Abstract and Key Words
                                       
Abstract: Politeness is an universal phenomenon in human society, and it is a symbol of human civilization and an important criterion of human social activities. With a detailed analysis and comparison, this paper studies the commonality and differences of politeness principles in China and the West.  It proves that to carry out an effective cross-cultural communication, communicators should fully understand the social and cultural background of that country, paying great attention to those differences with their motherland,  obeying  the politeness principle , and thus avoid communication failures.

Key words: cross-cultural communication; politeness; cultural differences; verbal communication

摘要 礼貌, 是人类社会一种普遍存在的现象, 在不同文化中具有文化差异性。它是人类文明的标志, 是人类社会活动的重要的准则。本文对中西礼貌原则进行分析对比,通过礼貌研究的理论背景，研究中西礼貌原则的共同性和差异性，说明要想有效的进行跨文化交际, 交际者应该充分了解目的语国家的社会文化背景及差异, 从而遵从礼貌原则，避免造成交际失败。

关键词：跨文化交际；礼貌；文化差异；语言表达

1. Introduction
Politeness commonly exists in a variety of different cultures and it is a key factor which can not be ignored for people to achieve good communication. Since different nations in the world have their own unique principles and different understandings of politeness, there certainly exist some misunderstandings and conflicts, which usually lead to the communication failure. Politeness, as one social phenomenon, comes into being with profound background of history and culture. The politeness which is admissive by the nation is actually the reflection of the history and culture. Therefore, the politeness principles in different nations have many differences. As is known to all, people’s communication is realized mainly by language. Therefore, politeness exists in all languages. It not only restricts people’s behavior, but also coordinates the daily communication.
To study the comparison of verbal and non-verbal communication by the expresser of the Chinese and Western cultural, making analysis of similarities and differences, can deepening the understanding of the politeness principles, bringing more convenient for the daily lives. In addition to reveal its universality and particularity, this kind of comparative study of politeness also has positive significance for the foreign language teaching, translation and other applied linguistics area.