Contents  

1. Introduction. 1 

2. Literature Review 1 

3. Politeness Principle of Geoffrey N. Leech and Gu Yueguo . 2 

3.1 Geoffrey N. Leech’s Politeness Principle. 2 

3.2 Gu Yueguo’s Politeness Principle  3 

4. Differences between Chinese and British Politeness Principle  . 4 

4.1 Addressing and Greeting . 5 

4.2 Apology. 8 

4.3 Invitation. 9 

5. Conclusion . 11 

Works Cited. 12 

1. Introduction   Nowadays,  we are living in an  extremely different world in which people from different cultures have increasingly interaction with each other on account of the changes in technology,  economy,  political systems, population migration and so on. As a result, understanding other cultures is absolutely necessary, and the need for intercultural knowledge and skills that give rise to intercultural communication competence become very important if human beings are to survive in this age of intercultural contact.  To ensure a successful intercultural communication, we are supposed to have a profound grasp of politeness, one of the most ubiquitous social phenomena in intercultural communication.   
2. Literature Review As early as the  1950s, E.  Goffman put forward the face theory from the angle of sociology and established the politeness model.  In 1987,  Brown, P.  and S.  Levinson published Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. They followed the face concept of Goffman and pided it into positive face and negative face. Geoffrey N. Leech, a famous British linguist, thought politeness has one common property in different cultures. That is, an overall function to avoid disputes and promote cooperation.  In 1980s, he complemented the Cooperative Principle of Grice and proposed six politeness principles which restrict human verbal communication.   Chinese modern  “politeness”  originated from the ancient  “ceremony”  (Gu  Yueguo, 1990: 238).  In He Zhaoxiong’s  (1995: 2-8) opinions, politeness is a social phenomenon; an approach to achieve good interpersonal relationship as well as a criterion stipulated by social customs. So, politeness essentially has the features of instrument and normalization. He Ziran and  Chen  Xinren  (2004:  53-54)  emphasize Chinese politeness including three aspects: respect,  understanding and enthusiasm.  Gu  Yueguo  (1992: 11-14)  revised the politeness principle of Leech and added some Chinese characteristics into it.   Whatever the educational circles’  differences on problems such as the definition and the universality of politeness, over the past decades, it has been unanimously 文献综述 recognized that politeness conveys an interpersonal meaning  in communication which can’t be ignored or neglected by the communicators. This paper compares two typical politeness principles put forward by British scholar Geoffrey N. Leech and Chinese scholar Gu Yueguo respectively so as to explore the roots of the  cultural differences behind the application of language, thus helping the participants select suitable politeness principles according to the different communication objects and environments in cross-cultural communication and overcome speech failures,  ensuring  a smooth cross-cultural communication in the end.