The Strategies of Politeness in the Chinese Language

Book Reviews

China Review International

"All in all, the material is presented in a straightforward manner, and the ideas are easily accessible. As far as I know, this is the first systematic monograph about politeness in Chinese, written with a native speaker's insights and intuitions. The author provides some genuine nuggets to ponder, and some tantalizing glimpses into the linguistic origins of enduring cultural distortions and stereotypes."
—Linda Young, China Review International 1, no. 1 (1994)

The Journal of Asian Studies

"Zhan's work may be of theoretical interest to scholars in pragmatics, sociolinguistics, sociology, psychology and anthropology, and of practical value for teachers and learners of Mandarin Chinese. After her brief summary conclusion (p. 99), and the list of works from which examples were extracted, there is a short bibliography which shows that Zhan has also made good use of a number of recent articles in Chinese linguistics journals which would otherwise be unavailable to those who cannot read Chinese."
—John S. Rohsenow, The Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 2 (1995)