毕业论文-英汉思维模式的差异对跨文化交际的影响.doc

湖 南 涉 外 经 济 学 院本科毕业论文（设计）题 目Impacts On Intercultural Communication of Differences between English and Chinese Thinking Modes英汉思维模式的差异对跨文化交际的影响作 者学 院外国语学院专 业英语学 号指导教师二 一三 年 四 月 十五 24ABSTRACT Nowadays, the world is characterized by a fast growing number of contacts resulting in communication among people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This cross-cultural communication covers many fields from education, business, medical-care, politics, tourism, culture, diplomacy, media and entertainment. Intercultural communication concerns the differences between cultures, and these differences can lead to embarrassment in communication. At the worst, such mistakes may confuse or even offend the people we wish to communicate with. The most basic and the most important one is thought patterns. This thesis tends to compare different thought patterns and their impacts upon the intercultural communication between Chinese and Americans. A good understanding of thinking pattern and cross-cultural communication will help us have a better awareness toward cross-cultural barriers and troubles. In other words, the thesis aims to give some ideas for people who are preparing for, intercultural communication and who are experiencing intercultural communication.Key words: thought patterns; culture; intercultural communication; 摘 要当今世界最显著的特征便是不同语言文化背景下的人们之间的联系愈加密切。跨文化交际涵盖了各个领域：教育、商务、医疗、政治、旅游、文化、外交、新闻媒体以及娱乐业。跨文化交际就需要关注文化中的差异，这些差异轻到交际中出现尴尬的场面，重到严重影响交际本身，甚至出现混乱局面。在诸多的差异中，最基础的，最重要的就是思维模式的差异。本论文就是尝试去解析英汉思维模式的差异，及它对跨文化交际的影响。对思维模式差异和跨文化交流很好的了解即是对跨文化文化交流的障碍和困难的一种意识，换而言之，本论文就是给那些准备进行跨文化交流和正在进行跨文化交流中得人一些建议，已达到更佳的交流效果。关键词：思维模式；文化；跨文化交际 ContentsABSTRACTI摘 要IIIntroduction1Chapter 1 Literature Review31.1 The Definition of Culture31.2 Thought Pattern41.3 Intercultural Communication51.4 A Description of Related Empirical Studies5Chapter 2 Different Thought Patterns between Chinese and American72. l Synthetic Vs Analytic72.1.1 Synthetic Thinking72.1.2 Analytical Thinking72.2 Unitary Vs Opposite82.3 Imaginative and Abstractive102.3.1 Imaginative Thinking102.3.2 Abstractive Thinking102.4 Past Orientation Vs Future Orientation11Chapter 3 Influences of Different Thought Patterns upon Intercultural Communications143.1 Ambiguity Perplexity, Anxiety and Conflicts Caused in Intercultural Communication143.2 Influences on Business Setting15Chapter4 Suggestions to Improve Intercultural Communications174.1 Improving Intercultural Communication in Educational Setting174.2 Improving the Business Negotiation and Management18Conclusion20Bibliography21Acknowledgement22Appendix A: Informative Chinese Abstract23湖南涉外经济学院本科生毕业论文（设计）Introduction The 21st century has already involved us in its development. Marshall McLuhan vision of a global village is no longer an abstract idea in our mind but an absolute fact in our life. Due to the technological, social and political changes, the world now has become a smaller planet. Mass media brings news overseas in home less than a minute; education, business, and immigration all help to reduce the stance between people of different cultures. Transportation is becoming much quicker and more convenient, and World Wide Web makes people all over the world get access to new information and news up-to-date. Even in politics, countries that once were enemies are now having a better relationship. All the changes have contributed to the fact that people have to communicate with those from other culture and societies. Theoretically, this kind of communication is called intercultural communication. Intercultural communication is so omnipresent that we especially need to focus on it. Besides, only through competently interacting with those who are different than ourselves, can we ensure the survival of the global village.Successful intercultural communication sounds ideal, but it actually demands a lot of knowledge of other people and their cultures and background. Language barrier is obviously one part of unsuccessful intercultural communication, but the most important one is cultural barrier, which is not simply learned as a kind of language. Jixianlin (1998:6) points out that the basic difference between Chinese and western culture lies in the thought pattern. Therefore, this thesis aims to discuss the differences of thought pattern between Chinese and Americans, explores its impacts upon intercultural communication, and finally, suggests some methods to deal with the possible negative influences caused by the differences on the communication between the Chinese people and American people. Many researchers made their devotions to the study too, especially to the impacts upon intercultural communication on our culture; however, the authors focus on analyzing more about the differences between Chinese and Americans in their thinking patterns.This thesis is consisted of 4 chapters: Chapter 1 reviews some basic terms which are mentioned in the thesis .Chapter 2 analyze the differences between Chinese and American thought patterns. Chapter3 analyzes the impacts on intercultural communication and explore the way to deal with the impacts .Chapter 4 summarizes the whole thesis and points out its significance and limitations. A good understanding of thinking pattern and cross-cultural communication will help us have a better awareness toward cross-cultural barriers and troubles. In other words, the thesis aims to give some ideas for people who are preparing for, intercultural communication and who are experiencing intercultural communication. Many essays on intercultural communication has been published in the latest twenty years; but most of them focus on culture and intercultural communication; therefore, the author attempt to write this essay about patterns of thinking and intercultural communication, which may provide some inspiration for communicators and researchers. Chapter 1 Literature ReviewWith the world globalization, intercultural communication has been becoming more and more often in many fields. in order to have good intercultural communication, many scholars made many efforts in research on relevant knowledge about it. Successful study of intercultural communication demands a good Understanding of some terms concerned .In this chapter, these terms such as culture, intercultural communication, thought patterns and so on will be defined so as to set a foundation for the further exploration of the different thought patterns between Chinese and Americans and their influences on communication.1.1 The Definition of CultureWhat is culture? How can this broad concept be defined? Although we carry it with us wherever we go, and it influences how we respond to the people we meet, it is still the one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language(Williams, 1983: 45). As many researchers note, it is a vague notion, lacking any unanimous definition. While despite the lack of clarity, the vast arrays of anthropological definitions have been put forward.For example, in 1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn (John H. Bodley: 1994:35), American anthropologists, published a list of 160 different definitions of culture. Although simplified in the brief table below, their list indicates the diversity of the anthropological concept of culture. The specific culture concept that particular anthropologists work with is an important matter because it may influence the research problems they investigate, their methods and interpretations.Perhaps in all the definitions proposed, the broadest one is by E. Adamson Hoebel and Everett Frost, who see culture in nearly all human activities. They define culture as” an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance (Hoebel & Frost, 1976: 6). For them, culture is not genetically predetermined or instinctive but is transmitted and maintained solely through communication and learning. Some other researchers, like Harry Triandis, define the culture with distinct boundaries. He suggests that culture can be” distinguished as having both objective (e.g. broads, tools) and subjective (e.g. norms, laws, values) aspectsGeert Hofstede views culture from a psychological perspective, defining it as” the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category f people from another. This definition stresses the mental conditionings that cultural experiences impose.From the perspective of the cross-cultural communication, the generally accepted definitions of culture are proposed by Daniel Bates&Fred Plog and Samovar, Porter& Stefani respectively. Daniel Bates&Fred Plog (1990, cited in Samovar, Porter& Stefani, 2003:36) describe culture as:Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual, including religion and ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, houses, machines, works of art), and the culturally transmitted shills and techniques used to make the artifacts.And using this description as a starting point, Samovar, Porter& Stefani (2003:36) advance a definition of themselves. That is “We define culture as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving”.Regardless of how many definitions of culture we may have already known, each culture has shared characteristics. Culture is learned, integrated, ethnocentric, adaptive, based on symbols, and subject to change. In my thesis, culture refers to a set of learned beliefs, values and behaviors and the way of life shared by the members of a society. However, since there are many parts that are not relevant with the thesis, thus, it only deals with verbal and non-verbal system, material products, social organizations, norm, and cognitive system, which are the main areas of intercultural communication.1.2 Thought PatternThought patterns, also termed “ways of thinking”, make great impacts upon intercultural communication .Patterns of thinking are the bridge of culture and language. On one side, patterns of thinking are closely related to culture: it is a part of culture but restricts culture to some extent. On the other side, patterns of thinking have a deep connection with language: it helps the development of language, and language contributes to the formation of patterns of thinking.Patterns of thinking, also known as thinking styles, have an enormous influence on cross-cultural communication. The nineteenth-century British anthropologist, some researchers originally proposed the Modern technical definition of culture as socially patterned human thought and behavior. The definition itself tells the close relationship between culture and thinking. Technically, thinking styles are total manifestation of a particular culture. People from different cultures have different thinking patterns, this will in turn, impacts their communication. Since peoples speech act and behaviors are all determined by patterns of thinking; hence, patterns of thinking actually determine the success and failure of communication.1.3 Intercultural Communication Intercultural communication has been the interests of scholars in many different fields and various terms have been used in the research literature to refer to this discipline. The most commonly used terms are intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication and international communication. These seemingly confusing terms actually all concern the study of problems caused by the impact of culture and communication, but from a different standpoint. Intercultural communication involves communication between people from different cultural backgrounds. Cross-cultural communication is usually concerned with the contrastive study of patterns of communication between speakers from two cultures. The typical approach of research is a comparison of cultural behavior or communicative patterns among people from the same culture with interactions between people from another culture. While intercultural communication involves interactions among people from different cultural backgrounds in more general terms, cross-cultural communication involves a comparison of interactions among people from two cultures on an aspect of specific interest. The term International communication refers to communication between people from different nations. Since nations are political entities, this term is most often used in discussing international problems in the political arena and not commonly adopted in cultural studies. It is communication between nations and government rather than between individuals.1.4 A Description of Related Empirical Studies Many Chinese scholars contribute their efforts in the study area. Early as Lin Yutang and Yan Fu, who gave much extraordinary comments on this thinking styles, professor Hu Wenzhong and Jia Yuxin has published many books on intercultural communication which involved patterns of thinking, beliefs and values: Professor Yuan Ying gave a comparison of Chinese and American patterns of thinking in her article On the differences of the Eastern and Western Thinking Mode in Intercultural Communication. Chen Xinxia thinks that Patterns of thinking cover knowledge, concept, method, intelligence, emotion, will, language and habit. By interacting with each other, these elements form a dynamic and complex system. Thus, the nature, type, characteristic, and differences of thinking patterns are all regulated by the integrated elements.Western scholars, starting from Dr. Stanford University, first described Karl Pribram, professor of neuropsychology at patterns of thinking as something that vary according to different culture situation. People from different culture background tend to have different patterns of thinking. Different thinking styles in turn make people communicate quite differently with each other; hence, we realize that it is impossible for people to act under the same thinking pattern. Nevertheless, although we can not make the differences invisible, we do can make things better if we try to understand thinking patterns of another culture, and learn to facilitate intercultural communication.Based on their research, this thesis is going to make a detailed comparison of Chinese and American patterns of thinking in this chapter, and try to analyze the impacts that they have on intercultural communication. Chapter 2 Different Thought Patterns between Chinese and AmericanWith long-term development, there are many differences between Chinese and American culture .The basic one lies in thinking patterns. The Chinese usually think in a synthetic and imaginative way, while the Americans usually think in a Analytic and abstractive way.2. l Synthetic Vs AnalyticThe Chinese and Americans have their own thinking habits, no matter they are habitual, traditional or customized. Technically, the Chinese emphasize more on synthetic aspects and connotation; while Americans prefer the analytic stuff and denotation.2.1.1 Synthetic Thinking Synthetic thinking, including all the factors, suggests thinking from the perspective of the whole. For the cognition of the objective (an object or, maybe an event or things like that)，all the separate parts concerned are combined together. On the contrary, analytic thinking refers to thinking in a way of separating the whole into constituents or parts to acquire its properties or relations between the individual parts.As a matter of fact, synthetic thinking and analytic thinking are the unity of opposites. They oppose each other, also complement each other. Generally speaking, Chinese thinking is predominantly synthetic in which holism and intuition take priority; American thinking is predominantly analytic which lays emphasis on reductionism and logic.2.1.2 Analytical Thinking In the western world, Plato is the first man to advocate Subject-Object Dichotomy. Analytical thinking patterns perceives the world by distinguishing subject and object, moral and material, thinking and being, soul and body, meanwhile; such thinking patterns explain the world from a dualistic angle. The Americans believe the power of man. Their relationship with nature is “master -slave relationship with man the master of nature” (Hu, 1988:07). American culture admires independence and they believe that early birds catch the worms. Their thinking patterns base on individualism whereas the Chinese base their thinking patterns on groups. Therefore, Americans tend to decompose complex things and study them one by one, with analytical logic their preference.Aristotle believes that analysis is the basic form of dialectical thinking. He confirms that analytics is the instrument of all subjects. Compared to the American thinking patterns, the Chinese pays more attention to connotation and stress synthesis. Because Chinese and American thinking patterns focus on quite different aspects, there must be many differences in peoples understanding and outlooks of the whole world. Different cultures identify different thin