Learn Chinese Politeness through Conversation Analysis in Sitcom

The Lohas Family

Xuc Lin

, Mariana

and Andyni Khosasih

Chinese Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia 11480

Keyword: Chinese Politeness, Conversation, Sitcom, Lohas Family

Abstract: Chinese Politeness Principle, a politeness principal proposed by GuYueguo. Thisarticle takes as an example

the application Chinese Politeness Principle in Sitcom the Lohas Family. We used conversation analysis to

understand how they interact with each other using the five maxims which GuYueguo defines that

pragmatics and politeness as cultural characteristics.

1 INTRODUCTION

Sitcom (short for situation comedy) is a humorous

drama based on the situation that might arise in

everyday life. To make audience laugh is one of the

most essential ingredients and the ultimate goal of

sitcoms. Sitcoms are a little bit different compare to

common comedy movies. Sitcoms are full of

cultural references. Depending on the situation these

references might portray regional differences

throughout class system, family issues, religion, race

and ethnicity, gender issues, social issues, politics

and numerous other, and the more the learners know

about the culture of the language they are learning –

the better their understanding of that language will

be. The sitcoms have not been created for second

language learners but sitcoms are spontaneous

authentic materials exhibit the characteristics of

natural everyday speech in a way that read-aloud

text do not. The second language learners learn the

culture of the target language via humor. It is often

considered that humor is a good vehicle for

providing authentic cultural information, builds

bridges between cultures, practices language items

in genuine contexts, enriches textbook-based courses

and introduces a refreshing change from routine

language-learning procedures (Leah C, 2014).

It is believed that watching sitcoms enhances

language acquisition process, but humor depends on

the audience, only people with the certain cultural

background or experience will grasp its meaning and

laugh at the joke. One of the important elements to

ensure our understanding about culture’s reference is

to pay attention to politeness. People from different

cultures may have different views on what politeness

is and how to be polite, some languages or linguistic

expressions are considered to be polite, while others

were found to discourteous (Huang D, 2012). Since

sitcoms are vehicles for providing cultural

information, the conversational analysis of the

politeness in sitcoms is expected to offer new

insights into the understanding of Chinese

politeness. We aim to analyze the application of

politeness in Chinese Sitcom Lohas Family

(LehuoJiating). Lohas Family is directed by Gao

Yalin and was aired at 2010. The sitcom tells about

three generations of the Feng family, an urban

family in Beijing, it is filled with the daily life of

seven people.

2 THE FIVE MAXIMS OF

GUYUEGUO’S POLITENESS

PRINCIPLE

In modern Chinese, the equivalent of politeness is

limao, which it believed to have evolved in history

from notion of li (Yueguo G, 1990). In “Politeness,

Pragmatics and Culture, GuYueguo points out that

the meaning of modern politeness is different from

the traditional ones, and many of the social functions

has disappeared as the society growing, for the

traditional politeness is partly used as a behavioral

rule to maintain the social ranking, while the major

function of modern politeness is to enhance

124

Lin, X., Mariana, . and Khosasih, A.

Learn Chinese Politeness through Conversation Analysis in Sitcom The Lohas Family.

DOI: 10.5220/0010003600002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 124-129

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

harmonious relationships among people, to promote

cooperation. Gu states that Chinese politeness is

characterized by a tendency to denigrate oneself and

respect the other. In accordance with Gu, “there are

four basic notions underlying the conception of

‘limao’: respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth,

and refinement. “Respectfulness” refers to one’s

positive appreciation of others, which concerns the

other’s face, social status; “modesty” is a way of

showing “self-denigration”, “attitudinal warmth” is

one’s demonstration of hospitality and kindness to

other, and “refinement” refers to one’s behavior to

other in accordance with certain standards. All these

aspects show that typical Chinese politeness attaches

great importance to morality, as is shown in his

moral maxims of his politeness principal (Yueguo

G, 1992). Gu regards the Politeness Principle as a set

of norms which are used to constrict speech acts.

There are five sub-maxims in this Politeness

Principle: the self-denigration maxim, the address

maxim, the refinement maxim, the accordance

maxim or agreement maxim, and the virtue-Words-

Deeds Maxim.

2.1 The Self-Denigration Maxim

This maxim means denigrating self and elevating

other. It absorbs the notion of respectfulness and

modesty. When you are talking about yourself or

something about yourself, you are supposed to

denigrate yourself and should hold attitude of being

modest. And when you are talking about someone

else, you must elevate the one being talked about,

and you should show your respect to the addressee.

For example, one should use “stupid ideas” to refer

his/her own ideas, and “wise ideas” to other’s; when

call one’s own wife “jiannei” while call other’s wife

“zunfuren”. When receiving praise, Chinese people

always negate the praise first and then belittle

themselves since Chinese people, accepting other’s

praise is regarded as self-satisfaction.

2.2 The Address Maxim

This maxim means addressing your interlocutor with

an appropriate address term. It is based on the notion

of respectfulness and attitudinal warmth. Gu insists

that the address forms represent social relationships

among people. Changing of address forms may

result in different relationships among certain

people, there is very strict principle in address. For

example, the elder people’s name cannot be called

directly by younger people. To address others

appropriately, one needs to consider a few other

pragmatic elements as follows: kin or non-kin,

politically superior or inferior, professionally

prestigious or non-prestigious, interpersonally

familiar or unfamiliar, male or female, younger or

older, on formal or informal, in public or at home.

2.3 The Refinement Maxim

This maxim means to use refined words and avoid

obscene words, and to use more euphemisms and

less straight-forward expressions, for being refined

and being obscene are on the opposite direction of a

scale. For example, if A wants B to leave, his/her

implication that “Sorry, I have something else to do”

is regarded as in accordance with refinement maxim,

while the order “Go away” is seen as obscene.

2.4 The Accordance Maxim or

Agreement Maxim

Maximize agreement and harmony between self and

other; Minimize disagreement between self and

other. In this maxim, Gu puts his emphasis on “face”

(lian or mianzi in Chinese), for many occasions,

Chinese politeness is in essence a question of face.

There are two phrases that are corresponding to the

English concept “face”, they are “lian” and

“mianzi”, with the positive social value of the former

one lower than that of the latter one. In daily

communication, there are many phrases concerning

about “lian” and “mianzi”, like “shanglian” (honor

one by accepting invitation), “diulian” (lose face),

“you mianzi”(enjoy due respect) and so on. These

two phrases are not clearly divided in Chinese daily

common conversation. For example, if one is

scolding the other for his/her nonsense, a third

participant might respond with “Leave him a ‘lian’

and ‘mianzi”. Generally speaking, “lian” are often

associated with blame, criticism, invitations,

requirements and the like. For example, when A is to

blame B, A shall take B’s “mianzi” into

consideration; when A is to invite B whose social

rank is higher than A, A would like to know if B will

“shanglian” or “geimianzi” (honor one by accepting

the invitation. When people are considering their

own or other’s “lian” or “mianzi”, they often take

politeness as the measurement way.

2.5 The Virtue-Words-Deeds Maxim

Minimize cost and maximize benefit to other at the

motivational level (being virtuous); maximize

benefit and minimize cost to self at the expressive

level (being a nobleman). For example: speaker A

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offers to help B buy some chickens, which is polite

in nature for A is trying to maximize benefit to B on

the motivational level. For A’s volunteered help, B

feels it would be great trouble. So he does not intend

to accept it, which shows he is trying to minimize

cost to speaker A at the expressive level. Then

speaker A’s answer has minimized the cost that he

might spend so as to make it easy for speaker B to

accept it. It seems that speaker B is impolite if he

accepts speaker A’s help, for he does not minimize

cost to the other in the end. It is not so indeed, for in

China, there is a social custom that if one helps the

other for a time, the other might repay it by helping

him/her for the next time.

3 CONVERSATIONAL

ANALYSIS CHINESE

POLITENESS IN SITCOM

LOHAS FAMILY

The following paragraphs are part of few episodes

from Lohas Family sitcom series. We will take

example to analyze the politeness which has applied

in the conversations.

In episode five, Da Zhi met up his old school

friend, MangGuo at a coffee shop nearby. MangGuo

also his first love and they have not met again for

fifteen years.

Da Zhi : “I heard you have returned to

the country and now you open

a company and has become a

big boss?”

MangGuo :“Oh, it is nothing, well, our

company is trying to go

public.”

Da Zhi :“Wow, your company is big,

the business must be good.”

MangGuo :“It is not too bad, but there are

many side effects, when you

have good career, your health

is getting worse.”

Da Zhi :“You looks fine, is there any

problem?”

MangGuo :“It is not obvious? (She points

out her health problems but in

the same times, she also points

the reason of her health is

getting worse because of

travelling and play some sports.

Da Zhi told MangGuo that he is a CEO of a big

company and MangGuo praised him as asuccessful

man. They both got criticized by the coffee shop

owner who sat next to their table.

First time, MangGuo tried to denigrate herself

when Da Zhi asked about her career and herself, but

in the same time she also wanted to show how

success she is. And Da Zhi is not a CEO at all, but

he wanted to be seen as successful man so he

bragged in front of MangGuo to save his “face”.

They both did not try to self-denigrate themselves,

on the contrary try to elevate themselves, as the

result they both was criticized by the coffee shop’s

owner of their impoliteness.

In episode three and four, Feng family tried to

hire a maid to help them clean the house and cook

for them. Liu Gu (Zhang Yun’s aunt) and Da Zhi

each brought a new maid to meet the family for the

first time.

Scene 1

Liu Gu : “I introduce first, this is

Grandfather Feng.”

Maid : “Hello Grandfather Feng.”

Liu Gu :“That is aunt Zhang.”

Maid :“Hello Aunt Zhang.”

Liu Gu :“That is Xiao Xuan.”

Maid :“Hello Aunt Xiao Xuan.”

Xiao Xuan :“Aunt? Call me Xiao Xuan.”

Maid :“Hello sister (jiejie) Xiao

Xuan.”

Scene 2

Da Zhi : “Please come in, this is our

house, this is my father.”

Maid :“Hello Uncle.”

Da Zhi :“This is my little sister, Xiao

Xuan.”

Maid :“Hello little sister, Xiao

Xuan.”

Xiao Xuan :“Wow, she is smart, hello.”

Da Zhi :“This is Liu Gu, our special

guest.”

Maid :“Hello Liu Gu, you look

very young.”

Da Zhi :“And that is your big sister

in law.”

Maid :“Oh, hello big sister in law,

you are beautiful and your

skin is good.”

Zhang Yun :“Wow, such a smart girl.”

In these two conversations, both maids have

clear realization of their self– status. They try to

maintain good relationships with others when they

greet Feng family in their first meetings. The first

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maid used “grandfather” and the second maid used

“uncle” to greet the elder of the family. They both

had shown the family is the superior and they are the

inferior. But if we compare these maids, the second

maid is more likeable, she gave better impressions

than the first one. Gu states, to address others

appropriately is not an easy job, the use of address

reflects a kind of social relationship between people,

and the change of it means one’s relationship change

with others. We see the first maid addressed Xiao

Xuan with “aunt” and changed it into “sister” after

Xiao Xuan showed she did not like to be called

“aunt”. The second maid addressed Xiao Xuan with

“little sister” even there no much age difference

between them, this made Xiao Xuan felt much

younger. And she also addressed Zhang Yun with

big sister in law, instead of aunt. By addressing

Zhang Yun “big sister in law, the second maid

showed her respect because “big sister in law” in

Chinese culture can be used to address women of

higher age and rank. By using such familial or

kinship terms to address Zhang Yun and Xiao Xuan,

the stranger (second maid) gave a signal as a

strategy to claim closeness (Pan Y and Kádár D Z,

2011 ). Besides, the second maid threw a lot of

complements to female members of the Feng family,

and made her got good impression and got

complements back from the family.

In second episode, grandfather Feng and Xiao

Xuan were angry because they felt that they were

humiliated by Da Zhi behavior when he was on air

in radio station. When Da Zhi came home, Xiao

Xuan called him “big radio host” and his father

called him “the elder son, come here”. Da Zhi’s

profession is a radio host, so addressing him “big

radio host” in normal circumstances is a common

thing, especially if he was good on his profession,

but in this occasion, Da Zhi did a big mistake when

he was on air, so using “big radio host” to call him is

to criticize his shameful behavior. Grandfather

Fengstated his son as “elder son” (Zhang Zi), this

phrase was used in ancient Chinese and was a

normal term, but in modern Chinese using

uncommon address term all depends on its context

includes angry, criticize or a joke. In this case

because grandfather Feng was very disappointed

with his son and his son even did not apologize for

it.

In first episode, Zhang Yun, Da Zhi’s wife

decided to work as international flight attendant to

pursue and develop her career, but her decision

influence the whole family, her time at home

became less and less. The whole family actually did

not agree with her because no one will cook for the

family so they discussed who will cook when Zhang

Yun were not at home. Basically, nobody wanted to

cook, but they did not directly say it. Xiao Xuan

even tried to offer herself, but latter she said, Oh, I

can’t. I haveto prepare for my exam, now is the

important moment.” Grandfather Feng said, “I only

can cook fried rice with egg and green onion,

besides now I have make costume for senior choir in

our community.” Da Zhi knew his father and sister

did not want to cook, so he said he will cook for the

family, but the children directly said his cooking is

not good, it is better for the whole family to diet than

to eat his cooking. Da Zhi was very angry and said,

“Ungrateful children, do you think I want to cook?”

In this conversation, we see grandfather and Xiao

Xuan used less straight-forward expressions to said

their unwillingness so Da Zhi did not angry and the

kids used direct expressions to express their feeling

about their father’s cooking, made Da Zhi very

angry because the kids were regarded as impolite.

In episode three and four, grandfather Feng like

to write Chinese calligraphy, the first maid in

episode three threw his calligraphy and said, “Ah,

those pictures and strokes was calligraphy? I thought

that was kid’s writing.” Grandfather Feng was very

angry and said, I practice calligraphy for years and

you think my writing is kid’s writing?” on the

contrary, second maid said to grandfather Fengthat

his calligraphy is still far beyond the professionals

but was not hobby only and already above the

amateurs. Basically, both maids actually have same

thoughts about grandfather’s calligraphy, but the

first maid used direct and impolite words by

comparing with the inferiors (kids), and the second

maid used indirect words by comparing with the

superiors (professionals), made the second maid is

seen as a polite and accomplished person.

In episode four, Da Zhi found out that his bicycle

saddle was pull out by the security in their

neighbourhood and he tried to confront the security

officer. Da Zhi said to the security officer, “I will

report you to your manager! You pulled my saddle

without any notice, you violent my rights.” The

security officer answered, “You did not park your

bicycle in the right place. You are the one who

violent my rights because you did not park in the

right place, the manager will cut my salary.” The

security officer wanted Da Zhi to come to security

post to take back his saddle, but Da Zhi did not want

to and tried to grab it from officer’s hand. Zhang

Yun saw the fight and came to stop the fight but it

failed. Liu Gu showed up and told the security that

Da Zhi is her niece’s husband, and told Da Zhi that

the security is from the same village as her. Liu Gu

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criticized Da Zhi, “I do not want to criticize you but

you cannot park your bicycle anywhere you want,

ErLengzi (the security officer) only did his jobs.”

Security officer : “Auntie, auntie don’t criticize

my brother (Da Zhi) anymore,

my brother I reallydon’t know

that you are Liu Gu’s relatives,

this is misunderstanding.”

Da Zhi : “It was big brother’s (my)

fault.”

Security officer : “No, no, it was little brother’s

fault, it is little brother’s fault, I

will put the saddleback.”

Da Zhi : “No, it is not necessary, I will

put it myself.”

Security officer : “Come, let little brother do

it.”

Da Zhi : “No, no, big brother’s bicycle

does not need saddle.”

Security officer : “No, no, no, you are my big

brother.”

Da Zhi : “you are my little brother.”

In this conversation, we saw a big fight between

two people, when Zhang Yun came to stop it, it

failed, but when Liu Gu came, they both called each

other as “brother”. Asians tend to make clear

distinction between in group and out group

members, and place great emphasis on group

cohesion and interdependence between in group

members. In group members included families,

relatives, friends, fellow villagers, fellow

schoolmates and fellow colleagues. In group

members form the basic structure for social

interaction, so it took a long time for newcomers to

overcome the boundary of inside and outside

relations and establish social relationships in new

place. If there was some personal connection to

introduce the outsider to the locals, such as that

he/she was someone’s cousin’s cousin, it was easier

for him/her to be accepted (Pan Y, 2000). In here,

we see how personal connections can be seen as

breaking the ice between the inside and outside. Liu

Gu is the connector between Da Zhi and the security

officer, they both changed their behavior towards

each other immediately since they knew ones

relations with Liu Gu. Because of these relations

between them, it made when ErLengzi want to

blame Da Zhi, he

should take Liu Gu’s “mianzi” as consideration

and Da Zhi was also the same. The appearance of

Liu Gu indirectly drove them to be in agreement

with other and keep a harmonious relationship with

each other (they called each other ‘brother’) , leave

others a ‘lian’ or ‘mianzi’ and also let Liu Gu feel

‘youmianzi’.

In episode four, the Feng family found out they

hired maids few times but no one suitable to work at

their house. Liu Gu offered herself to help, she was

willing to become Feng family’s ‘maid’ to solve

their problem.

Liu Gu :“Actually, if you all loved

my cooking, I will stay

longer to help you.”

Whole Family :“Wow, it is great, we

expected for it.

Zhang Yun :“This is my auntie, I will feel

bad. Liu Gu, you may stay as

long as you want, but you are

not allowed work for us.”

Da Zhi :“That right, you can stay but

not working.”

Liu Gu :“Yun Yun, you don’t know,

before I went to America, I

sold my house, I am

alone,live anywhere is the

same for me. Besides, when I

came here, stay with you, I

feelhappy, it is better to cook

than feel bored.”

Liu Gu finally accept the offer to stay and help

the family with cooking. In this conversation we see

Liu Gu offers to help the family, first time, the

whole family accept it directly, in Chinese culture,

this is shameless. It is polite for Liu Gu to offer a

help because she stay there as a guest, even she is

Zhang Yun’s aunt. She tried to maximize benefit for

Feng family. And for her offers, Feng family felt

bad, so we see Zhang Yun and Da Zhi try to let Liu

Gu stay but did not allow Liu Gu working, which

they tried to minimize the cost to Liu Gu. And Liu

Gu’s answer minimized the cost that she might

spend so make Feng family easy to accept the offer.

Being polite, one should always pay attention to the

cost and benefit related to self and others.

4 CONCLUSION

Politeness is a social and linguistic phenomenon that

exists in almost every culture (Wang M and Peng Y,

2015). GuYueguo summarized Chinese Politeness

Principle is more or less influenced by his supervisor

Leech, but his principle is constructed specially on

Chinese culture. We tried to apply his Politeness

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Principle in Chinese Sitcom, The Lohas Family. In

comedy series, it was common to find violation to

the politeness on purpose because is the source of

the laughter, and sitcom The Lohas family is no

exceptional. Through this research, we can learn that

Chinese politeness depends on a lot of terms, a

person is considered as polite if he or she does not

elevate themselves, addressing someone also

depends on situation, place, and social rank. Mostly

hierarchy and family structures in Chinese are more

complicated. In this sitcom, we only see the

interaction between family members and their small

environment, but with the limited examples, we

learn about superior- inferior in addressing someone

and how to be more likeable in Chinese society.

Chinese people like more when people use indirect

sentence, especially for criticize. Always pay

attention on “face” is one of the most important in

social relationship, cost and benefit for self and

others also become highly appreciation in politeness

principle. For example, a Chinese person’s first

response to any offer is often ‘no’. ‘No’ here does

not symbolize a rude rejection as conceptualized in

some cultures, rather it is an expression of politeness

(Lin H H, 2005) (ex: Liu Gu’s offer to cook for the

family). Different cultures own different politeness

maxim. Each culture values are not the same, by

watching movie, especially original ones can help us

to understand the culture and appropriately use the

politeness principal in Chinese society.

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