英语本科毕业论文-论影响跨文化交际的主要因素.doc

X X X X X X X X 毕毕 业业 论论 文文 题目：论论影影响响跨跨文文化化交交际际的的主主要要因因素素 作 者XXX届 别2009 届 系 别 外国语言文学 专 业英 语 指导教师职 称讲 师 完成时间二 OO 九年六月 The Major Factors of Influencing Cross- cultural Communication Li Shuxian A thesis submitted to the Foreign Language Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English language and literature Supervised by Mrs. Huang Huiya Hunan Institute of Science and Technology Yueyang, Hunan June, 2009 XXXX 毕业论文 ii Abstract The economic globalization has become an irreversible historical trend. This thesis starts with an analysis of the definition and importance of cross- cultural communication. Then it discusses the major factors of influencing cross-cultural communication. By respectively expounding the relationship between language and culture, the relationship between non-verbal communication and culture, pragmatic failures in verbal communication and common approaches of non-verbal communication, it puts forward some suggestions on developing peoples cultural awareness and respecting culture differences and cooperating together. It is hoped that through this detailed analysis, people can improve their ability in cross-cultural communication, and overcome communication barriers. Key Words: cross-cultural communication; cultural differences; verbal factors; non-verbal factors XXXX 毕业论文 iii 摘摘 要要 世界经济全球化的发展趋势已经成为不可抗拒的历史潮流。本论文从研究跨文化 交际的定义和重要性出发，而后分析了影响跨文化交际的主要因素 。在论文中分别阐明 了语言及非语言交际与文化的关系，语言交际中的语用失误，非语言交际的常用方式， 并提出培养人们的文化意识及尊重彼此的文化差异 ，共同合作的建议，以期提高跨文化 交际能力，克服交际障碍。 关键词: 跨文化交际、文化差异、语言因素、非语言因素 XXXX 毕业论文 iv Contents Introduction1 1 Definition and importance of cross-cultural communication1 1.1 Definition of cross-cultural communication2 1.2 Importance of cross-cultural communication3 2 Verbal factors in cross-cultural communication 5 2.1 Definition of verbal communication 5 2.2 Relationship between language and culture6 2.3 Pragmatic failures in verbal communication7 3 Non-verbal factors in cross-cultural communication9 3.1 Definition of non-verbal communication9 3.2 Relationship between non-verbal communication and culture 9 3.3 Common approaches of non-verbal communication10 4 Suggestions for improving cross-cultural communication12 4.1 Developing peoples cultural awareness12 4.2 Respecting culture differences and cooperating together13 Conclusion15 Works Cited16 Acknowledgments17 XXXX 毕业论文 1 Introduction Today, as the economic globalization continues, cross-cultural communication has become a common social behavior. However, culture differences cause many unexpected difficulties. People realize that their different cultural backgrounds influence cross-cultural communication by subtle and profound means. These differences usually become rather conspicuous in verbal and non-verbal communication and are likely to cause clashes in the process of cross-cultural communication. Cui Changliang from Heilongjiang University pointed out in his article of The Verbal and Non-verbal Language in Intercultural Business Communication that in order to carry out cross-cultural communication effectively, we should take proper communicate ways, overcome the disadvantage factors and make rational use of verbal and non-verbal factors (Cui 127). Larry A. Samovar suggested that people came to realize that culture has a profound effect on communicate. Our awareness of culture and experience decides our knowledge of the world as well as how we communicate in this world (Samovar 3). Only by acknowledging the major factors of influencing cross-cultural communication can people find apt and specific ways to solve problems. People need to try to improve language competence and cultural literacy, so that they can enhance cultural exchange and fulfil the purpose of cross-cultural communication. 1 Definition and importance of cross-cultural communication With the global economic integration flood tide, the internationalization of China strengthens day by day. China and other countries are becoming closer and closer in politics, economy and cultures. It is undoubted that cross-cultural communication will play an important role in this process. So it is necessary for us to study the importance of cross-cultural communication. XXXX 毕业论文 2 1.1 Definition of cross-cultural communication Culture is the foundation of communication. There are more than one hundred definitions of the English word culture offered by researchers from perspectives. The following definitions are just some of the well-known ones. “Culture may be defined as what a society does and thinks.” “What really binds men together is their cultureideas and the standards they have in common” (qtd. in Xu 40). The reason why so many definitions have been suggested is that culture is complex, multi-dimensional, and all-pervasive. There are also several levels of culture. On the material level culture has an economy that provides a way to produce and exchange material goods in order to survive. A material culture provides humans a way to feed, shelter, and clothe themselves. On the social level culture gives humans a way to organize themselves. Social culture involves kinship and family. It also gives societies a work life and political structure. The last level of culture involves the ideological. It gives a group of people a unique way of thinking about beliefs, values, and ideals. All of these different aspects of culture give humans an understanding of how the world works and how they live and act in their own environment. Communication is the basis of all human contact. It is difficult to find a single definition of human communication, for example, over twenty years ago, Dance and Larson reviewed the literature on communication and found 126 definitions of communication; since then, countless others have been added to their list (Samovar 22). Two reasons why it is difficult to locate a single definition of communication are the complex nature of communication and the issue of intentionality and unintentionality. Communication is also a two-way process. When you communicate you perceive the other persons responses and react with your own thoughts and feelings. It is only by paying attention to the other person that you have any idea about what to say or do next. The field of communication focuses on how people use messages to generate meanings within and across various contexts, cultures, channels and media. The field promotes the effective and ethical practice of human communication. XXXX 毕业论文 3 Cross-cultural communication is communication between members of different cultures. This definition is simple, but the process is complex. Cross- cultural communication involves differing perceptions, attitudes, and interpretation. Even two people from the same culture can have communication problems. Cross-cultural communication is about how people from different cultural backgrounds endeavor to communicate. The core of cross-cultural communication is to establish and understand how people from different cultures can communicate with each other. Cross-cultural communication, as many scholarly fields, is a combination of many other fields. These fields include anthropology, cultural studies, psychology and communication. 1.2 Importance of cross-cultural communication With the development of the communications between people from different cultural backgrounds, more and more scholars or laymen have realized the importance of cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural communication, as you might suspect, is not new. Wandering nomads, religious missionaries, and conquering warriors have encountered people differrent from themselves since the beginning of time. Those meetings were frequently confusing and quite often hostile. In ancient times, the recognition of alien differences lacked accompanying cultural knowledge and often elicited the human propensity to respond malevolently to those differences. This sentiment is still a powerful element in todays social and political rhetoric. For instance, it is common in todays society to hear that all of the social and economic problems in the United States are caused by immigrants. Despite the persistence of this notion, todays cross-cultural encounters differ from early meetings. They are more abundant, and because of the interconnectedness of the world, more significant. We can now board a plane and fly anywhere in the world in a matter of hours, and the reality of a global economy makes todays contacts far more commonplace than in any other period of the worlds history. In just a single year, 1994 to 1995, multinational companies boosted their international investments 40 % to a record $315 billion. XXXX 毕业论文 4 The web linking us together becomes vivid when we see a newspaper headline that tell us “Americans Once Again into AfricaAnd Staying a Lot Longer in Bosnia” (qtd. in Samovar 3). Additionally, the emergence of the information age has allowed us the opportunity to expand our knowledge so that the recognition of cultural differences need not result in hostile encounters. The above examples emphasize the changes that have taken place throughout the world and at home. Communication is an important mean of expressing yourself because it exists different ways of expression and so different kind of communication depending on the culture you belong to. The way of communicating will not be the same as other countries and it is important to know some values of other cultures and so of other ways of communicating for, first of all, avoiding some misunderstandings and then knowing better some aspects of different cultures. That is why cross-cultural communication is an essential exercise to do; a person who come from a certain country does not necessarily get the same ideas about time, death, identity, as an other one from a different country because each person has its own identity . Cross-cultural communication is more important today than in any other period of human history. One major consequence of this trend is that future success in most careers will increasingly depend upon an individuals ability to communicate effectively and appropriately across cultural boundaries. Cross- cultural communication is not limited to learning other languages, but also includes understanding how cultural patterns and core values impact the communication process, even when everyone is speaking English. Acquiring the skills necessary to work with both domestic multicultural groups and in international areas is no longer an option but a necessity. Sometimes silence communicates far more than speech. Such things as touching, eye contact, and other kinds of “body language” need to be observed and correctly interpreted because nonverbal communication carries important clues about the message the individual is trying to convey. In this rapidly changing world, where cultures and people circulate and interact at dizzying speeds, those people who know XXXX 毕业论文 5 how to communicate effectively across cultures, in both personal and professional contexts, will have a crucial advantage over those who do not. 2 Verbal factors in cross-cultural communication Verbal factors are considered as one of the major factors of influencing cross-cultural communication. And pragmatic failures are one of the key factors which influence the success of cross-cultural communication. For the social and cultual diversity, there are typical differences among different languages in pragmatic principles, which will inevitably lead to pragmatic failures and communication breakdowns. 2.1 Definition of verbal communication The basis of communication is the interaction between people. Verbal communication is one way for people to communicate face-to-face. Some of the key components of verbal communication are sound, words, speaking, and language. Through speaking we try to eliminate this misunderstanding, but sometimes this is a very hard thing to do. Many problems can arise is speaking and the only way to solve these problems is through experience. Speaking can be looked at in two major areas: interpersonal and public speaking. In interpersonal speaking, etiquette is very important. To be an effective communicator one must speak in a manner that is not offending to the receiver. Some of the major areas of public speaking are speaking to persuade, speaking to inform, and speaking to inspire or motivate. In general, verbal communication means that people communicate with each other by means of language. Through verbal communication, people will learn who they are, and what the world around them is like. Furthermore, verbal communication expresses ones thought and feelings to others, and to satisfy ones emotional and material needs. In humans daily life, communication is something that they do every day. Verbal communication is humans main communicative form, in which language is its communicative tool. As meaning is assigned to words, language develops, which leads to the development of speaking. The actual XXXX 毕业论文 6 origin of language is subject to considerable speculation. 2. 2 Relationship between language and culture The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted. Language is used to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties. Different ideas stem from using different language within ones culture and the whole intertwining of these relationships start at ones birth. When an infant is born, it is not unlike any other infant born, in fact, quite similar. It is not until the child is exposed to their surroundings that they become individuals in and of their cultural group. This idea, which describes all people as similar at birth, has been around for thousands of years. Everyone is the same both physically and mentally while the interactions among persons or groups vary widely from place to place. Patterns which emerge from these group behaviours and interactions will be approved of, or disapproved of. Behaviours which are acceptable will vary from location to location thus forming the basis of different cultures. One can see that learning a new language involves the learning of a new culture. Language seems to be woven into the very farbic of every human culture, and to such an extent that it is hard to imagine what human culture would be like without language. Language is the principal means whereby people conduct their social lives. When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways. Firstly, language expresses cultural reality. The words people utter refer to common experience. They express facts, ideas or events that are communicable because they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other people share. Words also reflect their authors attitudes and beliefs, their point of view, that are also those of others. Secondly, language embodies cultural reality. Members of a community or a social group do not only express experiences; they also create experience through language. They give meaning to it through the medium they choose to communicate with one another, just like, speaking on the telephone or face-to-face, writing a letter or sending an email message, reading the newspaper or interpreting a graph or chart. The way in which people use the spoken, written, or visual medium itself XXXX 毕业论文 7 creates meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to, for example, through a speakers tone of voice, accent, conversational style, gestures and facial expressions. Finally, language symbolizes cultural reality. Language is a system of signs that is seen as having itself a cultural value. Speakers identify themselves and others through their use of language; they view their language as a symbol of their social identity. The prohibition of its use is often perceived by its speakers as a rejection of their social group and their culture. 2.3 Pragmatic failures in verbal communication Pragmatic failure is an important source of cross-cultural communication breakdown. It occurs whenever the communicator could not use language appropriately or interpret language correctly. In verbal communication, linguistic errors resulted from violation against grammatical rules are easily recognized. Pragmatic failure belongs to the field of cross-cultural pragmatics, a new branch of pragmatics which has developed rapidly in the past twenty years. There are two principal types of pragmatic failure in the literature, namely pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. These two types of pragmatic failure cannot always be distinguished a