A comparative study on politeness strategies in US diplomats’ speeches towards China and Vietnam
Abstract
The article investigates the politeness strategies employed in the speeches by US diplomats towards China and Vietnam. Quantitative and qualitative research approaches are applied to identify and analyze the linguistic devices that represent these strategies. The findings on politeness meta-strategies collected from two corpora denote different underlying intentions of US diplomats to Chin a and Vietnam . Specifically, US diplomats are verbally cautious, implicit but bald in their speeches towards China on human rights, actions on regional security, stability, and development , and c laims on bilateral relations, revealed by the more prevalence of the three politeness mega-strategies: negative politeness, off-record , and bald on-record . Meanwhile, they show warmth and friendliness towards Vietnam, which is a manifestation of positive politeness when they mention the same issues. The findings also show that diplomatic communication is greatly influenced by the political situation. It is hoped that the findings of the study will be a useful reference for those interested in linguistic politeness in political discourse or those studying and researching politics and diplomacy.