)Maximize benefit to other(Leech ,1983, p.132)．

This maxim is “other-centered" and suggests the speakers try to strengthen the benefits to other.

2.5.1.2 Generosity Maxim

(a) Minimize benefit to self, (b) Maximize cost to self (Leech, 1983，p.133)．

Different from the tact maxim, this maxim is “self-centered"．It can pair up with tact maxim．This maxim suggests that the speakers decrease the benefit to themselves as much as they can．

(1) I am wondering if I can wash the dishes．

(2) Let Rile wash the dishes．

(3) Lend me your car．

(4) Could you lend me your car? (Leech, 1983，p.133)

It’s easy to observe from the above examples that sentence (2) is politer than sentence (1)，for the speaker of sentence (1) follows the rule of“to maximize cost to self'’．Equally, example (3) is not so polite as example (4) in that there is more possibility that the speaker of example (4) may get a negative answer and thus benefits less than the speaker of example (3)．

2.5.1.3 Approbation Maxim

(a) Minimize Dispraise of Other；(b) Maximize Praise of Other (Leech, 1983, p.135)．

This maxim is also“other-centered”，which is related to evaluations or criticisms to the listener．Leech holds the view that speakers should“avoid saying unpleasant things about others，and more particularly, about hearer”(p.135)．

(5) A：Do you like my new suit?

B1：Well，yes，but it is not my favorite．

B2：It's ugly．(Leech, 1983, p.135)

Obviously, B1 is much politer than B2，because though B1 seems to dislike the new suit, he is trying to avoid putting it directly while B2 expresses his unpleasant view in a direct way．Unpleasant words usually bring harm to people．On the contrary，pleasant words can easily make the listener happy．

2.5.1.4 Modesty Maxim

(a) Minimize praise to self；(b) Maximize dispraise to self (Leech ,1983，p.136)．

Similar to the relationship between tact maxim and generosity maxim，Modesty maxim goes in couples with approbation maxim．In general, if someone violates the first sub-maxim, he or she is seen as committing the social infringement of boasting．What's more，self-praise is looked at as unpleasant, while self-dispraise is viewed as friendly and much more acceptable such as (7) and (9) in the following examples：

(6) Please accept this large gift as a token of our friendship．

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