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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background
In the competitive hotel industry,service quality is the crucial condition thatkeeps hotel business going smoothly. It is not only critical for a hotel's venue andreputation,but more importantly for its long-term developmentSince 1980s,service quality in hotel management had become a hot issue inQiina. It had been studied a lot in hotel business management Based on largeamounts of research about the formation and management of service quality,scholarsat home and abroad agree on the unanimous opinion that service quality is assessed byguests subjectively (Yuan, 2012:5). In the hotel, the interactive process betweenguests and staff is called 'the service encounter' or 'the moment of truth' (Wang,2012:2). This process is the most important factor for guests to evaluate the quality ofservice. In consequence, it is an opportunity for hotel to show its service ability: toattract guests and gain the competitive advantage.However, among the hotel service,politeness language holds an unrivaledpositions which influences the service quality directly. Therefore, the politenessstrategy in hotel discourse is of great importance, which therefore becomes the subjectof this thesis.Politeness strategy is an important part of pragmatics which had been studied orapplied in various fields, such as business negotiation, social communication politicalspeech, advertising planning, service expression and so on. And for the serviceexpression in hotel, there are Analysis of Politeness in Hotel Service Discourse by LiuXin (2005),which studies FTAs by Brown & Levinson in service discourse; andAnalysis of English Politeness Language in Hotel by Xiao Qing (2009),whichdiscusses the application of The Principle of Politeness by Leech. Apparently, theymainly discuss the politeness theories,but little about the application of politenessstrategies. However,what、the current level of the hotel service language? Are thereany specific characteristics and problems? If yes, what are the main causes for them?What are the implications to the application of politeness strategies in hotel service?In this thesis,not only some new polite theories,but also the detailed application ofthem is introduced and studied with related living cases.
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1.2 Research Significance and Rationale
The cornerstone for hotels to survive and develop is service quality. It is the keyto hotel's special competitiveness, and the critical factor to help a hotel keep itsadvantage of long-term development successfully. It would be hard for the service tobe accomplished without language. Hence, service language has its special place inservice quality. Besides the standard, accuracy, distinctness and orderliness,servicelanguage must be polite. Therefore, politeness language is actually a factor that caninfluence the whole service quality.Throughout history,there are ubiquitous polite interactions, from dailycommunication to specific place. Besides the philosophical study of politeness,thereare extensive perspectives of sociology, psychology, anthropology and aesthetics. Itwas not until the late 1970s that politeness became a major topic in pragmatics. Sincethen, with the growth and development of pragmatics, there was a remarkable growthof pragmatic studies of politeness. In the aspect of politeness theories,there arescholars like Brown & Levinson (1978),Leech (1980), Yule (1996) and Liu Senlin(2007). A