（英语语言文学专业论文）跨文化视角下中美商务谈判的交际风格差异.pdf

descriptive chinese abstract i descriptive chinese abstract 中国加入 wto 以后，随着经济全球化的加速，各个国家和地区之间的经济合作已得 到广泛的发展。我国企业参与国际经济合作的机会越来越多，国际商务谈判也变得越来 越重要。如今，中国已经成为美国最重要的贸易伙伴之一，中美两国间的商务谈判越来 越频繁。但是，由于中美两国之间存在着巨大的文化差异，两国人民的思维习惯和行为 方式有很大不同，如果中美两国的谈判者不了解对方的文化，缺少跨文化交际的理论指 导和相关知识，在谈判过程中就可能会出现交际障碍和产生不必要的误解，甚至导致谈 判失败。 本文从宏观的角度，以“跨文化”为视角，使“跨文化交际学”和“跨文化语用学” 的理论与中美商务谈判的具体实践相结合，创造性地分析了文化因素、尤其是文化价值 观及深受其影响的语用礼貌原则对国际商务谈判的影响， 并重点探讨了中美商务谈判者 在跨文化谈判过程中表现出的交际风格差异。最后，文章对中国的商务谈判者提出了如 何培养自己的跨文化交际能力的建议。本文作者认为，除了商务谈判理论中的基本专业 知识以外，中国的商务谈判者还应充分了解并掌握跨文化交际以及跨文化语用学的知 识。他们不仅要熟悉自身的文化及其影响下的谈判交际风格，也要熟悉谈判对手的文化 及其影响下的谈判交际风格。培养文化意识和文化敏感性并进而提高跨文化交际能力， 有助于国内谈判者在国际商务谈判过程中，克服由于文化不同所带来的交际障碍或冲 突，并把这些不同的外国文化转化成“有价值的”资源，在国际商务谈判中加以充分利 用。这也正是本文的新意新意所在。 本文在第一章引言部分简要介绍了本课题的研究现状和研究中存在的不足， 并简要 说明了本课题的研究意义、目的和研究方法。第二章对国际商务谈判和跨文化交际理论 作了简要的回顾，并探讨了二者之间的内在联系。第三章主要讨论了影响商务谈判者交 际风格的文化因素，并作了深层的理论分析。在第四章分析比较了中美两国商务谈判者 的交际风格差异。在第五章，本文通过三个具体案例，对中美商务谈判的交际风格差异 作了具体分析，并针对国内的商务谈判者，提出了培养文化意识和敏感性，掌握跨文化 交际能力的建议。本文的最后部分总结了全文的观点，并指出今后这方面研究的努力方 向。 关键词：跨文化交际；跨文化语用学；国际商务谈判；交际风格 english abstract ii english abstract after chinas entry into wto, and with the acceleration of economic globalization, economic cooperation between countries or regions all over the world has developed rapidly. therefore, chinese enterprises or transnational corporations will have more and more opportunities to participate in global economic cooperation and to take part in international business negotiations, which are becoming increasingly important in international business activities. the business relationship between china and the united states is also at its best these years. china has already become one of the major trading partners of the united states. as a result, business negotiations between china and the united states are increasing dramatically. the more contacts of economy and trade with the united states are made, the more business negotiations will occur between sino-us business negotiators. however, due to enormous cultural differences between china and the united states, members of these two cultures behave quite differently and have different ways of thinking. the communication barriers and unnecessary misunderstandings, even negotiating failures will occur during the sino-us business negotiation process if sino-us negotiators do not understand each others cultures and have not enough theoretical guidance and the correlative knowledge of intercultural communication. therefore, the comprehension of the other sides culture before entering into negotiations is beneficial for both parties to reach a desirable agreement. the dissertation, from the macro view and from the cross-cultural perspective, in combination with the theories of intercultural communication, cross-cultural pragmatics and the concrete negotiating practice between sino-us business negotiations, creatively analyzes the influences of cultures, particularly cultural values and pragmatic politeness or face principles affected greatly by cultures on the international business negotiation. the dissertation also lays more stress on the discussion of communication style differences between chinese and american business negotiators negotiating cross-culturally and the cultural reasons resulting in the differences. in the end, the thesis presents recommendations to chinese business negotiators about how to develop their own intercultural communication competence. in authors view of the dissertation, apart from the fundamental and professional knowledge of business negotiation, chinese business negotiators ought to have a good english abstract iii command of the knowledge of intercultural communication and cross-cultural pragmatics. they need not only to be familiar with their own cultures and the negotiating communication styles affected greatly by their own culture, but also to know well their counterparts culture and communication styles in negotiation. cultivating cultural awareness, cultural sensibility and then developing intercultural communication competence are helpful for domestic negotiators to overcome the barriers of communication caused by different cultures when negotiating internationally and then to transform the different cultures of other countries into “valuable” negotiating sources to be applied to the international business negotiations. that is the innovation of the thesis. chapter 1, the introductory part, introduces the status quo of researching the combination of the theories of intercultural communication, cross-cultural pragmatics, international business negotiation and inadequacies of researching this topic at present. moreover, it introduces briefly the significance, objective and methodology of studying the topic. chapter 2 makes a brief literature review about the theories of intercultural communication, cross-cultural pragmatics and international business negotiation and their intrinsic relationships. chapter 3 mainly discusses the cultural factors or cultural values that influence greatly the communication styles of business negotiators from different cultures and analyzes them theoretically and culturally. chapter 4 gives a comparative analysis of the negotiation style differences between chinese and american business negotiators. in chapter 5, by means of three concrete negotiating cases occurring between sino-us negotiators, the thesis concretely analyzes the style differences of sino-us business negotiators and presents some recommendations to domestic negotiators negotiating internationally about cultivating cross-cultural awareness and sensibility and then developing intercultural communication competence. the conclusion part summarizes the central ideas of the whole dissertation and points out the orientation of striving to research this topic in the future. key words: intercultural/cross-cultural communication; cross-cultural pragmatics; international business negotiation; communication styles chapter 1 introduction 1 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 the status quo of the study with the rapid development of the theories of intercultural communication, cross-cultural pragmatics, and business negotiation, more and more scholars have been aware of the importance of the combined research in the above three fields whether in some major western countries or in china. scholars who research intercultural communication concern the application of the theory of intercultural communication to international business negotiation. edward. t. hall can be regarded as the father of the field of intercultural communication study (chen chen, 2005：9). since the beginning of his study, “training people in intercultural business (including international business negotiation) has become one of the major activities of intercultural communication specialties” (ibid: 9). samovar and porter published intercultural communication: a reader (8th ed.) in 1997, in which samovar and porters work focuses on the relationship between culture and communication. in this essay collection, samovar asserts the relationship between culture and negotiation and cultural impacts on the business negotiation. in their book communication between cultures, samovar, porter and stefani (1998) also pay attention to some strategies for international business negotiation. in china, some scholars who study the field of intercultural communication have suggested that the theory of intercultural communication be applied to international business negotiation. in his intercultural communication guan shijie (1995： 373-37) gives a simple introduction of the characteristics of business negotiation of chinese, chapter 1 introduction 2 american and japanese. wang hongyin (1996: 194-201) introduces american negotiation styleones own wishful thinking in international negotiation in his book intercultural communication: how to communicate with foreigners? jia yuxin (1997: 439-443), in his intercultural communication, discusses the cultural differences in the process of sino-us business negotiation from four aspects: the differences of negotiating ways and their analysis at the beginning stage, emotional or instrumental negotiation, cultural differences in the course of decision-making and differences of negotiation styles. in his book an introduction to intercultural communication, hu wenzhong (1999: 156-162) mentions that cultures have direct impacts on business management and business negotiation, particularly on the decision-making, on the attitude toward time, job and entertainment and on the strategies of negotiation in the course of international business negotiation. scholars who study international business management and international business negotiation, likewise, pay their attention to the influence of cultural factors on the international business negotiation and management. robert t. moran and william g. stripp (1991) have published their book successful international business negotiations that attempts to explain what globalization entails and that provides an overview for developing global strategy and opportunities through effectively cross-cultural negotiations. pervez n. ghauri and jean-claude usunier (1996) edit a theses-collection international business negotiations which has been divided into four parts: general aspects of international negotiation; culture and international business negotiation; the negotiation of specific kinds of agreements; and a regional approach to international business negotiation. jeffery edmund curry (1999) has his planning and conducting international commercial negotiations which discusses the strategies of zero-sum game in international business negotiation according to the following sequences: negotiator, what, where, when, and how to negotiate. philip r. harris ghauri curry, 1999; harris korobkin, 2003; zou, et al., 2000; tang, 2003; yuan, 2003) in the field of international business negotiation mainly focus on the fundamental and professional theory and knowledge of international business negotiation and only pay a little attention to cultural impacts on international business negotiation. similarly, the scholars, such as e. t. hall (1975), g. hofstede (1991), samovar, et al., (1998), chen (2005); hu (1999), guan (1995), wang (1995), lin (1996), jia (1997) and the like in the field of intercultural communication, chiefly discuss the theory of intercultural communication from the macro view and from the different aspects but only involves less applications of the theory to business settings, particularly the settings of international business negotiations. moreover, few domestic scholars study the cultural impacts on the communication styles in the process of international business negotiation and study the communication style differences of sino-us business negotiators. therefore, it is necessary and significant to have a further research on the topic of the dissertation. chapter 1 introduction 4 1.2 the significance of studying communication style differences between sino-us business negotiations after chinas entry into wto, and with the acceleration of economic globalization, economic cooperation between countries or regions all over the world has developed rapidly. therefore, chinese enterprises or transnational corporations will have more and more opportunities to participate in global economic cooperation and to take part in international business negotiations, which are becoming increasingly important in international business activities. the business relationship between china and the united states is also at its best these years. china has already become one of the major trading partners of the united states. as a result, business negotiations between china and the united states are increasing dramatically. the more contacts of economy and trade with the united states are made, the more business negotiations will occur between sino-us business negotiators. however, due to enormous cultural differences between china and the united states, members of these two cultures behave quite differently and have different ways of thinking. the communication barriers and unnecessary misunderstandings, even negotiating failures will occur during the sino-us business negotiation process if sino-american negotiators do not understand each others cultures and have not enough theoretical guidance and the correlative knowledge of intercultural communication. therefore, the comprehension of the other sides culture before entering into negotiations is beneficial for both parties to reach a desirable agreement. 1.3 the objective and methodology of the study this dissertation, from the macro view and from the cross-cultural perspective, in combination with the theories of intercultural communication, cross-cultural pragmatics and the concrete negotiating practice between sino-us business negotiations, creatively analyzes the influences of cultures, cultural values and pragmatic politeness or face principles affected greatly by cultures on the international business negotiation. this thesis also lays more stress on the discussion of communication style differences between chinese and american business negotiators negotiating cross-culturally and the cultural reasons resulting in the differences. in the end, the thesis presents recommendations to chinese business negotiators about how to chapter 1 introduction 5 develop their own intercultural communication competence. in authors view of the dissertation, apart from the fundamental and professional knowledge of business negotiation, chinese business negotiators ought to have a good command of the knowledge of intercultural communication and cross-cultural pragmatics. they need not only to be familiar with their own cultures and the negotiating communication styles affected greatly by their own culture, but also to know well their counterparts culture and communication styles in negotiation affected by their own culture. cultivating cultural awareness and sensibility and then developing intercultural communication competence are helpful for domestic negotiators to overcome the barriers of communication caused by the cultural differences when negotiating internationally and then to transform the different cultures of other countries into “valuable” negotiating sources to be applied to the international business negotiations. this thesis uses etic method to analyze communication style differences between sino-us business negotiators. in cross-cultural studies, the etic approach uses culture-general variables or dimensions of cultural variability, such as individualism versus collectivism and high-context communication versus low-context communication to examine behavior patterns in one culture and compare them across cultures. a comparative approach is also used to compare the communication style differences when negotiations occur between sino-us negotiators, who belong respectively to high-context cultures or low-context cultures with different cultural values (collectivistic or individualistic, high-power-distance or low-power-distance, high-uncertainty-avoidance or low-uncertainty-avoidance, masculine or feminine, and the like) and have different face works and comply with different politeness principles. chapter 2 literature review 6 chapter 2 literature review 2.1 literature review of the theory of international business negotiations international business negotiation is an indispensable sector in international commercial activities and a crucial part to determine whether international commercial activities are successful or not. as the saying goes, “on the business negotiation tables are there much money” (汤秀莲, 2003: 3). however, all the money on the business negotiation tables should be acquired reasonably and legally by negotiators who can make the most of their own wisdom, intelligence and abilities. 2.1.1 negotiation, business negotiation and international business negotiation defined there have been researchers who undertake to define negotiation. ikle, from the western view, sums up negotiation like this: “negotiation is a process in which explicit proposals are put forward ostensibly for the purpose of reaching agreement on an exchange or on the realization of a common interest where conflicting interests are present” (ikle, 1964: 53). putnam and rollof, taking a communication perspective, define it as “a process by which parties attempt to reach an accord that specifies how they will act toward one another” (putnam and rollof, 1992: 4). ghauri regards negotiation as a kind of basic human activity. he defines negotiation as “a voluntary process of give and take where both parties modify their offers and expectations in order to come closer to each other” (ghauri, 1996: 3). ren qinglian (2000: 5) defines negotiation as the human behavior and process where people concernes exchange information and views in order to determine, change, develop or terminate a relationship as well as gain benefits or protect their rights. tang xiulian (2003: 4) views negotiation as a behavioral process by which people, for a certain demand, exchange information to each other and discuss issues with each other in order to mediate each others relationship and to gain or protect their own interests and rights. chapter 2 literature review 7 business negotiation is probably the most common type of negotiation. although it has been defined in various ways, there is one thing the definitions share: business negotiation is a process during which business partners interact in order to attain specific exchange goals. business negotiation, according to tang xiulian (2003: 6), refers to a behavioral process by which, in the field of economy, both parties with corporate qualification reach the goal of tr