摘要

随着经济全球化的深入发展，各国经贸往来日益频繁，商务信函的中介作用也愈发明显。基于Leech的礼貌原则，本文从You-attitude 和词汇的角度，以大量的实例作为分析基础，探讨“礼貌原则”如何渗透于商务信函，以有效协助实现商务交流的目的。研究表明，恰当的应用礼貌策略会给商务信函的写作带来很多益处，往往会有出其不意的效果。本文在一定程度上可以对商务信函的写作给以更加具体的指导，也可以帮助写信人在国际商务贸易中更好地实现其交际意图。

关键词：礼貌原则；you-attitude；词汇；礼貌策略
 
Abstract

With the deep development of the economic globalization, countries all over the world have frequently exchanged，and the role of the business letters have been increasingly important. Based upon Leech’s politeness, this thesis aims to study the application of the politeness in business letters. The process is analyzed by a large number of examples, from the perspective of you-attitude and lexical meaning，trying to explore how politeness strategies are presented in the business letters and help to achieve the desired purpose. It is shown that appropriate application of politeness strategies will bring a lot of benefits to the business writing and sometimes will have the unexpected effect. To some extent，this study will provide some specific guidance about the business letter writing. Moreover, it will help the writer to achieve him/her purpose in the international business trade.

Key words：politeness; you-attitude; lexical; politeness strategies

1. Introduction
Politeness, as a universal phenomenon, exists in all human societies and permeating in every aspect of an individual’s everyday life. Since the early 1970s，linguists began to study the role of politeness in the verbal communication. Politeness is usually regarded as the measures for the speakers to achieve a certain purpose, such as to enhance or maintain the harmonious social relationship. Politeness can be used to explain many phenomena occurring in our daily life and also has a strong descriptive function. Politeness is not only universal, but also unique in different cultures, which have different points of view of politeness. So as to the definition of politeness, different scholars have different studies. According to Lakoff (1975:65), politeness is a form of behavior that have been developed in societies in order to reduce friction in personal interaction. Leech defines politeness from the perspective side and proposes that it is used to create and maintain harmonious interaction (1983). Brown and Levinson (1987) consider that the politeness is the production of social order and a precondition of human cooperation.