Cultural Difference and Distinctive Conversation.doc

cultural difference and distinctive conversationabstract: it is well known that different countries have different cultures. the cultural difference inevitably has impact on language. first of all, language is a part of culture, as well as the carrier of culture. its content and form are influenced and restricted by culture. also language is the basic element in people daily conversation. as a result, the diversity of culture in different nations leads to distinctive conversation, which reflects in many aspects, such as content, pattern and exc. chinese usually talk about the topic which are ages, incomes, marriage, but the people in western countries regard it as taboos and not be allowed to talk about; in the way of expressing, the foreigners come straightly to the points, however, chinese choose the indirect ways and explain too much before their topic. as a result, there exists the distinctive conversation between china and western countries.key words: language; cultural difference; china; western countries; conversation.introductionlanguage is a system of arbitrary vocal symbol used for human communication, and is a meaning of expressing cultural customs, as well as a part of language. language cannot separate from culture to be independent. culture is the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs value action attitudes, meaning hierarchies, religion notions of the time, spatial relations, concepts of the universe and artifact acquired by group of people in the course of generations through individual and group staving. in accordance with the definition of language and culture, i believe that language is affected by language and reflects the culture. the language is the basis of culture, no language , no culture. what is more, the different nations have its own way of thinking, values, concepts, habits and behavior, which are the elements of their cultures. then it is called as cultural difference. as a result, they must communicate with other nations people under the condition of understanding the unique cultural background and the language features. inevitably, people from different countries have distinctive conversations. this mainly reveals in many aspects. such as the contents of conversation, the way of expressing, the same object in different understanding. above all, are affected by cultural difference. so, if we want to understand and handle the relationship while communicating, we must know some cultural differences as much as possible. 1. cultural differences in communicationwhen people in different cultures communicate with others, they have to follow some norms limited and regulated by different cultures concretely. so, it is necessary to know such rules and differences when we make conversation and when we not make conversation, what to say and what not to say, and what kind of situations suitable, and how to say. the cultures in different countries are different; the norms of them are therefore different. especially in peoples daily conversations. there will three parts to show distinctive conversation in different culture.1.1 the contents of conversation in different cultures when i first communicated with my foreign teacher, i felt very nervous and didnt know what to talk about in our conversation. it is well known that chinese are usually allowed to talk about daily life. for example, food, health, ages, marriage, incomes of people exc. whereas such topic can be allowed to talk about freely in western countries. in western culture, people are willing to talk about weather, job, amateur, hobby or some national events. the topic such as ages, incomes, religions belief or marriage is limited in their nations, which can be called taboos. in addition, in western culture, it is natural for men to compliment ladys appearance, stature or wearing. if a british man compliments a chinese woman to be sexy. it is unacceptable in china, and even arise some troubles, but this seems natural and common to english and foreigners. all above are some limitation and contents of conversation in different cultures.1.2 the way of expressing in different cultures about how to express hopes, demands and opinions in conversation, there exist some differences. different cultures always have different customs. chinese are preferred to choose the indirect way, always give to many greetings before get to the point. in their conversation, greetings seem like a prelude, which may have little and even nothing connected with the subject. and the peoples attitudes are so humble. the western people tend to direct their expression which come straightly to the point and spoken frankly. in addition, they often show their stands when explaining the reason during their talks. chinese often take different way by giving the conversation order, explain reasons first, and then show their stands. even if the modernized methods of communication are used, there still exist cultural differences in social intercourses. take a phone call for example, a britain who is wanted on the phone will certainly tell his name first without hesitation, but a chinese would like to wait for the others name before he tell him, unless he gets the others name, or he will not be willing to show who he is. this is the difference in way of peoples expressing. it will inevitably affect the peoples conversation.2. some details of the cultural difference in conversation 2.1 greetingsthe chinese people and the englishmen have different etiquettes in greetings. for example, in china, someone often meets with giving greetings “where are you going?”, “what are you going to do?” and soon, which have no much, deep connotation. the natural reaction of most englishspeaking people to this greeting would most likely be its none of your business!( 邓炎昌，刘润著1989.3)greeting like, “have you had supper?” and are only some common greetings when people meet together. however, englishmen will be sensitive and serious about these questions, which seems to be the private things in their views and should not be inquired about freely, except between or among intimates. greeting like “have you had supper?” will make them so amazing, and be a loss that they wonder whether you want to invite then for supper, so these greetings should be transferred into english culture like “hello”, “good morning”, and so on. fortunately, not all greetings sound strange or arose displeasure. many are similar, some are merely different. while greetings in many language often indicate the time of day, there may be inconsistencies within a language(邓炎昌，刘润著1989.3).take the phone call for example, in our chinese custom, we often say” who are you?”,” i am so and so”, which have different expressions in english, as “who is this speaking?” and “this is so and so speaking.” there are connected with different cultural customs and habit, and reflects the cultural differences.2.2 dinners chinese attitudes are so humble that they often appear some offensive words while in the conversation with the western people. they show these attitudes in dinners. once there is a story of lihongzhang, a well-known comprador bureaucrat in the westernization movement during the qing dynasty. he was entering some distinguished guests in famous restaurant in london. out of his sense of chinese politeness, he humbly said that the food were good enough and hope the guest could still enjoy the dinner. unfortunately the waiter overhead these words and reported what he heard to the manager. the manager was outraged and decided to sue li for defaming the restaurant.( 刘桂兰，王胜利主编 2008.12 )as a chinese, we know that he just wanted to say that he is very happy of you here today. these dishes are coarse and not delicious and good enough to show his respect for the manager. this is a result of different culture between chinese and the western people. in addition, during the meal, western people say “help yourself” but chinese like to put too much food on guests plates which can be show your impoliteness to western peoples views. in one case, you mean that he has a poor judgment and taste. besides, the people from different countries have different attitude to food to dinner. for example, forget the language barrier ,forget jet lag ,one of the strongest culture shocks that the executive can face in encountering the southern european business tradition for the first time is attitude to food(高鹏，张学忠，林萌 2006.12).on one occasion when the visitors needed to catch a plane and there was much work to do, the compromise was a sit-down with a soup course, extravagant knife and fork open sandwiches, a cheese course and dessert. the whole lunch took about 65 minutes, which everyone found unsatisfactory: the americans because it was too long, and the french because, for a proper business lunch, it was just too short. all above are some different attitudes of people which naturally reveal the cultural difference in the conversation.2.3 colors color words and terms are tightly bound into culture and emotions and have strong cultural connotations. for example, yellow as a color is used as the symbol of cowards and disease, prostitutes, jews and syphilitics were made to wear yellow. a yellow signal flag under maritime law shows disease on board a vessel at sea. in chinese, yellow is associated with sunshine, openness, and beauty. yellow was the imperial color and seen as noble. in deed common people during the ching dynasty could be punished for usurping imperial prestige by wearing yellow. in both chinese and english there are various terms with the sense of the colors. for example, chinese have saying of “红白喜事”,it is not difficult to understand “红喜”once connected red with having a baby, marriage or birthday congratulations etc. which englishmen call “the red-letter day”. but they couldnt understand why chinese think it to be “a happy thing” when someone passed away. in fact, in british culture, the connotation of “red and white” is contrary with that of chinese custom; englishmen often associate red with blood and death sometimes with radical action or rebellion, which carries a certain political color. also, red can bring their minds to debts or deficits. there are some examples:” he is in the red” means “he is in debt”, “a red mother” refers to “the mother with deficits”, “a red battle” means” a bloody battle”,” a red revolution” refers to” the proletarian revolution”. on the contrary, white in chinese express purification in todays china. however, in most situations, it has the unlucky meaning including the connotation of revolt. when somebody passed away, the family will be all in white, wearing white dress, white flowers and putting up white paper such action is so deviation from the understanding of the british customs. above all can be useful for people say and do in conversations correctly and suitably.2.4 numbersin recent years, some chinese people are sensitive and particular about something connected with number. such as choosing the number of lucky day, telephone number, license number for eight, six or nine which are considered lucky numbers, the order of numbers had better be “888”, “666” or “999” expressing a kind of “lucky and good wishes”. in chinese culture “8” is the homophonic with “发”, which means success while “6” corresponds to the homophonic of “六六大顺”which has the meaning of satisfactory and gratification. “9” means permanence and eternity because of its homophonic sound in chinese such meanings and connotation expresses the idea of happiness, luck and success. these numbers therefore become the lucky numbers. but “4” is the homophonic of “death” in chinese. so people try to avoid this number. lets see how the englishmen act when they meet with some of these numbers. because it is impossible to appear homophonic between the number and the meaning in english, their reflection would not be probably similar with that of chinese. however, there still exists some cultural customs in number. they avoid “13” in particular; the number viewed as taboo and has the saying of “black friday” etc. in this detail, we also ca