Different Cultures and Social Patterns Matter in English and Chinese Greetings

Abstract

Greetings can be found in all languages. They are linguistic routines that form part of the repertoire of politeness and serve as means for opening conversations appropriately, establishing, maintaining and negotiating social relationships. While such routines have been studied in disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, there has been not enough quantitative and qualitative study on the use of greetings in and across different languages, cultures and social patterns. Consequently, the present study aims to undertake such a research in English and Chinese. The present study indicates that great differences can be found in the contents, the frequency, degree of politeness, distribution of greeting and its use in the form of address terms between English and Chinese. Linguistic routines of greeting, far from being relatively meaningless and mechanical social behavior, can be understood as extremely important strategies for negotiation, control of social identity and social relationship between participants in conversation. Problems in cross-cultural communication and in different social patterns are easily seen in the use of greeting between English and Chinese speakers.