洪娇娇-中外寒暄语对比

上海海事大学

2015-2016学年第一学期

语言与文化课程结课论文

论文题目： A Comparative Study of Chinese and English Phatic Communion from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

从文化差异角度对比英汉寒暄语交谈

院系：外国语学院

专业：外国语言学及应用语言学

学号：201530810059

姓名：洪娇娇

2016年1月

A Comparative Study of Chinese and English Phatic Communion

from A Cross-Cultural Perspective

摘要：寒暄交谈，这种短小，看起来毫无意义的表达，是一种表示应酬的辅助性语言，往往在谈话中起到非常重要的作用，具有缩短交际者之间的距离和维系和谐社会关系的社会功能。同时，寒暄交谈也是社会生活与文化的反映，汉英寒暄语在表达形式和话题内容上呈现出明显的不同，在深层次上受到中西文化的影响。本文试从中西价值观，思维方式和道德情操方面对比分析中西寒暄语的差异。寒暄交谈是人际交往的润滑剂，对中西寒暄语交际差异的了解，能够避免跨文化交际中的误解，减少交际障碍，促进有效沟通和交流。

关键词：寒暄语；文化差异；对比

1.Introduction

In linguistics, a phatic communion is one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information (Bronisław Malinowski, 1923, p. 146-152). The utterance of a phatic expression is a kind of speech act. In speech communication the term means "small talk" that is conversation for its own sake.It is used to create an atmosphere of shared feelings, goodwill, or to establish social contact and to express sociability rather than specific meaning. phatic communion in Chinese refers to “寒暄语”. The definition of “寒暄语” in Chinese dictionary Cihai is expressed as courtesy remarks for greeting and caring for others,etc.it is a ubiquitous phenomenon in human communications. It is widely used in daily greetings, informal visits or gatherings and even in formal business negotiations. In order to be polite or for some other reasons, people may embark on a small talk before getting to the main points. It can help shorten the distance between people and enhance the intimacy among them, and thus creates a relaxing atmosphere.Besides, Halliday (1985, p. 56) thinks there is “phatic function” in language which is used for setting up a certain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts. It strengthens its role in social communication and even in the whole human language. As phatic communion is a kind of speech act, its topic or content and the way to express may differ from language to language. And there are obvious differences of phatic communion between Chinese and English and the cultural difference behind it has great impact on the cross cultural communication concerning it.

As we know, phatic communion is widely used in communication in the workplace and in the community. It has been attracting increasing attention these days. There are many studies of the origin of phatic communion or the function of phatic communion.Malinowski(1923), for instance, firstintroduces the concept of phatic communion into linguistics and points out “the communion of words is the first act to establish links of fellowship.After the first formula, there comes a flow of language, purposeless expressions of preference or aversion, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious. There can be no doubt that we have a new type of linguistic use — phatic communion”(p. 10).Andthe phatic function serves to