Politeness as a Linguistic Concept in the Croatian and English Languages – a Comparative Analysis

Author:

Kolar K.1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. People’s Friendship University of Russia

Abstract

Despite Brown and Levinson’s original claims that politeness is a universal concept perceived identically in all cultures, it has long been established that different societies perceive this concept differently. A lack of understanding regarding these differences may lead to intercultural conflict and thus research is required, especially in cultures in which such research is scarce, such as that of Croatia. This article focuses on the comparative corpus analysis of both the word politeness in English and its Croatian “counterpart,” the word pristojnost, in dictionaries and their use in corpora. Furthermore, it aims to establish how Croatian speakers perceive pristojnost and the quality of pristojnost (or the lack of it) in people. For this purpose, a qualitative and quantitative comparative corpus analysis based on the definitions of the words in question in certain English and Croatian dictionaries, their usage in their respective corpora and their translations in each of the two languages, as well as a small-scale quantitative and qualitative analysis of a questionnaire, completed by Croatian participants, were conducted. On the basis of such a four-step analysis, it has been concluded that both English politeness and Croatian pristojnost have two meanings, one connected to culture/etiquette, and one oriented towards interpersonal relationships; however, pristojnost has another meaning, that of satisfactoriness. It has also been deduced that pristojnost slightly differs from politeness, as it focuses more on interpersonal behaviour and interaction, rather than social norms and etiquette, which the concept of politeness seems primarily to focus on. Understanding these differences is crucial for high quality communication, especially in intercultural and multicultural contexts, e.g. in academic settings. For this reason, research on a larger scale should be carried out to establish how politeness and its equivalents are perceived in various cultural contexts; this article thus serves as a call for research expansion.

Publisher

Novosibirsk State University (NSU)

Reference28 articles.

1. Anić, V. Veliki rječnik hrvatskog jezika (The Great Dictionary of the Croatian Language). Zagreb: Novi liber, 2009, 1881 p.

2. Brown, P., Levinson, S. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, 345 p.

3. Bujas, Ž. Veliki englesko-hrvatski rječnik, četvrto izdanje (English-Croatian Dictionary, Fourth Edition). Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Globus, 2011, 1920 p.

4. Bujas, Ž. Veliki hrvatsko-engleski rječnik, četvrto izdanje (Croatian-English Dictionary, Fourth Edition). Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Globus, 2011, 1691 p.

5. COCA – Corpus of Contemporary American English. URL: https://www.english-corpora.org/coca

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3