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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

GOODBYE,YOU OR I?
A STUDY OF LINGUISTIC PATTERNS
IN AMERICAN AND CHINESE LEAVE-TAKING AFTER DINNER

presented by

Li Qing Kinnison

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GOOD-BYE, YOU OR I ?
A STUDY OF LINGUISTIC PATTERNS IN AMERICAN AND CHINESE LEAVE-
TAKING AFTER DINNER

By

Li Qing Kinnison

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African

2000

ABSTRACT

“GOOD-BYE, YOU OR 1?”- A STUDY OF LINGUISTIC PATTERNS IN AMERICAN
AND CHINESE LEAVE-TAKING AFTER DINNER
By

Li Qing Kinnison

This is a comparative study on linguistic routines used by American and Chinese
guests at leave-taking after dinner. Like many other daily routines, leave-taking is highly
conventionalized and follows prefabricated routines and has an adaptive value in
facilitating social relations. The data collected for this study has shown that, even though
both groups employ a number of the same speech acts, there is a marked difference in the
structural construction of this speech event, in the frequency of some speech acts, and in
the attitudes towards "polite” ways of leave-taking used by the other group. Brown and
Levinson's theory of universal politeness provides a sound explanation for the American
l-patterned (self-oriented) leave-taking but fails to explain the Chinese you-patterned
(other-oriented) farewell. Their failure comes from their western understanding about
politeness that focuses on the freedom of self to make decisions without being imposed
on, which cannot apply to some non-western cultures where the self is subordinate to
others. Applying to O'Driscoll's revision (1996) of Brown and Levinson's face dualism,
this paper argues that there is a universal concern for a good face in conducting a polite
linguistic behavior. The concept of self is the parameter of this universal politeness,

which accounts for various linguistic politeness across different cultures.

Copyright by
Li Qing Kinnison
2000

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My profound thanks go to my family and friends who helped me collect data for this
cross-culture and cross-language study. Some of them have helped to arrange dinners to
record “leave-taking” conversations, some have helped to distribute and collect
questionnaires, and others have invested time in proofreading the manuscript of this
paper. (Yet I am fully responsible for any errors in the paper.) It is impossible for me to
name all of them. However, I would like to give my special thanks to Xiang Heping
(Peace), Betty Norling, Bob and Heidi Fu, and Jane DuBois.

I am very grateful to my advisor Dr. Dennis. R. Preston, and my committee
members, Dr. Yen-Hwei Lin, Dr. Barbara K. Abbott, and Dr. David Dwyer, who have
given me some insightful suggestions and advice for my research and this study.

My unending gratitude goes to my dear father Li Shiming, and my loving husband
Dave, who did not only help me in data collection, their love, understanding, and support

helped me go through some difficult time in the writing of the paper.

Iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ vii
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................... ix
INTRODUCATION .............................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 1
BACKGRROUND ............................................................................................... 5
1.1 Rationale and objectives of the study ....................................................... 5
1.2 Research questions and hypothesis ......................................................... 8
1.3 Theoretical frame works ......................................................................... 12
1.3.1 Brown and Levinson's theory of universal linguistic politeness ....... 12
1.3.2 O’Driscoll's revised version of face dualism .................................... 15
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................................................... 19
2.1 Research on limao, Chinese politeness .................................................... 21
2.2 Face in Chinese, lian and mianzi ............................................................. 23
2.3 Research on leave-taking ........................................................................ 27
2.3.1 Structural organization of closing ................................................. 27
2.3.2 Communicative functions of leave-taking .................................... 30
2.3.3 Different farewells between Chinese and Americans ..................... 33
2.4 Summary of literature review .................................................................. 33
CHAPTER 3
METHOD ............................................................................................................ 35
3.1 Recordings of leave-taking dialogues ..................................................... 35
3.1.1 Categories of speech acts in leave-taking ........................ . ............ 37
3.1.2 Three closing stages ..................................................................... 39
3.2 Attitudinal survey .................................................................................... 40
3.2.1 Questionnaire design and distribution ......................................... 40
3.2.2 Sample of the survey ................................................................... 43
3.2.2.1. Demography of the respondents ........................................ 43
3.3 Analysis Strategies ................................................................................. 46
3.4 Limitation of the data collection ............................................................. 47
CHAPTER 4
RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS ..................................................... . ................. 49
4.1 Different leave-taking ............................................................................ 49
4.1.1 Difference in structure .................................................................. 50
4.1.2 Different frequency in applying some speech acts ........................ 51
4.1.3 Difference in content of speech acts .............................................. 66

4. 1.3. 1 American leave-taking ..................................................... 66

4.1.3.1-1 Appreciation ...................................................... 67
4.1.3.1-2 Giving thanks ..................................................... 70
4.1.3.2 Chinese leave-taking ....................................................... 74
4.1.3.2-1 Elaborate initial closing ...................................... 75
4132-2 Other-orientation ............................................... 84
4.2 Different attitudes .................................................................................. 86
4.2.1 Demographic factors ................................................................... 87
4.2.2 Results from the Chi-square ........................................................ 91
4.2.2.1 Leave-taking with “+1” and ”+thanks” .............................. 92
4.2.2.2 Leave-taking with “-1” and ”+ you” .................................... 96
4.2.2.3 Leave-taking with “+1” and ”-thanks” ............................... 100
4.2.2.4 Leave-taking with “-1” and ”-you” ..................................... 104
4.2.3 Results from the factor analysis ................................................... 1 l 1
4.2.3.1 Factor analysis on the American data ................................ 112
4.2.3.2 Factor analysis on the Chinese data ................................... 114
4.3 Summary of the data analysis ................................................................. 116
CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................... 117
5.1 Puzzles unsolved by Brown and Levinson’s theory ................................ 118
5.2 Self in individualism vs. self in collectivism .......................................... 122
5.3 Collectivistic other-oriented and individualistic self-oriented goodbye 126
5.3.1 I-patterned excuses vs. you-patterned excuses ............................. 127
5.3.2 Giving thanks vs. giving invitation .............................................. 129
5.3.3 Appreciation vs. ignoring ............................................................ 135
5.4 Universal face dualism and parameter of concept of self ........................ 140
5.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 144
5.6 Limitation and future research ................................................................ 146
FAREWELL ........................................................................................................ 146
APPENDICES ..................................................................................................... 148
Appendix 1 The English version of the questionnaire ................................... 149
Appendix 2 The Chinese version of the questionnaire .................................. 152
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 155

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.2.1-1 The distribution of the three linguistic items .................................. 41
Table 3.2.1-2 Statement sequence of the questionnaire forms .............................. 43
Table 3.2.2—1 Gender of the respondents .............................................................. 44
Table 3.2.2-2 Age of the respondents .................................................................. 44
Table 3.2.2-3 Professions of the respondents ....................................................... 45
Table 3.2.2-4 Forms of the received questionnaires .............................................. 46
Table 4.1.1 Speech acts employed in leave-taking ............................................ 50
Table 412-] Frequency and percentage of speech acts from the recordings ....... 52

Table 4.1.2-2 Frequency and percentage of speech acts from the questionnaires . 55

Table 412-3 Three Groups of speech acts used in leave—taking according to

Frequency ..................................................................................... 64
Table 421-1 Gender factor on the data ............................................................... 88
Table 4.2.1-2 Age factor on the data ................................................................... 88
Table 4.2.1-3 Profession factor on the data .......................................................... 89
Table 4.2.1-4 Sequence of Statement (Questionnaire form) factor on the data ...... 90
Table 422-1 Rating on Statement B (+1, -y0u, +thanks) ..................................... 93
Table 422-2 Rating on Statement C (+1, + you, +thanks) ................................... 95
Table 422-3 Rating on Statement A (-1, + you, +thanks) .................................... 97
Table 422-4 Rating on Statement E(-1, + you, -thanks) ..................................... 99
Table 4.2.2-5 Rating on Statement F (-I, -y0u, -thanks) ....................................... 102
Table 422-6 Rating on Statement G (+1, + you, -thanks) .................................... 103
Table 422-7 Rating on Statement D (-I, -y0u, +thanks) ..................................... 105

vii

Table 422-8 Rating on Statement H (J, -y0u, -thanlcs) ...................................... 107

Table 422-9 Summary of the ratings on the eight leave-taking statements ......... 109
Table 423-1 The result of factor analysis on the American data ......................... 113
Table 423-2 The results of factor analysis on the Chinese data .......................... 1 14

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Chart 1 Difference in I-patterned excuse ....................................................... 57
Chart 2 Difference in you-patterned excuse ................................................... 58
Chart 3 Difference in giving time-excuse ..................................................... 58
Chart 4 Difference in saying "Thank you" .................................................... 59
Chart 5 Difference in giving invitation ......................................................... 60
Chart 6 Rating on Statement B (+1, -y0u, +thanks) ....................................... 94
Chart 7 Rating on Statement C (+1, +y0u, +thanks) ..................................... 96
Chart 8 Rating on Statement A {-1, + you, +thanks) ....................................... 98
Chart 9 Rating on Statement E (-1, + you, -thanks) ........................................ 100
Chart 10 Rating on Statement F (+1, -you, -thanks) ........................................ 103
Chart 11 Rating on Statement G (+1, + you, -thanks) ..................................... 104
Chart 12 Rating on Statement D (-1, -y0u, +thanks) ....................................... 106
Chart 13 Rating on Statement H (-l, -y0u, -thanks) ........................................ 108

ix

INTRODUCTION

Research has shown that being polite is a universal concept, but what is perceived as
politeness and how to be polite in a speech event, however, is culturally different and
language speciﬁc (Blum-Kulla, 1987; 1989, 1992; Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper, 1989;
Coulmas, 1979, 1981; Fraser, 1981, 1990; Gu, 1990; House, 1993;1de et al., 1992;
Janney and Arndt, 1992, 1993; Kasper, 1981, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1997; O'Driscoll, 1996;
Scollon and Scollon, 1983, 1991, 1994, 1995; Watts et al. 1992; Wilson, 1992, 1993).
Linguistic etiquette is one of the focuses in the study of politeness. How to explain the
diversity of culturally rooted linguistic etiquette has attracted many scholars in the past
two decades. Among various approaches to linguistic politeness, Brown and Levinson's
politeness theory (1978, 1987) is probably one of the few comprehensive, unified
frameworks (Fraser 1990; Janney and Amdt 1993; O'Driscoll 1992; Schmidt 1993). It is
also the only theory, as O’Driscoll (1996) states, “which specifically claims its
pancultural validity” and “its potential application to intercultural studies” (p. 1). Since
1978 when Brown and Levinson first proposed their theory, this universal politeness in
language usage has generated a wealth of conceptual and empirical research that has
contributed greatly to the study on cross-cultural communication and interlanguage
pragmatics. Their theory, as Janney and Arndt (1993) predict, "will no doubt continue to
provide important impetus for cross-cultural research for some time to come” (p.15).

However comprehensive as Brown and Levinson's theory is, their claimed universal
applicability of the theory has encountered objections from both western and non—western
politeness researchers (Ambady et al, 1996; Blum-Kulka 1987, 1992; Brown, R., 1989;

Chen, 1993; Gu 1990; Hill et al., 1986; Ide et al. 1992; Janney and Arndt 1993; Li-shih,

1994; Mao, 1992, 1994; Matsumoto, 1988; Nwoye, 1992; Watts et al., 1992; Wierzbicka,
1985). Its claimed universality, as O’Dricoll (1996) points out, has been called into
question from “both an empirical and theoretical viewpoint” (p. 3). The critics argue that
the conceptual perspective of Brown and Levinson's work is Anglo-American bias
because it is based on British analytical logic and North American social psychology,
therefore, it is too culturally bound to account for non-Western notions and forms of polite
communication (Watts et a1, 1992). Some researchers argue that the problem lies in the
face concept of the theory which is "an individualistic, 'self-oriented image” (Mao,
1994:455). Others contend that their concept of negative face want is not the concern of
the culture where group identity overrides self interest and conforming to social norms is
more concerned than satisfying self desire (Gu, 1990; Ide et a1, 1992; Matsumoto, 1988;
Nwoye, 1992; Mao, 1994; Watts et al. 1992). Brown and Levinson's theory may work
well in atomistic and individualistic societies in the western world, Nwoye (1992) claims,
but not in a non-Western culture where group concern is stressed above the individual (p.
312).

Following this line, I did a pilot study (the details will be discussed in Chapter 3 and
Chapter 4) comparing linguistic routines used by American and Chinese guests at leave-
taking after dinner to further investigate the applicability of Brown and Levinson's theory
of universal politeness. The result of that study shows that, even though both speech
communities employ quite a number of the same speech acts, such as announcing leave-
taking, giving excuses, expressing gratitude, appreciation, etc., there is marked difference

both in the structural construction in each stage of this speech event and in the frequency

of each speech act used in this phatic moment by American and Chinese guests when
showing politeness.

The Chinese leave-taking, according to Brown and Levinson’s theory, is composed
of more “bald” and “intrinsic” FTAs (face threatening acts). They employ many you-
patterned (other-oriented) speech acts including giving excuses for taking their leave,
such as ” You are tired and you should go to bed," "You've been working the whole day;
you need to rest early," etc. These speech acts, judged by Brown and Levinson, are
threatening the negative face of their host, "his basic want to maintain claims to territory
and self-determination” (Brown and Levinson, 1987, p. 70). Contrary to their Chinese
counterparts, American guests seem to obey the rules of Brown and Levinson's theory by
showing their "respect" to the negative face of their hosts with I-patterned (self-oriented)
excuses, such as "My wife is getting restless," "Our kids are all coming for dinner
tomorrow, I‘ll have to do a little cooking tonight,“ etc.

My pilot study, which is supported by the other researchers (Gu, 1990; Lii-shih,
1994; Mao, 1994; Nwoye, 1992; Scollon and Scollon, 1983, 1995), shows that the
difference between Chinese and the American guests arises from two opposite cultures:
collectivism and individualism. Although Brown and Levinson’s theory provides a
sound explanation for the American data with their notions of positive and negative
politeness, they fail to explain the speech acts used by the Chinese guests in leave-taking.
As criticized by other politeness researchers, this failure came from their western
understanding about politeness with focuses on the selfs freedom to make decisions
without being imposed on. That, however, cannot apply to non-western culture where the

self is subordinate to the other. The Chinese other-oriented (you-patterned) leave-taking

and the American self-oriented (I-oriented) farewell shown in my pilot study have
provided more evidence for the justiﬁcation of this criticism. This paper is a continuation
of my previous comparative study of different linguistic patterns employed in leave-

taking after dinner by Chinese and Americans.

CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND

1.1 Rationale and objectives of the study

Leave-taking, like many other routines in daily life, "is highly conventionalized and
follows prefabricated routines and has an adaptive value in facilitating social relations"
(Firth 1972, cited in Laver, 1981, p. 289). These linguistic routines make the full use of
prefabricated linguistic units and cultural knowledge common to the people from the same
speech community and reﬂect their social system and their cultural values (Coulmas,
1979). People from different cultures are not only different in their languages, they also
have different rules of speaking with regard to the appropriateness and politeness of
linguistic behavior in social and personal interactions, of which pre-patterned
conversational routines make up an important part (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper, 1989;
Coulmas, 1981; Hymes, 1974; Saville-Troike, 1996; Wolfson, 1983).

As far as this research on leave-taking after dinner goes, there are a few studies on
leave-taking (House, 1982; Hu and Groves, 1991; Knapp et a1, 1973; Laver, 1981;
Schegloff and Sacks, 1973), as the scholarly research "has sanctimoniously turned its
back on conversational closings" (Knapp et al., 1973, p. 182). The reason for this lack of
research might be that "leave-taking may seem to be mundane and ordinary" (Knapp et
al., 1973, p. 182). However, "the rest of the world seems to take its leave-taking
seriously" (Knapp et al., 1973, p. 182). That is because closing a conversation may be a
practical problem for many people in the sense that they "find it difficult to get out of a

conversation they are in" (Schegloff and Sack, 1973, p. 290).

As leave-taking takes place at an end of an activity, the participants need to conduct
a cooperative parting in this fragile phase to make sure that ending an ongoing activity
will not jeopardize a continuation of their relationship in the ﬁiture. “The enthusiasm of
farewell,” Goffman (1967) claims, “compensates the relationship for the harm that is
about to be done to it by separation” (p. 41). The participants need to express their desire
of taking leave as efficiently and clearly as possible. At the same time, they also need to
show their appreciation and joy of being part of the interaction (dinner or party). In order
to achieve this purpose, the participants will apply some prefabricated linguistic routines
in this farewell speech event, which should be culturally appropriate and socially
acceptable. Discovering what is going on at this phatic moment may eventually tell us a
good deal about the larger organism of human interaction with which it is associated
because "human interpersonal forces are unleashed when people say goodbye to one
another" (Knapp et al. 1973, p. 182). That is the rationale for me to do this research — to
fill up the gap in understanding how interpersonal communication is terminated from
sociolinguistic point of view.

Brown (1996) points out that non-Indo-European languages, such as Japanese,
Chinese, and Korean, "constitute a good test of the universality of the invariant norms"
(p. 44, italicized added). I believe that this study of different linguistic routines in leave-
taking between Chinese and American English (an Indo-European language) will not
only "constitute a good test" of Brown and Levinson's theory, but also make some
contribution to finding a more encompassing theory of universal linguistic politeness.

This is my ultimate goal in carrying out this study. That realization is still not in sight yet

because of the lack of comprehensive and systematic study, especially on non-western
polite linguistic behavior.

One objective of this study is to get some attitudinal information from both speech
communities on different ways of leave-taking, which has not been done previously. In
my pilot study, I only collected data through recording dialogues after dinner. Thus the
data analysis then was mainly based on the recorded speech acts which have shown some
marked differences between Chinese and Americans. However, there is no information
on what people from one speech community think of others if they encounter the
different linguistic behaviors, such as how Americans think of the Chinese you-patterned
leave-taking excuses and what the Chinese attitudes are towards the American I-patterned
good-bye. The data collected for this study (See Chapter 3 and Chapter 4) will definitely
make up the lack of this information, which is crucial for analyzing and explaining the
linguistic routines in this speech event (leave-taking), since it will provide some valuable
evidence on how culturally-rooted expectation effects people’s judgement on some
linguistic performance. This information will also help to understand how
miscommunication occurs when people from different cultural backgrounds and speech
communities employ their own linguistic patterns in showing politeness to keep smooth
interpersonal relationships.

In addition, politeness touches on issues, as Watts et al. (1992) points out, that are
crucial not only for the sociolinguistic study, but also in the life of every individual
human being. I hope that the findings from this study will also shed some light in
intercultural/cross-cultural communication and interlanguage pragmatics in the SLA

(second language acquisition) research.

1.2 Research questions and hypotheses

Besides finding more answers to the questions raised in the previous study, which are
(1) what the difference in linguistic routines used in leave-taking between Chinese and
Americans is; (2) why there exists such a difference, I want to answer the following
additional questions:

a. Is there any marked attitudinal difference between the two groups towards each
other’s way of giving excuses for taking leave after dinner?

b. What problem does Brown and Levinson's typology of politeness strategies

have in explaining the different polite linguistic patterns employed by American
and Chinese guests in leave-taking after dinner?

0. Is there a way to elaborate Brown and Levinson’s theory, as O’Driscoll suggests,
so that it can be applicable to both western and non-western linguistic politeness
behavior?

In spite of the criticism on Brown and Levinson’s “westernized” approach to
analyzing linguistic usage of politeness, what is discussed in Brown and Levinson’s
theory, especially the human need/want to be liked and to be free of imposition (positive
face and negative face in Brown and Levinson’s terms), is hard to be denied of its
universality. A normal person in any speech community is born with such a need and
preference, though their cultural backgrounds may constrain their personal want and
inclination. As a matter of fact, the concept of face dualism in Brown and Levinsion’s
theory has been quite successfully applied to a number of studies, as listed by O’Driscoll
(1996, p3), such as an exposition of the communicative norms of Singapore Chinese by

Kuiper and Tan Gek Lin (1989), illumination of the Japanese system of honoriﬁcs by

Tokunaga (1992), examination of nominal forms of address used by Koreans by Kroger
et a1 (1984), and comparative study of British and Greek norms of politeness by Sigianou
(1992)

Then, if we scrutinize the research criticizing the claimed universality of the Brown
and Levinson’s theory, we will notice that the focus of the criticism is predominantly on
their concept of the negative face and negative politeness (Gu, 1990; Ide, 1989; Mao,
1994; Matsumoto, 1989; Nwoye, 1992; Pavlidou, 1994; Ting-Toomey, 1994; Wiersbicka,
1985). That should not be difficult to understand. Many non-Western cultures, just as a
number of studies asserted (Gu, 1990; Ide, 1989; Mao, 1994; Matsumoto, 1989; Nwoye,
1992; Watts et al, 1992), emphasize group identity more than self interest. That means
that positive face, “the desire that the self-image be appreciated and approved of” (Brown
and Levinson, 1987, p. 61), is crucial in personal relationship and interpersonal
communication in these cultures. Thus we can safely say that the desire to be liked, or
positive face, is universally shared, whether a person is from the east or the west, whether
from a collectivistic or individualistic culture. Thus, I believe that Brown and Levinson’s
theory is ﬂawed mainly in their deﬁnitions of negative face and of negative politeness,
which seriously jeopardizes their claimed pan-cultural validity. However, as O’Driscoll
(1996) complains, we cannot throw away the bath water with the baby in it.

Watts (1992) deﬁnes politeness (“politic behavior” in his words) as "socio-culturally
determined behavior directed towards the goal of establishing and/or maintaining in a
state of equilibrium the personal relationships between the individuals of a social group"
during an on-going process of interaction” (p. 50). Though there is no agreement on

what exactly the notion of politeness is, many researchers indicated, explicitly or

inexplicitly, that linguistic politeness is the pragmatic phenomenon in which the
participants of one social group, in attempting to smoothly achieve their communicative
goals, make linguistic choices which are discerned to be appropriate and socially
acceptable to the expected norms of the contextual situation in that speech community.
(Coulmas, 1981; Garcia, 1989; Gumperz & Roberts, 1991; Ide, 1989; Jary, 1998; Kasper,
1990', Lii-Shih, 1994; Matsumoto, 1988; Meier, 1995; Nwoye, 1992; Pandharipande,
1992; O’Driscoll, 1996; Zhu et al., 2000). In a word, polite linguistic behavior is realized
through communication when the external expectation is properly satisﬁed. Since it is
beyond the scope of this study to debate on what politeness is, I will take this concept of
politeness in this study without ﬁthher discussion to analyze the different speech acts and
attitudes in different leave-taking after dinner between Chinese and Americans in an
attempt to ﬁnd a universal theory for linguistic politeness.

I agree with Brown and Levinson in that “face is the public self-image that every
member wants to claim for himself” (1987, p. 61). In order to smoothly achieve a desired
goal in a communicative interaction, the speaker (S) will try to present a “good” self-
image by performing some polite speech act to the hearer (H) with an intention to save
face for both sides, as Brown and Levinson suggest (p. 62). However, in a speech event,
the affect of such a linguistic behavior does not depend on S’s concern of not performing
FTAs (face-threatening-acts) but at the mercy of H’s perception and judgement. This
perception or judgment is heavily inﬂuenced by culturally rooted and preconceived
expectations for this speciﬁc speech event, more often unconscious than conscious. That
is just as Meier (1995) states, politeness is judged “relative to a particular context and a

particular addressee’s expectation” (p. 387). Whether an utterance is polite or rude is not

10

decided by S himself or herself, no matter how well he or she is able to apply the
strategies in doing FTAs proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987). It is H who gives the
judgment to 8’5 linguistic performance.

Culturally rooted expectations and judgement for a polite linguistic behavior cannot
be well explained by Brown and Levinson’s theory. “Behavior is often judged by the
‘self’ as well as being socially judged by others with whom one is in interaction”(DeVos
et a1, 1985, p. 7). "Self" is an important concept for understanding social behavior and
social conduct, of which linguistic routines are part. Therefore it is difﬁcult for any
linguistic politeness theory to claim its universality without considering the status of self
in social intercourse. The study of politeness, Watts et al. (1992) point out, should
directly or indirectly focus on the presentation, maintenance and even adjustment of a
concept of the "presentation of self' in the course of social interaction, on the historical
growth of culturally speciﬁc patterns of behavior, and on the distribution of status and
power in social groups (p. 1).

With this belief and understanding of the concept of linguistic politeness, I predict
that the result of the survey via the questionnaire of this study should show that the
Chinese respondents consider the American I-patterned leave-taking self-centered,
uncaring, or even selﬁsh, and that the Americans regard you-patterned Chinese farewell
insincere, indirect, or even rude. My hypothesis is that these misinterpretations of the
linguistic routines used by other speech community come from divergence in culturally
conditioned expectations (Kasper, 1990, p. 208), which are rooted in different
conceptions of ‘self’ in social and interpersonal conducts. That is because a linguistic

behavior in a speech community, as any other social behavior, is judged polite or

11

impolite, acceptable or unacceptable, in reference to social expectations of the speaker,
which is heavily rooted in the cultural perception of role of self in that speech
community. I hope that, with the data on linguistic patterns in leave-taking and
attitudinal information from the two speech communities, I will be able to revise Brown
and Levinson's theory when answering the research questions mentioned at the beginning

of this section.

1.3 Theoretical framework

The main theoretical framework for this study is Brown and Levinson’s (1978,
1987) theory of universal linguistic politeness, which, as mentioned previously,
speciﬁcally claims its pancultural validity and thus inspired more cross-cultural and
comparative sociolinguistic study in the past three decades. Among the critics on Brown
and Levinson’s universal politeness, O’Driscoll (1996) has tried to elaborate and revise
Brown and Levinson’s theory of linguistic politeness with challenge to the notion of face,
the heart of the theory, in order to keep its universal applicability. Therefore in this
section, we will ﬁrst review Brown and Levinson’s theory of universal linguistic

politeness in 1.41. Then we will proceed to O’Driscoll’s theory in 1. 22‘.

3.! I.

1.3.1 Brown and Levinson's theory of universal linguistic politeness
Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) draw their universal politeness theory mainly
from two sets of ideas: Grice's Cooperative Principle (CP) (1975) in conversations and

Goffman's metaphorical notion of "face" (1967) in interpersonal communication. They

12

state that, at the heart the Grice's proposals], there is "a working assumption by
conversationalists of the rational and efficient nature of talk" (p4). Since no deviation
from rational efﬁciency is without reason, and some CP maxims are "ﬂouted" by some
polite ways of talking, Brown and Levinson (1987) claim that their politeness principles
are " just such principled reasons for deviation" (p. 5). For instance, instead of saying
"Tell me the time, " a speaker "violates" the Maxim of Manner by saying "You couldn't
by any chance tell me the time, could you?" when he is conforming to conventional
expectations of politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987, p. 59).

The core concept of Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory is their notion of face
which they claim is derived from that of Goffman2 (1967) and from the English folk term
(p. 61). Face, "the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself," they
assume, is something that all competent adult members of a society have. Based on their
concept of face they propose two related aspects of face: "positive face," the want to be

approved and recognized by others, and "negative face, " the want to be free of imposition

 

1 Grice's (1989) proposed that conversation is regulated by some principle of
cooperation, "Cooperative Principle (CP)," with four conversational categories, Quality
maxim, Quantity maxim, Relevance maxim and Manner maxim). The deﬁnitions of the
four maxims proposed by Grice (197 5) are:

Quality maxim: say only what you believe is true.

Quantity maxim: give only the required information, no less or no more.

Relevance maxim: be relevant.

Manner maxim: be clear and unambiguous. (p. 49)

Grice proposes that conversational implicatures can be interpreted as hearers have
the assumption that a rational speaker would observe theses maxims unless he or she has
some good reason to violate them (p. 51).

2 Goffman (1967) deﬁnes face as "the positive social value a person effectively claims
for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an
image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes when a person makes a
good showing for his profession or religion by making a good showing for himself“ (p.
5). It is questionable whether Brown and Levinson (1987) truly following Goffman's
line (Fraser, 1990; Mao, 1994).

13

(Brown and Levinson 1987, p. 61). Though they admit that the content of face will be
different from culture to culture, they assume that their theory has a universal
applicability since "the mutual knowledge of members' public self-image or face, and the
social necessity to orient oneself to it in interaction, are universal" (Brown and Levinson,
1987,p.62)

Given the assumption of the universality of face and of rationality, they claim that
there are certain kinds of speech acts "intrinsically" threatening to face, which they call
face-threatening-acts (F TAs). Performing these acts will run contrary to the positive or
negative face wants of the speaker (S) or of the bearer (H). Due to the mutual
vulnerability of face, they suggest, any rational agent will seek to avoid these FTAs or
employ certain strategies to minimize or counteract the threat unless he or she has to
perform such a FTA because of the efﬁciency or urgency of communication. The
different strategies for doing a FTA are shown below:

1. without redressive action, baldly

< on record < 2. positive politeness

Do the FTA with redressive action

4. off record 3. negative politeness
5. Don’t’ do the FTA
(Brown and Levinson, 1987, p. 69)
8'5 choice of a certain strategy is based on the fact that he wants (a) to communicate
the content of an FTA, (b) to be efficient, and (c) to maintain H's face. He can either do
the FTA or does not do it at all. If he does the FTA, then he can either go on "record" or

"off record." In doing an FTA off record, S does not have to be held accountable because

14

he can express his intention in an ambiguous way which may have more than one
interpretation. If he/she chooses to do the FTA on record, he/she can either do it "baldly"
or with redressive action, which means that he/she will try to counteract the potential face
damage of the FTA (Brown and Levinson, 1987, pp. 68-69). In performing FTAs with
redressive action to H's positive face — the perennial desire to be liked — S adopts positive
politeness; if S tries to respect H's negative want — to be free of imposition — he will be
negatively polite.

Since there is a natural tension in negative politeness between the desire to go off
record to avoid imposing and to go on record but counteract the threat, Brown and
Levinson (1987) state, a compromise is reached in conventionalized indirectness. Because
they have become fully conventionalized as a way of doing an FTA, many indirect
requests in English have become on record (e. g., "Can you close the window?" is an on
record request, the same as "Close the window," rather than a question) (p. 70).

Brown and Levinson (1987) suggest that there are several factors inﬂuencing the
choices of strategies, such as the social factors, D (the social distance between S and H),
P (the relative power of S and H), and R (the absolute ranking of impositions of a speech
act in the particular culture). The seriousness or the weightiness (W) of a particular FTA

(x) can be calculated in the formula Wx = D (S, H) + P (H, S) + Rx (p. 76).

1.3.2 O'Driscoll's revised version of face dualism
From a theoretical point of view, O'Driscoll (1996) suggests a revised version to
Brown and Levinson's face dualism with a view to upholding the claim that these are

universal phenomena, because it (face dualism) is “just too valuable to be jettisoned”

15

(p. 4). He claims that the concept of “face” is universal but its consciously perceived
constituents inevitably vary from one culture to another. Therefore he advocates for a
“theoretical construct, not a notion” which various societies invest with varying
connotations (p. 8).

O’Driscoll (1996) claims that the human existence manifests the fact that people
need to do things with others and some things on their own (p. 10). Thus every person
has two “wants” as two opposing sides of a human being in interaction. On one side,
there is “the need to come together, make contact and identify with others; to have ties, to
belong, and to merge.” On the other side, there is “the need to go off alone, avoid contact
and be individuated; to be dependent, and to separate” (p. 4). The one involving
“contact” is “positive want” and the one involving “lack of contact” is “negative want.”

This “want dualism” is different from Brown and Levinson’s “face dualism,”
O’Driscoll (1996) asserts, in that (a) the “want dualism” encompasses a wider sphere of
activity and that (b) it derives from pre-theoretical deductive reasoning than from folk
notions, as Brown and Levinson did, or from empirical observation, as the other research
did (p. 10). He maintains that positive and negative wants are sometimes antagonistic and
there are situations where it is not possible to satisfy both simultaneously. The human
condition, therefore, involves the need for some sort of balance between the satisfaction
of the two poles of merging (positive wants) and individuation (negative want) (p.12).

According to O'Driscoll (1996), positive face is “not the desire for merging/
association/belonging itself, but rather the need for some symbolic recognition of this
desire by others.” That is the need for one’s positive wants to be recognized. It is the

same with negative face, which is “not the desire for independence/disassociation/

l6

individuation itself, but rather the need for some symbolic recognition of this desire by
others" (p. 14, my italics), which is the recognition of one’s negative want. The
constituents of positive and negative face, O’Driscoll (1996) claims, “cannot vary cross-
culturally because they are inherent in the human condition” and “are not part of
foreground consciousness. Their existence does not depend on their recognition in
society at large” (p. 15). Therefore, the applicability of this concept of face dualism,
O’Driscoll (1996) argues, does not depend on acceptance of a strategy-oriented
motivation for politeness, or on assumed correspondence with degree of politeness

(p. 28).

While the desire for a good face is universal, the constituents of a good face
culturally vary as the result of another aspect of face, which O'Driscoll (1996) calls
"cultural-speciﬁc face." This cultural-speciﬁc face "exists by virtue of the value-
judgments of other people" (p.14), thus it is “the foreground-conscious desire” for a good
face. People in different cultures have different values, so "the contents of a good face
vary according to the kind of value judgments that people make" (p. 14). Therefore, some
"good" attributes are related to positive face, some to negative face, and others to neither.

With the three reﬂexes of face, i.e. positive-face, negative face and cultural face,
O’Driscoll (1996) discards the notion of threat to face, which is the main concern in
Brown and Levinson’s model to perform some intrinsic FTAs with some redressive
strategies. He contends that this concept is relevant in many polite interactions, but “it
cannot be a primary aspect of a cross-culturally valid model of politeness” (p. 19). “It is
quite normal for people,” O’Driscoll (1996) states, “to have either of these faces attended

to in interaction without the slightest awareness that these were being threatened” (p. 19).

17

O’Driscoll (1996) thus proposes that positive and negative politeness “is not a binary
choice but rather a matter of degree of proximity” because politeness dualism operates on
a spectrum (p. 28). Therefore the effect of a speech act may be very positively polite or
very negatively polite or only slightly so. One reason for some difﬁculty in deciding
whether a speech act is positive or negative as some researchers indicate (Fraser &
Nolen, 1981, Hill et al., 1986), O’Driscoll (1996) argues, comes from the fact the speech
act is “somewhere near the middle of politeness spectrum” (p. 28). Another reason is that
“politeness utterances are sometimes addressed principally to culture-speciﬁc face”
which cannot be explained in the terms of face dualism (p. 28). He believes that this
revised face dualism will uphold the claimed pancultural validity of Brown and

Levinson’s theory of universal linguistic politeness in cross-cultural study.

18

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In this chapter, we will look at three areas of the research literature which are closely
related to this study. One research area is on the Chinese concept of politeness3.
“Perceptions of politeness,” just as Watts et a1. (1992) point out, “are likely to differ
across cultures, sometimes quite alarmingly” (p.15). To understand cultural signiﬁcance
of how to behave politely, linguistically or otherwise, is the ﬁrst step to interpret cross-
cultural phenomena of linguistic politeness for the goal of ﬁnding a universal theory.
This knowledge will certainly help to comprehend the different speech acts and attitudes
between Chinese and Americans with regard to leave-taking.

Another area is on the origin of face concept. As discussed in Chapter 1, face is the
key issue in Brown and Levinson’s theory of universal linguistic politeness. According
to Brown and Levinson, saving face is the basic concern in choosing various politeness
strategies in performing any FTA (face-threatening-act) in their theory, which is often
referred to as the "face-saving" view by other researchers on linguistic politeness
(Kasper, 1990). Thus, face has been the focus of many critics on Brown and Levinson’s
claimed pancultural applicability. Brown and Levinson (1987) assert that their notion of
“face” is derived from that of Goffman and from the English folk term (p. 61). However,

the ﬁrst research paper on face published in the West was done by a Chinese scholar as

 

3 The American concept of politeness is not going to be discussed here with an
assumption that it is covered in Brown and Levinson’s discussion on the conception of
politeness (see Chapter 1).

19

early as 19454. Some researchers believe that the concept of face originated with the
Chinese (Chang & Holt, 1994; Ho, 1976; Hu, 1944; Mao, 1994; Morisaki & Gudykunst,
1994; Ting-Toomey & Cocroﬂ, 1994; Zhai, 1994). Mao (1994) maintains that even the
English folk concept of face “seem[s] to be Chinese in origin” (p. 45 5)5. Therefore it is
crucial to have some understanding of the origin of face concept for a better idea of the
debate on universals of linguistic politeness.

The third area of research is on closings of conversation and leave-taking. Though
the research on these topics is quite "fragile," as Knapp et al. (1973) complained, it does
provide some insight on this phatic communion. Some researchers are interested in the
fundamental order of organization in closing a conversation, such as Schegloff and Sacks

(1973 )6 who take it "as a problem for conversationalists" (p. 292). Others treat leave-

 

4 Hsien Chin Hu published his Ph.D dissertation “The Chinese Concept of Face” in
American Anthropologist in 1944, which, as claimed by some researchers, had some
inﬂuence on Goffman’s deﬁnition of face (Chang & Holt, 1994; Ho, 1976; Morisaki &
Gudykunst, 1994; Ting-Toomey & Cocroft, 1994; Zhai, 1994). (Goffman ( 1967)
acknowledged this in his work (p. 5-6), even though he did not speciﬁcally make the
claim that he got his face notion from the Chinese concept. According to Goffman
(1967), face is “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the
line others assume he has taken during a particular conduct” (p. 5). Thus, face is public
image that is “on loan” to individuals from society, and it can be lost, maintained or
enhanced depending on whether a person presents proper identity in a situation (pp. 5-7).

5 Mao (1994) explains that ‘face’ originally appeared in “to save one’s face” in the
English community in China, and conveyed a meaning of one’s credit, good name, and
reputation (p. 454). I think that English word for this abstract concept of public self-
image is “appearance” rather than “face.” “Keeping Up Appearances”, a British comedy
shown on PBS, is a good case in point. In that TV show, Hyacinth, a woman of middle
class but born from a lower class, attempts by all means to keep her lower family
background secret by putting up a “good” front — appearance.” Yao mianz, “want face,”
might be a good translation in Chinese for the title of this TV show.

6 One thing needs to be remembered is that Schegloff and Sacks' research is not quite
the same as the other leave-taking research. Their study is based on telephone
conversation while the others are more face-to-face interaction. However, some features
discussed in Schegloff and Sacks' research display general features in leave-taking,
whether face-to-face or on the telephone.

20

taking as a practical problem for the participants and are interested in the function of
speech acts used in conducting this speech event, whether within one speech community
such as the research done by Knapp et al. (1973) and Laver (1975, 1981), or between two
cultures, such as House's (1982) (English and German) and Hu and Grove‘s (1991)

studies (Chinese and American English).

2.1 Research on limao, Chinese politeness

The Chinese equivalent to the English work “politeness” is limao, which is
composed of two words, li “courtesy, etiquette” and mao “appearance.” Etymologically,
limao is derived from Ii, which entails a sense of ritual correctness and social hierarchy
and is usually translated as "propriety," a virtue emphasized by Confucian philosophy
(Bockover, 1997; Chang and Holt, 1994; Mote 1989).

As it is well known, the Chinese culture is deeply rooted in Confucianism, whose
fundamental principle is humanism, which is understood as a warm human feeling
between people with a strong emphasis on harmony and reciprocity (Bond, 1986, 1993;
Hsu, 1981; Yum, 1988). Keeping harmony in social relationships is the most important
thing that a person can achieve in the Chinese culture. As humanism, the stress of
harmony is naturally focused on relationships among members of a society and on
fulfillment of reciprocal obligations to their "destined" responsibilities. According to
Confucius, there are ﬁve cardinals (Wu Lun) which regulate human relationships: loyalty
between King and subject, closeness between father and son, distinction in duty between
husband and wife, obedience to orders between elders and youngsters, and mutual faith
between friends (Yum, 1988, p. 376). These relationships "are not based on individual

proﬁt, but rather on the betterment of the common good" (Yum, 1988, p. 377).

21

In order to keep harmonious interpersonal relationship, everyone is circumscribed by
rules of correct behavior and morals, li, which later becomes limao, “politeness.”
Sincerity, solidarity, mutual consideration, empathy, modesty, deference, and not
offending others, etc. are often considered to be among the basic characteristics of
Chinese politeness (Gu, 1990; Lii-shih, 1994; Ma, 1992, Zhai, 1994). Gu (1990)
generalized the Chinese concept of politeness into four basic notions: respectfulness,
modesty, attitudinal warmness (warmth), and reﬁnement, which he explicates as follows:

"RespectﬁJlness" is self‘s positive appreciation or admiration of other concerning the

latter's face, social status, and so on. "Modesty" can be seen as another way of

saying "self-denigration." "Attitudinal warmth" is self‘s demonstration of kindness,
consideration, and hospitality to other. Finally, "reﬁnement" refers to self‘s

behavior to other which meets certain standards (p. 23 9).

These notions can be categorized into one important concept in Chinese politeness,
xian ren houji "ﬁrst others, then oneself“. This concept reﬂects the "Confucian legacy of
consideration of others" which is the underlying principle for Chinese to keep
harmonious personal relationships (Bond, 1991, 1996; Chang and Holt, 1994; Hsu, 1985;
Pan et al., 1994; Yum, 1991). The core concept of Chinese limao “politeness,” Gu
(1990) claims, is denigrating self and respecting other. This self-denying concept is
embodied in a beginning statement of a Chinese book on politeness and etiquette:
“Speaking of It [politeness], humble yourself and respect other” (Dai, 1957, cited by Gu,
1990,p.238)

There are two essential principles underneath the concept of limao “politeness,” Gu

(1990) maintains: the principle of sincerity and the principle of balance7. The principle

 

7 These two principles, claimed by Zhu (2000), have been promoted in the Chinese
society ever since Confucius’ time as the two cardinal principles of social interaction,
which must be upheld in order to achieve harmony (p. 99).

22

of sincerity may take the polite use of language far beyond sentential territory into
conversation because sincere behaviors, linguistic or non-linguistic, are “intrinsically
polite” (Zhu, 2000, p. 99). The principle of balance, on the other hand, calls for special
attention to others and readiness to withdraw or alter one’s action to meet other’s face
need. This may predetermine the mutual relationship long after a speech event is
terminated (Gu, 1990; Zhu, 2000). A Chinese saying huan li “returning politeness”
clearly indicates the requirement for keeping this balance.

Therefore, Chinese View politeness as a normative and ”the breach of it will incur
social sanction” (Gu, 1990, p. 240). In this sense, as Hinkel (1997) points out, Chinese
politeness is requisite social phenomenon that transcends the needs of the individual and
the individual’s face and upholds the cohesiveness of the group (p. 7). This is different
from Brown and Levinson’s claimed politeness, which, more or less a western norm, acts
as an instrumental system of means to satisfy an individual face wants, speciﬁcally the

negative face.

2.2 Face in Chinese, lian and mianzi8

F ace is "the most delicate standard by which Chinese social intercourse is regulated"
(Lin Yu-tang, cited by Ho, 1976, p. 867). Since it is quite complex and abstract, it is
almost impossible to give a precise deﬁnition of the Chinese concept of face9. It seems

that everyone has some notion of what face entails (Chang and Holt, 1994; Ho, 197 6; Hu,

 

8 The spelling of the two words, lion and mianzi, used in this paper are in pinyin, a
phonetic system used in China for transliterating Chinese characters into the Roman
alphabet. In other research papers, the same words are spelled as lien and mien-tzu,
which are in the Wade-Gile system.

23

1944; Zhai, 1994). What makes it more complex is that there are two Chinese words
literally translated into “face” in English, lion and mianzi. These two words are closely
related and used interchangeably sometimes (Ho, 1976; Zhai, 1994), yet they do stand for
different concepts.

Lian would be the translation most Chinese will give to the English word ‘face’
because it has both a concrete meaning, the front part of the head, and an abstract
denotation associated with the sociological facework initiated by Goffman. Mianzi, on
the other had, only has some conceptual implication, which is “heavily laden with
psychological and sociological meanings” (Chang & Holt, 1994, p. 98). Hu (1945)
makes an important distinction on the two Chinese concepts of face. Lian refers to "the
respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation" and is "both a social
sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction (Hu, 1944, p. 45).
Thus, according to Hu (1944), [ion is more related to the integrity of self's moral
character as it “represents the conﬁdence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral
character” (p. 45). The loss of [ion makes it impossible for a person to function properly
within his community. Therefore, [ion is both a social sanction for enforcing moral
standards and internalized sanction (Hu, p. 45). Diu lian "losing face" in Chinese means
that a person does something morally wrong or socially frowned on according to the
Chinese tradition, basically Confucianism. This “losing face,” as Hu (1944) asserts, puts
one outside of the society of decent human beings and threatens him with isolation and

insecurity (p. 45). To tell someone bu yao lian “not want or care about one’s face” —

 

9 Lu Hsun (Lu Xun), a well-known Chinese writer and critic once wrote "But what is
this thing called face? It is well if you don't stop to think, but the more you think the
more conﬁised you grow. " (Ho, 1976; Zhai, 1994)

24

moral reputation” is a very strong accusation in Chinese, meaning the person is immoral
and shameless").

Mianzi, the other word translated as "face" in English, refers to one's reputation or
prestige, either achieved "through getting on in life through success and ostentation" (Hu,
1944, p. 45)" or through the scrutiny of others, with the standard of acknowledgment
reﬂecting both social and moral values (Chang and Holt, 1994, p. 99)“. Therefore,
mianzi is a measure of the recognition accorded by society and it is a function of one’s
social status (Hu, 1944; Ho, 1976). Diu mianzi "losing mianzi" refers to a situation when
one's social status is not recognized or denied, or a person lost his reputation or prestige
due to some failure or misfortune. Saying someone buyao mianzi “not want or be
concerned about mianzi” in doing things means that the person cares little of his/her
reputation or image in getting what he/she wants. Thus, mianzi seems to more socially
determined and depends more or less on public opinion (external), and lian is more
morally decided (internal) and based more on moral standards.

Therefore, mianzi, rather than Iian, which is concerned both moral principles and
social requirement as well, seems closer to the conceptions of face as in the sociological
facework originated by Goffman, from which Brown and Levinson's deﬁnition of face is
derived. In addition, some scholars (Chang & Holt, 1994; Gu, 1990; Ho, 1976; Mao,

1994), in discussion of the “face” issue, ignore the distinctions between lian and mianzi

 

10 This is a rather simple translation of this phrase since the denotation of bu yao lian
“not to want face” is more than that. The details are not discussed here due to the limit of
space and of focus of this paper. See Hu (1944, pp. 51-52) for more elaborate
explanation.

11 Though, as pointed out by Ho (1976), the concept of mianzi is not completely devoid
of moral content because the meanings of lian and mianzi “vary according to verbal
context” as well as being interchangeable in some contexts (p. 868).

25

to avoid some unnecessary confusion since these two terms are often interchangeable in
Chinese”. Since this paper does not deal with distinction between [ion and mianzi, I will
only discuss mianzi and its constituents. Therefore, whenever the Chinese face is
mentioned in this paper, it refers to mianzi rather than lian.

Chang and Holt (1994) suggest that there are two perspectives in mianzi: personal
and interpersonal (pp. 100-102). From a personal perspective, mianzi can be claimed by
an individual based on his/her perceived social status. It can be enhanced or decreased
depending on how an individual presents himself or herself. For instance, one's mianzi
may be enhanced by having invited some important people to a dinner, or lost if the
invitation is turned down. This public image can also be claimed by the members of the
in-group, such as family members and friends13 (Chang and Holt, 1994; Ho, 1976; Hu,
1944; Zhai, 1994). The interpersonal perspective of mianzi, on the other hand, is realized
"in the process of interaction, and in the give-and-take of daily social life" (Chang and
Holt, 1994, p. 101). As mianzi is said to be distributed among all interactants in a
situation, everyone is expected to know how to respect other's mianzi in order to ensure
smooth social interaction. Since issues of mianzi cannot be avoided, "they must be

negotiated between interactants themselves" (Chang and Holt, 1994, p. 102).

 

12 Some researchers left lian out of their discussion but only focused on mianzi in their
study of facework, such as Chang & Holt (1994).

13 Therefore, a high ofﬁcial may claim a big mianzi because of his position, i.e. he can
get more privilege than others because of his mianzi -- which is from his power and
status. His father can also claim his mianzi to get some privilege not because of his own
position (he may just be an illiterate farmer) but because of his son's position. This
shared mianzi results in the complicated kuan xi wang "relationship nets" in Chinese
society. (See Bond (1993), Chang and Holt (1994), Ho (1976), and Zhai (1994) for more
explanation.)

26

To keep up one’s face (mianzi), Ho (1976) claims, individuals have to “satisfy the
minimum requirement a society has placed on them so as to “measure up to expectations”
in their social performance (p. 872). However, as social expectations are reciprocal, Ho
(1976) points out, the possibility of losing face can occur “not only form the individual’s
failure to meet his obligations but also from the failure of others to act in accordance with
his expectations of them — that is, not only from the individual’s own action, but also
from how he is treated by others” (p. 873). Ho (1976) believes that, even though an
individual who tries to maintain his or her face needs to act both directly and indirectly in
regard to other’s face, his or her behavior is “dictated by the necessity of meeting the
expectations of others (p. 873). In summary, face — mianzi - in Chinese is only
meaningful when perceived in relation to others because it places more emphasis on the
nature of relationship (Chang & Holt, 1994; Ho, 1976, 1994; Scollon & Scollon, 1983,
1991, 1994, 1995) than the effort in image management as discussed in Brown and

Levinson’s theory.

2.3 Research on leave-taking
In this section, we will look at the research on leave-taking in three parts: structural
organization, communicative ﬁrnctions, and differences in leave-taking between Chinese

and Americans.

2.3.1 Structural organization of closing
The research on structural organization of termination of an interaction is based on
the assumption that there is orderliness in the components of this last stage of a

conversation. This assumption has been observed in leave-taking studies such as

27

Schegloff and Sacks (1973), House (1982), and Knapp et al. (1973). The explanation of
this behavioral regularity attending leave-taking, suggested by Schegloff and Sacks
(1973), is that members of a society methodically produce the components in this phatic
communion (p. 290).

In their paper Opening up Closings, Schegloff and Sacks (1973) discuss the
structural organization of closing in American English. Although the use of terminal
exchanges, like exchanging "Goodbye" or "bye-bye," is a common way to close a
conversation, they ﬁnd that "the analysis of terminal 'bye bye' exchanges is inadequate as
an analysis of closing because participants in a conversation usually "collaborate in
arriving at farewell exchange" (p. 291). Thus, Schegloff and Sacks (1973) differentiate
topic closing from conversation closing based on the nature of adjacency pairs (i.e. two
utterances in an adjacent position produced by different speakers) and a basic rule of
adjacency pair operation”, and propose "the notion of a properly initiated closing
section."

The initiated closing section, as Schegloff and Sacks (1973) suggest, consists of pre-
closing and warrant for closing. Silence is one possible15 non-verbal marker for pre-
closing. Some verbal markers for pre—closing, as Schegloff and Sacks suggest, are the
use of some terms like "We-el....", "OK....," ”So-oo" when these forms constitute the

entire utterance (p. 303). However, as these utterances are not designated for the closing

 

14 A basic rule of adjacency pair operation, deﬁned by Schegloff and Sacks (1973), is
that the second pair part is uttered to complete the ﬁrst one upon its possible completion
with the recognition of the ﬁrst part (p. 296). In other word, when one speaker stops
his/her part of talk on its ﬁrst possible completion of a topic, the next speaker,
recognizing the termination, starts and produces the second part of the same pair.

28

function and may be used elsewhere in a conversation, their appearance in a conversation
can only be considered as "possible pre-closing." Only when the participants make no
reference to the particulars of the conversation with these utterances, or lay no ﬁirther
claim to a new topic and accept the intention of closing, so "pre-closing" ceases to be
"pre," is the closing section warranted and can proceed to the ﬁnal end of conversation,
such as exchanging terminals like "Bye-bye," "See you," and so on.

Besides these forms such as "OK," "We-e1," "So-oo," which make no reference to
particulars of the conversation where they occur, there is another way to ensure warrant
for closing, which is the I gotta go statement and its variants and expansions, such as
"The baby is crying, I gotta go," "I gotta go, my dinner is burning, " etc. Schegloff and
Sacks ( 1973) point out that although I gotta go cannot prohibit further talk because others
may insert a new topic aﬂer it, it does not speciﬁcally invite such a sequel, as "OK" does.
For the initiation of a closing section in a way that discourages the speciﬁc alternative of
re-opening topic talk, this pre-closing may be more effective because it announces rather
than simply accomplishes a warrant for closing (p. 311).

Their conclusion is that there are crucial components for the achievement of proper
closing: (1) terminal exchange which achieves the collaborative termination of the
transition rule”, and (2) the proper initiation of the closing section which warrants the

undertaking of the routine whose termination in the terminal exchange properly closes the

 

15 Silence may also be a sign of the transition to a new topic in a conversation when
one speaker's completion is not followed by a possible next speaker's talk. That is not
termination but attributable silence (Schegloff & Sacks 1973, p. 295).

16 Transition rule, according to Schegloff and Sacks (1973) is that within any current
utterance, possible next speaker selection is accomplished, and that upon possible
completion of any current utterance, such selection takes effect and transition to a next
speaker becomes relevant (p. 293)

29

conversation (Schegloff and Sacks, 197 3, p. 293). Although they claim at the beginning
of their paper that they are not interested in the practical problems in closing
conversations, Schegloff and Sacks' study (1973) does, as they hoped, "furnish bases for
the existence of practical problems" (p. 290) with their convincing arguments for
conversationalists to understand the structure of this phatic communion. Their proposed
notion of pre-closing has provided basic criteria for analyzing data from the recorded
leave-taking dialogues for the present study to decide when a farewell truly starts in an
after-dinner conversation. However, their conclusion is mainly based on telephone
conversations which are normally held between two speakers without seeing each other.
Talking over the telephone is different from leave-taking conversation after dinner

because the latter is conducted face-to-face and often involves more than two participants.

2.3.2 Communicative functions of leave taking

The major purpose of leave-taking is to facilitate smoother transition from a state of
talk or contact to a state of separateness (House 1982; Knapp et. al. 1973; Laver 1981).
The linguistic routines in the closing phase, therefore, are often highly elaborated
compared with the opening phase of conversation (Laver 1981, p. 302). In discussing the
linguistic routines and politeness in leave-taking, Laver (1981) discusses the two
principal functions of that phatic communion: achieving a cooperative parting and
consolidating the relationship between the two participants. The ﬁrst function, achieving
a cooperative parting, mitigation as he refers to it, is to make sure that any feeling of
rejection by the person being left can be removed by appropriate reassurance from the
person leaving. The second one, which he calls consolidation, ensures the possibility of

future encounters (p. 303). Using Brown and Levinson's notion of face, Laver (1981)

30

suggests that mitigatory comments, such as "I'm sorry I have to go, I have to give a
lecture," "I'm afraid I must be off, I have to relieve the babysitter," etc. are usually
addressed to the negative aspect of face of the listener (the want to be free of imposition),
while consolidatory comments like "It was nice seeing you," "I did enjoy our little talk"
are addressed to the positive aspect of face (the want to be liked and approved of)

(p. 303). Thus, the polite norm in the closing phase, as Laver (1981) suggests, seems to
use "at least one mitigatory or consolidatory phrase, together with some appropriate
formulaic phrases of parting" (p. 303).

In their study of the rhetoric of goodbye, Knapp et al. (1973) discuss and analyze
leave-taking conversations in some videotaped role-plays called "information-gathering
interviews" conducted by American English speakers”. They had student interviewers
question a professor as well as students interview each other in a same-status condition.
The other data was collected from an attitudinal ﬁle completed by the participants
following the interviews. They suggest fourteen categories to analyze the speech acts
used in leave-taking conversations, such as professional or personal inquiry, internal or
external legitimizing (i.e. giving excuses), appreciation, welfare concern, continuance,
ﬁlling, reinforcement, buffing, terminating, to name a few. Based on the result of their
study, Knapp et al. conclude that there are two major communicative functions of leave-
taking: (1) signaling inaccessibility, and (2) signaling support for the relationship (p.
196). As leave-taking signals the end of interaction, they claimed that people are often

concerned with terminating their interaction on the "right

 

17 This is inferred from the paper (p. 182) rather than speciﬁcally indicated by Knapp et
a1 (1973).

31

note,” that is on a note of mutual regard (p. 197). Knapp et al. (1973) claims that the
support function is a critical element in leave-taking because people feel that the
termination of an interaction may be perceived as a threat to terminate the relationship.
Therefore people take efforts to build, reinforce, or support the relationships “so that the
‘negativity’ of inaccessibility is offset” (p. 197).

Similar to Knapp et al. (1973) in using role-plays to collect data, House (1982), in
her study, attempts to give a contrastive discourse analysis of leave-taking between
English and German with two sets of face-to-face interactions between pairs of German
native speakers and pairs of English native speakers. The third set of data was elicited
from pairs of English native speakers and German learners of English (p. 52). Just as in
an opening phase, House (1982) states, a closing phase exhibits "the interpersonal
function of language" (p. 54, italic original) in this phatic communion to smoothly
terminate the availability to conversation. Since they so frequently occur in social
intercourse, House (1982) claims, the linguistic patterns used in leave-taking have been
reduced to routine rituals habitually employed across many different situations (p. 54).
She suggested a number of categories for the speech acts applied in closing phase, such
as conclusion, outcome check, sealing thanks, apologies, summary, and leave-taking
(terminal exchanges in Schegloff and Sack's term), etc. Under each speech act category,
House (1982) compares the difference in the closing phase between British English and
German both on a lexical level and in terms of frequency. She has found that German
native speakers tend to use fewer routine formulas than the English native speakers, who

she does suggest that there might be an interesting difference in the interactional norms in

32

frequently employ more elaborate, explicit, and "verbose" phrases. Though her
comparative study on leave-taking is among the pioneers on this speech event by far, and
the two cultures (p. 74), House (1982) does not provide an explanation for why such

difference exists.

2.3.3 Different farewells between Chinese and Americans

Hu and Grove (1991) discuss the difference in leave-taking between mainland
Chinese and Americans in their book Encountering Chinese. Focusing on providing
some helpful suggestions for Americans who reside in China, Hu and Grove only
describe the differences from their observations rather than from experimental data.
They propose that there are two phases in farewells among both Chinese and Americans
(p.29). The intention of taking leave is explicitly introduced in the ﬁrst phase, and real
departure takes place in the second one. The differences between mainland Chinese and
Americans in leave-taking, Hu and Grove (1991) point out, are (l) the ﬁrst phase of
Americans is longer than that of Chinese, which appears "abrupt" to Americans; and (2)
Americans excuse themselves more often with some factor which compels them to leave
on the basis of their own personal situations, while the Chinese excuses for leaving are
related to the other person's presumed needs; and (3) the Chinese second phase is longer
than the American because a Chinese host often accompanies the guest down several
ﬂights of stairs and out of the apartment building before exchanging terminals.
Sometimes a host would walk with his guests all the way to a bicycle rack, a compound
gate, or even a bus stop (p. 31). An American host, on the other hand, may accompany
the guest to the door or brieﬂy exit a short distance beyond it before exchanging

"Goodbye" with the guest (p. 30).

33

2.4 Summary of literature review

The research on Chinese politeness and Chinese concept of face shows that this
culture is dominated by Confucian philosophy which conducts and regulates all social
behaviors with its emphasis on harmonious human relationships. This harmony requires
one to be identiﬁed with others rather than stress on self-identity. Thus, to be limao
“polite” is to put other’s interest above one’s own, to humble oneself but elevate others,
and be sincere in one’s behavior and respectful to other’s face. Then, in order to have
mianzi “face,” one does not only have to perform well his or her role with obligations
placed by society, he or she also needs to consider other’s face, which is more important
than his or her own wishes. Only by meeting the expectations of others can a person to
maintain a good face.

The studies on leave-taking indicate that there are several features of this phatic
communion. First of all, leave-taking is not simply a speech act of exchanging terminals
as it appears to be. It is a structured speech event with some crucial components in
achieving a proper closing, such as pre-closing, warrants for closing, and ﬁnal closing.
Secondly, due to its nature of terminating an ongoing interpersonal activity, the
communicative ﬁanction of leave-taking is to facilitate a smooth transition from being
together to being separate on a "supportive" note so that the existing relationship or
friendship between the participants is not impaired but strengthened and will continue
afterwards. Nevertheless, how to conduct this phatic communion in an appropriate way
to fulﬁll its function varies from one speech community to another. These studies
provide the framework for the present study on the difference in leave-taking after dinner

between Chinese and Americans.

34

CHAPTER 3

METHOD

This chapter presents a summary of methodology used for data collection and
analysis employed in this study. In order to ﬁnd out the different ways of saying good-
bye after dinner between Americans and Chinese and their attitudes towards different
ways used by the other group, I collected data through recording leave-taking dialogues
after dinner among friends as well as carrying out an attitudinal survey through
questionnaires. This design reﬂects the main purpose of this study: to test the
applicability of Brown and Levinson's theory of universal linguistic politeness, and to
substantiate the hypotheses generated from the research on linguistic politeness and my
pilot study on the same subject, which is a linguistic behavior in a speech community is
judged in reference to social expectations of the speaker based on cultural perception of
role of self in that community. In 3.1, I will discuss the method of dialogue recordings
and analytic strategies in analyzing the data. In 3.2, I will focus on the design and
collection of the questionnaires, sample population and data analysis methods. Then in

3.3, I will brieﬂy discuss the data analysis strategies performed in this study.

3.1 Recordings of leave-taking dialogues

The data used in this study is taken from twenty audiotaped farewell conversations
among friends after dinner, of which ten are Chinese and ten are American. The Chinese
data were collected in some cities in North China with the help of the researcher’s family
and friends there. The guests and hosts are all friends. Unfortunately, two of the Chinese

recordings ended before the ﬁnal departure of the guests due to some miscommunication

35

between the researcher and the data collector in China. This "short-cut" inevitably
conﬁnes the data analysis in this paper to a certain extent. Nevertheless, as these two
recordings do provide some needed information for this study (and also because of the
difficulty in collecting such data), the two "incomplete" leave-taking dialogues are still
included in the analysis, with obvious consideration given to the missing part.

The American data were collected in cities in the Midwest of the United States of
America. The guests and hosts are friends or neighbors except for the two Chinese
graduate students who participated in the recordings. One of the Chinese students is the
researcher (me). The other is the researcher's friend who is also a friend of the hosts in
nine of the recordings. The Chinese and American data sets are parallel in the sense that
all the data were collected from dinners among friends, so the two independent social
variables discussed in Brown and Levinson's theory, P (power) and D (distance), are
disregarded in the analysis”.

Since this study is on linguistic politeness in leave-taking, only the verbal cues in the
"closing section" are transcribed, analyzed and used in the paper. The criteria for the
beginning of a "closing section," as suggested by Schegloff and Sacks (1973 ), are either
clear "closing" phrases, such as "I gotta go" announcements, or some possible terminal
phrases, such as "We-e1," "So-oo," "OK," or statements like "Well, this is an enjoyable

evening for us, " "Well, thank you so much, " etc., which are produced at a turn with no

 

18 Discarding P (power) and D (distance) between host and guest, or among guests,
does not mean these two independent variables do not affect linguistic performance of
participants in closing conversation. However, as this study focuses on how the cultural
difference affects the linguistic performance in leave-taking between the two speech
communities, the recordings were conducted strictly among friends (and relatives in one
Chinese recording), so that the two sets of data are so parallel to the extent that P (power)
and D (distance) can be ignored for the purpose of the present study.

36

topical coherence nor reference to any particulars of the conversation in which they
occur. These announcements and possible terminal phrases are taken as the signs of the
initial closing section in this study.

Leave-taking events cannot be ﬁilﬁlled by guests or hosts alone but by both in a
cooperative way. From the scant literature, however, either explicitly mentioned, such as
Hu and Grove (1991), Laver (1981), and Schegloff and Sacks (1973), or implicitly
indicated, like House (1982) and Knapp et al. (1973), it seems that the burden of
conducting appropriate, or polite in other words, leave-taking is mainly on the shoulder
of the guest, who needs to show his/her appreciation and gratitude appropriately and
politely so that the host will not feel he/she is being treated ungrateﬁilly, or rudely, or
rejected. The cultural difference which affects linguistic performance in this phatic
communion, therefore, should be manifested in what a guest says upon leave-taking.
Moreover, in both Chinese and American cultures, it is often the guest who initiates
leave-taking after dinner. This phenomenon is revealed in the data collected for this
study. Thus, in this paper, I will only focus on the linguistic patterns used by guests

rather than by hosts.

3.1.1 Categories of speech acts in leave-taking

The speech acts used in farewell conversations after dinner are classiﬁed into a set of
functional categories which were adopted from Knapp et a1 (1973). and House's (1982)
studies and also based on the collected data from the two speech communities for this
study. These categories are:

Announcing leave-taking: any statement given by a guest which clearly indicates

his/her intention to take leave (e. g., "We should go," "I'm going now, " etc.)

37

Giving an excuse: any statement given by a guest to justify his intention of taking
leave (e.g., "We've been here for quite a while, " "My wife is getting a little restless,"

"You've been busy for a whole day," etc.)

Consolidating on friendship: any statement indicating a "solid" friendship between
the speaker and the hearer (e. g., "We know each other well and don't mind doing things

for each other," "We are no strangers," etc.)

Inviting: any statement indicating the speaker's desire to ask the bearer for a visit or
a dinner in the ﬁrture (e. g., "Come to visit us when you're free," "When you have time,

I'll invite you to my house," etc.)

Offering: any statement expressing a speaker's intention to provide something for
the hearer, either help or food. (e.g., "I'll clean up for you," "Do you want a piece of pie

to take home?" etc.)

Appreciating/complimenting: any statements expressing the speaker’s satisfaction
and joy in having been part of the occasion (e. g., "So nice to meet you," "It was really fun
to have this evening, " "I'm glad that we were invited," etc.), including any statement
given by a guest indicating his/her admiration or praise of something belonging to the

host (e. g., "I love your home")

Apologizing: any statement indicating acknowledgment of inconvenience caused by
the speaker and expressing regret or asking for pardon of the hearer (e. g., "We've taken a

lot of your time," "We bothered you the whole afternoon," etc.)

Giving thanks: any statement or short phrases indicating the speaker's gratitude of
having been part of the occasion (e.g., "Thank you for having us, " "Thank you so much

for this enjoyable evening," etc.)

Recommending/advising: any statement expressing the speaker's concern and
advice for the hearer's beneﬁt or welfare (e.g., "You should get rest early," "You should

exercise, " etc.)

Benediction: any statement extending the speaker's good wishes to the bearer (e. g.,

"Have a nice weekend," "I hope you'll have a chance to relax a little bit," etc.)

38

Suggesting future activities: any statement indicating the speaker's intention to get
together again in the ﬁiture (e. g., "I'll see you tomorrow and you can come to our class,"

"We'll come here to spend our Sundays," etc.)

"No-bothering-you" demand/suggest/request: any statement given by a guest
indicating his/her intention of not letting the host be bothered to see him/her out (e.g.,

"Go back, don't see us out," "Don't bother seeing us out any further, " etc.)

Closing: any short words or phrase indicting the termination of the interaction (e.g.,

"Goodbye," "See you later," etc.)

The list above does not necessarily mean that all these speech acts are applied in
every occasion. It is only a general report of the speech acts utilized in this phatic
communion in all the recordings. In other word, this list of linguistic patterns used in
leave-taking after dinner exhausts "ideal" ways of saying good bye in an appropriate and

polite way.

3.1.2 Three closing stages

In this study, the closing is divided into three parts, or stages: initial closing (possible
pre-closing in Schegloff and Sack's term), pre-closing, and closing. Initial closing
usually starts by a guest indicating his/her desire to bring the interaction to an end. The
speech acts a guest would apply in this staged are most often leave-taking announcements
and excuse statements. Sometimes it is done by one guest in one utterance; other time it
is performed by two or more guests in several turns. Pre-closing is the intermediate stage
of the closing section, which includes the majority of the speech acts listed above.
Closing, the ﬁnal stage of leave-taking, consists of exchanges of terminals when a guest

is actually taking his/her leave.

39

3.2 Attitudinal survey
In order to ﬁnd out the attitudes among Chinese and Americans towards You-
pattemed and I-patterned leave-taking, I carried out an attitudinal survey through

questionnaires. The content of the questionnaires was ﬁrst designed in English. The

Chinese questionnaires are the translation from the English version”.

3.2.1 Questionnaire design

The ﬁrst part of the questionnaire is in the form of open-end questions to elicit more
leave-taking statements or excuses. This is to compensate the limited recordings of
farewell dialogues after dinner due to the difficulty of ﬁnding such opportunities. At the
beginning of the ﬁrst part of the questionnaire, a brief scenario is given about a dinner
with a question as follows:

“You have prepared a good meal and invite some people for dinner. You all have had
a good time. Now it's getting late, and your guests express their desire to go. What do

you expect them to say if.... ”

The respondents are asked to write down the excuses given by the guests in three
situations: (a) they are family and close relatives, (b) they are good friends, and (c) they
are colleagues and acquaintances. The rationale for doing this is to ﬁnd out whether
distance in social relationship will dramatically effect in the way people bid farewell.
Such data cannot be obtained from the dialogue recordings which are only done among

friends.

 

19 The questionnaire in Chinese was checked by several of my Chinese friends at MSU
as a pilot survey to test the faithfulness of the translation. After that I made some
correction in word choice with others’ suggestions to make sure that the Chinese version
is as close as possible to the English one.

40

In the second part of the questionnaire, the respondents are given eight statements
supposed to be presented by a guest upon taking leave after dinner at the house of a new
colleague or acquaintance. The purpose of choosing this group rather than friends or
relatives is to ﬁnd out the attitudinal differences towards different patterns of farewell
used by Chinese and Americans”. Five of the eight leave-taking statements were taken
from the dialogue recordings and the other three were composed by the researcher with
the concern to the use, or non-use, of the three linguistic terms, ﬁrst and second person
pronouns, "I" and "you," and "Thanks."

The distribution of these three linguistic items is shown in Table 3.2.1-1 as "+"

stands for the use of an element and "-" stands for non-use.

Table 3.2.1-l The distribution of the three linguistic items
in the questionnaire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

”Statement number I You Thanks

A - 1 + j +
j... .........+... - +
C+ ................................ ¥ .................................. 4. ...................
j ......................... D ........................................... -_ ......... +

E .......... - + -
........................... 12+--

G + + -

H - _ -

 

 

 

 

 

20 Another reason for choosing this group is that it will be intuitively confusing for the
respondents to see and judge a very different way of saying goodbye, i.e. Chinese
viewing American goodbye and Americans hearing Chinese farewell, from a family
member, a good friend or a close relative.

41

We can see from the Table 3.2. 1-1 that there are four "+1 statements " (the statements
with "1") and four "-I statements"(the statements without "I"), four " + you statements"
(the statements with "you") and four "-you statements"(the statements without “you”). It
is the same with “thanks" as there are four "+thanks statement”(the statements with
"thank you") and four "-thanks statement" (the statements without “thank you”).

One statement (C) has all the three linguistic features and one (H) has none of them.
Then, there are three statements that have two of the three: Statement A has "you" and
"thanks” (-I, + you, +thanks); Statement B has "I" and "thanks" (+1, -you, +thanks), and
Statement G has "I" and "you" (+1, + you, -thanks). There are three statements that only
have one of the three items: Statement D only has "thanks" (-1, -you, +thanks), Statement
E only has "you" (-I, + you, -thanks), and Statement G only has "1" (+1, -you, -thanks).
The purpose of putting such leave-taking statements on the questionnaire is to ﬁnd out
speciﬁcally what affect of these three linguistic elements has on the attitudes of the
people when judging the politeness of each statement.

Under each leave-taking statement, there are ﬁve impressions (or attitudes to be
more precise) on ﬁve scales ranging from 1 to 5. 1 stands for the positive impression and

9, (I.

5 stands for the negative one. The ﬁve impression scales are “polite—rude , grateful—
ungrateﬁil,” “direct—indirect”, “considerate—selﬁsh,” and “sincere—insincere.” These
notions are chosen because (1) a number of researchers discussed about them in their
study on politeness ((Blum-Kulka, 1989; Gu, 1990; Ide et a1, 1992; Janney and Arndt,
1992, 1993; Lii-shih, 1994; Mao, 1994; Matsumoto, 1988; Nwoye, 1992; Scollon and
Scollon, 1983, 1995; Zhu et al. 2000) and (2) people often refer to these impressions

when judging a linguistic behavior in respect to politeness.

42

With concern to the affect of the sequence of the leave-taking statements on the

survey, I made four survey forms, a, b, c, d, which are only different in the sequence of

the statements in the second part of the questionnaire, which is shown in Table 3.2.1-2.

Table 3.2.1-2 Statement sequence of the questionnaire forms

 

 

 

 

 

Form Sequence of the statements
A A B C D E F G H
B A B E """ F C D G H
......... é EFG NH" A B C. D
D E A """" F E ““““ G C H D ““““

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.2.2 Sample of the survey

The questionnaires were randomly distributed in Mid-West and west coast of the

United States of America and the northern part of China. There are eighty-three

Americans who responded to the questionnaire and eighty-one Chinese from China are

involved in the survey. The demography of the survey, such as age, gender, and

profession is presented in the following sections.

3.2.2.1. Demography of the respondents

Thirty-ﬁve (42.7%) of the American respondents are males and forty-eight of them

(57.9%) are females. For the Chinese respondents, forty-seven (58.3%) of them are

males and thirty-four (41.8%) are females. The gender of the respondents is show in

Table 3.2.2-l.

43

Table 3.2.2-l Gender of the respondents

 

.......................................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘ iiiiiii Americans Chinese Total _
Gender 3 Number PercentmNumber Percent-“i Number Percent
" Male 35 42.2% ” 47 58.0% 82 50.0%"?
Female 48 57.8% 34 42.0% 82 50.0% i
ll Total . 83100%81 100% ' 164 """""""" 100% """

There are three age groups in this study, young (Group A), middle-aged (Group B),

and older (Group C). The people of Group A are thirty years old or under. Group B are

those between thirty-one years old to ﬁfty-ﬁve years old. Those who are ﬁfty-six years

old or above are in Group C.

Twenty-seven of the American respondents (32.5%) are in the ﬁrst age group, thirty-

six of them (43.3%) in the second age group, and twenty of them (24.1%) in the third

one. For the Chinese respondents, twenty-two (27.3%) are in the ﬁrst age group, twenty-

seven (30.9%) in the second group, and thirty of them (37.3%) belong to the last group.

This age information of the respondents is shown in Table 3.2.2-2.

Table 3.2.2-2 Age of the respondents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Americans Chinese Total

Age ”Millie; """" 135255;; """" Nuiiiberml"'ﬁé’r'ééniwmtvumber pace»?
"'x'rs‘o'a‘r‘“aaaai .............. 25 ............... 3.15%. ................. 22 .......... ...... 272% ................. .49 ................ .2. 99%
"E"(5'il‘§'5")’ ............................... 3'6 ................. 43.1% ................. 27' ................. 333% 63 ............... 3 84%
C (56 or above) 20 24.1% 30 37.0% 50 30.5%
Missing , 0 0 """""" 2 2.5% 2 1.2% """ ‘
Total """""" 83100% 81 100% 164 100%"

 

.......................

44

For professions, I roughly divided the respondents into three groups”. Group A
includes doctors, professors, graduate students, high school teachers, engineers, etc.
Group B includes skilled workers, technicians, office secretaries, businessmen, etc. Then
workers and homemakers belong to Group C22.

Fourteen American respondents (16.9%) belong to Group A in profession, and
thirty-six of them (43.3%) belong to the second group, and thirty-two (38.6%) are in the
last one. For the Chinese respondents, thirty-seven of them (45.7%) belong to the ﬁrst
group, twenty-seven (33.3%) belong to the second group, and only nine (11.1%) of them

are in Group C. This information on professions is shown in Table 3.2.2-3.

Table 3.2.2-3 Professions of the respondents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . Americans Chinese Total '
iProfession iii-Number Percent-M iiiii N umber Percent Number Percent-"i
S ............... A14 .................. 16-9076 ................... 3. 7. ................... 4570/05] ............... 3.65% ..... T
................ B36434% 27333%63 384%
............... C ............ 3.2.. .................. 385% ..................... .9. ...................... 1. .1...1.%. ................. 4...]. ............... 250%
:. MiSSing ............ 1120/0 ...... 8 ........ 9 9% 9 61% '
""" Total 83 100% 81 "100% 164 100%”?

 

 

 

 

 

 

A: professors, doctors, graduate students, teachers, engineers, etc.
B: skilled workers, technicians, businessmen, etc.
C: workers, homemakers, etc.

 

21 This division is mainly based on level of education, which is obviously not quite
accurate either in China or in the United States. Imperfect as this division is, I believe
that it is sufﬁcient for this study due to the nature of this research, a general attitudinal
survey among two speech communities, and the limitation in data collection.

22 There were four groups in the original design: professors, lawyers, and doctors are in
Group I; graduate students, high school teachers and engineers are in Group 2; skilled
workers, technicians, ofﬁce secretaries, and businessmen belong to Group 3; and then
workers and homemakers belong to Group 4. However, the number of the ﬁrst group,
doctors and professors, is too few from each speech community to make any signiﬁcant
analysis. Thus, the ﬁrst two groups are combined into Group A.

45

As for the four questionnaire forms, which I tried to have distributed evenly among
the respondents, twenty-three of the American (27.7%) and eighteen Chinese respondents
(22.2%) answered Form A. Twenty-one American (25.3%) and twenty Chinese
responded to Form B. Then, seventeen American (20.5%) and twenty-two Chinese
(27.2%) respondents in the survey answered Form C. Twenty-two Americans (26.5%)

and twenty-one Chinese (25.9%) in the survey answered Form D.

Table 3.2.2-4 Forms of the received questionnaires

...................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Americans Chinese Total
Forms L"till/umber PercentﬂmémNumber PercenlrmﬁmNtlmber Percen'tm
: A 23 27.7%”; 18 . 22.2% 41 25.0%
821253% ...... 20 24.7% 41 25.0%
C 17 20.5% 22 27.2% 39 ' 23.8%
D 22 26.5% I 21 25.9% 43 26.2%
Total 83 100% 81 100% 164 100%

 

 

 

 

3.3 Analysis strategies

The data collected for this research is tested both by qualitative and quantitative
analysis. The qualitative analysis is only done on examining the data obtained from the
recorded leave-taking dialogues, while quantitative analysis is performed on the data
collected from both the dialogue recordings and the questionnaires of attitudinal survey.

The recorded dialogues are ﬁrst analyzed by tallying the frequency of each speech
act (listed in the categories in the section 3.1.2) used by Chinese and American guests in
order to ﬁnd out what speech acts are applied more frequently by one speech community

than by the other in the three stages of leave-taking. Then more detailed analysis is on

46

the content of the speech acts which are highly frequently used by each speech
community. This is done by citing some speciﬁc parts of the dialogues under each
category marked by its high frequency in one speech community with some comparison
to the same speech act applied by the other speech community.

The data from the questionnaire are analyzed by the Chi-square test and the factor
analysis. At ﬁrst, the Chi-square test is performed to ﬁnd out whether the other factors
besides cultural diversities, such as differences in age, in profession, in gender, and in the
sequence of the statements on the questionnaire, have effect on the results of the data
analysis. Within each speech community, each factor is singled out, and every one of the
ﬁve impressions given to the eight different leave-taking statements or excuses is
analyzed by the Chi-square test. The results of the data analysis, which will be discussed
in the next chapter, have shown that these factors have little or no effect on the different
attitudes shown by the respondents towards the various ways of saying good-bye.

With the assurance that, other than cultural differences, other factors do not have
much effect on the attitudes, the Chi-square test is performed to check each impression
on all the eight leave-taking statements or excuses between the Chinese and American
respondents. The result is to be discussed in the following chapter. Then the factor
analysis is conducted to conﬁrm the result obtained from the Chi-square test, which will

also be discussed in Chapter 4.

3.4 Limitation of the data collection
The limitation of the data collection for this study is obvious when some of the
factors are considered. As it is mentioned before, due to the limited access to recording

dialogues of leave-taking and to randomly-selected respondents from a wider range for

47

the survey, both geographically and professionally, the result of this study is inevitably
restricted by this limitation. Another factor which will affect the data analysis is that
some of the respondents, especially the Chinese, left some blanks in responding to the
questionnaire either because the instructions might be ambiguous or the respondents were
in such a rush that they did not try to understand the instruction. Though I do not expect
very different results from this study due to the nature of this research”, the validity of

this study would be more convincing if these limitations had been eliminated.

 

23 Linguistic etiquette, I believe, especially linguistic routines such as bidding farewell
after dinner, is socio-culturally determined behavior, which should prevail throughout a
whole speech community within that culture. Even though there might be some
differences in wording in saying goodbye, due to the differences in geography or
profession or education, the concept deeply rooted in the culture should not vary
signiﬁcantly.

48

CHAPTER 4

RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS

The results of the data analysis will be presented in three sections in this chapter. In
Section 4.1 we will look at the differences in structures and contents in leave-taking
between Chinese and Americans. Part of it will be the result of the twenty recordings of
leave-taking dialogues. The other part will be the result of the ﬁrst part of the
questionnaire, which is the reﬂection of what a guest would say after dinner. In Section
4.2, the attitudinal survey from the questionnaire will be presented. Thus, the ﬁrst section
is more qualitative and the second one is more quantitative. In the end, the results from

the factor analysis will be discussed

4.1 Different leave-taking

The data from the recordings of farewell dialogues after dinner shows that, between
the Chinese and American speech communities, there are some marked differences in
conducting leave-taking, both in structure and in the content. In this section, we will
examine the differences in three parts. First, we will look at the structural differences
between the two speech communities in leave-taking in 4.1.1. In 4.1.2, we will discuss
the different frequency of certain speech acts used by each speech community. Then in
4.1.3, we will examine in detail the differences in the content of some speech acts used

by guests of the two speech communities.

49

4.1.1 Difference in structure

The difference in the leave-taking structure is shown in Table 4.1.1-1. Some speech
acts are performed in more than one stage of leave-taking, and therefore, listed more than
once in the table. For example, “Announcing leave-taking” appears both in the initial
closing and the pre—closing in the Chinese data, and “Giving thanks” is used by American
guests at the beginning of farewell conversations (initial closing) as well as during the

process (pre-closing) before the ﬁnal stage (closing).

Table 4.1.1 Speech acts employed in leave-taking1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stages Chinese American

Initial closing Announcing leave-taking Announcing leave-taking
Giving excuses Giving excuses
Consolidating friendship Giving thanks
Inviting Appreciating/Complimenting
Appreciating/Comp]imenting
Recommending/Advising

Pre-closing Announcing leave-taking Offering (food, help, etc.)
Offering (help) Giving excuses
Consolidating friendship Giving thanks
Giving thanks Appreciating/Complimenting
Appreciating/Complimenting Inviting
Inviting Apologizing
Apologizing Recommending/Advising
Suggesting future activities Benediction
Recommending/Advising

Closing "No-bothering-you" request Benediction
Closing (exchange of terminals) Closing (exchange of terminals)

 

Table 4.1.1 shows that Chinese and American guests employ different speech acts in

the three stages of this linguistic event: initial closing, pre-closing, and closing.

 

1 The order of the speech acts in the chart is not necessarily the order that occurs in the
data.

1
1

50

“Appreciating/complimenting,” according to the data from recordings of leave-taking
dialogues after dinner, are applied twice by both speech communities: in the stage of
initial closing and of pre—closing. Nevertheless, the difference in applying other speech
acts is obvious.

For the Chinese guests, “Inviting” and “Recommending/advising” are used in the
ﬁrst two stages: the initial and pre-closing, while American guests only use them in pre-
closing, the second stage. Then, American guests give thanks in both initial and pre-
closing, but their Chinese counterparts use this speech act only in the second stage. Then,
there are some speech acts that seem to be exclusive to one speech community. For
example, "Consolidating friendship" and "No-bothering-you request" are only found in
the Chinese recording and "Benediction" is used by the American guests only.

Although Table 4.1.1 presents a clear picture of the difference in leave—taking
between Chinese and Americans, more particular details are needed to illustrate the
different farewells after dinner between the two speech communities. In 4.1.2, we are
going to discuss frequency contrast of some speech acts used by both Chinese and

American guests.

4.1.2 Different frequency in applying some speech acts

The data from both dialogue recordings and the questionnaires indicate that there are
some striking differences in leave-taking after dinner between Chinese and Americans
acts besides the structural differences discussed in the previous section. The frequency of
applying some speech acts is one of them. Table 412-] (on Page 52) presents the results

from the recordings of farewell dialogues. Table 4.1.2-2 (on Page 55) demonstrates the

51

Table 4.1.2-1 Frequency and percentage of speech acts from recordings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speech acts Chinese American
U“) P") %‘3- U F %
Announcing leave taking 21 10 100.0 5 4 40.0
Giving excuses 13(4) 7(5) (70.0) 6 5 50.0
a You (7) (4) (40.0) 0 O 0
b I (or we) (12) (1) (10.0) (6) (5) (50.0)
c we (inclusive) (1) (1) (10.0) 0 O 0
\ d others (4) (3) (30.0) 0 O 0
‘ Consolidating friendship 6 7 70.0 0 O 0
Inviting 25 8 80.0 33 2 20.0
Offering 7 4 40.0 1 1 10.0
a. cleaning up (1) (1) (10.0) 0
b. Later help (5) (3) (30.0) 0
c. others (1) (1) (10.0) (1)
Appreciating/Complimenting 2 2 20 52 10 100
i a. people 0 0 o (26) (10) (100)
b. occasion/time (2) (2) (20.0) (22) (10) (100)
c. food 0 O 0 (3) (3) (30.0)
d. other 0 O O (1) (I) (10.0)
Apologizing 5 3 30.0 1 I 10.04
Giving thanks 9 3 30.0 37 10 100
Recommending/Advising 12 6 60.0 4 3 30.0
a. Host's rest (9) (6) (60.0) 0 O 0
b. Host's welfare (3) (2) (20.0) (4) (3) (30.0)
Benediction O O O 5 4 40.0
“Suggesting future contact 6 4 40.0 3 3 30.0
No-bothering request 325 7 70.0 0 0 0
Closing (terminals exchange) 116 7 70.0 17 10 100

 

 

7- Though one excuse given by a Chinese guest appears to be “I-patterned” excuse, it is

still other-oriented one to some extent. The excuse is: “We need to prepare for

tomorrow’s dinner for you.”

3 In the American data, some invitations are given by some guests to the researcher,

who implied during the dinners that she needed more data on “talk after dinner.”
Therefore, this kind of utterances (inviting a guest) are not counted in the analysis
because of their irrelevance to the present study.

4 The apology in this occasion, “I hate to leave you here with everything to do (. . .),” is

different from the Chinese ones, which are apologies for taking host’s time or causing
them to work hard or to spend money.

5 The information in this part is not accurate because some Chinese data seem to be

cut short (the recordings stopped) before the closing, the ﬁnal stage.

6 See Note 5.

52

 

(1) U = Utterance, which means how many times a speech act is uttered in all the
recordings of one speech community, i. e. 37 in “Giving thanks” in the American data
means there are thirty-seven utterances of "thanks" produced by the guests upon leave-
taking.

(2) F = Frequency, which indicates in how many recordings in one speech community that
a speech act is used, i.e. "7" in “Giving excuses” in the Chinese data means that this speech
act occurs in seven out of the ten recordings.

(3) % = Percentage, which only counts the rate of the frequency and the total data
numbers, i.e. 30.0 in “Giving thanks” in the Chinese data means that this speech act

occurs in three recordings out of the total ten (3/10=30.0%).

(4) This number is the sum of those numbers in brackets.

(5) As some speech acts are used in the same dialogue, this number is not the sum of
those in brackets. For example, the total speech acts in “Giving excuse” in the Chinese
data is 9, but they only occur in seven dialogue recordings.

results from the ﬁrst part of the questionnaire. As mentioned above, only the speech acts
performed by the guests are classiﬁed and summarized in the following tables.

Table 412-] shows that some speech acts are employed more frequently by one
speech community than by the other. This difference in frequency suggests that the
functions for each speech act to fulﬁll the leave-taking event vary between the two
speech communities. It also indicates that some speech acts are necessary for one speech
community in this speech event while other speech acts are important for the other group.

For American guests, according to Table 4.1.2-1, saying "thank you" (100%) and
expressing gratitude and joy (100%, “Appreciating/ Complimenting") to the host are the
basic part of their farewell, but Chinese use them sparingly (30.0% and 20.0%
respectively). However, when it comes to "Announcing leave-taking" and "Inviting",
which are frequently employed by the Chinese guests (90.0% and 80.0% respectively),
the American guests use them to a much lesser degree (40.0% and 20.0% respectively).

There are some other speech acts, such as "Recommending/Advising" and "Giving

excuses" by the Chinese (60.0% and 70.0%), and “Benediction” by the Americans

53

(40.0%), though not occurring so frequently as the other speech acts mentioned above,
are used more often than the others. Then, there are some other speech acts which appear
only once or twice in the data, such as “Appreciating/Complimenting” by Chinese guests
(20.0%) and "Apologizing" by Americans (10.0%).

Now let us examine the results from the ﬁrst part of the questionnaire to see whether
the written statements on leave-taking support the fact obtained from the dialogue
recordings of leave-taking after dinner. As mentioned in Chapter 3, there are three dinner
situations in the questionnaire: with family or close relatives, with good friends, and with
acquaintances or colleagues. The criteria for different speech acts are the same as those
used in analyzing the dialogue recordings. The responses were tallied and converted to
percentages. Then the Chi-square tests were performed to establish where frequencies of
each category were signiﬁcantly different between the two speech communities under
each situation. The results are shown in Table 4.1.2-2 (on the following page).

In Table 4.1.2-2, there are not as many speech acts presented as in Table 412-]
because only the data with signiﬁcant difference in statistic analysis are presented here.
Another reason for fewer speech acts shown in Table 412-2 is that the respondents in
the survey “left out” some speech acts in ﬁlling up the questionnaire. A close
examination of Table 412-2 (and later Table 4.1.2-3) will show that there is some
discrepancy in frequency and percentage of some speech acts exhibited in the two tables.
For example, in Table 412-2, more Chinese “guests” in the questionnaire used “Thank
you” than those in the recordings. In Situation II (with good friends), thirty-nine of the
Chinese (48.15%) in the survey used xiexie (Thank you). Then in Situation III (with

colleagues or acquaintances), ﬁfty-six of the Chinese (69.14%) used this speech act. In

54

Table 4.1.2-2 Frequency and percentage of speech acts from the questionnaires

 

1
i
1

i

1
1
1'

l
1
l
1
l

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speech act I: With family I]: With friends III: With colleagues
Am Ch Am Ch Am I Ch
p=0.00, p<0.01, p=0.00, p<0.01, p=0.00, p<0.01,

DF=1 DF=1 DF=1

I-patterned 16/81“) 4/81 11/81 1/81 9/81 2/81

excuse (19.75) (4.93) (13.58) (1.23) (11.11) (2.47)
p=0.00,p<0.01, p=0.00,p<0.01, p=0.00,p<0.01,
DF=1 DF=1 DF=1
You- 2/81 36/81 2/81 18/81 0 19/81
patterned - (2.47) (44.44) (2.47) (22.22) . (23.46)
excuse L LLL
Other— 19/81 34/81 ’ 11/81 35/81 ' 12/80 27/81
patterned ,.....(.2.3.;fl..6.). ..... ....... (4.1.2.93?) ........... (.1..3.-...5.§) ..... ....... ( 4.3.2.1.) ............... _( 1.5.9.9)......E....(3..3...-.3§) .....
excuse p=0.01 p=0.01, p=0.00,p<0.01, 3
DF=1 DF=1 DF=1
60/81 5/81 59/81 39/81 68/80 56/81
Thanks (74.07) (6.17) (72.84) (48.15) (83.95) (69.14)
p=0.00, p<0.01, p=0.03, 0.01<p<0.05, p=0.03, 0.01<p<0.05, =
............................................. DF=1 DF=1 DF=1
- - 23/81 39/81 10/81 34/81
Invitation“) ___________________________ (28.40) (48.15) (12.50) (41.98) '
=0.01, p=0.00, p<0.01,
.................................................................................................... DF=1 DF=1
— - 0 8/81 0 22/81
Apology‘” ............................ ................................ (8.88) (27.16)
; p=0.00,p<0.01, p=0.00,p<0.01,
.................................................................................. DF=1 .......... DF=1
1 0 54/81 0 18/81 0 17/81
1 Advice LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL (66.67) (22.22) (20.99) .
1 =0.00, p<0.01, p=0.00, p<0.01, p=0.00, p<0.01,
DF=1 DF=1 DF=1

(1) The ﬁrst ﬁgure is the number of the people who used the speech act. The second
one is the total number of the people in the survey. The ﬁgure in brackets is the
percentage. For example, “16/81 (19.75)” in the American data means that sixteen
Americans out of eighty-one gave a “I-patterned” excuse, which is almost twenty percent
of the Americans in the survey.

(2) There is no statistically signiﬁcant difference between the Americans and the
Chinese with “Invitation” and “Apology” in this situation.

(3) It is the same as the explanation above.

55

the dialogue recordings, there is no American guest using “you-patterned” excuses for
taking their leave after dinner. However, the data from the questionnaire show that two
American “guests” applied this speech act in their farewell.

One explanation for this discrepancy is that the number of the people who are
involved in the survey is much bigger than that of the dialogue recordings. Another
reason for this discrepancy is that people may have some ideas about the polite way of
saying goodbye even though they may not use it in a real situation. Giving thanks to the
host by Chinese guests is a case in point. Although this speech act was not used
frequently by the Chinese guests in the recordings, more Chinese in the survey wrote
xiexie “Thank you” in their response. This inconsistency indicates that Chinese still
believe giving thanks is a sign for showing politeness (more discussion on this issue will
be in Chapter 5). However, knowing or believing it does not guarantee using this speech
act in a real life situation. In the next section on the results of the attitudinal survey, this
discrepancy also shows as the Chinese respondents rated the leave-taking expression with
“Thanks” higher than those without it. That leads to the third explanation: written
production may not be effective in eliciting data representative of actual speech acts in
real life settings, as some researchers point out (e. g. Hinkel, 1997, p. 19). However, this
kind of data from the ﬁrst part of the questionnaire does provide some valuable
information for this study.

Table 412-2 shows that the difference in giving excuses between Chinese and
Americans is quite obvious. More American guests gave I-patterned excuses and more
Chinese guests used you-pattemed ones. In the survey, sixteen American respondents

(19.8%) thought that their guests would use this I-patterned excuse for taking leave after

56

dinner with family or close relatives (Situation 1). However, only four Chinese
respondents (4.9%) gave this excuse in the same situation. Then, in Situation II, which is
with good friends, eleven Americans (13.6%) used this self-oriented I-patterned excuse
for bidding farewell to their friends aﬁer dinner, while only one Chinese respondent out
of eight-one (1.23%) gave such an excuse. In Situation III, which is with colleagues and
acquaintances, nine American respondents (about 11.1%) used this I-patterned excuse

while two Chinese (about 2.5%) gave this excuse. This difference is shown in Chart 1.

Chart 1
Difference in giving I -pattemed excuses

 

§ EAm
at} DCh

 

 

 

 

I II III
Situation

Now let us look at the difference in using you-patterned excuses for leave-taking. In
Situation 1 (with family and close relatives), thirty-six Chinese respondents (44.4%) gave
“you-patterned” excuses but only two Americans (2.5%) used this kind of excuse. Then
in Situation II (with good friends), two Americans (2.5%) gave this you-patterned excuse,
but eighteen Chinese (22.2%) excused them with this kind of excuse. In Situation III
(with colleagues or acquaintances), nineteen Chinese respondents (23.5%) gave this you-
pattemed excuse but no Americans did. This difference is shown in Chat 2 on the

following page.

57

Chart 2
Difference in giving you -pattemed excuses

 

EAm
DCh

Percent

 

 

 

 

I II III
Situation

Table 412-3 shows that Chinese guests also use more time related excuses, such as
“It’s getting late,” or “It’s getting dark.” In Situation I, thirty-four Chinese (41.98%)
used this kind of excuses but only nineteen Americans (23.5%) applied this “time-
concemed” excuse. Then in Situation II, eleven Americans (13.65%) gave such excuses,
but thirty-ﬁve Chinese (43.2%) used “It’s getting late” excuses. In Situation III, the same
pattern shows as more Chinese respondents (33.3%) than the Americans (15.0%) gave

such excuses. This difference is presented in Chart 3.

Chart 3
Difference in giving time-excuse

 

EAm
DCh

Percent

 

 

 

 

I 11 [H

Situation

58

As a supporting fact for what we have found from the recordings of leave-taking
dialogues, the data from the questionnaires also indicates that Americans guests show
their gratitude to their hosts more expressively and verbally, such as saying “Thank you,”
than Chinese guests. In Situation 1, sixty of the American respondents (74.1%) used
“Thank you” as they recalled what their guests would say before taking leave. However,
only ﬁve Chinese (6.2%) used xiexie “Thank you” in the same situation. Although, in
Situation II and 111, more Chinese respondents (48.2% and 69.1%) openly expressed their
gratitude, compared with the Americans (72.8% and 84%) who gave thanks to the host,

however, the Chinese are still more reserved in saying “Thank you.” Chart 4 shows this

difference.

Chart 4
Difference in saying "Thank you"

 

 

 

 

EAm
DCh

 

 

 

Percent

 

 

 

 

 

 

Situation

As far as giving invitation to their host is concerned, there is no signiﬁcant
difference found between Americans and Chinese in Situation I from the questionnaires.
However, there is a difference in other two situations in performing this speech act.
Twenty-three (28.4%) and ten (12.5%) Americans invited their hosts for dinner in

Situation II and 1H respectively. However, thirty-nine (48.2%) of the Chinese

59

respondents gave such invitation in Situation II and thirty-four (41.98%) in Situation 111.

See Chart 5 for this difference.

Chart 5
Difference in giving invitation

 

HI/kni
DCh

Percent

 

 

 

 

II III

Situation

Just as we have found in the dialogue recordings that the Chinese guests like to give
more personal advice to their hosts upon taking leave, the data from the questionnaires
also provides such information. In Situation 1, ﬁﬁy-four Chinese guests (66.7%) gave
some kind of advice or suggestions to their hosts. Most of the advice or suggestions are

Zao dianr xi uxi ba
early, a little rest (particle)

(Go to bed early).
There are some other personal advice or suggestions by Chinese guests, such as

Gongzuozhong hai xuyao duo jiaba you
at work still need more add fuel

(You still need to put more effort to your work” (Ch-147),

Of

 

7 This indicates the respondent number of the questionnaires, i.e. “Ch-1” means the
ﬁrst respondent (No.1) in the Chinese data.

60

Mingtian keneng yao biantian. Ninmen yiding yao duo chuan yifu
tomorrow possible will change weather, you be sure need more put on clothes

(The weather may change tomorrow. Be sure to put on more clothes” (Ch-27),
or

Qin chuqu zou dong zou dong, bie lao daizaijiali
often go out walk [and] move, don’t always stay at home

(Often go out and take a walk. Don’t always stay at home, Ch-44, also in Ch-74
where the guest gave a similar advice),

Nimen suishu dale, zhuyi shenti, zhuyi xiuxi

you (pl.) age old, pay attention to health, pay attention to rest

(You’re getting old, so (you need to) pay more attention to your health and take
more rest” (Ch-77).

Though the percentage of giving advice by the Chinese guests in Situation II and III
is smaller than that in Situation 1 (eighteen (22.2%) and seventeen (20.9%) respectively),
“You need to go to bed early” is the most often used advice or suggestion given to the
host, whether dinning with friends or colleagues. Nevertheless, no American respondent
in any of the three situations expressed this kind of “imposing” advice (by Brown and
Levinson’s standard) to their hosts in their leave-taking statements.

Apology is another speech act found in the questionnaires which is only reported by
the Chinese respondents. Giving an apology upon leave taking among Chinese, as shown
in Table 412-2, is often done in Situation III, with colleagues or acquaintance. As
mentioned early, the only apology used by an American guest in the dialogue recordings
concerns more about being unable to help clean up. The apology Chinese guests tend to

give upon leave-taking, however, as reported in the questionnaires, is more on feeling

61

sorry about taking up the host’s time, or about cost or work the host spent on preparing

the dinner.

The apologies cited by the Chinese respondents are as the following:

Darao le bantian, shizai buhaoyisi

disturb quite a while, really ill at ease

(I really feel bad for disturbing you so long. Ch—18. The similar expressions are also
found in Ch-28, -39, -62, -81).

Gei nimen tian mafan le
to you add trouble”
([Sorry for] giving you trouble. Ch-29, -31, -38, 43, -51, -55, -67, -71, -76, -79)

Rang nin pofei le
let you (polite form) spend money”

([Sorry for] costing you money. Ch-48, -62, -63, -78)

Jiantian rang nimen shou lei le
today let you (pl.) suffer exhaustion

(We put you work out today. Ch-44).

Sometimes the apology is a kind of combination of the two apologies cited above, such as

Darao nimen 1e. Rang nimen xinku le yitian, shizai buhaoyisi

disturb you (pl.), let you (pl.) work hard whole day, really ill at ease

(We really feel bad about disturbing you and making you work hard the whole day.
Ch-54).

One Chinese guest in the survey even asked for forgiveness after giving his/her

apology:

Chu cijianmianjiu gei nin tian le zheme duo mafan, shizai sorry. Qing duo baohan
ﬁrst time meeting then give you8 add so much trouble, really ill at ease. Please more

forgive”

 

8

Nin is the polite form of ni, the second person singular pronoun.

62

([I’m] really sorry for giving you so much trouble the ﬁrst we met. Please forgive
me. Ch-67).

The data from both dialogue recordings and the questionnaires illustrate that there
are some speech acts which are more basic components in farewell conversations after
dinner, and therefore are essential in successﬁilly conducting this speech event, such as
expressing gratitude to the host by Americans and giving excuses and invitation by
Chinese. Some speech acts, on the other hand, are more dispensable. Employing them in
leave-taking, however, will either ensure this closing ﬁmction, such as leave-taking
announcement for Americans, or add more politic ﬂavor to the communication, such as
complimenting the host's food or house by American guests and offering ﬁiture help to
the host by Chinese guests.

Then, there are some other speech acts which do not have such ﬁmctions, and
leaving them out may not affect the validity of leave-taking or politeness of the
performance, such as showing appreciation to the host for Chinese and inviting the host
for Americans. Thus, different speech communities have different needs for certain
speech acts in order to conduct this speech event in a polite and appropriate way. Based
on the results from the dialogue recordings, the speech acts used in each speech
community are presented in Table 412-3 ( on the following page) in three groups
according to frequency: highly frequently used, frequently used, and occasionally used.
The data from Situation II (with good friends — similar to the settings of the dialogue
recordings) of the questionnaires are presented in italics for reference.

Table 4.1.1-3 shows, based on the recordings, that the crucial components in

farewell after dinner, according to the frequency of leave-taking speech acts applied by

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each speech community, are very different between Chinese and Americans. For

Chinese, announcing leave-taking, giving excuses, inviting the host, and consolidating

Table 4.1.2-3 Three Groups of speech acts used in leave-taking
according to frequency (based on the recordings)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ Chinese % American % LE
5 i Announcing leave- , Giving thanks 100/ 72.9 5
HF“) taking 100/45. 7(2) Appreciating/
Giving excuses 70.0/432(3) Complimenting 100/67.9
,5 Inviting 80.0/48.2 Closing 100/14.8
’ Consolidating 70.0/14.9
friendship
No-bothering-you 7009/3. 7
________ request .
F Recommending/ Giving excuses 50.0/9.9
Advising 60.0/22. 2
Closing 60.010/22.2
Suggesting future
activities 50. 0/50. 6
O . Offering help 40.0/3.7 Announcing leave-taking 40.0/32.1
Apologizing 30.0/8.9 Benediction 40.0/0
Giving thanks 30.0/48.2 Recommending/
Appreciating/ Advising 30.0/0
Complimenting 20.0/48.1 Suggesting future
Benediction 0/2. 5 activities 3 0.0/42. 0
Inviting 20.0/28.4
Apologizing 10.0/0
Offering help or food11 10.0/4.9
Consolidating friendship 0/6.2

 

(1) HF = high frequency; F = frequency; 0 = occasional.

(2) The italicized ﬁgures are the data from the questionnaire.

(3) This is the percentage of all the excuses (I-, you, we-, other-patterned excuses) used
in Situation II in the questionnaires.

 

9 See Note 5.
10 See Note 5.

11 The American offering includes offering food because guests in USA will bring
some desert to dinner sometimes and take the leftover, if there is any, back. This custom

64

are the fundamental parts in saying goodbye. For Americans, however, giving thanks,
expressing appreciation of the occasion, and saying “Goodbye” are the basic elements in
conducting this speech event. Admittedly, frequency data alone cannot ﬁilly represent an
accurate picture of leave-taking, especially with such a small number of collections.
However, until we can acquire more dialogue recordings of leave-taking after dinner,
such rough-hewing ﬁndings have to sufﬁce, at least for this study.

In the next section, we are going to discuss the content of the speech acts used in
leave-taking. Due to the scope of this study, I will focus on the speech acts shown in the
"highly frequent" group which are markedly different between the two speech friendship
communities. “No-bothering-you” request, though frequently used by the Chinese
guests, will not be discussed in the discussion section because of the two “short-cut”
Chinese recordings, which makes it hard to form a correct judgment about this speech
act. Nevertheless, it is a typical feature of the Chinese leave-taking and deserves a little
space here.

A Chinese host usually walks out with his/her guests or accompanies them down
several ﬂights of stairs to where their bikes are or even to the bus stop, as Hu and Grove
described (1991, pp. 30-31). While the host and the guest are walking out together, the
guest is supposed to make these "No-bothering-you requests," such as Hui qu ba, bei
song le "return, don't send off' (Go back, you don't have to see us out) (Ch. #112), Nin liu
bu "You save steps" (Don't bother seeing us out any further) (Ch. #5), etc. Such

statements are reiterated several times because Chinese hosts often "ignore" this kind of

 

is not practiced in China. Guests in China bring some wine or fruits sometimes to dinner
and will not take leftover back.

65

request and keep on walking with their guests to a certain distance. Though some
American hosts also walk out with their guests to their cars, their guests will not make

such "No-bothering-you" requests. In later sections I will try to explain this difference.

4.1.3 Difference in contents of speech acts

In this section, I will ﬁrst discuss the highly frequently used speech acts in the
American leave-taking, then those in the Chinese goodbye. As this is a comparative
study between American and Chinese farewell after dinner, therefore, while discussing
the necessary speech acts of one speech community, I will compare them with those used
in the other speech community to show where the differences exist. The explanation will
follow. Some data will be provided to illustrate the point, but consideration of space

precludes the citation of all data in the paper.

4.1.3.1 American leave-taking

As mentioned above, the data collected through recordings of leave-taking dialogue
shows that the most frequently employed speech acts in the American farewell after
dinner are expressing appreciation and giving thanks (besides exchanging terminals).
(See Table 412-3 on Page 63). Compared with the Chinese, the American guests
"lavishly" express their pleasure and joy of participating in this kind of social activity and

their gratitude for their hosts' kindness and hospitality before they take their leave.

 

12 "Ch. #1" stands for Recording #1 in the Chinese data, so "Am. #3" means Recording
#3 in the American data.

66

4.1.3.1-1 Appreciation

The most casual observation of human leave-taking, according to Knapp et al.
(1973), will show that people close their interaction on a supportive note because
anticipation of some amount of future inaccessibility mandates this supportiveness. Thus
expressing delight and happiness at being part of the interaction, they suggest, is probably
best suited for leave-taking (Knapp et al., 1973, p. 185). In the American data, that the
guests gratefully state and restate their thanks and appreciation to their hosts does seem to
ﬁt Knapp et al.'s assumption.

In seven of the ten recordings of the American leave-taking, expressing appreciation
was used both at the initial closing and pre-closing stages (see Table 4.1.1 on page 50).
These expressions of appreciation include those of being with people (mostly with the
other guests) and of having participated in the activity (occasion and time). According to
Brown and Levinson's theory, expressing appreciation is a performance of positive
politeness, which speaks directly to the addressee's positive face (the want to be liked).

The statements of appreciating the occasion and time are given both at initial closing
and pre-closing phases of American leave-taking in the data, such as "That has been so
interesting" (Am. #1), "It was really ﬁne to have this evening" (Am. #2), "Well, this is
great. And we're glad that we have time to do this" (Am. #5), "We enjoyed this so much"
(Am. #7, #8), “This is so much fun and interesting” (Am. #8) etc. In Am. #1, after
responding to Ga's (Guest A) checking about getting ready to take their leave, Gb (Guest
B) immediately expressed her appreciation ("this has been so interesting") of attending

the dinner, as shown in Example 1:

67

Example 1 (Am. #1)

(The guests, Ga and Gb, two women, and the host and hostess (Ha) in the recording are
all in their late sixties or early seventies. They are neighbors as well as friends. The host
is a carpenter and the women are housewives.)

Ga (1)13 Well, what’ll you say?

Gb (2) Well, I think (so?) Oh, this has been so interesting.

Ha (3) Yeah, this is an enjoyable evening for us.

Gb (4) Sure, [thank you so much for this enjoyable evening.

Ha (5) [I mean we enjoy (...?)

Interestingly, in Am. #5 as show in Example 2, Ga (the wife) even indicated her

desire to take leave with this speech act, which was echoed by Gb, her husband.

Example 2 (Am. #5)

(The guests, Ga and Gb, a couple in their early thirties live in the same neighborhood as
the hostess, who is in her early seventies. The husbands are businessmen and the wives
stay at home. )

Ga (1) Well, this is great. And we 're glad we ’ve, [have some time to do this.

Gb (2) [Yes, sure it was.

The Chinese guests, however, made fewer appreciative comments as revealed in the
data from the recordings. If they did, they did not use them alone to initiate closing of a
conversation as their American counterparts did. In the Chinese recordings, this speech
act is accompanied by other expressions. In Example 3, the Chinese guest (G) articulated
his appreciation ("We've had a good lunch together") together with an excuse ("we've
been here for quite a while"), a leave-taking announcement ("I think we should go"), and

a suggestion ("you should rest").

 

13 The number in the brackets refers to the order of occurrence of that utterance in the
recording of leave-taking (which means from "initial closing" to "closing").

68

Example 3 (Ch. #1)

(The guest (G) is a retired worker in his early seventies and is a good friend of the host, a
retired high school teacher in his late sixties. The guest's wife is also present.)

G Jintian zhongwu zhe can chide hen hao. Shijian ye bu duan le,

Today noon this meal ate very good. Time also not show (pa.14)

wo shuo, women gai zou le, ni gai xiuxi le.

1 say, we15 should go (pa), you should rest (pa)

(We've had a good lunch today, and we've been here for quite a while, so 1 think we

should go and you should rest.)

The appreciative statements expressed by the American guests on being with other
people (in our case the Chinese graduate students—including me—who went to these
dinners to collect data for this study) are found only in pre-closing, the second stage, in
the recordings. The American guests expressed their pleasure of meeting them for the
ﬁrst time, such as "So nice to meet you girls" (Am. #1), "Nice/Glad to meet you" (Am.
#2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10).16

Laver (1981) calls these kinds of appreciative utterances "consolidatory comments"
because they are addressed to the positive aspect of face as esteem for the other
participants (p. 303), either other guests or the hosts, is implied in them.

In the Chinese recordings, however, there are three settings where the data collector
(the person who recorded the conversations) and the other guests did not know each other

before the dinners. Only in one recording did the guest speak one short sentence (Ni ye

 

14 le is a modal particle, indicating change of state here. It also refers to
"excessiveness" and "accomplished fact."

15 Here women "we," the inclusive term for the plural form of ﬁrst person pronoun,
includes the guest and his wife.

16 There are some variations of this linguistic pattern used in these conversations, such
as "Nice meeting you," "It's so nice to meet you," etc.

69

qu. “you too go” (You come, too”) to the “stranger” (the data collector) during the whole
leave-taking conversation after he gave his invitation to the host (Fanzheng you Shijian
jiu qu ba “any way have time then go” (Any way, come [to our house] when you have

time”). There is no “Nice to meet you” statement found in the Chinese data.

4.1.3.1-2 Giving thanks

Leave-taking is a speech event with a very high degree of risk to face (Laver, 1981).
A host might feel rejected if his/her guests conduct their leave-taking inappropriately (or
impolitely). That is threatening to the positive face of the host(s) according to Brown and
Levinson’s theory. To avoid this unpleasant situation, the American guests lavishly
express their gratitude to the host or hostess for their hospitality (see Appendix 11), such
as "Thank you for your hospitality" (Am. #1), "Thank you so much" (Am. #2), "Thank
you for inviting us here" (Am. #3, #8), "Thanks a million for a wonderful day" (Am. #4),
"Thank you for the wonderﬁJl dinner" (Am. #7), “Thank you for opening up your house”
(Am. #10), etc. In two recordings, "Giving thanks" is used by the guests as an indication
to close the conversation.

In Am. #1, as cited in Example 1, Guest B (Gb) thanked the host and hostess for the
nice time she had had ("Thank you so much for this enjoyable evening") right after her
friend (Ga) checked with her about taking their leave. In Am. #2, the guest implied her
desire to close the conversation simply by giving thanks to the hostess (" Well, thank you
so much").

Chinese guests, on the other hand, seem to express their gratitude to the host(s)

rather "grudgingly. " From Table 412-2, we see that this speech act is applied in only

70

three Chinese settings out of the ten recordings, and realized in only nine different
utterances, such as:

X iexie nide zhaodai.
Thank your entertaining.
(Thank you for your entertainment). (Ch. #2)

Najiu duo xie, nage,..erwei lingdao shengqing kuandai le

Then more thank well two leader great kindness entertain (pa)
(Then, thank you, the two leaders, 17 for your wonderful entertainment). (Ch. #6)
Xiexie la.

Thank (pa)

(Thank you). (Ch. #8)

Giving thanks or expressing appreciation, according to Brown and Levinson, are
addressing the host's positive face because his desire to be liked is assured and
recognized in these two speech acts. By emphasizing the enjoyable quality of the
interaction, the positive face of both addressee (the host) and the addresser (the guest) is
guaranteed. However, the guest is faced with two opposing tensions: the desire to
effectively communicate one's intention, and the desire to do FTAs with redressive
action. Speciﬁcally, a guest needs to let the host know that he/she wants to leave without
making the host to feel rejected or unappreciated. At the same time, the guest still wants
his/her own negative face to be satisﬁed, which means he/ she wants to have the freedom
to make his/her own decision on when to leave. The strategy suggested by Brown and
Levinson (1987) in doing F TAs is to do it "off record." In this way, the speaker cannot

be held to have committed himself/herself to one particular intent (p. 69).

71

The data ﬁ'om the recordings shows clearly that American guests did apply this
strategy as they indirectly indicated their desire to take their leave with appreciative
comments or thanks rather than a directly announced leave-taking ("on record" in Brown
and Levinson's term) as their Chinese counterparts did (which will be discussed in the
following section). This indirect way to express one's desire to take leave may explain
why some American leave-taking appears longer than the Chinese as Hu and Grove
(1991) discuss in their book. The American "off-record" usage of indicating their
intention to take leave, gives leeway to topic change rather than topic closing as
Schegloff and Sacks suggested (1973, p. 306). More often than not, conversations still
carry on in the American settings (which are revealed from the recordings as well as from
my observation) after such "appreciation" and "thanks" are expressed. Compared with
Chinese "on-record" announcements of leave-taking, which obviously discourage a new
topic, the American expressions are only "possible initial closings" ("possible pre-
closing" in Schegloff and Sacks' term) until the intention of leave taking is recognized
and satisﬁed, which means no new topic is introduced; then they become "real" initial
closings.

The data from the questionnaires shows, as presented in italics in Table 412-3, that
these two speech acts, “Giving thanks” and “Appreciating/Complimenting,” are also
highly frequently used by the American respondents (72.9% for “Giving thanks” and
67.9% for “Appreciating/Complimenting” in Situation 11). Many of them thanked the
host for inviting them to dinner and their hospitality, and complimenting the meal or the

_

l7 Lingdao "leader" here is used in a joking way as the dinner is held among friends and
colleagues. The host is the director, a "leader", but his wife is not. The tone of the whole
conversation is very friendly and humorous.

72

time/occasion for them to get together, such as “Thank you for inviting us” or “Thank
you for having us over for dinner,” or “The meal (or food, dinner) was delicious (or good,
great, excellent, lovely, wonderful),” “It was fun (or good, nice, great) to get (or getting)
together,” “ We’ve had a wonderful (or great, exquisite) time,” “It was enjoyable (or
nice, delightful, great, lovely, wonderﬁil) evening,” etc.

Another "high-frequency" speech act in the dialogue recordings of American leave-
taking is closing — exchanging terminal phases, such as "Bye," "Good-bye," "Good
night," or "See you." Although "Benediction" is also applied, terminal exchange makes
up the major part of the third phase in the American farewell after dinner. As shown in
Table 412-3, this speech act is not as frequently used in conducting the Chinese leave-
taking as in American goodbye. Although two of the ten Chinese recordings were not
complete, this speech act occurred in only six of the farewell dialogues of the Chinese
leave-taking, while it was used in every one of the ten American recorded dialogues.

Another difference in terminal exchanges between the two speech communities is
the lexical one. In China, sometimes the ending words between a guest and host are not
exchanging Zaijian "again see" (Goodby) (Ch. #1), or Yihoujian "later see" or Hui jian
"return see" (See you later) (Ch. #2 and #3). Chinese guests often ﬁnish their terminals
exchanges by giving a suggestion as Hui qu ba "back go" (Go back) (Ch. #6) or offering
an invitation as Qu wonar qu a "come my place" (Come to my home) (Ch. #7, #9, #10),
to the host. This is also observed in the data collected from the questionnaires. Besides
putting down Zaijian "again see" (Goodby), some Chinese respondents also reported
these following departing phrases, such as:

Bie song le

not see off

73

(You don’t need to see us off any further. 13 Ch-28).

Hui qu, hui qu
back go, back go
(Go back, go back. Ch-4, -77).

Hao la, quing hui ba, bie song le
alright, please back, not see off

(Alright, please go back, You don’t need to see us any further.19 Ch-22, -45, -49).

Qing liu lu
please keep/reserve step
(Don’t go any further. Ch-78).

In summary of the American leave-taking, with the assumption that conducting
leave-taking is risky to face according to Brown and Levinson's theory, the speech acts
which are highly frequently employed by American guests address the host's positive

face while protecting their own negative faces.

4.1.3.2 Chinese leave-taking

Shown in Table 412-3 (on page 64), besides "Closing," four other speech acts are
employed by the Chinese guests more frequently than the others. They are " Announcing
leave-taking," "Giving excuses," "Inviting," and "Recommending/Advising." Besides
leave-taking announcements, the other three speech acts are all other-oriented (you-
pattemed) linguistic expressions. Speech acts like these, inferred from the deﬁnitions
given by Brown and Levinson (1987), are intrinsic face-threatening-acts (FTAs) to the

hearer (H) (pp. 65-68). In a leave-taking event, as discussed above, an announcement of

 

18 Le, a Chinese particle, is used here as an indication of change of state, i.e. from
“seeing off” to “not seeing off.” That is why Bie song le is translated as “You don’t need
to see us off any further.”

74

leaving by a guest will threaten the host's positive face because he/she may feel rejected.
Giving you-patterned threatens the host's negative face because he/she may feel that
his/her personal territory is invaded. The host's negative face is also threatened by a
guest's invitation if it is against his/her will as he/she may feel imposed on; you-patterned
recommending/advising, in Brown and Levinson's view, is face-threatening to the host,

because this speech act is "imposing."

4.1.3.2-1 Elaborate initial closing

Compared with American guests who seem to be careful in using those face-
threatening speech acts, the Chinese seem to employ them on a much "freer" basis.
Unlike their American counterparts, who initiate the closing section more often by giving
thanks or expressing satisfaction than announcing leave-taking, as discussed in the
preceding section, the Chinese guests sometimes employ several speech acts together
with their announcement of leave-taking in the initial stage of their farewell after dinner.

Example 4 - illustrate this "ostentatious" attribute of Chinese leave-taking.

Example 4

(The host, a retired high school teacher, and the guest, a doctor in a factory, are long
time friends). "). (Ch. #1)

The guest announces his desire to take leave ("I think we should go") together with a
statement of appreciation of occasion ("We've had a good lunch today"), an excuse of
time ("we've been here for quite some time"), and a suggestion ("you should rest”) (The

quote is omitted here since it is cited in Example 1)

 

19 See Note 18.

75

Example 5

(The guest (G), the same person as the host in Ch. #1, is a long time friend of the
host, a retired high school principal in his mid-sixties.) (Ch. #2)

In this initial closing, besides giving an excuse ("It's getting late") and announcing
leave-taking ("I should go"), the guest also gives an invitation to the host and his wife
("When you have time, and Z has time, I'll invite you to my house").

G Zhege, ni zhaodai wan wo le, wo gai zou le, tian bu zao le.
Well, you entertain ﬁnish 1 (pa), I should go (pa), day not early (pa).
Ranhou ne, na yi tian, ni you kong,
Then (pa. indicating a pause), which one day, you have free time,
Z you kong, wo qing nimen qu.
Z have free time, I invite you go.
(Well, today you've entertained me. It's getting late and 1 should go. Then when

you have time, and 220 has time, I'll invite you to my house.)

Example 6

(In this recording, G, an engineer in his thirties, and his wife, a nurse, have been
invited by their friend's father, who is also the host in Ch.#1. Their friend, the
daughter of the host, and her brother, the host's son, are also there.) (Ch. #3)

In a "long" initial closing statement, the guest announces leave-taking ﬁrst ("we
should go now"). Then, immediately, he apologizes for occupying the host's time

("we've taken a lot of your time") together with several reasons (excuses) for them to

leave ("It's getting late, we still have to work tomorrow, you are very tired," and
"you've been busy the whole day"). He ﬁnishes his statement by suggesting the host rest

("you need to get rest early").

 

20 Z is the hostess, who was not present when this leave-taking statement was made.

76

G L dayie, dage, ah, women gai zou le, Shijian bu zao le, ni kan,
L uncle, brother”, ah, we shoud go (pa), time not early (pa), you see
danwu nimen hen Chang Shijian, ah, yinwei mingtian zenmen hai xueyao
hinder you very long time, ah, because tomorrow we22 still need
shangban, (... ?), nimen ye hen mang, ninmen ye mang le yi tian le,
go to work (...?), you too very busy, you also busy (pa) whole day (pa)
ye gai zaodianr xiuxiu, xiuxiu, shiwa.
also should ealier rest, rest, right.
(Uncle L, Brother, we should go now. It's getting late. You see, we've taken a lot
of your time. Because we still have to go to work tomorrow (...?), and you are
very busy too. (Besides), you've been busy the whole day and you need to get rest

early.)

Example 7

(In this recording, the guest, a doctor in his early sixties, is a good friend of the

host. They are also laoxiang "old native place” (fellow townsmen). (Ch. #4))

In this dialogue, the guest emphasizes the bounded relationship in "we're fellow
townsmen"23 besides indicating his desire to bring the interaction to a close by saying
"That's all, OK?" Of course he does not forget to suggest that the host rest ("([you]
should rest") as most Chinese guests do.

G Jiu zheme ba, jintian fan wo ye chi le,
Just so (pa. indicatingasuggestion.), today food I too eat (pa),
jiu ye he le, gai xiuxi le. Heihei... Fanzheng laoxiang,

wine too drink (pa), should rest (pa) (chuckle) Anyway fellow townsmen,

 

21 "Uncle" and "brother" are only used as polite address forms here. There is no family
relationship between the hosts and the guest.

22 Zenmen is the inclusive form of women, "we" in Mandarin Chinese. Here it refers to
all the guest, including the speaker himself.

23 Those who are "fellow townsmen" or "fellow village-men" are believed by some
Chinese to be as close as near relatives.

77

guoqu renshide wandianr.
before meet late.
(That's all, OK? Today, food, I ate; wine, I drank. [You] should rest. Anyway,

[We're] fellow townsmen, but didn't meet each other earlier.)

Example 8

(The speaker is a retired worker in his ﬁfties. He is a friend of the host's, a senior

engineer in his early forties. Three of his worker friends are also at the dinner.)
(Ch. #8)

In this closing conversation, the guest announces leave-taking ("we're leaving now")
together with excuses relating to time ("It's getting late") and concerning the host ("you've
been busy for a whole day, and are also very tired").

G Jintian shijian bu zao le, nimen mangle yi tian le, ye ting Ieide la.
Today time not early (pa), you24 busy one day (pa), also very tired (pa)
Zanmen ne, xianzai jiu zou le.
we25 (pa. indicating a pause), now then go (pa)

(It's getting late now, and you've been busy for a whole day, and also are very

tired.) (So) we're leaving now.)
Sometimes, the Chinese initial closing is not conducted in one turn by one speaker as
shown in the above five examples. It is conducted in more than one turn (Ch. #7) and by

two or more guests together (Ch. #5 and #6):

Example 9

(The Guest (G), a farmer in his thirties, is a distant relative of H, an elderly lady in
her eighties, who is living with her daughter and son-in-law, the hosts who invite
three other friends to this dinner besides G.) (Ch. #7)

 

24 Here nimen "you (pl.)" includes the host and the hostess.

78

In this case, the guest (G) announces leave-taking ("we're going back now") together
with giving an invitation ("Come to our house for a visit") in two turns.

G (l) Lao jinzi, women hui ya.
Grand aunt26, we returen (pa)

(Grand-aunt, we're going back now.)
H (2) Ah, ah.

Ah, ah.
(Ok, Ok.)
G (3) Guo women nar chuanqu wa.
Come over we there visit (pa. indicating a suggestion)

(Come to our house for a visit.)

Example 10

(Here Guest A (Ga) and Guest C (Gc) are high school teachers in their early ﬁfties.
Guest B, Ga's husband (Gb) is a retired worker. They are invited by the host, who is

a friend, a former colleague as well as a neighbour of the guests. The host is the
same as in Ch. #1, #3, and #4) (Ch. #5)

In this farewell conversation, an excuse concerning time ("It's getting late") is given
by one guest (Ga), and another one concerning the host ("Teacher L has been busy half of
the day") is given by another guest (Gc), and the leave-taking announcement ("Let's go")
is conducted by the third one (Gb) in three turns.

Ga (1) Shijian bu duan le
Time not short (pa)
(It's getting late.)

Gb (2) Zuo ba.

Go (pa. indicating a suggestion)

 

25 See note 23.

79

(Let's go.)
Go (3) L laoshi manghu 1e ban tian. (laugh) W0 qu qu wade yifu.
L teacher busy (pa) half day. I go fetch my clothes.
Ni, ni ai chi suan qiezi bu?
You, you like eat garlic eggplant not?
(Teacher L has been busy half of the fday. I'll go to get my coat. Do you like
garlic eggplant?)

Example 1 l

(The guests, Ga & Gb in their early 40s, are visiting their old friends and town-folks,
the host (Ha) and hostess (I-Ib) who are retired professors, during a Spring Festival
season. Ga is a manager in a construction company and his wife is a party secretary at a
railway station. Their son, Ge, 17 years old, a high school student, is with them. Another
guest, Gd, a retired high school teacher, who has been visiting Ga & Gb, is also there)
(Ch.# 9)

In this farewell conversation, the Guests, Ga, Gb and Gc all stood up together
indicating that they wanted to leave. While the hostess was joking about the same height
of the whole family, Ga initiates his leave-taking statement by giving an invitation (1).
Then Gb, his wife, repeats the invitation again (2). After that, Ga extends the invitation
to the host’s friend (Ge) (3). His wife (Gb) emphasizes their close relationship with the
hosts saying that they are laoxiang (fellow townsmen”) (6). After this inviting and
reinviting, Gc, the high school student, states the ﬁrst leave-taking announcement (7) and
farewell (9).

Ga (1) Nimen qu wonar..

you (pl.) go me place/house.

 

26 Jinzi is a dialectal address term for jiuma (or jiumu), the wife of one's maternal uncle,
in Mandarin Chinese.

27 See note 23.

80

(Come to visit us.)
Ha & Hb (2) Ah, ah.
(Ok, Ok).
Gb (3) Fanzheng you shijianjiu qu ba.
anyway have time then go (pa)
(Anyway come when you have time.)
Ga (4) (To Gd) Ni ye qu.
you also go
(You [come visit us], too.)
Ga (5) 0h, hao hao.
Ok, good, good.
(Ok, alright.)
Ga (6) Dou shi laoxiang.
all be fellow townsmen
(We are all fellow townsmen).
Ge (7) Tayie, women zou le.
uncle we go (pa)
(Uncle23, we’re leaving.)
Hb (8) Ah, guo lai a.
Ok, over come (pa)
(Alright, come here again.)
Go (9) T aye, zai jian.
uncle, again see
(Goodbye, Uncle.)
Ha (10) Zai jian. Qian men zou.
again see, front gate go.

(Goodbye. Go from the front gate.)

 

28 This is a way of addressing older people in China. Ga is not Gc’s biological uncle,
but only his father’s (Ga’s) old friend.

81

Example 12

(In this setting, Ga, Gc, and Gd and the other two guests, whose ages are from late
twenties to later thirties, are employees in a state-owned textile factory. They share
the same office with their director, the host, who is in his later ﬁfties. Gb is a
retired high school teacher in his late sixties. His daughter is among the guests,

and he went there to record the dialogue.) (Ch. #6)

In this good-bye dialogue, four guests "work" together to get this initial closing
section done when they announce leave-taking ("Let's go" from (1) to (4)), advise the
host and hostess to rest (in (5), "You also should rest") and apologize for taking up their
time (in (6) "We've been bothering you here the whole evening").

Ga (1) Zouba, zanmen.
Go (pa. indicating a suggestion), we.
(Let's go.)

Gb (2) Najiu zou ba.
Then go (pa)
(Then let's go.)

Go (3) Zou ba.
Go (pa)
(Let's go.)

Gd (4) Zou ba.
Go (pa)
(Let's go.)

Gb (5) Nimen ye gai xiuxi le ba.
You (pl). also should rest (pa) (pa)
(You also should rest.)

Ga (6) Darao le yi wanshang le, zai zher.
Disturb (pa) one evening (pa) at here.

(We've been bothering you here the whole evening.)

82

The Chinese initial closing with leave-taking announcements seems rather elaborate
when compared with the American "simpler" forms. In the data collected for this study,
there is no combination of several speech acts in the American initial closing. Apart from
indicating their desire to take leave indirectly by giving thanks or appreciation, some
American guests would announce their leave-taking without giving an excuse until asked
(shown in Example 13). Otherwise an excuse is offered only to justify the need to take
leave. In Example 13, Gb gave an excuse for preparing dinner for their children the
following day. Then in Example 14, the husband (Ga) excused their need to leave with

his wife’s physical condition (getting tired of sitting in a wheel chair).

Example 13

(The hostess (H), who is in her early seventies, goes to the same church as the
guests, who are a couple in their later ﬁfties. The husband (Ga) is a private
business owner, and his wife (Gb) is a Bible school teacher.) (Am. #6)

Ga (1) We should go.

Gb (2) Yeah..., we should.

H (3) You have a lesson to prepare for tomorrow?

Gb (4) And, you know, our kids are all coming for dinner tomorrow, I'll have to do a

little cooking.

Example 14

(The guests and hosts are long time friends, and they are all in their early seventies.
The husbands are private business owners, and their wives are housewives. Guest
B (Gb), the wife has been in a wheelchair after a stroke couple of months prior to
this dinner.) (Am. #4)

Ga (1) Well, I think my wife is getting a little restless.
Gb (2) Yeah.

83

Ha (3) Can we just read and pray [just in a minute?
Gb (4) [Oh, absolutely.

4.1.3.2-2 Other-orientation

The Chinese "other-oriented" (you-patterned) excuse for taking leave, by Brown and
Levinson's (1987) standards, sounds quite imposing as it may "invade" the host's personal
territory, his/her own freedom to take care of his/her own business. Apart ﬁ'om concern
about time such as "We've been here for quite a while" (Ch. #1, #5) and "It's getting late"
(Ch. #2, #8), and consideration for having to work the following day like "We all have to
work tomorrow" (Ch. #3 — the inclusive "we" (zenmen) is used here), the major part of
the Chinese excuses (seven out of thirteen "excuse" utterances), which are displayed from
the recorded dialogues, are all concerning the host's welfare, such as "You've been busy
for a whole day" and "You've been working hard the whole day" (Ch. # 3), "H (= the
hostess) has been busy for quite some time" and " You were out the whole afternoon" (Ch.
#5), " You've been busy the whole evening" (Ch. # 6), "You've been busy for a whole day,
and are also very tired" and "You two (= the host and hostess) prepared for it for a long
time" (Ch. #8). These are all other-oriented (you-patterned) statements that are
"threatening" to the negative face of the host according to Brown and Levinson's theory
(1987)

On the contrary, the American excuses are rather "self-oriented" (I-patterned) — "I
think my wife is getting restless" (Am. #4), "I'll have to do a little cooking'" and "Last
night we were so late" (Am. #6), “We really need to go. I need to help Dave (G’s son)
with some of his reading” (Am. #8), — do not have this threat of imposing on the host.

The data from the questionnaires also reﬂect this “self-oriented” (I-patterned).

84

In one American recording, the inferred excuse seems to be both self-oriented and
you-patterned as the guest announces leave-taking after checking with the hostess to see

if they need to go to a concert in a short while:

Example 15

(The guests and the hosts, all in their later ﬁfties or early sixties, are friends ﬁom
church and they all lived in China and taught English there for a couple of years.)
(Am. #7)

Ga (1) You want to go to a four o'clock concert?
Ha (2) Yeah.
Ga (3) So we should - [go]

The other-oriented excuse for leave-taking here is different from the Chinese you-
oriented excuse because it concerns some more "imperative"29 and "objective" need of
the host, which is different from those "It's getting late" or "You are tired" excuses, which
seem unimpressive and more subjective. Moreover, this other-oriented move is only
followed by an announcement of leave-taking without more elaborate or explicit you-
patterned suggestions or advice, such as " You've been busy for a whole day and you
should rest now."

In addition, the suggestions and advice given by the Chinese guests, such as "You
should rest" (Ch. #1), "[You] get rest early" (Ch. #3), "You got up early, so you need to go
to bed early" (Ch. #6) seem more imposing on the host's negative face. The advice or

suggestions given by the American guests, however, are very general like "Take care"

(Am. #1, #5, and #6) and "Take care of yourself' (Am. #6).

85

Inviting, according to Brown and Levinson (1987, p. 66), also threatens the host's
negative face as he may feel that his personal freedom of making his own decision is
violated by this speech act. Again, in the dialogue recordings, the Chinese guests
performed this FTA much more than their American counterparts. The data from the
questionnaires also show this difference between the two speech communities in giving
invitation to the host (See Table 412-3).

The qualitative analysis of the data obtained from dialogue recordings and the
questionnaires has shown that leave-taking after dinner is different between Chinese and
Americans both in the structure and the contents. The Chinese leave-taking is more You-
pattemed and other-oriented and the American farewell is more I-patterned and self-
oriented. The Chinese way of leave-taking, according to Brown and Levinson’s theory,
threatens the host’s negative face, but the American leave-taking does not. Now let us
turn to the attitudes of these two speech communities towards the each other’s ways of

leave taking.

4.2 Different attitudes

In this section of examining the attitudinal difference in leave-taking between
Chinese and Americans, we will present in three parts the quantitative analysis of the data
from the second part of the questionnaires. The Chi-square tests were conducted ﬁrst to
determine whether some demographic factors of the survey, i.e. age, gender, profession
of the respondents, as well as the questionnaire forms (or the sequence of the statements

on the questionnaire), have some inﬂuential effect on the results of the survey. Then, in

 

29 It was almost 2:30 pm. when the guest (Ga) was checking with the host (Ha) about a
four o'clock concert in the same afternoon.

86

the second part, we will show the attitudinal differences between Chinese and Americans
in rating the eight leave-taking statements given in the questionnaires. The results of this
part were also obtained from the Chi-square tests. In the last part of this section, we are
going to examine the results from the factor analysis, which was applied to the data for

the purpose of conﬁrming the results of the Chi-square tests.

4.2.1 Demographic factors

The Chi-square tests were ﬁrst performed on the data from each speech community
to see whether the other factors besides the cultural difference, such age, profession,
gender, or the sequence of the statements on the questionnaire, have effect on the survey.
In order to do this, each factor was singled out and tested separately on the frequencies of
the responses to every one of the ﬁve impressions given to the eight different leave-
taking statements.

The Chi-square tests show, in Table 4.2.1-1 and Table 4.2.1-2, that gender and age
have no signiﬁcant effect on the American respondents when evaluating the leave-taking
statements in the questionnaire. For the Chinese data, one impression on Statement H
was rated differently between the male and female respondents (shown in Table 4.2.1-1),
and three impressions on Statement D, G and 1-1 respectively got some different
evaluation due to the age difference (shown in Table 4.2.1-2 on the following page).

The tests on professional affect on the data shows in Table 4.2.1-3 (on Page 89) that
ﬁve impressions are evaluated differently by the American respondents and two by the
Chinese with different professional backgrounds.

Table 4.2.1-4 (on Page 90) shows some effect of the sequence of the statements on

the questionnaire. Three impressions are rated differently by the American respondents

87

................

Table 4.2.1-l Gender factor on the data

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

’ Statement Rating on Result
&Feature LLLLLLLLLLL
Am No signiﬁcant difference
H Considerate- 1 2 3 4 5 N
ECh -I,-You, Selﬁsh F 9.09 18.18 54.55 3.03 15.15 33
-Thanks M 5.00 5.00 37.50 22.50 30.00 40
f ............... p=o.ozs, o.m<p<o.os, DF=4 ..........
Table 4.2.1-2 Age factor on the data
Statement Rating on Result
........... &Feature
Am - No signiﬁcant difference .....................
= D Considerate- l 2 3 4 5 N
-1, -You, Selﬁsh 3A 18.18 18.18 54.55 9.09 0 22
+Thanks 313 36.00 28.00 28.00 4.00 4.00 25
’C 13.79 27.59 24.14 10.34 24.14 29
.......................... P=O-O33a 0.01<p<o.05. DF=8
G Polite-Rude 1 2 3 4 5 N
§Ch +1, +You, A 47.37 10.53 26.32 10.53 5.26 19
’ -Thanks B 14.81 33.33 22.22 11.11 18.52 27
C 3.33 46.67 16.67 23.33 10.00 30
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL p=0.006, p<0 .01, DF=8
H Polite-Rude 1 2 3 4 5 N
-I,-You, A 5.26 21.05 36.84 21.05 15.79 19
-Thanks B 16.00 8.00 20.00 8.00 48.00 25
C 3.33 20.00 6.67 10.00 60.00 30

 

 

 

 

.................................... a. ........... I ................................. ..................... p. =0030001<p<005m==8 ......................

and four by the Chinese because of this factor.

However, with consideration to the forty evaluated impressions (eight statements are

evaluated with ﬁve impressions), the number of the impressions which show the affect of

these four factors is comparatively fewer. Therefore, only ethnicity was taken into

consideration when the Chi-square tests were performed to ﬁnd out the attitudinal

difference between Chinese and American. That is because the focus of this study is to

88

Table 4.2.1-3 Profession factor on the data

 

AEm

................

Ch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

89

Statement Rating on Result
..... 64....1198t9tai ................................................ . ........... . ...................... . ................................................................................
A Considerate- l 2 3 4 5 N
-I,+You, Selﬁsh A 21.43 71.43 7.14 0.00 0.00 14
+Thanks B 36.11 30.56 30.56 2.78 0.00 36
C 65.62 18.75 9.38 3.12 3.12 32
p=0.007, p<0.01, DF=8
B Grateﬁil 1 2 3 4 5 N
+1, -You, -Ungrateful A 0.00 78.57 21.43 0.00 0.00 14
+Thanks B 16.67 30.56 47.22 2.78 2.78 36
C 31.25 37.501562 9.38 6.25 32
p=0.009, p<0 .01, DF=8
E Polite-Rude 1 2 3 4 5 N
-I +You, A 21.43 21.43 21.43 21.43 14.29 14
-Thanks B 8.33 38.89 22.22 27.78 2.78 36
C 38.712258 29.08 3.23 6.45 32
p=0.027, 0.01<p<0 .05, DF=8
H Grateful 1 2 3 4 5 N
-I,-You, -Ungrateful A 0.00 7.14 28.57 28.57 35.71 14
-Thanks B 0.00 5.56 44.44 38.89 11.11 36
C 9.38 21.88 18.75 37.50 12.50 32
p=0.007, p<0.01, DF=8
H Polite-Rude 1 2 3 4 5 N
-I,-You, A 0.00 42.86 21.43 28.57 7.14 14
-Thanks B 0.00 11.11 52.78 25.00 11.11 36
C 16.13 9.68 32.26 32.26 9.68 31
p=0.009, p<0 .01, DF=8
C Grateful l 2 3 4 5 N
+1, +You, -Ungrateful A 33.33 27.78 27.78 2.78 8.33 36
+Thanks B 23.08 23.08 30.77 3.85 19.23 26
C 0.00 37.50 25.00 37.50 0.00 8
p=0.023, 0.01<p<0.05, DF=8
D Polite-Rude l 2 3 4 5 N
-I,-You, A 44.44 41.67 11.11 0.00 2.78 36
+Thanks B 34.62 11.54 26.92 7.69 19.23 26
C 22.22 66.67 11.11 0.00 0.00 9
......... 10:00“), DF=8

Table 4.2.1-4 Sequence of Statement (Questionnaire form) factor on the data

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Statement Rating on Result
&Feature
A Sincere 1 2 3 4 5 N
-I,+You, -Insincere A 36.36 22.73 31.82 0.00 9.09 22
+Thanks B 28.57 9.52 38.10 19.05 4.76 21
C 41.18 47.06 5.88 5.88 0.00 17
D 27.27 63.64 4.55 4.55 0.00 22
Am p=0.003, 0.01<p, DF=12
H Direct 1 2 3 4 5 N
-I,-You, -Indirect A 57.14 9.52 28.57 4.76 0.00 21
-Thanks B 28.57 9.52 33.33 28.57 0.00 21
C 35.29 47.06 0.00 11.76 5.88 17
D 36.36 27.27 22.73 9.09 4.55 22
p=0.027, 0.01<p<0.05, DF=12
B Considerate- 1 2 3 4 5 N
+I,-You, Selﬁsh A 17.65 0.00 23.53 35.29 23.53 17
+Thanks B 26.32 15.79 36.84 10.53 10.53 19
C 13.64 27.27 36.36 0.00 22.73 22
D 5.56 27.78 27.78 38.89 0.00 18
p=0.022, 0.01<p<0.05, DF=12
C Considerate- 1 2 3 4 5 N
+1, +You, Selﬁsh A 26.67 20.00 26.67 6.67 20.00 15
+Thanks B 36.84 10.53 10.53 5.26 36.84 19
Ch C 5.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 5.00 20
D 23.81 4.76 42.86 23.81 4.76 21
p=0.006, p<0.01, DF=12
C Sincere 1 2 3 4 5 N
+1, +You, -Insincere A 37.50 25.00 0.00 18.75 18.75 15
+Thanks B 42.11 10.53 10.53 0.00 36.84 19
C 31.82 40.91 4.55 4.55 18.18 20
D 14.29 9.52 42.86 19.05 14.29 21
p=0.001, DF=12

H Considerate- 1 2 3 4 5 N
-I,-You, Selﬁsh A 7.14 0.00 28.57 7.14 57.14 14
-Thanks B 16.67 11.11 50.00 0.00 22.22 18
C 5.00 5.00 50.00 35.00 5.00 20
D 0.00 23.81 47.62 9.52 19.05 21

 

 

 

 

=0.003, p<0.01, DF=12

 

90

 

ﬁnd out the difference in leave-taking after dinner between the two speech communities.

Thus, I will not discuss these factors ﬁirther in this study”.

4.2.2 Results from the Chi-square tests

From the discussion in 4.1, we can see that giving an excuse with “you” or with “1’ ’
and with “thanks” or without are the major features that separate the Chinese leave-taking
from the American farewell. Therefore, in this section, I will present the results of the
survey on attitude in two parts based on these features. In the ﬁrst one, I will compare
the result of the survey of Chinese and American attitudes towards two leave-taking
statements on the questionnaire with “+1, iyou, +thanks” feature (i.e. “l ” and “thanks”
are used [+] in the two statements, and you is used in one (+) but not in the other H
leave-taking statement).

Then, in the second part, I will discuss the result of data analysis towards the other
two farewell statements with the feature of “+y0u, :tzthanks.” As discussed in Chapter 3,
there are ﬁve impressions given to each of the eight statements on the questionnaire. The
respondents were asked to evaluate each statement under ﬁve scales with regard to each
of the ﬁve impressions. In the following discussion, only those that have shown

signiﬁcant difference in the data analysis, which means the probability (p) is within the

range of 0.01 s p < 0.05, will be considered and presented.

 

30 Another reason for not considering these factors ﬁirther is that some of the divisions,
such as with professional groups which are based on educational level, are not equally
applicable to both ethnic groups. For example, professors in the USA usually have
doctoral degrees, or at least Master degrees. Though Chinese universities and colleges
began to require a higher educational level for their faculties, there are still many
professors who have only Bachelor degrees.

91

4.2.2.1 Leave-taking with “+1 and +thanks”

As mentioned above, Americans tend to use “1’ ’ and “thanks” frequently in their
farewell after diner. Two statements in the questionnaire are typical in American leave-
taking. The ﬁrst one is Statement B (+1, -you, +thanks), which is quoted here for
illustration.

“Well, I should go now. My daughter and son are all coming for dinner tomorrow.
I have to do a little cooking tonight. Thanks for the dinner.”

The second is Statement C ( +1, + you, +thanks):

“Well, it ’s time to go. Thank you so much for the wonderful evening. I ’m so glad I
came.”

The common feature of these two statements is that both of them have the ﬁrst
person pronoun “I” and “+thanks” features. The difference between the two statements is
that there is a second person pronoun “you” in Statement C but not in Statement B. Now
let us see how different the Americans and the Chinese responded to Statement B in their
rating of the ﬁve impressions: polite vs. rude, grateful vs. ungrateful, direct vs. indirect,
considerate vs. selﬁsh, and sincere vs. insincere. The results are shown in Table 4.2.2-1
(on Page 93) and Chart 6 (on Page 94).

Surprisingly interesting, to this American way of leave-taking statement after dinner,
the Chinese rated it much more positive than the Americans did in regard to politeness
and sincerity. Thirty-one Chinese (38.6%) in the survey rated the statement 1 (=polite),
but only twenty Americans (24.4%) rated it 1, while twenty-seven of them (32.9%) rated
it 3 (=neither polite nor rude). Then for the impression of sincerity, forty-four Chinese

respondents (57.1%) rated it 1 (=sincere), but only ﬁfteen Americans (18.3%) considered

92

it as a sincere statement, while twenty-nine of them (35.4%) rated it 3 (=neither sincere
nor sincere).

As for the impression of “Direct-Indirect,” even though the majority of the
respondents from both groups gave 1 (=direct) to the rating of the statement, the
difference, however, is still obvious when we look at the ﬁgures. About thirty-seven
Americans (57.1%) in the survey considered the statement “direct,” but forty-seven
Chinese (60.3%) rated it 1(=sincere). Now let us look at the rating on another American

way of leaving taking, which is shown in Table 4.2.2-2 (on Page 95)

Table 4.2.2-l Rating“) on Statement 18 (+1, -you, +thanks)

 

 

 

Ratrng . . "1(2) 2 3 iiiiiiiii 4 5 EEEEEEEEEEEEEE N """
s ..... Am.20/2439(3) ....... 2. 6/3171 ...... 2.. 7/3293 .......... 6/732 ........... 3/3'66: ..... .8..2. .....
Polite-Rude """ (5h """ “““ 31738.75“ """" 2 8/3500 8/11.24 8/1124'" 5/6.25 l 78' """

 

 

 

 

 

' p=0.009,p<0.01,DF=4
............................................ Am"'"E""3'7/4'6'Q6'8""'3273827g 9/11.11 3/3701/12381

Direct— """" (:11 """" E"’4’7’/’6’0.26 18/23.08E 4/5.13 3/3.86 6/7.69 78
Indirect ........................................... p=0.039,0.01<p>0.05,DF=4 ................

"""""""""""""""""""""" Am""""""i'5/i8.29 26/29.27 29/3537 7/8.54 7/8.54 82

Sincere- Ch 44/57.l4 l6/20.78 6/7.79 7/9.09 '4/6.25 77

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..............................

Insincere p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4

 

 

(1) Two impressions, “Grateﬁil-Ungrateful” and “Considerate-Selﬁsh” show no
signiﬁcant differences between the Chinese and Americans in rating, and therefore are
not discussed here.

(2) This is the number of the scales from positive to negative. For example, 1 indicates
polite and 5 means rude.

(3) This is the frequencies and percentage of the result on this choice, i.e. twenty
American respondents, which is about twenty-four percent (24.39%), rated this statement
“1” in regard to politeness.

93

Chart 6
Rating on Statement B (+1, -you, +thanks)

 

 

 

 

Percent

 

ClCh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

politeness Directness Sincerity

The different attitudes toward this statement between Chinese and Americans are
clearly shown in Table 423-2 (on the following page). The majority of the Americans
evaluated all ﬁve impressions with a positive rating, while the percentage of the Chinese
giving the positive evaluation is much lower than that of Americans. For “Polite-Rude”
impression, seven-two American respondents (87.8%) rated it 1 (=polite), but only thirty-
ﬁve Chinese (44.9%) in the survey considered this statement “polite.” When the
gratefulness and consideration are concerned, sixty Americans (73.2%) rated this leave-
taking statement 1 (=grateful) and ﬁfty-ﬁve ofthem (67.1%) gave it 1 (=considerate).
However, for the Chinese, only twenty-three of them (24.7%) rated it 1 (=grateﬁil) and
seventeen of them (22.7%) of them the statement “considerate.” Then, twenty-three
Chinese respondents (29.9%) gave 3 (=neither grateful nor ungrateful) to this “+1, + you,
+thanks “ statement. Then in regard to consideration, twenty-one of them (28.0%) rated
it 3 (=neither considerate nor selﬁsh).

For the impression of directness, even though more Chinese in the survey rated the
statement as 1 (=direct) than those choosing the others, the percentage of the Americans

who rated it 1 is higher than that of the Chinese. Fifty-two of the American respondents

94

(63.4%) gave the highest rating on directness to this statement but only thirty Chinese

(40.5%) gave the same rating. Then for sincerity, ﬁfty-ﬁve Americans in the survey

(65.9%) rated this statement “sincere.” However, only twenty—four Chinese respondents

(30.8%) considered it a sincere statement. The differences between the Chinese and

American respondents to this statement discussed here is also illustrated in Chart 7 (on

the following page).

The data from the recordings and the ﬁrst part of the questionnaire shows that “+1”

and “+thanks” are the two salient linguistic features in the American leave-taking.

Therefore, it was expected that the American respondents rated Statement C (+1, + you,

Table 4.2.2-2 Rating on Statement C (+1, +y0u, +thanks)

 

 

 

Rating . 1 2 3 4 5 N
TAm 72/8780 6/7.32 ’ 3/3.66 ' 1/1.22 0 E.82.

 

Polite-Rude Ch

 

35/4487

 

 

 

20/2564 13/12.82 5/5.13 9/1154 E78

 

...................................................................................................

p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4 .
18/21.95 3/3.66 0 1/1.22 82'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. Am 60/73.17
Grateful- Ch E19/24.68 20/2597 23/29.87 7/909 8/10.39 77
Ungrateful p=0.000,p<0.01,DF=4 ’ E E
i """ EAm 52/63.41 20/2439 9/10.98 1/1.22 0 E82;
EDirect-Indirect ECh 30/40.54 17/2297 11/14.86 4/5.41 E12/16.22 77
; E ............................ p=0.000,p<0,01, DF=4 a ........ ;
Am55/6707 18/21.95 5/6.10 3/3.66 U122 82

 

E C onsiderate- Ch
Selfish

........................................................

Sincere- Ch

17/22.67

 

 

 

 

 

l4/l8.67 21/28.00 11/14.67E12/l6.00 75

 

"p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4
'21/25614/4882/244 1/12282

 

 

17/21.79'" 12/1538 8/102617/217978

 

 

Insincere

 

p=0.000, p<0.01,'DF=4

 

95

 

Chart 7

. .A I
Rating on Statement C (+1, +y0u, +thanks) '0 Clinl

 

 

 

 

 

Percent

 

 

 

 

 

 

Politeness Gratefulness Directness Consideration Sincerity

+thanks) higher than the Chinese. Then, why did the Chinese respondents give a higher
rating to Statement B (+1, -you, +thanks), another way of the American farewell? One
explanation is that since “thanks” is not a typical feature in the Chinese leave-taking, its
presence in this leave-taking statement is more salient to Chinese, who regard giving
thanks as very polite. (More discussion on this will be in Chapter 5). Therefore

Statement B got a higher rating from the Chinese in the survey.

4.2.2.2 Leave-taking with “—1 “ and “+you” excuses

Now let us look at the result of the survey on the other two statements, Statement A
and Statement E, with the feature of “-1, + you, i thanks,” which is dominantly used by
Chinese guests when saying good-bye. The common feature of these two leave-taking
statements is “+ you,” and the difference is that there is no “thanks” in Statement E. The
guest in Statement A (-1, + you, +thanks) says:

“Well, it’s getting late. You must be tired. You ’ve been busy the whole day. Thanks
for the dinner.”

96

Statement E (-I, + you, -thanks) is like this:

“Well, it’s getting late. You ’ve been working the whole day and you need to rest

9,

now.
The different attitudes between Chinese and Americans toward Statement A, a “-1,
+ you, +thanks” leave-taking excuse, are shown in Table 423-3 on the following page.
Forty-three Americans in the survey (52.4%) rated the statement as “polite,” while
sixty-nine of the Chinese respondents (87.3%) gave the highest rating on politeness to
this statement. As for the impression of “Grateful-Ungrateﬁil,” sixty-one Chinese

(78.2%) considered the speaker grateﬁJl but only twenty-ﬁve Americans (30.5%) chose 1

(=grateful) and thirty-six of them (43.9%) rated it 2 (=some what grateful). Another

Table 4.2.2-3 Rating. on Statement A (-I, +y0u, +thanks)

 

..............................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rating . 1 2 3 4 5 N
"""""" Am 43/52.44 23/28.05 10/1220 5/6.10 1/1.22 82
Polite-Rude Ch .69/8734 5/6.33 3/3.80 2/2.53 ""0 . 79 :
................................................... p=0.000,p<0.01, DF=4 .
""""""""""""""""" Am 325/3049 36/43.90 18/21.95 ' 2/2.44 1/1.22 82E
Grateﬁtl- Ch 61/78.21 12/15.38 5/6.41 0 E 0 78
Ungrateﬁtl p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4
. Am 37/45.12 27/3293 15/18.29 2/2.44 1/1.22 82
Considerate- Ch 355/7143 14/18.18 7/909 1/1.30 . 0 77....
Selﬁsh p=0.019, 0.01<p<0.05, DF=4
Am 27/3293 29/3537 17/2073 6/7.32 3/3.66 82L
Sincere- Ch 46/5897 18/2308 8/10.26 4/5.13 2/2.56 78
..--..lreirzeere ..... p=0..9%.9.01<p<0.05. DFﬁt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* There is no signiﬁcant difference on the rating to the impression of being “Direct-

Indirect.”

difference shows in rating the statement under the “Considerate-Selﬁsh” impression.

Fifty-ﬁve Chinese respondents (71.4%) rated the statement 1 (=considerate), but only

97

 

 

thirty-seven Americans (45.1%) picked up the same rating. When asked about the
sincerity of the speaker of this statement, forty-six Chinese (58.9%) gave it 1 (=sincere),
but only twenty-seven Americans (32.9%) gave it such a high rating while twenty-nine of
them (35.3%) only rated it 2 (= somewhat sincere). The different attitudes towards this

“-1, + you, +thanks” are also illustrated in Chart 8.

Chart 8
Rating on Statement A (-I, +y0u, +thanks) Am
U Ch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Percent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Politeness

Consideration Sincerity

Now we turn to the results of the Chi-square tests on Statement E to see what the
difference between Chinese and Americans in their attitudes towards this “-1, + you, -
thanks” leave-taking excuse, which is shown in Table 4.2.2-4 on the following page.

With this “-1” and “-thanks” leave-taking excuse, more differences are shown in the
attitudes between Chinese and Americans. More than ﬁfty-ﬁve percent of the Chinese
respondents gave this statement the highest rating, i.e. “1,” to each one of the ﬁve
impressions. There are forty-four Chinese (57.1%) in the survey considering the
statement “polite,” forty-six of them (61.8%) regarding it “grateful,” forty-two (56.76%)
thinking it “direct,” forty-seven (61.8%) believing it “considerate,” and forty-three

(56.58%) considering it “sincere.” For the American respondents, however, only

98

Table 4.2.2-4 Rating on Statement E (-I, +you, -thanks)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rating 1 2 . 3 . 4 5 N EEEEE .
EAm """ 1 "8/2222 24/29.63'20/24.69 14/17.28 5/6.17 E81
Polite-Rude Ch 44/57.14 19/24.68 13/16.88 1/1.30 0 “““ 77
“““““““““““““““““““““““““““ p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4 """"""""""""""""""""
Am10/1235 18/22.22 29/35.80E 17/2099E 7/8.64 81""
Grateful- T'Ch E47/61.84 21/27.63 8/10.53 00 """ 76"";
Ungrateﬁd ................................................. .. p=0.000,p<0.01, 151844 ...............
Am27/3333 ........ 2 .2727... .../22.22 11/1358" ...... 33708. .....
EDirect-Indirect Ch 42/56.76 14/18.92 15/2027 1/1.35 2/2.70 '74”.
p=0.008,p<0.01,DF=4 " """"
"""""""""" EAm 25/30.49"""'1'9/23.17 22/26.83 11/1341 5/6.10 82
E Considerate- ECh 47/6l.84 17/22.37 ll/l4.47 0 1/l.32 76
Selﬁsh p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4
Am 16/19.75 18/22.22 22/27.16 17/2099 8/9.88 81
Sincere- Ch 43/56.58 _ 16/2105 _ 12/15.79 5/6.58 0 76
Insincere E p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4

 

 

eighteen of them (22.2%) considered the statement “polite,” but twenty-four of them
(29.63%) regarded it “somewhat polite.” Compared with the high rating for this
statement from the Chinese on gratefulness and sincerity, twenty-nine Americans
(35.8%) gave it 3 (=neither grateﬁil nor ungrateﬁtl) and twenty-two (27 .2%) rated it 3
(=neither sincere nor insincere) for sincerity. Even though more Americans in the survey
gave 1 to this “-1, + you, -thanks” leave-taking statement for the impressions of directness
and consideration, the percentage of them is much lower than that of the Chinese gave
such a high rating. Only twenty-seven American respondents (33.3%) chose “direct” and

twenty-ﬁve (3 0.5%) of them chose “considerate” (compared with 56.8% of the Chinese

99

for being “direct” and 61.9% for being “considerate”). These differences are also

illustrated in Chart 9.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
   

  
   

    

 

 

Chart 9 Am
Rating on Statement E (-I, +y0u, -thanks) DCh
80
60 "P— w
E
2 40 7 _..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Politeness Cratefulness Directness Consideration Sincerity

The results of the data analysis for Statement B shows that this Chinese way of
saying good-bye without “1” or “thanks” is generally considered negative by Americans
who prefer leave-taking with “I” and “than .”

In the next sections, we are going to look at the survey results on the other four
leave-taking statements which seem neither typical Chinese nor American ways of saying
goodbye. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the other four statements were not taken from the
recordings but designed by the research for the purpose of the survey. First let us look at

the survey results of Statement F and G which have “+1” and “-thanks” features.

4.2.2.3 Leave-taking with “+1 ” and “-thanks” excuses

The speakers of both Statement F and G used the ﬁrst person pronoun “I” and did
not give thanks to their hosts as they said good-bye. The only difference between them is
that the guest in Statement F did not use the second person pronoun “you” while the guest

in Statement G did. The statements are as follows:

100

Statement F (+1, -you, -thanks) is:

“Well, 1 need to go home and get some work done that I ’ve let go for over a week

now.
Statement G (+1, + you, -thanks) is:

”Well, it’s getting late. You 've got to work tomorrow and I've got a long way to
drive.”

First let us examine the results of the rating on Statement F which is shown in Table
4.2.2-5 on the following page.

In this “+1, -you and -thanks” statement, even though the American respondents did
not rate it in a very positive way, the Chinese respondents gave it a more negative rating
than the Americans in regard to politeness, gratefulness, and consideration. Twenty-ﬁve
Chinese in the survey (33.3%) rated this statement 5 (= rude), but only eighteen
Americans (22.2%) gave the same rating. Twenty-six American respondents (32.1%)
rated it 3 (= neither polite nor rude). Then for gratefulness, twenty-four Americans
(34.6%) rated this statement 4 (=somewhat ungrateful), but twenty-one Chinese (29.2%)
gave 5 (=ungrateful) to this statement. The similar results in rating also occur in regard
to the impression of being considerate or selﬁsh. Thirty-eight Americans (46.3%) rated
the statement 4 (=somewhat selﬁsh), but thirty Chinese (39.5%) rated it 5 (=selﬁsh).

However, the Chinese attitude is more positive than that of the Americans with
regard to sincerity. Twenty-eight Chinese in the survey (37.8%) considered the statement
a “sincere” one (=1), while only ﬁve American respondents (6.2%) shared this same view
of the Chinese. Twenty-six Americans (32.1%) rated the statement 4 (=somewhat
insincere). The different attitudes between Chinese and Americans towards this “+1, -you

and —Than ” statement are illustrated in Chart 10.

101

Table 4.2.2-5 Rating. on Statement F (+1, —you, -thanks)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rating '1 2 E 3 .= 4 5 EN
EAm 4/4.94 10/12.35 Eds/32.10 23/28.40 18/22.22 81
Polite-Rude ECh 5/6.67 20/26.67 13/17.33 12/16.00 25/33.33 75”"
‘ p=0.016, 0.01<p<0.05,DF=4
Am Wowmiw"9/11.11 23/28.4O 28/34.57""”21/25.93§ 81
Grateﬁtl- Ch """"" 2175‘."5"6""[ 17/23.61 15/20.83 15/2083 21/29.17'E"'77"".
(lngrateful ............................................... p=0020,001<p<0'05, DF=4 .......................................
Am ............ Mfﬁ ...... 1 ....... 778754"""'§""1"§‘/'i3'i'i"7" ...... 387216321 ....... 1 777.6173” ....... 82
Considerate- Ch5/658 10/13.1618/23.68.13/17.11 30/39.47 76E
Selﬁsh ........................................... p=0.00=0,p<0.01, 13F=4
"""""""""""""" :Am 5/6.17 12/1481'25/3085 26/32.10 13/16.05 81

Sincere- ;"Ch 28/37.84 18/24.32 13/17.57 9/12.16 6/8.11 74

Insincere p=0.000, p<0.01, DF=4

...........

Indirect.”

 

There is no signiﬁcant difference on the rating to the impression of being “Direct-

However, the Chinese attitude is more positive than that of the Americans with

regard to sincerity. Twenty-eight Chinese in the survey (37.8%) considered the statement

a “sincere” one (=1), while only ﬁve American respondents (6.2%) shared this same View

of the Chinese. Twenty-six Americans (32.1%) rated the statement 4 (=somewhat

insincere). The different attitudes between Chinese and Americans towards this “+1, -you

and —Thanks” statement are illustrated in Chart 10 on the following page.

Now let us go to another “+1” and “-thanks” leave—taking statement, Statement G,

which also has “+you” feature, to examine the different attitudes between the Chinese and

Americans. The results of the rating on this statement are shown in Table 4.2.2-6 on the

following page.

102

Chart 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IAm
Rating on Statement F (+1, -you, -thanks) El Ch
50
a
8
a
On
Politeness Gratefulness Consideration Sincerity
Table 4.2.2-6 Rating. on Statement G (+1, +you, -thanks)
"""""""" $6555 1 2 3 4 5 N
Am ....... 876.88 ........... 20721.86"'5""2"6"/'"3'2'j'i0 ....... 1"772'0'j66" 10/12.35 81
Grateful- ECh 20/26.67 25/33.33 16/21.33 7/9.33 7/9.33 75
Ungrateﬁd p=0.014,0.01<p<0.05,DF=4
""""""""""""""""""""""""" EAm 16/19.75 ‘ 27/33.33 26/32.10 10/12.35 2/2.47 81
Sincere- i’ Ch 39/5200 24/3200 8/10.67 4/5.33 0 75
Insincere ......................................... p=0.000,p<0.01, DF=4 ........
at:

There is no significant difference on the rating to the impression of being “Polite-
Rude,” “Direct-Indirect,” and “Considerate-Selﬁsh.”

With respect to this “ +1 ,+Y0u, —Thanks” statement, the Chinese rating is obviously

higher than that of Americans on the two impressions, gratefulness and sincerity, of

which the results have some statistically signiﬁcance“. In regard to grateﬁJlness,

 

31 Though the ratings on the other three impressions between the Chinese and the

Americans are not statistically different according to the Chi-square test, there is still
some difference worthy of some attention. The Chinese rating on these three impressions
are obviously higher than those of the Americans. Twenty-ﬁve Chinese (32.5%) rated
the statement 2 (=somewhat polite) but twenty-four Americans (29.3%) gave 3 (=neither
polite nor rude) in their rating. As for “Direct-Indirect” impression, forty-six Chinese

103

twenty-ﬁve Chinese respondents (33.3%) rated it 2 (=somewhat grateful), but twenty-six
Americans (32.1%) gave it 3 (=neither grateful nor selﬁsh). As for sincerity, thirty-nine
Chinese (52.0%) rated it 1 (=sincere), but twenty-seven of the American respondents

(33.3%) only gave it 2 (=somewhat sincere). The difference in rating this statement is

illustrated in Chart 11.

Chart 11
Rating on Statement G (+1, +y0u, -thanks)

 

 

 

IAm
ElCh

Percent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gratefulness Sincerity

The results in this part clearly indicate that the presence of the pronouns “I” and
“you” in the leave-taking excuses is an important factor for the different attitudes
between Chinese and Americans. Though the Americans in the survey rated the two “-
Thanks” statements more negative than positive, the Chinese expressed more negative
attitudes towards the statement without “you.” However, when “you” is present, the

Chinese are more positive than the Americans.

4.2.2.4 Leave-taking with “- You and -I” excuses
Now we look at the results of the rating on Statement D and H which are the same in

the feature of “-1” and “-you,” but different in expressing gratitude, which means using

 

respondents (62.2%) rated it 1 (=direct) but only thirty-six of the Americans (44.4%)
shared the same view. In regard to consideration, twenty-four Americans (29.6%) gave it
3 (=neither considerate nor selﬁsh), but twenty-six Chinese (35.6%) gave the same rating.

104

“than ”. The speaker of Statement D gave “thanks” to the host while the guest of
Statement H did not. The two statements are cited here:
Statement D (-I, -you, +thanks)

" Well, it '5 getting late. Tomorrow is Monday. Thanks for the dinner. "
Statement H (-I, -you, +thanks)

" Well, it’s getting late. Tomorrow will be here too early, and it ’s oﬂ to work.

First let us look at the results of the rating on Statement D shown in Table 4.2.2-7.

Table 4.2.2-7 Rating. on Statement D (-I, -you, +thanks)

..............................

Rating 1 2 3 4 5 N

Am I l2/l4.63 24/2927 "'27/3293 13/15.85 6/7.32 82

Polite-Rude Ch 29/37.18 26/33.33 15/2923 2/2.56 6/7.69 78
p=0.001, p<0.01, DF=4 "

""""""""""""""""""""""" Am42/5122 18/2l.95 14/1707 6/7.32 2/2.44 82:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ch 23/3067" 18/24.00§15/20.00 7/9.33 12/1600 75

.
\.

 

 

 

 

Direct-Indirect

p20'014’ 001<p<005, DF=4 ............. z

....................................................................................................

 

 

* There is no statistically signiﬁcant difference on the rating to the impression of being
“GrateﬁJl-Ungrateﬁil,” “Considerate-Selﬁsh,” and “Sincere-Insincere.”

Though the second person pronoun “you” does not appear in this statement, the
Chinese gave a higher rating than the Americans in regard to politeness. Twenty-nine
Chinese in the survey (37.2%) rated it 1 (=polite) but only twelve American respondents
gave this high rating, while twenty-seven of them (32.9%) gave it 3 (=neither polite nor
rude). If we examine the table in detail, we will ﬁnd that the majority of the Chinese in
the survey had given a higher rating, 1 (=polite) and 2 (=somewhat polite) to this “-I, -

you, +thanks” statement. The total number of the Chinese who gave it 1 or 2 is ﬁfty-ﬁve

105

(29+26) (total 70.5%) but only thirty-ﬁve Americans (12+24) (45.9%) gave this high
rating.

However, when it comes to directness, the Americans gave a higher rating than the
Chinese did. Forty-two Americans in the survey (51.2%) rated it 1 (=direct), but only
twenty-three Chinese (30.7%) rated it the same. The discussion above is illustrated in

Chart 12.

Chart 12
Rating on Statement D (-I, -you, +thanks)

 

 

 

IAm
UCh

Percent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Politeness Directness

Now we go to the rating on the other “-I, -you” statement, Statement H, which is
different from Statement D in that the guest of Statement H did not give “Thanks” to the
host. The results are shown in Table 4.2.2-8 on the next page.

In rating this “-I, -you, -thanks” excuse for leave-taking with respect to politeness
and gratefulness, both Chinese and Americans were more negative than positive.
However, a close look at Table 4.2.2-8 will tell us that the Chinese attitude toward this
statement is even more negative than that of the Americans in these two ratings. Thirty-
ﬁve American respondents (43 .2%) rated the statement 3 (=neither polite nor rude) with

respect of politeness, but thirty-three Chinese (44%) rated it 5 (=rude). While thirty

106

Americans (36.6%) gave it 4 (=somewhat ungrateﬁJl) on the rating of gratefulness,

twenty-three Chinese (31.1%) rated it 5 (=ungrateful).

Although in both groups more people chose 1 (=direct) in regard to the impression of

being “Direct-Indirect” than those picking up the other ratings, the percentage of the

Americans who gave this high rating is larger than that of the Chinese. Thirty-two

Table 4.2.2-8 Rating. on Statement H (-I, -you, -thanks)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.........................................................................................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rating 2 . 3 4 5 N .
Am 873770 "”"‘"1'6/‘161'7'5‘"E35743.21"EU/20.979 10/12.35 81 """

. Polite-Rude Ch 7/9‘8'3 ””‘1‘2/‘1’600 14/18.67 9/12.00 533/4400 75”"
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE p=0.000,p<0.01, DF=4 =. EEEEEEEEEEE .
Am ........ 373.66. ....... 10/122026/3171 30/3659 ....... l 3/158582
Grateful- Ch """""" 7 79.46 E15/20.27 19/25.68 10/13.51 23/31.08E 74""
Ungrateﬁll ...... p=0.003,p<d..01’ DF=4; .............
""""""" EAm 32/3951 18/22.22 18/22.22 11/13.58 2/2.47 81'
EDirect-IndirectE Ch .23/3194 11/15.28 19/26.39 3/ 4.17 16/2222; 72’

....................... p=0.001,p<0.01, DF=4 .

""""""""""""""""""" EAm 7/8.64"'"" 16/19.75 29/35.80 22/27.16 7/8.64 81 .
Sincere- Ch 21/28.38 8/10.81 _22/2973 7/9.46 16/21.62 74
Insjncere ................. = ............................. pZOOO', p<001, DF=4 ............................................

...........................................

* There is no statistically signiﬁcant difference on the rating of the impression of

being “Considerate-Selﬁsh.”

Americans (3 9.5%) rated it 1 (=direct) but only twenty-three Chinese (31.9%) rated it the

same. The interesting part shown in Table 423-8 is that, as far as sincerity is concerned,

the Chinese were more positive than the Americans. Twenty-one Chinese respondents

(28.4%) chose 1 (=sincere) but only seven of the Americans (8.6%) gave the same rating,

107

while twenty-nine of them (35.8%) rated it 3 (=neither sincere nor insincere) compared
with twenty-two Chinese (29.7%) who chose the same rating. Chart 13 on the following
page illustrates the difference in rating on this statement.

Therefore, the discussion above shows that, when both ﬁrst and second person
pronouns, I and you, are absent in a leave-taking statement, “thanks” plays an important
role in the different attitudes between Chinese and Americans. The Chinese in the survey
gave a higher rating than the Americans to Statement D (-I, -you, +thanks) but a lower
rating to Statement H (-1, -you, -thanks) with regard to politeness. The explanation for
this is that Chinese are more sensitive than Americans to the presence of “Thanks,” which

Chinese guests do not use as often as their American counterparts.

 

 

 

Chart 13
Rating on Statement E (-I, -you, -thanks)
60
E
8
ii") 3 Am
°‘ DCh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a summary to the results of the quantitative analysis presented in this section, in
Table 4.2.2-9 on the following page, I list the different ratings between Chinese and
Americans on the eight leave-taking statements.

Table 4.2.2-9 shows that, when “politeness” is considered, a leave-taking statement
with “-I” and “+you” received a higher rating by the Chinese (see Statement A and E)

while the Americans gave higher ratings to a statements with “+1” (see Statement C and

108

F). Then, when a statement is “-you " but “+thanks” (see Statement B and D), the
Chinese rated it higher than the Americans. One explanation to these high ratings on
statements with “thanks” by the Chinese is, as discussed previously, that this linguistic
factor is not often used in the Chinese farewell, and therefore, its presence in leave-taking
gives a special sense of being polite to the Chinese. This explanation may also apply to
the ratings on Statement H, which has none of the three linguistic items and was rated

more negatively by the Chinese than by the Americans.

Table 4.2.2-9 Summary of the ratings on the eight leave-taking statements“)

 

Direct

AmCh

Sincere

Am

Considerate
Am Ch

*

Polite Grateful
Am Ch Am Ch

Statement &

  
 

   

   

           

      

               
  
   
  

      
   

linguistic Features
A (—1, you, +thanks)
B ( 61,-you, 1 thanks)
C( ‘11, +y0u, +7
D (—1,-you, +
E (-1, 1 you, -thanks)
F(+1, —yo'zi,llihanks)
6‘61, migrant.)
H (-1,-you,ﬁ:ihanks)

  
   
 
 
 

(I) The shaded area means that there is no signiﬁcant difference in the data.

(2) “*” indicates that a higher rating is given by one group over the other. However, this
does not necessarily mean the rating is high, but that it does not reﬂect as negative a
rating as the other group. For example, in the rating on Statement F and Statement H
with regard to politeness, both the Chinese and American respondents rated it low.
However the Chinese showed more of a negative attitude to these statements than the
Americans, therefore there is “*” shown below the American rating.

With respect to the impressions on “gratefulness” and “consideration,” the results are
the same as the ratings for politeness: the Chinese respondents gave a higher rating to the

statements with “J” and “+you” (see Statement A, E and G), and the American ratings on

109

the “+1” statements are higher than that of the Chinese (see Statement C and F). For
Statement H (-1, -you, -thanks), both groups rated it low, but the Chinese were more
negative than the Americans as discussed previously.

One interesting result shown in Table 4.2.2-9 is the rating on the impression of
“sincerity.” Except for Statement D which shows no signiﬁcant difference in the ratings
between the two speech communities, the American respondents only gave one higher
rating than the Chinese (see Statement C), and the Chinese ratings on all the six
statements are higher, or less negative, than the Americans in regards to this impression.
As repeated several times in this section, the Chinese rated a statement with “+you” and
“+thanks” higher than the Americans. Therefore it is not surprising to see the higher
ratings given to Statement A, B, E, and G. However, an explanation as to why the
Chinese gave a higher rating on Statement F and H is problematic, since these two
statements were all rated higher by the Americans on the other three impressions. One
possible explanation is that the Chinese respondents may think that the speakers of these
two statements honest in giving their excuses for taking leave, even though they did not
consider the speakers to be polite or grateful. Another reason is that the connotation of
sincerity in Chinese is not the same as it is in English.

The difference on ratings to the impression of “directness” is the same as that of the
other impressions. The American respondents gave a high rating to Statement C (+1,

+ you, +thanks), one of the American ways of saying goodbye, while the Chinese rated
Statement E (-1, + you, -thanks) high since it is a Chinese way of bidding farewell. As for
Statement B, a “+1, -You, +thanks” leave-taking statement, the Chinese rated it high as

they did to the other two impressions. The explanation was discussed previously and

110

therefore will not repeated here. For Statement D, the American respondents regarded it
higher.

Disregarding the few puzzling ratings given to “sincerity” and “directness,” the
major attitudinal difference between the two speech communities towards the eight leave-
taking statements is obvious. Chinese prefer the “+ you” farewell and the Americans
favor the “+1” parting. Although “+ 771anks” is a “marker” in the American leave-taking,
the Chinese are more sensitive to its presence and rated it higher as a parting word even
without “+you. ”

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the factor analysis was also performed
to conﬁrm the results from the Chi-square tests. The results from the factor analysis will

be presented in the next section.

4.2.3 Results from the factor analysis

The purpose of performing factor analysis to the data is to discover whether there is
an underlying pattern associated with the different evaluation on the forty impressions of
the eight statements, which has been discussed in the preceding section. As is known,
factor analysis attempts to “uncover an underlying structure that may account for the
pattern of the interrelationships,” which “takes the form of small set of factors that
account for the intercorrelations in the correlation matrix” (Fox, 1992, p. 281). The
results of the factor analysis show that the data from the two speech communities are

both saliently loaded with ﬁve factors32 grouped with +1 and -I and with +you and -you.

 

32 The decision of choosing the number of the factors is based on the “break-in-the-
roots” method introduced in Factor Analysis (R. Gorsuch, 1974). The procedure is to
“look at the raw roots themselves,” and stop at the point “when the raw roots drop

Ill

In 4.2.3.1 we will examine the ﬁve factors of the American data, then in 4.2.3.2 we will

analyze the ﬁve factors from the Chinese data.

4.2.3.1 Factor Analysis on the American data

As we have discussed in the previous section of this chapter, the presence of the ﬁrst
person pronoun “I” is typical in giving excuses for bidding farewell by American guests.
Therefore, when this pronoun is absent in a leave-taking statement, i.e. a statement with
the feature “-1,” the Americans are more sensitive to this absence than the Chinese. The
factor analysis on the American data revealed this fact, which is shown in Table 423-]
on the following page.

Table 423-] shows that there are ﬁve factors heavily loaded from the American
data. The first three factors are heavily loaded with the ratings on the statements with
this “-1” feature and the last two are loaded with the “+1” feature. The clear cut between
“+1” and “-I” in loading the factors conﬁrms what has been found in the data from the
recordings and the questionnaires: the American leave-taking is dominated by I-patterned
excuses. The presence and absence of “thanks,” shown in Table 4.3-1, do not seem to
have such a clear cut in this factor analysis. That also proves what was discussed in the
last section that, even though “Thank you” is ever present in American goodbye, it did
not affect the American rating as much as the presence and absence of the ﬁrst person
pronoun I did in the survey.

It is not surprising that the three factors, 1, 2 and 3, are all loaded with the ratings on

the impressions of the “-1” statements. The absence of this ﬁrst person pronoun

 

dramatically in size” because the rest of the factors will add little information needed (p.
152).

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obviously caught the attention of the Americans who are used to giving “I-patterned”

excuses upon leave-taking.

Table 4.2.3-1 The result of factor analysis on the American data

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FactorE Root ‘ StatementE Linguistic factors Impression Feature EEEEEEEEEEEE
' EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE value number E
1 0.901 H -1, -you, -thanks Polite -Thanks
E20900 .................. D ...... ; I,-y0u,+thanks ........ Grateful ........ s .............................
E ........................... “0.8.1.8. ................... Con81derate . +Thanks
10805 ................... .E.E .......................................... r. ......................... """"""s"ihéé'r'é .........

0.671 “ ' “ """"" Polite -1
3 0.864 E , :1,n+you,-thanks Considerate """""""""""""""""
.................. 0.822 E .. E Sincere E
10806 ................... EE .......................... 2'. ............... Polite -Thanks 5
E EEEEEEEEE 0.750 . “ I. “ Grateful
140900 ............... F ...... Ell-younthanks . Direct
E __ 0.549 E G +1, +y0u, -thanks Direct E
1 5 0.898 C +1, +y0u, +thanks Considerate +1 WWW
E 0.838 “ “ Grateﬁil +Thanks
E 0.752 “ E “ Sincere 2

 

 

 

 

 

Then with the “+1” feature, as for Factor 4 and 5, the American respondents noticed
something different from their familiar way of saying goodbye. In Factor 4, the absence
of “Thank you” (“-thanks”) caught their attention. Then in Factor 5, the presence of
“you” (“+you”), which is not commonly observed in the American goodbye, was
understandably noticed by the Americans. Now let us turn to the results of factor

analysis on the Chinese data.

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4.2.3.2 Factor Analysis on the Chinese data

The Chi-square tests on the Chinese data have shown that using the second person

pronoun “you” is a typical Chinese way of saying goodbye. This is conﬁrmed again by

the factor analysis that is shown in Table 423-2.

Table 4.2.3—2 The results of factor analysis on the Chinese data

 

 

Feature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Factor Root Statement Linguistic factors Impression

3 = Value number

.......... lWWWO.821 C +1+you-thanksS1ncere

........2 ............... 0896A .................. _1’ +y0u, +thanks Sincere
0.888 “ “ Direct

3 0.861 C +1, + you, +thanks Considerate

0.858 “ 8 “ Grateﬁil

............................. 0846‘ Sincere

......... 0.654 .. Polite

..... 085.188 ..................... .‘ ; .................................... .. Direct

.......... 4 .......... ..... 0,003“; .............. .3 .............. ..... 4 '"1',"".3}6i},"¥ihzihk};§ ..... Direct ............................... .

............................. 088888188” Sincere

........... 50910D .1, 5’6”, +thanks Grateful

0.618 “ Polite

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.............

.............................

+you

 

 

 

The ﬁve factors taken from the factor analysis on the Chinese data are divided

clearly by the presence and absence of “you” in the leave-taking statements. Factor 1 to 3

are heavily loaded with the ratings on the statements with the “+ you ” feature and the

Factor 4 and 5 with “-you” feature.

As discussed in the previous section, saying “Thank you” is not very often observed

in Chinese leave-taking conversations. Thus, its presence, i.e. “+thanks” is more salient

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to Chinese who believe that using “Thank you” is very polite. From the Chi-square tests
on the data, we know that, besides rating higher the “+you ” statements, Chinese also
rated the statements with “+thanks” high even if the feature “+you " was absent. This is
also illustrated in Table 4.3-2. Except the ﬁrst factor, the rest four all share the same
feature, “+thank. ”

Let us ﬁrst examine Factor 1, 2 and 3 which loaded with the ratings on the “+you”
leave-taking statements. It seems that when “you ” is present, the Chinese respondents
observed the existence of “+1” (Factor 1). Then, in Factor 2, the appearance of
“+thanks” caught the attention of the Chinese in the survey. Then for Factor 3, which is
loaded with the ratings on the impressions to Statement C, an American way of saying
goodbye, it is not surprising that it was noticed by the Chinese respondents.

Then for Factor 4 and 5 which are heavily loaded by the ratings on the “-you”
statements. The absence of this second person pronoun was obviously observed by the
Chinese, who prefer to “you-pattemed” excuses before taking their leave.

Interestingly, in the factor analysis, Factor 3 from both the American and the
Chinese data are loaded with the ratings on a statement which is the way of leave-taking
of the other group. In the American data, Factor 3 is loaded with the ratings on Statement
E (-1, + you, -thanks), one of typical Chinese ways of saying good-bye. Then, Factor 3 in
the Chinese data is loaded with the ratings on Statement C (+1, + you, +Thanks), a

common way for Americans to bid farewell.

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4.3 Summary of the data analysis

The results from the data analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, clearly indicate
that Chinese and Americans are different in conducting leave-taking, either in the
structure, the content, or attitudes.

In the structural difference, the two speech communities apply different speech acts
in the three stages of this speech event. American guests usually express appreciation
and gratitude to the host while Chinese prefer to provide some personal advice or
suggestions as well as give invitation to their hosts. Then in the difference of content in
saying goodbye, especially in giving excuses for taking leave, American guests use more
I-patterned (self-oriented) justiﬁcation for intending to bring close to the on-going
activity, but Chinese give “you-patterned (other-oriented) excuses to vindicate their
intention to leave.

As for the attitudinal distinction between the two groups, Americans rated higher the
leave-taking statements with “+1” and “+thanks” features, while Chinese ranked “+you”
statements high. Since “Thank you” is esteemed high by the Chinese but not employed
often in their leave-taking, the statements with the feature “+thanks” got some high
rankings by the Chinese respondents in the survey. In the next chapter, we are going to
see what causes the difference between Chinese and Americans in conducting this speech

event.

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CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION

The data analysis in Chapter 4 shows that Chinese and Americans are different both
in their linguistic behaviors in conducting leave-taking after dinner and their attitudes in
evaluating other ways of bidding farewell different from their own. In this chapter, we
will ﬁrst look at the puzzles unsolved by Brown and Levinson’s theory in explaining the
different speech acts used in the two speech communities in this speech event. That will
justify the criticism that many researchers made that Brown and Levinson’s theory is
inapplicable in explicating the linguistic behaviors of non-Western cultures.

As "fundamental concerns can be more fully addressed through the investigation of
different manifestations and solutions to the problems of self-presentation" in different
cultural settings (Chang & Holt, 1994, p. 127), we will try to examine the concept of self
in individualistic and collectivistic societies, under which Chinese and Americans are
categorized (Bellah et al., 1991; Bond, 1991, 1996; Hsu, 1985; Johnson, 1985; Scollon &
Scollon, 1991; Stewart & Bennett, 1991; Tu, 1985; Wheeler et al., 1989; Yum, 1986).
Then with the understanding of various concepts of self in different cultures, we will
analyze the speech acts used in leave-taking both by the American and the Chinese guests
to see how self is presented differently in each speech community. In the end we will try
to apply O’Driscoll’s revised version of Brown and Levinson’s face dualism to the
linguistic routines in leave-taking of Chinese and Americans to see if there exists a theory

of universal linguistic politeness.

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5.1 Puzzles unsolved by Brown and Levinson’s theory

Face-threatening-acts (FTAs), according to Brown and Levinson's theory (1987), are
usually performed with some redressive action, meaning to “give face" to the addressee,
which is an attempt to counteract the potential face damage of the FTAs (p. 69), such as
being indirect when performing these FTAs. However, from the citations of the leave-
taking conversations and of the questionnaires presented in the previous chapter, Chinese
guests seem to perform some "intrinsic" FTAs rather "baldly" (without any redressive
action), especially in presenting excuses and offering suggestions and advice to the host
upon leave-taking. These speech acts are very “imposing” to the hearer’s (hosts in our
case) negative face according to Brown and Levinson. Compared with the Chinese
“infringing” the rules of Brown and Levinson in performing FTAs, American guests seem
to carefully avoid any “intruding” linguistic behavior by expressing gratitude and
appreciation to their hosts upon leaving. Why do American guests seem to obey the rules
of Brown and Levinson's universal politeness in conducting their farewell after dinner
while the Chinese "violate" them?

Brown and Levinson (1987) suggest that an "unredressed" FTA is normally
performed in circumstances where (a) efﬁciency or urgency need to be done at the
expense of face, or (b) the addresser is superior in power than the addressee, or (c) the
acts are in the interest of the addressee where the danger in the addressee's face is very
small (p. 69). With dinners among family, friends or colleagues, like those in the
recorded conversations and in the questionnaires, it seems that Circumstance (c) might
explain why the Chinese guests offer other-oriented suggestions and advice concerning

the host's welfare. However, if we accepted this explanation from Brown and Levinson,

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how could we explain the fact that not even one American guest gives such advice or
suggestion either in recorded farewell conversations or in the survey?

Another puzzle is why American guests "respect" their host's negative face, "his
basic want to maintain claims of territory and self-determination" (Brown and Levinson,
1987, p. 70) when giving self-oriented (I-patterned) excuses while the Chinese oﬁ‘er
other-oriented (you-patterned) excuses "without" regarding their host's want to be free
from imposition. Why did the Chinese respondents rate these “imposing” excuses more
positive than their American counterparts? As discussed in Chapter 4, the Chinese seem
to be frugal in giving thanks or appreciation, which are lavishly used by American guests
— speech acts which address the positive face of the host, “the want to be approved and
recognized by others” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p.61). Why don't the Chinese perform
more of these "face-saving" speech acts as the Americans do instead of "baldly"
conducting all those FTAs "regardless" of the host's face, either positive or negative?
Brown and Levinson's theory does not seem to provide a satisfactory explanation for
these puzzles.

Just as Coulmas (1981) points out, many routines, especially politeness routines,
"defy interpretation by inference on the basis of word meanings alone and without
knowledge of cultural habits, customs, values, attitudes, etc. " (p. 8). "Sentences are not
ipso facto polite, nor are languages more or less polite,” Fraser (1990) claims, “It is only
speakers who are polite, and then only if their utterances reﬂect an adherence to the
obligation they carry in that particular conversation" (p. 233). At the most abstract level,
politeness may indeed be a universal phenomenon as it is found in every culture. What

counts as polite behaviour (including values and norms attached to such linguistic

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behaviour), however, is culture-particular and language speciﬁc. Understanding why
there exists the difference of linguistic behaviors and attitudes requires understanding of
the cultural and social differences — cultural habits, customs, and values which are the
roots of any social behavior, of which linguistic politeness is one.

This understanding of cultural differences, I believe, will not only help to construct a
better politeness theory across cultures, it will also ameliorate difficulty in intercultural
communication. My personal experiences and those of my friends', both American and
Chinese, as well as those discussed in other studies (Hu and Grove, 1991), verify that
misunderstandings in interpersonal communication during this phatic communion did
happen between people from the two speech communities. The results of the survey
clearly reﬂect these potential misunderstandings. To Americans, the Chinese other-
oriented excuses for leave-taking seem insincerely indirect and intrudingl. To Chinese,
the American self-oriented leave-taking seem to be egocentric, uncaring, or even rude,
especially when no comments are made on the host's well being. In a word, the linguistic
patterns and ways for leave-taking discussed in this study are appropriate and polite only
when they are used among people ﬁ'om the same speech community, but inappropriate
and even impolite to other people because "cultural presuppositions enter into the
interpretation of what we see and hear" (Gumperz and Robert, 1991, p. 51).

Polite linguistic behavior, as discussed in Chapter 1, is realized through
communication when the external expectation is properly satisfied. Some researchers

insist that politeness is more anticipated or expected than communicated as Brown and

 

1 One of my American friends once complained about her Chinese visitors: "If they
need to go, just tell me so. Why do they take me as an excuse by saying “You’re tired”
or “You’re busy?"

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Levinson (1987) suggest in their paper (Fraser, 1990; Jary, 1998; Kasper, 1990; Meier,
1995; Nwoye, 1992; Watts et. al. 1992). As Kasper (1990) puts it: "'Competent adult
members comment on absence of politeness where it is expected, and its presence where it
is not expected" (p. 193). These expectations are culturally rooted, and participants in
conversation are generally aware that they are required to act within the dictates of the
expected code of behavior. That is because behaving politely is “one of the constraints on
human behavior which help us to achieve effective living” (Watts et al, 1992, p.4)
“Behavior,” just as DeVos et al. (1985) point out, “is often a result of continuous
conﬂict between experiences of self and one’s social role expectations” (p. 6). Linguistic
politeness, Watts (1992) states, is culturally determined and generated from underlying
universal principles, and it is “transformed into polite behaviour under certain marked
social conditions” (p. 58). Verbal interaction, Watts (1992) claims, involves the
negotiation of the coherence and equilibrium of the social group, within which the sacred
nature of the social group can be projected. However, only when linguistic performances
“represent the attempt by ego, for whatever reason, to enhance her/his social standing with
respect to alter may they more proﬁtably be called realization of politeness” (p. 57).
Therefore the key issue in understanding linguistic politeness is the concept of self and of
its role in social relationship, which determines one’s expectation for politeness and
judgment on the degree of polite linguistic behavior. As Hsu (1985) points out, an
understanding of how self is deﬁned or operates in different cultures is the basic means of
unlocking the secrets of social and cultural behavior (p. 25). “Cultural traditions of
thought inﬂuence how the self perceives itself,” DeVos et al. (1985) state, and this

perception interacts with “the operation of underlying coping mechanisms that comprise

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personality structure” (p. 6). Therefore, in the next section, we are going to examine the
different concepts of self in the two opposite cultures: individualism and collectivism to

which American main culture and Chinese culture belong.

5.2 Self in individualism vs. self in collectivism

The differences between the American self-oriented (I-patterned) and the Chinese
other-oriented (you-patterned) linguistic routines in leave-taking lie in the two
fundamentally different cultures: individualism and collectivism. Individualism is the
core of the dominant American culture (Bellah et al, 1985, 1991; Bond, 1986, 1993; Hsu,
1981; Johnson, 1985; Steward and Bennett, 1991). American society, as Johnson (1985)
points out, implicitly accepts that each individual “should be encouraged to make
decisions for themselves, develop their own opinions, solve their own problems, have
their own possessions, and, in general, learn to view the world from the point of view of
self’ (p. 133). This individual-centered, or self-centered, philosophy is explicitly shown
in the following statement: "We believe in the dignity, indeed the sacredness, of the
individual. Anything that would violate our right to think for ourselves, judge for
ourselves, make our own decisions, live our lives as we see ﬁt, is not only morally wrong,
it is sacrilegious" (Bellah et al, 1985, p. 142). Individual freedom and self-reliance are
held by most Americans as the basis of their values and beliefs (Althen, 1988; Bellah et
al, 1985, 1991; Bockover, 1997; Hsu, 1985; Kearny, 1984; Steward and Bennett, 1991;
Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). Each person in the American culture, Steward & Bennett
(1991) point out, "is not only a separate biological entity, but also a unique psychological

being and a singular member of the social order.” Thus, the dominant American self

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“pervades action and intrudes into each domain of activity" without being questioned (p.
129)

In this individualistic culture, there is remarkable absence of community, tradition,
and shared meaning which “impinge upon perception and give shape to behavior”
(Cushman, 1990, cited in Steward & Bennett, 1991, p. 130). The concept of self to
Americans, as some researchers point out (Bockover, 1997; Steward & Bennett 1991), is
singular, abstract, and impersonal. In a sense, it is empty, “something to be ﬁlled or
fulﬁlled” (Steward & Bennett 1991, p. 130). Americans are satisﬁed with being
independent and self-reliant as each one prefers to do his own thing (Johnson, 1985;
Steward & Bennett, 1991). The popular phrase “doing your own thing” reveals “the
blatant assertion of the right to personal enhancement” and “the belief that an activity can

3”

be ‘one’s own thing (Johnson, 1985, p. 124, italicized original). Concern for self in this
individualistic society is, more oﬂen than not, given precedence to group interest in social
intercourse as Americans intend to place priority, consciously or unconsciously, on
personal interests and independence. “The emphasis on individualism,” Johnson (1985)
claims, “has direct and indirect effects on both the presentation of self (in public ways)
and the experience of self (in private awareness)" (p. 121). This self-oriented concept is
inevitably reﬂected in the American way of politeness in conducting the speech event of
leave-taking in an I-patterned (self-oriented) excuse, which is going to be discussed in the
next section.

However, the Chinese culture, being collectivistic, is almost the opposite of that of

the American. It is deeply rooted in Confucian humanism, which is understood as warm

and harmonious human feelings between people and concern for the well being of others.

123

Confucianism is "a philosophy of human nature which considers proper human
relationships as the basis of society" (Yum, 1991, p. 377). It is believed that, in the
Chinese culture, these relationships, traditionally and ideally, "are not based on individual
proﬁt, but rather on the betterment of the common good" (Yum, 1991, p. 377, my italics).
Such a belief is captured in a well-known statement in the Conﬁrcian Analects (Lun Yu)
"Wishing to establish oneself, one establishes others; wishing to enlarge oneself, one
enlarges others" (cited in Tu, 1985, p. 232).

Self-cultivation in the spirit of ﬁlial piety, brotherhood, friendship, discipline, and
loyalty, therefore, is the way to practice Conﬁrcianism which emphasizes harmony,
reciprocity, and mutual obligations in any human relationship (Tu, 1985, p. 233). Since
the traditional Chinese culture values mutual care and interdependence in harmonious
social or personal relationships, even the word "individualism" in the Chinese language
conveys a negative connotation as it is almost equivalent to "selﬁshness."

In ancient China, Hsu (1985) states, Confucian scholars used to speak of da wo
(greater self) as distinguished from xiao wo (smaller sell) (p. 21). The latter referred to
the individual’s own desires and actions for him or her, and the former meant the
individual’s concern for the others. The traditional Chinese self exists primarily in
relationship with others, as Confucius believed that the ability to act appropriately toward
others in a respectful and digniﬁed way is the essence of all good relationships. That is
the essence of self (Bockover, 1997 ; Chu, 1985). Thus, according to the Conﬁrcian
philosophy, a self should be seen “predominantly as a social being whose basic task is to

learn the science and art of adjusting to the world” (Hsu, 1985, p. 233).

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A Confucian man should live in digniﬁed harmony with others because “Conﬁicius
believed that our distinctive human roles were deﬁned by our relation to others and,
moreover, that these roles deﬁne the "person" him- or herself” (Bockover, 1997, p.53).
Since the self in Confucianism is often perceived "in terms of dyadic relationships," Tu
(1985) points out, "a Confucian man's self-awareness of being a son, a brother, a
husband, a father dominates his awareness of himself as a self-reliant and independent
person" (p. 23 3). Outside this kind of relational context, as Chu (1985) claims, there
seems to be very little independent self left for the traditional Chinese (p. 258). Zhai
(1994) compares this close relationship between self and other to "a joint in a long chain"
which is comprised of many joints (others). Any movement of one joint (self) will affect
the whole chain (p. 236)

To Chinese who believe Confucian philosophy, therefore, obeying social norms and
conventions are more important than pursuing self interest and desire, which should be
denied or even suppressed to almost wang wo "forgetting me" or wu wo "non-existing me"
(Zhai, 1994) when needed in this collectivistic culture. This concept is well summarized
in a Chinese phrase wang wo wu si "forget me no self” (deny yourself with no selﬁshness).
Naturally, this self-denying notion is unmistakably embodied in the Chinese you-pattered
(other-oriented) leave-taking.

In a word, the difference in the concept of self between Chinese and Americans, just
as Brown (1996) summarizes, is that the self in former society is relational, interpersonal,
or collective, whereas the self in the latter one is individualistic and autonomous (p. 39).
Brown & Levinson's negative face is obviously derived from this individualistic self-

concept which upholds personal freedom from imposition by others and dignity of

125

pursuing self-interest. Their model of linguistic politeness successfully analyzes the
American self-oriented leave-taking precisely because it cues in to the American cultural
values which are not shared by many non-western cultures. Brown and Levinson’s model
fails to analyze the linguistic conduct of non-western cultures, such as the Chinese other-
oriented leave-taking, because it imposes their cultural background on the other cultures
where it is irrelevant (O’Driscoll, 1996, p. 5).

Thus, the Chinese face (mianzi) and concept of politeness is closely related to this
Confucian concept of self. As mentioned in Chapter 2, face in Chinese is only meaningful
when perceived in relation to others (Chang & Holt, 1994; Ho, 1976, 1994; Scollon &
Scollon, 1994) and a person may lose his/her face when he/she fails to meet his social
obligation (Ho, 1994, p. 872). In a similar vein, the core concept of Chinese politeness,
which is denigrating self and respecting others (Gu, 1990), is the embodiment of the
Chinese concept of self.

With the understanding of the differences in cultures and related concepts of self, we
can come back to the different linguistic performance in leave-taking between Chinese
and American to see how polite linguistic patterns in one speech community are affected
by the culturally rooted concept of self. As stated previously, the discussion will be
conﬁned to the speech acts which are frequently used by the guests in one speech
community and compare them with the same speech acts used by their counterparts in the

other speech community.

5.3 Collectivistic other-oriented and individualistic self-oriented leave-taking
In this section, we are going to examine the speech acts of leave-taking in three parts:

I-patterned excuses vs. you-patterned excuses, lavished thanks vs. invitation, giving

126

personal suggestion/advice vs. appreciation and complimentary. The concept of self is
utilized in our contrastive analysis of the different linguistic conduct in Chinese other-

oriented goodbye and the American self-oriented farewell.

5.3.1 I-patterned excuses vs. you-patterned excuses

When mutual care and interdependence in harmonious social or personal
relationships is valued in a society, such as China, a person is not expected to emphasize
his or her personal needs to justify his or her behavior or action. Thus, offering a reason
for leaving after dinner for Chinese "is unlikely to be related to the guest’s own personal
situation" (Hu and Grove, 1991, p. 31) but concern for the host's welfare. Being polite, as
Nwoye (1992) points out, "is not predicated on making a bearer feel good, or not feel
bad, but rather on conforming to socially agreed codes of good conduct" (p. 310). The
stress on consideration of others is clearly embodied in the you-patterned (other-oriented)
excuses giving by the Chinese guests upon leaving, such as "You've been busy for a
whole day and are very tired" (Ch. #8), " You've been working hard the whole day" (Ch.
#3 ), etc. To a Chinese, these you-patterned excuses are not imposing, as Brown and
Levinson (1987) suggest, but very polite because showing consideration on the others'
well-being is far more important in Chinese culture than respecting others' privacy or
keeping a distance from each other, which is perceived as being polite in North America
(Lii-shih, 1994).

This emphasis on consideration for the others’ welfare can also explain why Chinese
guests give some personal suggestions or advice upon leave-taking, like "[You] Get rest
early" (Ch. #3), " You got up early so you need to go to bed early" (Ch. #5), and those

reported in the questionnaires, like:

127

Ming'tian keneng yao bian tian. Ninmen yiding yao duo chuan yifu
Tomorrow possible will change weather, you be sure need more put on clothes

(The weather may change tomorrow. Be sure to put on more clothes” (Ch-27).
Or

Qin chuqu zou dong zou dong, bie lao daizaijiali
oﬂen go out walk [and] move, don’t always stay at home
(Often go out and take a walk. Don’t always stay at home, Ch-44, Ch-74)

and so on. Again these imposing suggestions to Americans are conformed to the Chinese
other-oriented politeness.

As matter of fact, in Chinese culture, friends are expected to fulﬁll their
responsibility and duty by taking care of their friends even at the cost of their own
interests, according to Confucian philosophy. Therefore, showing consideration to
other's personal or even private life is quite common among Chinese friends. Lacking
this "intruding" concern may hinder friendship from developing or even endanger itz.
Thus, the fear of imposing on others' personal freedom, which is so carefully avoided in
the American culture, is intrinsically strange to the Chinese, especially among friends,
who, together with one’s family members, are part of one's inner group (which will be
discussed in a succeeding section).

As far as mianzi "face" is concerned, these you-patterned speech acts protect both the
speaker's (the guest) and the hearer's (the host) face as the linguistic behavior conforms

with the social norm: the host gets mianzi when his/her status as a member of the inner

 

2 From my personal observation and experiences, this difference between respecting
other's privacy and showing concern for other's welfare is one of the obstacles to Chinese
(at least from mainland China) to make good friends with Americans. Americans are
scared away by the "intruding" or "imposing" Chinese, and Chinese are stunned by the
"impersonal" and "self-centered" attitude of Americans.

128

group (friends) is recognized; and the guest keeps his own mianzi by showing his
appropriate behavior which meets the expectation for a member of the inner group
(friends) in Chinese culture. In these other-oriented (you-patterned) speech acts, the
satisfaction of one's needs, is not pursued in an '1 versus others‘ spirit, but rather 'I and
others' spirit" (Nwoye, 1992, p. 317) in the process of consolidating friendship.

American self-oriented leave-taking excuses can be well explained by Laver's (1981)
one of the two principal functions that this phatic communion serves in the closing phrase:
mitigation (see Chapter 2 for details). I-oriented excuses given by the American guests
both from the dialogue recordings and the questionnaires, such as "I think my wife is
getting a little restless," We have a long drive ahead of us, so we should probably get
started,” “I have to get up early tomorrow and the kids have to go to school, so we’d better
get going,” etc., are mitigation comments which are addressed to the speaker’s negative
face and often set "the reason for terminating the encounter in a compulsion external to the
speaker" (Laver 1981, p. 303 ). This kind of speech act, according to Brown and
Levinson's theory, leaves the host's negative face, his/her personal freedom of taking care
of his/her own business, untouched.

Thus, the difference in the concept of self clearly explains why American guests give
I-patterned (self-oriented) excuses for taking leave and the Chinese justify their leave-
taking with you-patterned (other-oriented) excuses. Now let us go to the other speech

acts, giving thanks and invitation, used differently by the two speech communities.

5.3.2 Giving thanks vs. giving invitation
Giving thanks, as shown in Chapter 4, is one of the prominent features in the

American leave-taking. Contrasting sharply with the meager Chinese thanks shown in

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the data, American guests seem to extravagantly express their thanks and appreciation,
which is positive politeness in Brown and Levinson's term, to their host and hostess.
That is because "in American culture, the explicit statement of gratitude is required after
each event" (Eisenstein and Bodman, 1993, p. 74). As children, Aston (1995) points out,
Americans "are all taught by caregivers that thanking is a matter of politeness: failure to
thank in the right way and in the right place is rude" (p. 57). Expressing gratitude
frequently in a wide range of interpersonal relationships, this function can engender
feelings of warmth and solidarity among interlocutors. Not expressing gratitude
adequately “can have negative consequences for the relationship of speaker and hearer”
(Eisenstein and Bodman, 1993, p. 64). That is because the effort of an individualistic self
in helping others needs to be recognized, respected, and credited by those who are
beneﬁted from the help. That may also be explained by the importance of concept of self
in any social relationship.

Just as Aston (1995) points out, there seems to "be a large degree of cross-cultural
variation in the use and realization of thanking" with many politeness conventions (p.
57). Contrasting to the American "abundant thanks," the Chinese guests seem so
grudging or even reluctant to express their gratitude to their host or hostess. There are
several explanations to this "meager gratitude" of Chinese guests. One of them is that the
Chinese cultural ethos require some affective restraint on the expression of appreciative
emotion compared with American culture which "opts for emphatic enthusiasm" (Kasper,

1990, p. 199)].

 

3 Actually this "No-thank you" phenomenon is not only noticeable in Chinese. In
their study of American gratitude expressions, Einstein and Bodman (1993) observed
that in many cultures, the words "thank you" are not commonly used to express

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Another reason for this non-thanks phenomenon in the Chinese interpersonal
communication is the emphasis in the closeness among the people in net circle, which

may be translated into “ingroups, those of the inner circle," or "inside relations." The
nei people are those relations which are established either by birth or by other close
personal relationships, such as work, school, etc (Scollon & Scollon, 1991). Their
welfare is to be concerned and with those one is willing to cooperate without demanding
equitable returns (Morisaki & Gudykunst, 1994; Scollon & Scollon, 1991; Wheeler et al.
1989). This close tie with nei "ingroups" is in a sharply contrast with wai, which means

"outgroups, those of the outer circle," or "outside relations," with whom the
relationship "tend to be utilitarian and last for only the brief limits of the transaction"
(Scollon & Scollon, 1991, p. 118) 4.

The people from collectivistic cultures, as Morisaki & Gudykunst (1994) point out,
"draw sharper distinction between members of ingroups and outgroups, and perceive

ingroup relationships to be more intimate than members of individualistic cultures."

Since it is one's duty or responsibility to take care of each other and to make sure that

 

appreciation for acts of kindness (p. 73), since it is considered part of their social roles,
or duties.

4 There are some other reasons for this emphasis on closeness of an "inner" circle.

One of them might be the consequence of a rural society (like China with its 75%
population in the countryside), which requires cooperation among people to get some
work done. It is both natural and necessary to forge some close "inner" circles among
family members, relatives, and friends. While in an urban society, like the United States
of America, there is not so much imperative need for people to work together as for those
in rural areas. Another explanation is that people in a rural society tend to stay in one
place for many years (or for generations) and it is easier to have some close "insiders,"
but those in the urban society tend to be on the move constantly, which makes it hard for
them to build up much closer relationships (Stewart and Bennett, 1991). It would be
interesting to conduct some comparative study on the "rural American" leave taking after
dinner with the Chinese to see if there are some resemblance between them. Bond (1991)

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friendship is strengthened, for Chinese, having friends for dinner is an act of
consolidating friendship, which requires no thanks among friends, who are members of
one’s nie "inner" group. As every member of an inner circle is expected to help and be
helped, verbally giving "thank you" is out of the question. Otherwise it would be
considered jian wai "see outside" (treat (one) as a stranger/outsider), which would
disrupt social bonds or even endanger the closeness of "insiders."

Therefore, "thank you" is seldom, if ever, heard among family members, close
relatives and good friends. The closer the relationship is, the less often "thank you" is
used. Saying "thank you" may make the bound relationship appear to be loosened
because overt gratitude is for outsiders rather than for insiders. Just as Eisenstein and
Bodman (1993) found in their study that in some non-western cultures, "it is felt that
gratitude and the intent to reciprocate need not be expressed overtly. In fact, it might be
considered insulting to do so" (p. 74).5 American's ever-present "Thank you" to Chinese
is tai keqi le "too polite." Actually in one of the recorded conversations, the hostess did
say Ni tai keqi le to one the guests who said Xiexie "Thank you" several times to her (Ch.
#7). This emphasis on enhancing ingroup solidarity rather than expressing one's
gratitude (verbally at least) can explain why the Chinese guests are "grudgingly" giving
thanks to the host, compared with "overﬂowing" thank-you phrases in the American

data.

 

points it out that the orientation of the Chinese towards collective activities certainly ﬁts
the agricultural heritage of the Chinese culture (p. 36).

5 A former Chinese student of mine was so angry at her boyfriend's "thank you" that
she broke up the relationship. Though this might not be the real cause, at least she
claimed it was. Recently on a telephone call to China, I thanked my seventy-year-old
aunt for her helping me collect data (recording after dinner talks), she immediately

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Then one may ask why the Chinese respondents in the survey rated statements with
"+thanks" higher than those without. One explanation, as discussed in Chapter 4, is that
this polite linguistic marker is quite salient to Chinese who do not often use it among the
people of the inner circle. Saying Xiexie "Thank you" is very keqi "polite."6 But if it is
used to family or friends, it is very inappropriate if not completely wrong. In responding
to the survey as what a guest is expected to say before taking leave to family members or
friends, several Chinese respondents emphasize that it is "unnecessary" to be keqi "polite,
courteous" with people of closer relationship.

Although everything is done out of expectations or duty among friends and no
"thanks" is expected in Chinese culture, that does not mean that a Chinese guest would
take the host's hospitality for granted. In this reciprocal culture, renqing "personal favor"7
needs to be returned in deeds rather than in words, like saying "thank you." That leads to

the explanation of the Chinese guests inviting their hosts, which is not often observed in

 

reproached me for taijian wai "too much seeing outside, " meaning that I treated her as an
outsider rather than a close relative.

6 The routine reply to xiexie "Thank you" is Bu/Bei keqi "not polite" (Don't be polite;
Don’t stand on ceremony). Though Ke qi is often translated into “polite” in English, it is
not the same as “limao” which is also translated as “polite.” As discussed in Chapter 2,
limao is derived from 11', a traditional Chinese “rite, ritual, ceremony, propriety, and right
conduct” which are central to Confucianism (Bockover, 1997, p.53). The deﬁnition of
limao in Chinese is “manifestation of modesty and respect via verbal or non-verbal
behavior” (which understandably refers to conforming to the Confucian social norms).
While keqi can mean “polite, being modest to others,” it also connotes “speaking or
acting courteously” (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian “Modern Chinese Dictionary,” Commercial
Press, 1983; “Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary,” Oxford University
Press and Commercial Press, 1986). So bu/bei keqi “Don’t stand on ceremony” or
“Don’t act courteously” is not the same as “You are welcome,” the common reply to
“Thank you” in English. It seems that limao “polite” has some positive connotation
while keiqi can be negative sometimes. Further discussion on the difference between
keqi and limao is beyond the scope of this paper.

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the American data. In Chinese culture, qian renqing, "owing personal favor" (to be in
debt of personal favor) is considered a threat to maintaining and developing friendship.

The fear of owing others’ personal favor is another aspect of Chinese culture, which
is debt-sensitivity (Lii-shih, 1994; Yeung, 1997). To be generous and empathetic toward
others and to be modest and not greedy oneself are highly regarded social values and the
primary guidelines in the social interactions of inviting and gift-giving. Therefore,
Chinese people are always conscious of bu qian renqing "not owing personal favor" (not
to be in debt of personal favor), but to be li shang wang lai "courtesy returning and visit
repaying" (to be reciprocal in cordiality) (Li-shih, 1994). That explains why inviting is
used quite often in leave-taking after dinner in the Chinese setting because the guests are
in "debt" to the host in renqing, and need to repay it. That has to be manifested verbally
so that the host knows that his/her guests do not ungratefully take his/her kindness and
hospitality for granted. This debt-sensitivity in interpersonal relationship in Chinese
culture can also explain why another speech act, apology, is used by Chinese guests in
leave-taking as reported in Chapter 4.

Although this "repaying" personal favor or hospitality is also observed in American
culture, as this speech act is also reported in the survey among the Americans, this prompt
direct-reciprocity is not well accepted by Americans. Eisentein and Bodman found (1993)
in their study that Americans "characterized this offer of reciprocity as offered too
speciﬁcally" and the invitation " sounded too abrupt and demanding" (p. 73). This

comment supports Brown and Levinson's concept of negative politeness as such inviting

 

7 Renqing is also translated as “human emotion” by some researchers (Chang & Holt,
1994, p. 103). Zhai (1994) points out that renqing in Chinese is deﬁned and derived from
Confucius’ ﬁve cardinal relationships in a harmonious society (p. 171).

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speech act threatens the invitee’s negative face. If this intention to repay was stated, it
would be in more general terms such as "I hope you'll come to our place sometime soon"
(Eisentein and Bodman, p.73).

The survey for this study surely supports this claim. Most of invitation given by the
American respondents contains an “indeﬁnite” or “non-speciﬁc” time reference, “next
time,” such as “Next time our house/place,” “Maybe next time we’ll cook,” “Next time it
will be my turn,” “I’ll have you over for dinner next time,” etcs. Though some Chinese
in the survey made such “unspeciﬁc” invitation, some of them gave their invitation with a
speciﬁc time, such as xia xingqu “next week,” “xia zhouliu (or xia xingqi liu) “next
Saturday/ Sunday (evening)” shown in the following:

X ia xingqi ni lai wojia ba

next week you come my house (particle)

“Come to my house next week.”

X ia zhouliu wan shang wojia chi yi dun.
next Saturday evening come my house eat one meal

“Come to my house for dinner next Saturday evening.”

5.3.3 Appreciating versus Ignoring
Another contrast between American leave-taking and Chinese goodbye, especially
from the dialogue recordings, is that American guests gave more consolidatory comments

as they express their appreciation for the opportunity to having good time and the

 

8 The Chinese students, who either have contact with teachers of native English
speakers, or go abroad (to English speaking countries, like the United States of America,
England, New Zealand, etc) are repeatedly advised not to ask “When?” to this kind of
“next time” invitation. However, it seems that some of them do it anyway out of habit,
which causes some confusion and misunderstanding both for the invitation giver and the
rnvrtee.

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pleasure of meeting other people. Following Brown and Levinson’s model, Laver (1981)
suggests that these consolidatory comments are addressed to the positive aspect of face,
which is the want to be liked (p. 303). Such comments, found both in the recordings and
the questionnaires, include appreciation for the food, as “Dinner/food was
great/good/nice” etc.; appreciation for the occasion, such as "We enjoyed this so much,”
esteem for others, such as 'It's so nice to be with you,” “It sure has been good being with
you this evening” etc., caring for others, as "I hope you'll have a chance to relax a little
bit," “We can tell you worked hard today getting the food prepared;” and desire for
continuation of the relationship, as "See you tomorrow," “I’ll call you in a couple of
days,” “We’ll have to do it again some time,” etc. As discussed in Chapter 4, giving this
kind of consolidatory comments is one of the most frequently used speech acts used in
the American leave-taking.

According to the recordings of leave-taking dialogues, this speech act is only used
occasionally in the Chinese setting (three out of the ten). In the survey, however, about
half of the Chinese respondents (see Table 412-3 in Chapter 4) gave such consolidatory
comments in Situation II (with good friends), such as complimenting on food or cooking:

Chi hao le, haishi nijiadefancai bijiao kekou
eat goo (particle) still your house food comparatively tasty

“I had a good meal. (I still think that) your cooking is more tasty.”

F ancai zuo de hen hao, feichangfengsheng.
food cook (particle) very good, very abundant
“The food was really good, (and) there was a lot of food.”

Or appreciation of the occastion:

Jintian wanshang zhen rang ren gaoxing.

today evening very let people happy

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“This is really a happy evening.”

Zhen guoyin, wan de hen jinxing.
Really satisfying, play (particle) very heartedly.
(1) had a wonderful time and enjoyed it very much.

These comments consolidate the relationship between the two participants by means
of behavior which emphasizes the enjoyable quality of the encounter, the mutual esteem
in which the participants hold each other, the promise of a continuation of the
relationship, the assertion of mutual solidarity, and the announcement of a continuing
consensus for the shape of encounters in the future (Laver, 1981, p. 304). The use of
these terms highlights the attention that the participants typically apply to the care of their
relationship in this fragile phase because "it allows the participant to achieve a
cooperative parting, in which any feeling of rejection by the person being left can be
assuaged by the appropriate reassurance from the person leaving" (Laver, 1981, p. 304).

Even though the Chinese guests would give such appreciative comments upon leave-
taking after dinner as their American counterparts do, there is still some difference in
using this speech act between the two speech communities shown in the dialogue
recordings. In Chinese culture, showing interest to other people or putting others’
interest or welfare above one's own in interpersonal contact is often practiced among
"insiders" of the inner groups. With people who are not in the circle, however, things are
quite different. As discussed earlier, upon leave-taking, the American guests repeat their
appreciation of meeting other people for the ﬁrst time by saying "Nice meeting you" or
"Glad to meet you." In contrast, there is no such statement found in the Chinese leave-

taking, based on the data collected for this study, even though in three Chinese settings,

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the person who recorded the conversation and some other guests did not know each
before the dinner9, as discussed in Chapter 4.

In Chinese culture, hen gaoxing renshi ni "very glad know you" (Glad to meet you)
is often used more formally when people are introduced to each other at the beginning of
their ﬁrst encounter. In more informal settings, Chinese people usually nod their heads
with Ni hao "You good" (Hi) to those being introduced. This friendly statement,
however, is not employed in closings. At the end of a dinner, a guest usually addresses
his attention to the host rather than to the other guests who are new acquaintances as the
Americans do. Bond (1993) explains that this "ignoring" attitude to strangers is from
Chinese focus on a "pre-existing and speciﬁc relationship" which meets their social needs
(p. 57). The Chinese, Bond (1993) points out, make a critical distinction between
established acquaintances and communicate mainly with people they know and, within
the circle of acquaintances, with family members in particular. They ignore other people
or regard any who initiate conversation with suspicion“). This is in contract with the
Americans who "place a high value on conversation as a vehicle for establishing
relationship and hence ﬁnd the Chinese stand-ofﬁsh" (p. 52).

The different attitudes shown in the different ratings in the judgment of the eight
leave-taking statements in the survey are therefore self-evident with all the discussion

above. The attitudinal difference comes from the different expectations for a polite

 

9 In one the recording of the Chinese leave-taking, in Ch #9, one the guests (the wife),
after giving an invitation to the host, also asked the other guest (who was visiting and
staying with the host for a couple of days) to go. Ni ye qu ba “you too go (particle)”
(You come (with them- the host and hostess) too.). However, this is the only
acknowledging comment addressing to this guest who they did not know.

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linguistic behavior from each speech community based on different concept of self. A
polite leave-taking for Americans is to show respect to others’ self-freedom from being
imposed by expression gratitude and appreciation. A Chinese polite leave-taking is
expected to show consideration of others’ welfare. Thus a Chinese guest is expected to
give you-patterned (other-oriented) excuses and personal advice while an American guest
is anticipated to provide I-patterned (self-oriented) excuses and appreciation. When the
expectation of one speech community is not satisﬁed, negative attitudes are the natural
outcome, which will unavoidably lead to frustrations and misunderstandings which occurr
quite often in cross-cultural communication.

Since Brown & Levinson theory of universal politeness cannot well explain these
different linguistic patterns and attitudes in leave-taking between Chinese and Americans,
we need to ﬁnd out whether there exists such a theory which can account for the variant
polite linguistic behavior cross-culturally. Though Brown & Levinson's face construct is
criticized, especially their negative face, as discussed previously, no researcher has denied
the human desire to be disassociated for a time being (see O'Driscoll 1996, for more
details on this issue). Also it is almost impossible to deny the universal concern for a
good face, the positive public self-image. However, just as Ho (1976) insists, "what
constitutes face and the rules governing face behavior vary considerably across cultures,
the concern for face is invariant" (p. 881).

As mentioned in Chapter I, O'Driscoll proposed a revised version of Brown &

Levinson's face dualism in order to uphold the claim that positive and negative face are

 

10 Many Chinese students who just came from China were often puzzled by being
greeted by a passing-by American's "Hello" or "Hi" on campus or in the streets. It seems
really strange to them to observe that Americans greet strangers.

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"universal phenomena" (pl). In the next section, we are going to apply O'Driscoll revised
version to examine the I-patterned American leave-taking and you-patterned Chinese
farewell to see how these universal phenomena are manifested in different ways because

of the different concepts of self.

5.4 Universal face dualism and specific cultural self

O’Driscoll (1996) points out that Brown and Levinson’s concept of face dualism
“prompts a Janus-like picture with face looking both ways” (p.28) as Brown & Levinson
(1987) suggest that a linguistic pattern either addresses to the positive face or to the
negative face, i.e. either being positive polite or negative polite. However, if we adopt
O’Driscoll’s (1996) revision of face dualism, which is the recognition of the two
existential wants rather than the wants themselves, the corresponding dual nature of
politeness will be only a matter of degree a spectrum (p. 29). Therefore, O’Driscoll
(1996) suggests, the total effect of an utterance may be either very positively or very
negatively polite or neither because it is near the middle of the spectrum (pp. 28-29).

With this revised version of face concept, let us examine the you-patterned Chinese
and I-patterned American leave-taking excuses to see how each face is recognized and
given attention to as guests conduct their closure of this speech event. However, before
we go into any speciﬁc discussion comparing the speech acts used by Chinese and
American guests, ﬁrst we need to examine in general what face is concerned in leave-
taking after dinner.

It is universal that guests will leave after dinner. Given to the different excuses for
taking leave, the guests should recognize the need of their host who, after preparing for

the dinner and entertaining the guests, has a desire to disassociate for a period of time, at

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least for the time being. This is the negative want and recognized by the guests when
they express their desire to leave. This is negative polite as the negative face gets
attention. Intuitively, this is universal and should be culturally invariant. No hosts want
to have their guests to be with them forever (nor do guests want to remain with their
host), whether they are from collectivistic or individualistic cultures.

Now let us see the difference of these two speech communities in conducting this
speech event. Following the previous discussion, both Chinese and American guests
perform negative politeness by recognizing the host's desire to disassociate and expressing
their desire to leave, whether giving you-patterned or I-patterned excuses. Nevertheless,
the host also has his/her positive face which also needs to get some attention. This is
where the difference between Chinese and American leave-taking because of the different
concepts of self.

Due to the emphasis on subordinating self to others in Chinese culture, Chinese
guests give you-patterned (other-oriented) excuses such as " You are tired and you need to
go bed" upon leaving. This speech act conforms to the cultural expectation for politeness,
or the culture-speciﬁc face, in this culture: putting others’ interest above one’s own, and
thus gives full recognition to the host's positive want, the desire for belonging. Positive
politeness, therefore, is the norm of politeness in Chinese culture. Of course giving
personal advice and suggestions as well as giving invitation from Chinese guests also
address the positive face as precedingly discussed.

The I-patterned (self-oriented) excuses given in American farewell, such as " I have
to go because I have something to do at home, " give priority to the host's freedom from

imposition, and thus it is negative politeness. This respect for one to make one’s own

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decision complies with the expected politeness in this culture, which believes self-reliance
and self-independence. This self-centered notion is the foundation of the culture-speciﬁc
face, which indicates that negative politeness is the norm of politeness in American
culture. Another frequently used speech act in the American leave-taking is making some
appreciative or complimenting comments to the host.

Giving thanks, on the other hand, does not seem to address to either of the faces
speciﬁcally. This speech act is called a “hybrid utterance” by O’Driscoll (1996) as it
“instantiate[s] attention to both types of face at the same time,” and therefore it is
“somewhere near the middle of the politeness spectrum” (p. 28). Another explanation for
American guests always saying “Thank you” is that giving thanks is required in the
American culture. Thus it is more culturally speciﬁc, or addressing principally to the
American culture- speciﬁc face (O’Driscoll, 1996, p.28).

Then, how are we going to explain the consolidatory comments, another frequently
used speech act in the American leave-taking, which addresses to the positive face of the
host as Laver (1981) claims? O’Driscoll (1996) provides a good explanation. Though
positive and negative wants are sometimes antagonistic and not possible to satisfy both
simultaneously, he states, “the human condition involves the need for some sort of balance
over a period of time between the two poles of merging and individuation”, (p.12). That
means a balance between satisfaction of positive and negative wants, which should be the
result of balance between positive politeness and negative politeness.

Thus, American guests perform some positive politeness by giving consolidatory
comments to counterbalance their I-patterned (other-oriented) leave-taking excuses, an act

of negative politeness. The “abrupt” Chinese goodbye (see Chapter 2 and Hu & Grover,

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1991) is another case of keeping balance in this speech event. As mentioned in previous
discussion, the positive face of a Chinese host has been addressed repeatedly by his or her
guest’ you-patterned (other-oriented) excuses and personal suggestions. Therefore, the
guest takes a hasty leave to show respect to the host’s negative face so that the balance
between satisfying positive want and negative want is kept.

As discussed in Chapter 2, the main purpose of conducting a successful leave-taking
is to facilitate smoother transition ﬁ'om a state of contact to a state of separation (House
1982; Knapp et. al. 1973; Laver 1981). Just as Laver (1981) states, the one who leaves
needs to make “appropriate assurance” that the one who is left has no feelings of rejection
(p. 303). In order to eliminate the rejected feeling from the host, which is positive want,
the guest needs to pay more attention to the host’s positive face. Therefore the positive
politeness seems to be more crucial in conducting this speech event successfully. This
may be the reason why the American leave-taking seems “lingering” to the Chinese.

In the American setting, the host’s positive face is not so obviously addressed (with
exception of consolidatory comments) as in Chinese leave-taking. Thus American guests
“take their time” in bringing this contact to close. That means more time is needed for
them to "gradually" take away their association with the guests. In this way, the host’s
positive want is recognized and satisﬁed.

Therefore, in both cultures, the negative and positive wants are given proper
recognition in this speech event. Even though each speech community has its own way of
keeping some balance between positive and negative politeness, due to the different norms
of cultures which are from the different concepts of self, the performance of addressing

the face dualism is conducted differently. Positive politeness is more salient in the

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Chinese setting because of a culturally subordinate self and negative politeness is more

prominent in the American setting because of a culturally independent self.

5.5 Conclusion

Watts et al. (1992) points out, “Politeness can be interpreted as one of the constraints
on human behavior which helps us to achieve “effective living” (p.2). “All speech
communities have linguistic ways and means at their disposal of masking less altruistic
ends, i.e., of avoiding conﬂict and maintaining in a state of equilibrium the perceived
fabric of interpersonal relationship” (Watts, 1992, p.47). The linguistic patterns used by
Chinese and Americans in leave-taking after dinner are certainly appropriate and polite in
the two speech communities because they conform to what each culture values: harmony
between self and others and independent relationships for Chinese and self-reliance and
dependent relationship for Americans. These different concepts of self come from the two
opposite cultures: collectivism and individualism.

The failure of Brown and Levinson's theory of universal politeness in explaining the
different linguistic behaviors between Chinese and Americans, O’Driscoll (1996) claims,
comes from their “derivational asymmetry” in the conceptualization of their face dualism.-
Positive face seems “to accord very closely with the concern for honour and good
reputation inherent in folk notions of face itself,” which is more universal. Their negative
face, however, “seems to be derived ‘backward’ from empirical observation of a kind of
behavior which is more cross-culturally limited” (pp. 6-7). Their negative politeness
strategies on performing FTAs focus more on satisfying an individual’s independence and
self-reliance, which is upheld in the western societies, especially in the United States of

America. Thus it is not hard to understand why non-western politeness phenomena run

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contrary to Brown and Levinson’s analysis because in non-western cultures like Chinese,
Japanese, Igbo, just to name a few, the selfs interest is always suppressed and not given
priority in social interaction (Gu, 1990; Ide, 1992; Lii-shih, 1994; Mao, 1994; Matsumoto,
1994; Nwoye, 1994).

The pursuit of universals, Watts et al. (1992) advocate, needs to ﬁnd out “what
fundamental principles of human social organization underlie the goals themselves and
how they are transformed into culturally determined patterns of behavior” (p.4). A
claimed universal theory should construct concepts “that do not depend for their
deﬁnitions on object-speciﬁc phenomena” and should “not be illustrated better with
reference to one culture than the other” (O’Driscoll, 1996, p. 5). Unlike Brown and
Levinson’s face dualism which is asymmetrically derived from folk notions and empirical
observation, O’Driscoll’s revised face notion is derived from “pre-theoretical deductive
reasoning,” which “is the opposite of empirical” (O’Driscoll, 1992, p. 5). The discussion
in this chapter demonstrates that this revised version of Brown and Levinson’s face
dualism successfully explicates the different linguistic behavior shown in leave-taking.

Since the two kinds of face are innately present in every individual, attention to both
is expected “to be instantiated in every culture to some degree” (O’Driscoll, 1996, p.29) in
any interpersonal relationships. Concern for a good face is a cross-culturally felt need
when conducting polite linguistic performance. The divergent concepts of self and of its
presentation maintained in different cultures leads to various manifestation of polite
linguistic behavior. Whether a linguistic behavior is polite or not, as repeated in this

paper, is “judged” by the receiver or hearer from his or her point of view which is based

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on the culturally rooted expectation in his or her culture for a certain speech event. The
concept of self if; the foundation of such a cultural expectation.

Thus the conclusion of this study is positive and negative face in O’Driscoll’s version
is universal omnipresent and concern for a good face is cross-culturally invariant. The
manifestation of different polite linguistic performance comes from different parameters,

of which concept of self is a crucial component.

5.6 Limitation and future research
This paper is only an attempt to apply O’Driscoll revised version of Brown and

Levinson dualism in a comparative study of linguistic routines in Chinese and American
leave-taking after dinner to uphold the universal face concern in politic behavior. Due to
my limited knowledge on linguistic politeness, and the limitation in questionnaire design
and data collection (as mentioned in Chapter 3), this study is not quite as comprehensive
or convincing as hoped. More research is needed on the comparative study of linguistic
politeness cross-culturally with this “new” version of face dualism so that we may have
more knowledge about other possible parameters, which will increase our understanding

of linguistic politeness.

FAREWELL
Dear reader, I'm so glad that I got this paper out of my way. Since I have many
other things to take care of, I really need to stop now so that I may start doing other
things. Thank you very much for your patience. Goodbye.
Dear reader, I'm sure that you must be very tired (or may be very bored) after

reading this long paper, so you need to take a break now and do something fun. I'm sorry

146

for taking up so much of your precious time in asking you to read this paper. Zaijian

"Again see" (Goodbye).

147

APPENDICES

148

APPENDIX 1

English Version of the Questionnaire

Dear friend,

I 'm doing a comparative study of the relationship between culture and linguistic
performance of Chinese and Americans. Would you please take a couple of minutes of
your time and answer the following questions? Your help is greatly appreciated.

Sex: L2“ M 1] F Age: D 30 or under [I] 31-55 E] 56 or above

Profession:

 

1 You have prepared a good meal and invite some people for dinner. You have all had
a good time. Now it's getting late, and your guests express their desire to go. What do
you expect them to say if ..... (Please write down as much as you can think of.)

A they are your immediate families (parents or siblings) or close relatives?

 

 

 

 

 

B' they are your very close friends?

 

 

 

 

 

C they are colleagues or casual acquaintances?

 

 

 

 

 

149

2 Suppose that your guest is a colleague or casual acquaintance. What do you think of
him/her if he/she says the following things at the end of the dinner? Tell me your
impression of him/her by marking one number in each item.

(Note: 1 and 5 refer to the two opposite impressions, and 2 and 4 are "some what
...." 3 means "neither nor ..." For example, in the "polite ..... rude" line,

1 = polite, 2 = somewhat polite, 3 = neither polite nor rude,

4 = somewhat rude, 5 = rude)

A "Well, it's getting late. You must be tired. You've been busy the whole day.
Thanks for the dinner." You think the person is...

l 2 3 4 5
polite C] D 13 Cl ;1 rude
grateful Cl D [l D [1 ungrateful
direct Cl 8 D D [:1 indirect
considerate E B l] D U selﬁsh
sincere B D D [:1 El insincere

B "Well, I should go now. My daughter and son are all coming for dinner tomorrow, I
have to do a little cooking tonight. Thanks for the dinner." You think the person is

1 2 3 4 5
polite D [1 [:1 D [U rude
grateﬁrl [1 C1 [:1 [1 U ungrateful
direct [:1 1:1 E El [3 indirect
considerate l] D 13 l] E selﬁsh
sincere D [:1 1] L1 L3 insincere

C "Well, it's time to go. Thank you so much for the wonderful evening. I'm so
glad I came." You think the person is

l 2 3 4 5
polite [1 D 13 El 1] rude
grateful C] D D D [1 ungrateful
direct E] El El 13 C1 indirect
considerate [:1 D E E1 E1 selﬁsh
sincere D [1 E C1 C1 insincere

D "Well, it's getting late. Tomorrow is Monday. Thanks for the dinner." You
think the person is

l 2 3 4 5
polite D [:1 E El [:1 rude
grateﬁil ‘71 fl 2 C” l] ungrateful
direct Cl C“ _ :3 D indirect
considerate U 7:1 E Cl C selﬁsh
sincere D [1 U 13 E insincere

150

E "Well, it's getting late. You've been working the whole day and you need to rest
now." You think the person is

1 2 3 4 5
polite l: C E C C rude
grateful :1 El [1 D B ungrateful
direct [3 :1 L] :1 Tl indirect
considerate .7 [j [,1 E C selﬁsh
sincere [3 L: T] ”' :2 insincere

F "Well, I need to go home and get some work done that I’ve let go for over a week
now." You think the person is

l 2 3 4 5
polite D [:1 1:1 [1 D rude
grateﬁil D [1 1] [1 D ungrateful
direct D D 1] 1:1 D indirect
considerate El [3 E] E] D selﬁsh
sincere D D [:1 E1 [3 insincere

G "Well, it's getting late. You've got to work tomorrow and I've got a long way to
drive." You think the person is

l 2 3 4 5
polite ﬂ 1”] D 13 D rude
grateful [1 D 1] El E1 ungrateful
direct l] :1 B 1:] El indirect
considerate [l 13 El El E1 selﬁsh
sincere [1 U C1 C1 [3 insincere

H "Well, it’s getting late. Tomorrow will be here too early, and it’s off to work.”
You think the person is

l 2 3 4 5
polite El [3 El [3 D- rude
grateful D [1 D E] C] ungrateﬁil
direct [l :1 :1 [1 U indirect
considerate U C L" D :1 selﬁsh
sincere U D '3 [1 D insincere

151

APPENDIX 2

Chinese Version of the Questionnaire

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EM:

1 ﬁiﬁéT—iﬁﬁﬁﬁﬁﬂﬁﬁ, féélé-‘E—élk, were, ﬁlﬂﬁﬁﬁiﬁﬁfé.
353%? t EMl’li'Ea—igiET . §D%EA%, enemawm

A it (animating/k (ﬁlﬂﬂﬁtﬁat)ﬁ%ﬁ%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

B it (mﬂl’lﬁ'ﬁéﬁﬁﬁﬁﬁﬁ .

 

 

 

 

 

C it manamawaaaum .

 

 

 

 

 

152

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1511211: 1: E11411. 2 gesture.

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154

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155

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