Cover not available

Article published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

All flesh is equal

The influence of religious upbringing on communicative politeness in Chinese Buddhists

 | Sichuan International Studies University
Published online: 21 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00219.li
Abstract
Research has consistently shown that in comparison to some Western cultural groups, such as American and British individuals, people from Eastern Asian cultures pay heightened attention to the hierarchical position of interaction partners, thereby displaying greater politeness to high-ranking individuals. This study aimed to challenge the long-standing assumption that politeness is invariably contingent upon the status of communication partners in Chinese culture. We demonstrated that due to their religious belief in the principle that “all flesh is equal,” Chinese Buddhists exhibited consistent levels of politeness irrespective of the status of their interlocutor. In Study 1, we investigated how Han Taoists and Buddhists responded to junior or senior individuals when declining a request. The results indicated that while Taoists demonstrated increased politeness to senior colleagues compared to juniors, the recipient’s status did not affect the politeness levels of Han Buddhists. Additionally, there were no observed differences in politeness between the two groups in the junior condition. Study 2 replicated these findings among Tibetan Buddhists. Collectively, these findings suggest that religious affiliations may exert enduring effects on important aspects of politeness strategies and communication styles.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Overview of studies
  • 3.Study 1
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Materials and procedure
    • 3.2Results and discussion
  • 4.Study 2
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Participants
      • 4.1.2Materials and procedure
    • 4.2Results and discussion
  • 5.General discussion
    • Han buddhist responses
      • Declining a request from a senior
      • Declining a request from a Junior
    • Han taoist responses
      • Declining a request from a Senior
      • Declining a request from a Junior
  • References
References (51)
References
Adam, M. T. (2013). Buddhism, equality, rights. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 201, 422–444.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Khatib, M. A. (2012). Politeness in the Holy Quran: A sociolinguistic and pragmatic perspective. Intercultural Pragmatics, 9(4), 479–509. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ambady, N., Koo, J., Lee, F., & Rosenthal, R. (1996). More than words: Linguistic and nonlinguistic politeness in two cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(5), 996–1011. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
An-Che, L. (1948). Bon: The magico-religious belief of the Tibetan-speaking peoples. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 4(1), 31–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bagde, U. (2014). Essential elements of human rights in Buddhism. Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution, 6(2), 32–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bouchara, A. (2015). The role of religion in shaping politeness in Moroccan Arabic: The case of the speech act of greeting and its place in intercultural understanding and misunderstanding. Journal of Politeness Research, 11(1), 71–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brew, F. P., & Cairns, D. R. (2004). Do culture or situational constraints determine choice of direct or indirect styles in intercultural workplace conflicts? International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 281, 331–352. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brocca, N., Nuzzo, E., Velásquez, D. C., & Rudigier, M. (2023). Linguistic politeness across Austria and Italy: Backing out of an invitation with an instant message. Journal of Pragmatics, 2091, 56–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, L., & Winter, B. (2019). Multimodal indexicality in Korean: “Doing deference” and “performing intimacy” through nonverbal behavior. Journal of Politeness Research, 15(1), 25–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chan, D. K. S. (1996). Tightness-looseness revisited: Some preliminary analyses in Japan and the United States. International Journal of Psychology, 31(1), 1–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fukushima, S., & Sifianou, M. (2017). Conceptualizing politeness in Japanese and Greek. Intercultural Pragmatics, 14(4), 525–555. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gaziano, J., & Lewis, J. (2013). All beings are equal but some are more equal than others: Buddhism and vegetarianism in the US. Western Buddhist Review, 61, 58–77.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldstein, M. C., & Tsarong, P. (1985). Tibetan Buddhist monasticism: Social, psychological and cultural implications. The Tibet Journal, 10(1), 14–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face to face interaction. Anchor Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1983). The interaction order: American Sociological Association, 1982 presidential address. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holtgraves, T., & Yang, J. N. (1992). Interpersonal underpinnings of request strategies: General principles and differences due to culture and gender. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(2), 246–256. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofstede, G. H., Hofstede, G. J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations: Software for the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janney, R. W., & Arndt, H. (1993). Universality and relativity in cross-cultural politeness research: A historical perspective. Multilingua, 12(1), 13–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johns, A., & Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2015). Linguistic politeness and pragmatic variation in request production in Dakar French. Journal of Politeness Research, 11(1), 131–164. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, T., Kulesa, P., Cho, Y. I., & Shavitt, S. (2005). The relation between culture and response styles: Evidence from 19 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 361, 264–277. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, D. Z. (2024). Ritual and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, D. Z., & House, J. (2021a). “Politeness markers” revisited — A contrastive pragmatic perspective. Journal of Politeness Research, 17(1), 79–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021b). Interaction ritual and (im)politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 1791, 54–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, D. Z., House, J., Todo, K., & Xiao, T. (2024). Revisiting the binary view of honorifics in politeness research. Journal of Politeness Research, 20(2), 533–562. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Y. H., & Cohen, D. (2010). Information, perspective, and judgments about the self in face and dignity cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 361, 537–550. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Y. H., Cohen, D., & Au, W. T. (2010). The jury and abjury of my peers: The self in face and dignity cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 981, 904–916. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, M. S., & Wilson, S. R. (1994). A cross-cultural comparison of implicit theories of requesting. Communication Monographs, 61(3), 210–235. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kvaerne, P. (1972). Aspects of the origin of the Buddhist tradition in Tibet. Numen, 19(1), 22–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, H., & Cao, Y. (2019a). The body in religion: The spatial mapping of valence in Tibetan practitioners of Bön. Cognitive Science, 43(4), Article e12728. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019b). Hands occupied: Chinese farmers use more non-manual pointing than herders. Lingua, 2221, 1–9. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mapson, R. (2014). Polite appearances: How non-manual features convey politeness in British Sign Language. Journal of Politeness Research, 10(2), 157–184. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mills, S. (2014). Language, culture, and politeness. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and culture (pp. 129–140). London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mills, S., & Kádár, D. Z. (2011). Politeness and culture. In D. Z. Kádár & S. Mills (Eds.), Politeness in East Asia (pp. 21–44). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moon, C., & Han, G. S. (2013). Social psychology of hierarchical interactions: Politeness and hierarchical relational stress. Korean Journal of Social and Personality Psychology, 271, 1–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moon, C., Uskul, A. K., & Weick, M. (2019). Cultural differences in politeness as a function of status relations: Comparing South Korean and British communicators. Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology, 3(3), 137–145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miyamoto, Y., & Schwarz, N. (2006). When conveying a message may hurt the relationship: Cultural differences in the difficulty of using an answering machine. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(4), 540–547. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
National Bureau of Statistics of China. (2020). China statistical yearbook 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2024, from [URL]
Nwoye, O. G. (1992). Linguistic politeness and socio-cultural variations of the notion of face. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(4), 309–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paglieri, F., Borghi, A. M., Colzato, L. S., Hommel, B., & Scorolli, C. (2013). Heaven can wait: How religion modulates temporal discounting. Psychological Research, 771, 738–747. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, Y. S., & Kim, B. S. (2008). Asian and European American cultural values and communication styles among Asian American and European American college students. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 14(1), 47–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pruegger, V. J., & Rogers, T. B. (1994). Cross-cultural sensitivity training: Methods and assessment. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 18(3), 369–387. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanchez-Burks, J., Lee, F., Choi, I., Nisbett, R., Zhao, S., & Koo, J. (2003). Conversing across cultures: East-West communication styles in work and nonwork contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 363–372. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sharifian, F. (2008). Cultural schemas in L1 and L2 compliment responses: A study of Persian-speaking learners of English. Journal of Politeness Research, 41, 55–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sifianou, M. (2013). The impact of globalisation on politeness and impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics, 551, 86–102. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Aldine Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uskul, A. K., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2008). Ecocultural basis of cognition: Farmers and fishermen are more holistic than herders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(25), 8552–8556. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yao, F. (2020). The egalitarianism and non-egalitarianism of Buddhist ethics. Asian Philosophy, 30(3), 258–273. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Y. B., Lin, M. C., Nonaka, A., & Beom, K. (2005). Harmony, hierarchy and conservatism: A cross-cultural comparison of Confucian values in China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Communication Research Reports, 22(2), 107–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhong, C.-B., Magee, J., Maddux, W., & Galinsky, A. D. (2006). Power, culture, and (in)action: Considerations in the expression and enactment of power in East Asian and Western society. In B. Mannix, M. Neale & Y. Chen (Eds.), Research on managing groups and teams: National culture & groups (Vol. 91, pp. 53–73). Elsevier Science Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue