Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: Business negotiation is actually an economic activity which conducts through language. Whether it can succeed or not mostly depends on the application of language. Both parties not only have cooperative side, but also have conflict side. Each party tries their best to achieve the biggest benefit when they cooperate with the other. Based on Leech’s politeness principles as well as Brown and Levinson’s face theory, this paper analyzes the application of politeness languages such as vagueness, euphemism, understatement and compliment in business negotiation through specific pragmatic failure, aiming at helping the negotiators use proper politeness strategies and achieving success in business negotiations.

Key words: business negotiation; politeness principle; face theory; pragmatic failure

摘要：商务谈判实质上是通过语言进行的经济活动。其成功与否在很大程度上取决于语言的应用。谈判双方既有合作的一面，又有冲突的一面。谈判的任何一方在与对方合作的同时，都力图赢得最大利益。本文以利奇的礼貌原则、布朗和列文森的面子理论为基础，结合商务谈判中的具体语用失误，探讨模糊语、委婉语、低调陈述、恭维语等礼貌语在商务谈判中的体现和应用，阐述了礼貌对商务谈判的影响，希望借此能够使得谈判者利用正确的礼貌策略来促成谈判的成功。

关键词：商务谈判；礼貌原则；面子理论；语用失误

1.    Introduction
With the rapid development of the world economy, business communication between nations becomes more and more frequent. As the most important communicative strategy, business negotiation is an indispensable part. Business negotiations have the purpose of communicating a message to talk with the other party, to make a bargaining, to achieve agreement with each other, to make a deal, and to satisfy and obtain interests for each party and so forth. Therefore, we can say that business negotiation is really an image-maker in business communication. Successful negotiation will reflect a business partner’s good image and create a positive on the recipients, so it will help to build a good relationship between each other.
Politeness is a social phenomenon, which has penetrated into our daily life. While business negotiation is a human activity which plays an important role in our economic activities, it’s also an activity through language. In negotiation, both parties have to cooperate with each other as well as being competitive against each other. Businessmen should stick to their own ideas and respect the other side, behave politely and properly, and be neither humble nor haughty in business negotiations. In the course of business negotiations, the harmonious and friendly atmosphere is mostly needed. Only in this kind of atmosphere can the negotiations go on smoothly. Thus, in this way, it’s very important for the negotiators to create a friendly and harmonious atmosphere through proper pragmatic strategies and tactics. Among them, politeness may be the most useable strategy.