Expressing Politeness in English and Romanian – Some Grammatical and Pragmatic Aspects

The English and Romanian languages are quite different, with dissimilar historical backgrounds and with no genetic relatedness. Yet, as far as linguistic politeness is concerned, we may encounter a number of similarities between the two languages. Our survey will highlight the fact that, even if the resemblance between Romanian and English, from the grammatical point of view, is not so evident, yet, there are many similarities as far as the pragmatic view on politeness is concerned. We might speak of a certain constant when referring to the common characteristics of the two languages, of a common universal factor that characterizes the communicative competence of the people.