-Really? I am not sure whether it suits me or not。

    Besides, the generosity maxim and the Approbation(赞扬) maxim also are obeyed by English compliment responses in some situations。 For example: 

(1) -You look quite good today, Cynthia。 

-Thank you, so do you。   (Generousity maxim)

(2) -Your coat is very cool。

- Thank you。    (Approbation maxim)

2。3 The politeness principle by GuYueguo

    Gu Yueguo(1990) came up with five maxims about Chinese politeness on the basis of Leech’s Politeness Principle, which he claimed to be very characteristic and almost unique to Chinese culture 。 They are listed as follows:

a。The self-denigration maxim: a special maxim in Chinese, which means denigrate and deprecate self in self-referring or referring to things related to self; elevate and respect other in in other-referring or referring to things related to other。 It is the common situation when Chinese people communicate。 

b。The address maxim: means to address the interlocutor with an appropriate address term, just as “Mr。”, “Doctor” in English。

c。The refinement maxim: means to use refined language, euphemisms and avoid straight-forward talk。 For example: In China, though the guest does not like the food, he should also say “thank you for your dinner, I enjoy it”, not “the food is terrible”。来:自[优E尔L论W文W网www.chuibin.com +QQ752018766-

d。The agreement maxim: means to seek agreement a harmony with interlocutor。

e。The virtues-word-deals maxim: means to minimize cost and maximize benefit to other at the motivational level; maximize benefit and minimize cost to self at the expressional level。 It is just as Leech’s Tact maxim and generosity maxims。

According to Gu Yueguo’s theory, we can find that Chinese compliments has been influenced by Confucius originally, so the mode of Chinese communicative is other-oriented mode。 The social value of Chinese people stresses respecting others and deprecating self, which often follows the norm of modesty。