On the Strategies of Polite Language in Business Negotiation.doc

畢業(yè)論文(設(shè)計(jì))On the Strategies of Polite Language in Business Negotiation1. Introduction12. Business negotiation and polite language32.1 The definition of business negotiation42.2 The definition of polite language42.3 Relevant theories of politeness52.3.1 The polite principle52.3.2 The face theory73. The strategies of polite language in business negotiation93.1 Vagueness93.2 Euphemistic presentation123.3 Understatement153.4 Compliment184The polite language in cross-cultural business negotiation205. Conclusion22References241. IntroductionPoliteness is a social phenomenon. It touches upon every aspect of life. It naturally comes into theorists view in different perspectives. As regards polite principle, British linguist Leech proposes the polite principle on the basis of Grices cooperative principle. Polite principle includes tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim. Levinson and Brown suggest the theory of face work. The polite language embodies polite principle. It transmits all kinds of information as a function of language, establishes and maintains the social relations with each other. It manifests itself not only into human daily life, but also into human politics, economy, culture and other social lives. Therefore politeness and its relevant language should be taken into account. With the constant development of the economic globalization, business contacts among nations get increasingly close. In particular, since Chinas accession to WTO, the economic cooperation between China and the west becomes more and more frequently. International business negotiation is one of the vital parts of role in the social life as well as the economic life. Negotiators from different cultural backgrounds have different values and thinking patterns, thus forming the various communication styles. Consequently, it is necessary to learn the cultures among all the countries and to get familiar with the cultural differences in the business activities. Business negotiation is a complex human activity, which plays an important role in economic interaction. It is also a process of information exchanged between two parties. Its indeed worthwhile to study how negotiators get along with each other. In order to avoid the deadlock or failure of negotiation, the meditation of interpersonal relationship is one of the most important factors, which should not escape from our eyes. In the course of business negotiation, the harmonious, friendly and cooperative atmosphere can, in a way, better the negotiating conditions that deepen the negotiation going on smoothly. Between native-English speakers and non-native English speakers, because of their different thoughts, rules of speaking and values, they will cause pragmatic failures. In the international negotiation, if two parties cant form the same cultural background, it will be easy to cause negotiating failure. When someone speaks English fluently, but he still makes some pragmatic failures, he will be thought to be unprofessional negotiator. Many negotiators tend to make such mistakes. These mistakes result in negotiation being postponed or ended. Language comes from culture. The using of language must obey cultural rules. Different countries have different cultures. It is difficult for negotiators to avoid face-threatening act in some cases as the cooperative principle supposes, so he is easy to threaten the others face. In this case, it is necessary for negotiators to use some appropriate strategies and polite language. Polite language strategies include vagueness, euphemistic presentation, understatement, and compliment. Polite language becomes the argument point of the study of philosophers and linguistics. It not only deepens peoples knowledge greatly, but also inspires the researches on polite speech more systematically and academically. Up to now as a result they overlooked the usage of polite strategies in specific situation in business negotiation. Through the explication of politeness and its strategies attempt to reduce conflict and promote successfully cooperative chance in international business negotiation.2. Business negotiation and polite languageThis chapter will focus on what is business negotiation and polite language. In fact, business negotiation is an essential kind of economic activity through language. Whether it succeeds or not depends on the use of language. In business negotiation, both parties have to cooperate with each other as well as be competitive against each other. Either party will endeavor to win the most benefits while maintaining cooperation with each other. However, discrepancies and conflicts are inevitable in business negotiation due to the competitive economic interest of both parties. So it seems crucial for negotiators to find the way to balance competition and cooperation in business negotiation. Undoubtedly, this goal has to be achieved through the appropriate language, especially the polite language. According to above mention, it is known that the relationship between business negotiation and polite language is very closely. Therefore, its necessary to explain their definitions and some relevant theories of politeness. Its useful for negotiators to apply to polite language in negotiation. 2.1 The definition of business negotiation James Wall thinks that business negotiation is a process through which two or more parties coordinate an exchange of goods or services and attempt to agree upon rate of exchange for them (1985: 4); and Ways Max defines it as a process in which two or more parties, who have both common interests and conflicting interests, put forth and discuss explicit proposals concerning specific terms of possible agreement (1979: 15). Wall and Ways Max say essentially there are no differences. It is a kind of communicative process of economical activity. The primary objective may be an agreement or any other indigenous outcome or resulting from the ongoing exchange; its core lies in the interplay of two phrases, “common interests” and “conflicting interests”.2.2 The definition of polite languageLeech defines politeness as forms of behavior that establish and maintain comity. (1988, P. 97) That is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony. Polite language exists everywhere in daily life, such as “Please”, “Excuse me”, “How are you doing?” and so on. Polite language is one of the parts of pragmatics. Generally speaking, polite language is a kind of language that can be accepted by others happily and clearly. As a result, Politeness plays an important role in promoting inter-personal relationship to achieve both individual and group goals.Usually, negotiation involves much more oral English. It is different from business correspondence. Business correspondences language can be thought over and over, and then written out. In the context of business negotiation, an experienced negotiator gives full play to the functions of language, which can serve his goal much better. Therefore, communication is very vital in the negotiating process. The better youre able to communicate your point, the higher negotiating rate you can get. All in all, an excellent negotiator must be an excellent linguistician, especially, the polite language.2.3 Relevant theories of politeness2.3.1 The polite principleThe polite principle is series of maxims, which Geoffrey Leech (1983) has proposed as a way of explaining how politeness operates in conversational exchange. That is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony.The polite principle contains six maxims, they are: Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modest, Agreement and sympathy:u Tact: minimize the expression of beliefs, which implies cost to others; maximize the expression of beliefs, which implies benefit to others.u Generosity: minimize the expression of beliefs to self; maximize the expression of cost to self.u Approbation: minimize the expression of beliefs, which express dispraise of others; maximize the expression of beliefs, which express approval of others.u Modesty: minimize the expression of beliefs, which express dispraise of dispraise of self.u Agreement: minimize the expression of disagreement between self and others; maximize the expression of agreement between self and others.u Sympathy: minimize antipathy between self and others; maximize sympathy between self and others.Many scholars doubted the relationship between the six maxims in Leechs Polite Principle (Brown& Levinson, 1987; Gu, 1990; Mey, 1993) and argued that the maxims are not at the same level and lack theoretical support, hence are asymmetric. To some degree, they regarded the other five maxims as merely the subcategories of the Maxim of Tact. Another criticism is that politeness means different things to different people under different situations. So in this case, it involves context. Context means the environment of language usage. Taking agreement maxim as an example, it proposes no direct disagreements with others. For example: (1) A: What do you think of my essay?B: Oh, its not bad, but I think you can do it better. Maybe you can revise the structure.(2)A: Few similar products can compare with ours in Asia.B: Thats true, but the price is too high.Obviously, in both (1) and (2), politeness is displayed by partial disagreements. From these two examples, it is shown that polite principle should be used skillfully in context. We cant just express pure disagreement. It is hard for someone to accept. He thinks that he loses face, so that it will cause communicative difficulty.2.3.2 The face theory Using language isnt the only way to express politeness, but using language to express politeness is a common way. Therefore language is an important tool to express polite language. Brown and Levinson firstly propose that everyone has face wants. In their eyes, face is “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for him”, which is “emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced and must be constantly attended to in interaction” (1987: 66). Brown and Levinson think that a persons speech acts are all so-called face-threatening acts (FTA). In other words, his speech can be interpreted as a threat to anothers face or his own face. Below are the illustrations of the cases of face-threatening acts. For example:(3) You should not do things like that.(4) Im terribly sorry about not letting you know sooner, Mr. Green, but unfortunately it was cancelled at the last minute and there simply wasnt enough time to inform everyone.In (3), the hearers negative face is threatened when the speaker gives an order to him. The hearer will feel very uncomfortable. The hearer thinks he is losing hisher face. In (4), the speaker uses some skills to save his face in the end. He not only saves face for anothers face, but also saves his face. It still has many other examples on “face threatening acts”. e.g.(5)I dont know how to thank you enough for everything youve done for us.(6)A: Is it a good idea?B: What a silly boy.(7)You are right. Ill think it over and let you know my plan.The face-threatening act always presents a threat to peoples speech communication. Therefore, people must handle it appropriately by employing some effective measures and strategies. The polite language is the best pragmatic strategies (He Ziran, 1997:105). It can deal with FTA much better than anything else so that people communicate successfully. 3. The strategies of polite language in business negotiationThe level of politeness is restricted by many aspects, such as culture, social custom, thought and so on. It can be polite in one situation, but if it is changed into another situation, polite language will cause ambiguity. “Talk is the stuff of negotiation (Schatzki 1981: 169)”. Accordingly, the materials of negotiation are in the main utterance according to Schazki suggests. In the following part, polite language, especially polite utterance, is fathomed from the pragmatic angle. Polite language generally complies with the polite principles, and shows the speakers polite acts to others, such as friendliness, esteem, saving others face, etc. So its important for negotiators to control polite strategiesvagueness, euphemism, understatement and compliments. They will work on business negotiation. 3.1 VaguenessEverything has two sides, so does vague language. “Vagueness speech is neither too bad nor too good, what the matter is that speech is used appropriately.” (Channell, 2000). As the inherent property, vagueness may have strong impacts on peoples communication. People pay more and more attention to the understanding and application of vague language. Vague language plays a positive role in business negotiation. It can be often used as a kind of polite strategies. During the process of communication, people would like to save mutual faces. In business negotiation, vague speech not only ameliorates the negotiating climate, but also can make people know the others real intentions. It can be seen from the following examples. (8) A: Well, I hope you have found a way of considering my counter-offer. B: I certainly have the will, but I wonder if I have found the way. We spent time trying out various ways in an attempt to meet your counter-offer. The best we could do is reducing our price by $10. And I should think we could strike a deal at $310.A: I do appreciate the effort you are towards reaching an agreement, but frankly speaking, the gap between your price and mine is still enormous. I really dont see how we can go above $290.B: Sorry, we may not be able to see anything near that price. A: That would be a pity, indeed. B: One thing I want to make clear is whether the quantity you ordered can be bigger. A: If that is the question, then the answer is yes. I would order 300 bales more.B: Then the price will be US $295 per bale, CIF Sydney. There are many vague words in the above. It is the re-countering offers negotiation. Both of them want to protect their benefits. In business negotiation, it is impossible for negotiators to force others to reach an agreement. Therefore, they must leave some leeway to each other so that they can change their positions or standpoints without loss of their face. From the conversation, it can be found that their wordings are full of skill. In negotiation A and B dont want to destroy the negotiation, so they have to keep polite. It can be found that their words are connected with the polite speeches which are ingenious. From and , both of them try to avoid directly expressing their disagreement because of using “certainly, but” “do, but”. As a result, negotiation can go smoothly. In sentence, B skillfully uses “may” to express vague meaning. It indicts there still have some room to discuss. A preferably uses sentence instead of “of course”. A not only saves B face, but also leaves some negotiating room for him. It is making B sure that A has sincerity to cooperate with him.In the international business negotiation, sometimes because of some reasons, the negotiators dont want to tell their real intentions; they will choose to use understatement to save mutual faces. For example:(9) A: I am afraid that the proposal you put forward just now isnt up too much. B: Your presentation makes me feel a little tooyou know what I mean.In (9), “isnt up too much” “you know what I mean” are vagueness. They contain many meanings, so the hearer can understand them flexible. At the same time, using vagueness can expand the amount of information. It means indefinable can promote negotiating efficiency. For example:(10) A: No doubt, yours is of a high quality, but still there is keen competition.B: So far our commodities have stood the competition well.A: But Im afraid well have a hard time convincing our clients at your price.B: To be frank with you, if it werent for our good relations, we wouldnt consider making you a firm offer at first price.In (10), it seems that A wants to refuses Bs offer, so B has to leave some room for his counteroffer. If B uses the word “on the top” instead of “well”, the agreement is hard to reach, and A sinks into a dilemma. The vague words “a hard time” make a faade for the speaker. He can save his face for fear of embarrassment of denial. Using vague words can save both parties negative faces.(11)A: Ive agreed to compromise and meet your $2,800 price, so weve got a deal. Right?B: As for as Im concerned we do. But first, of course, I have to check with my boss.Sometimes it can be a big advantage in negotiation to be murky. Whether B really did have to check with his boss, we do not know. But he gave himself some more time to consider the deal. At least, he took this as an excuse to refuse the opponent without hurting mutual face.3.2 Euphemistic presentationEuphemism is defined in the New Edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary (1976) as “substitution of mild or vague or round-about expression for harsh or direct one; expression thus substituted”. Euphemism may serve for fear of taboos or for some political disguise such as the substitution of “pacification” for “bombing, burning and imprisonment”, etc. But the prominent purpose is for fear of hurting other peoples feelings. According to Leechs polite principle and its scale, what is said is a cost to the hearer, the speaker should express indirectly and mildly. The more cost there is to the hearer, the more indirect the words are. Moreover, euphemism also accords with Brown and Levinsons theory of face work. When there is a face-threatening act to t