Examining Chinese gift-giving behavior from the politeness theory perspective

Abstract

This study examines how power, social distance, and ranking of imposition specified in Brown and Levinson's politeness theory influence positive and negative politeness strategies used in Chinese gift-giving. We utilize a 2×2×2 repeated measure within subject design. Responses from 152 Chinese were subjected to analyses of repeated measure ANOVAs. Results revealed significant main effects and interaction effects for power, social distance, and ranking of imposition on politeness strategies in Chinese gift-giving behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications of the results and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords:

• politeness theory
• politeness strategies
• Chinese gift-giving
• culture

Notes

1. The power analysis module of STATISTICA (Statsoft, 2004) was used to estimate sample size with .90 power to detect a medium-size interaction effect (i.e., d=0.5 or r=.24; see Cohen, 1988) assuming α=.05; no fewer than 63 participants needed to be recruited. Detecting an interaction effect required a larger sample size than detecting a main effect. Hence, we used the sample size of finding an interaction effect as an indicator. We successfully recruited 152 participants, a good sample size for this study.