Abstract: Politeness is a communication strategy which people use to maintain and develop relationship. There are various causes of politeness differences between different cultures. This paper takes cultural and cognitive psychology as the starting point to illustrate these differences between English and Chinese politeness. From the contrast, there are four main differences between the two cultures. Through the study of these differences, we could have a better understanding in cross-cultural communication of the two nations.
一. The Differences of English and Chinese politeness Principle
The cultural and cognitive psychology differences result in the differences of politeness between English and Chinese. As to Chinese politeness principles, we have the following five maxims concluded by Gu yueguo(1992):
(一) To self-underestimate ,but to esteem others
(二) To be elegant and refined
(