【正文】 ected in the polite language. Take greetings as an example. In Chinese, “Have you eaten yet?” and “Where are you going?” are the most mon greetings. The former is a greeting around mealtime, but in the West, it might mean an invitation if you say to an Englishspeaker. The latter may use anytime in China when two acquaintances meet while in the West it is an invasion of their privacy, especially those who are in China but not familiar with Chinese culture. Regarding the reason why Chinese like to greet people in this way, some scholars think that it has something to do with China’s backward economy and poor living standard in the past, therefore, it is natural to care for whether others have eaten or not. But nowadays, the two abovementioned greetings are the habit of Chinese and good wish but not mean anything. So people just respond to it very vaguely. Greetings that are monly used in the West are as follows: Hi, Hello, Morning, Good morning/afternoon/evening, and so on. Patterns of thoughtConsiderable items related to polite language.The effect of culture on daily lives is largely unrealized. Perhaps a way to understand cultural influence is by way of analogy with electronic puters: as people program puters to do what they do, culture to a great extent programs people to do what they do and to be what they are.Culture has been, from the very beginning, a special province of anthropologists. They were the first to explore the term “culture”. For them, culture stands for the way of life, attitudes and behavior patterns of a people. [4] Later, scholar gave it different definitions from different aspects of research. It is estimated that there have existed about 300 definitions of culture. As I have mentioned in the previous paragraph, polite language, as a language phenomenon, is greatly influenced by cultural factors. They are as follows: Cultural valuesAlthough each of us has a unique set of values, there also are values that tend to permeate a culture. These are called cultural values. Cultural values generally are normative in that they inform a member of a culture what is good and bad, right and wrong, true and false, positive and negative, and so on. Despite their importance in the control of cultural behaviors, values cannot be seen, heard, tasted or experienced. Values are inside people, in their minds and a way of thinking about the world. [5] Therefore, they are mental programs that govern specific speech choices.China’s traditional culture emphasizes the great esteem for harmony among people, between people and nature, which is profoundly influenced by Confucianism and Taoism. Confucius advocated the restoration of “l(fā)i”, which referred to the social hierarchy and orders of the Zhou Dynasty and each individual must have his place according to his social position. It can be traced back to the period of feudalism, which lasted more than two thousand years. Chinese value was greatly influenced by traditional philosophies. In China, it is polite to give others face and at the same time avoid losing one’s own face. Chinese are reserves and unwilling to be conspicuous, for they believe the sayings that “The nail that sticks up is hit”, and “Birds that e forward will be shot first”. Since the founding of the new China in 1949, the feudal system has been abolished and a new order of social structure has been introduced, this certainly has had some effect on people’s status, but the social relations, in general, are still “vertical lines”.But in the West, people believe that each person is rational and capable of making choices. Each one should be responsible for him. Consequently, they develop themselves freely, emphasize on individual intelligence and ability, and hold that group benefits should make a concession to individual ones. There are many aspects showing the thought of individualism among the Westerners. Just as the words posed of “ego” or “self”, such as egocentric, egoism, ego ideal, and so on?！娟P鍵詞】 禮貌用語；文化特性；文化價值；跨文化交際；文化差異1. IntroductionWhat is politeness? We might say it is showing courtesy, respect and consideration to other people, acknowledging them, and not imposing unnecessarily on them. Politeness is everywhere. It can be showed in two aspects: verbal form and nonverbal form. Through all its verbal and nonverbal aspects, “l(fā)anguage embodies cultural reality”. [1] In daily life, it is very easy to give a pile of examples of politeness. For example, to say “Thank you” to one who has offered you some help is polite, and to take a book from your roommate’s private bookshelf without first asking for permission is considered impolite behavior。因此在跨文化交際中，會出現(xiàn)一些誤解，這些誤解常常會導致交際失誤乃至失敗。同時，禮貌具有文化特性，是特定文化價值在語言中的折射。作為一種可觀察得到的社會現(xiàn)象，禮貌是一種表面現(xiàn)象，是由所有社會所認同的一種規(guī)范。自人類進入文明時代，禮貌用語就被各文化社團及學者所廣為重視。 cultural difference中西文化差異對禮貌用語的影響【摘 要】 語言是人類最重要的交際工具。 cultural value。The Influences of Differences between Chinese and Western Cultures on Polite Language[Abstract] Language is the most important munication tool for human beings. And in it is loaded the profound national cultural connotation. Since mankind headed into the era of civilization, polite language has been highly valued in each culture, munity and group. On one hand, polite language is an indication of being elegant and civilized, and on the other hand, it is helpful to establish and maintain a good relationship between people. As an observable phenomenon, politeness is something superficial and is recognized as a norm in all societies. People in every culture are trying to be polite when municating. Furthermore, politeness is culturespecific to some extent and a reflection of specific cultural values in the language. Due to the influence of cultural value orientations, the actual manifestations of politeness and the standards for its judgment differ substantially from culture to culture. Therefore, misunderstandings or even breakdown may occur if the cultural differen