从感知能力要素的角度浅析跨文化交际能力的培养与提高.doc

On the Cultivation and Improvement of the International Communication from the Perspective of the Components of Perceived Competence从感知能力要素的角度浅析跨文化交际能力的培养与提高姓名：耿欢院系：燕山大学外国语学院摘要：本文通过对我国目前学生的跨文化交际能力的构建与培养现状进行分析，找出其中存的问题。作者提出，运用Spitzberg和Cupach的感知能力三要素：动机、知识、技巧，来提高学生跨文化交际能力的构建与培养，并在文章最后给出了自己的建议，以期在一定程度上使中国学生的跨文化交际能力所有提高。关键词：跨文化交际能力，构建与培养，感知能力三要素Abstract: Based on the analysis of the construction and cultivation of the cross-cultural communication of Chinese students, the current paper tries to find out the problems. Then the author puts forward to apply the perceived competence of Spitzberg and Cupach motivation, knowledge and skills to improve the International communication competence of the students, in order to provide insight into the cultivation of cross-cultural communication. Key words: International communication, cultivation and improvement, perceived competence1. IntroductionGlobalization is an inevitable phenomenon and is also an obvious development trend in the modern world. McLuhan characterizes todays world as a “global village” because of the rapid expansion of worldwide transportation and communication networks (e.g., airplanes, communication satellites, telephones, the Internet). (McLuhan: 1962). Due to such trend, the factors that determine the economic development and the comprehensive power are no longer the labor force or the natural sources, but the talents who master the knowledge and the technique. It is now possible for any person from an industrialized country to communicate with any person in another industrialized country within minutes by phone, fax, and video conference and within hours face-to-face. (Gudykunst & Kim: 2007) The expansion of worldwide communication networks, combined with increase in travel for pleasure or business and the international migration of refugees, heightens our awareness of the need for understanding other cultures and their people. (Gudykunst & Kim: 2007) The new situation has put forward the new requirements for the cultivation of the talents. With the development of China, we have to interact with other countries and take part in the globalization in various aspects, which lead to the frequent cross-cultural communication. Therefore, more and more importance is attached to the cultivation of the international communication of Chinese students. Nevertheless, influenced by the traditional English education pattern, there still exist some problems in the education of international communication. Thus, according to Spitzberg and Cupachs three components of perceived competence, the author puts forward several methods to improve the constructing and training the international communication of Chinese students.2. The situation and problems in constructing and training the international communication of Chinese studentsThe cultivation of the international communication skill, in fact, is the main aim of the English education. We learn pronunciation, words, grammar, writing, listening and speaking and all of these are to help us communicate with foreigners. Therefore, the English education is one step in our cultivation of the international communication. However, as we can see, our English education system is far behind other countries in communication skill education. The side effect of the examination-oriented education makes our education focus more on formal language education, such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar. From primary school to the university education, Chinese students have learnt English for almost 15 years and they have mastered a great amount of language knowledge and equipped with certain degree of grammar and oral competence. They can listen to conversations and news, give a speech, read various articles and write excellent compositions, however, when they communicate, what is the most useful for their communication is the practical communication skills. In this aspect, they can not employ proper words and sentences patterns to communicate, let alone the so-called cross-cultural communication.The majority of English major students in Chinese have the foreign classes; however, the non-English major students have little accessibility to the foreign teachers. We can see that our Chinese students have little opportunities to practice what they have learnt; therefore, they gradually lost their motivation to communicate.Our English education does not provide students with opportunities to practice and apply what they have learnt to realistic communication. All above lead to the failure of international communication of our students in their future work in that we do not tell them how to cross-culturally communicate. And with little practice, the students are lack of skills of communication.International communication does not only need exact words and correct grammar. What we have said above is that communication includes many aspects, such as politics, economy, history, geography, religion etc. and only the knowledge of language is far from enough.Thus, based on their language knowledge, what we should further do is to cultivate and improve their international communication skills.Moreover, due to the present situation of our English education, there exist some problems in constructing and training the international communication of Chinese students. The students treat the mastery of grammar and vocabulary as the whole task for English learning. Under such misunderstanding, the students may obtain a fairly comprehensive ability of the language; however, they still lack the ability of cross-cultural communication understanding and skills. Moreover, when their proficiency of English has reached a certain level, such communication problems become more obvious.During the international communication, the misuse of vocabulary or grammar can be easily understood and forgiven. Nevertheless, the pragmatic failure, the cultural misunderstanding always lead to the failure of communication, even conflicts. A person with a good mastery of foreign language may make others believe that he or she is armed with the cultural background and values of the language. Therefore, under such condition, the pragmatic failure may be understood as a deliberate action and further lead to the conflicts.In most of English courses, the school authorities provide students with foreign teachers so as that the students may have the opportunity to talk to foreigners, practice the knowledge they have learnt and obtain more cultural knowledge and international communication skills. However, a majority of students have no desire to communicate with foreigners, let alone to obtain the skills to communicate. Just as what we have mentioned above, nowadays, teachers pay most their attention to the pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar etc., which lead to the students misunderstanding that when they communicate with foreigners, it is enough with such knowledge to communicate appropriately and effectively and their lack of the abilities to engage in the behaviors necessary to communicate appropriately and effectively. Thus, in the following parts, the author will introduce Spitzberg and Cupachs three components of perceived competence, apply them to the present problems and put forward several corresponding measures to the problems.3. The introduction to the three components of perceived competence and its applicationAiming at illustrating the pattern of ICC, many scholars have put forward their models, among which the cognitive-affective-behavioral model of Spitzberg and Cupach has been the most widely accepted one. In this model, Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) divide ICC into three parts, cognitive category, affective category and behavioral category. Cognitive category refers to peoples focus on the behaviors that matches the situation best, including the knowledge on the information of others, communication rules, background and contexts. Affective category refers to the affection, wills, needs and motivations related to the process of ICC. And when we move the behavioral category, we deal with the skills which help us behave appropriately and effectively under certain situation. And due to the different focuses, these three aspects can also be referred to as the three components of perceived competence: motivation, knowledge and skills. Spitzberg and Brunner (1991) stress the importance of motivation, since when a person cannot communicate, it may be due to the lack of motivation, instead of the skills. Though being important, motivation has been the least studied factors in most studies. Specifically, motivation refers to our desire to communicate appropriately and effectively with others. Of particular importance to the present analysis is our motivation to communicate with strangers. Knowledge refers to our awareness or understanding of what needs to be done in order to communicate appropriately and effectively. Skills are our abilities to engage in the behaviors necessary to communicate appropriately and effectively. (Gudykunst & Kim: 2007) The three components all affect our international communication and the absence of any components may lead to the failure of communication. And there are several factors that may intervene to affect our behaviors.J. H. Turner suggests that certain basic needs motivate us to interact with others. Needs are “fundamental states of being in humans which, if unsatisfied, generate feelings of deprivation”. (Turner: 1988) There are seven needs that serve as motivating factors. They are the need for a sense of security as human being, the need for a sense of predictability, the need for a sense of group inclusion, the need to avoid diffuse anxiety, the need for a sense of a common shared world, the need for symbolic/material gratification and the need to sustain the self-conception.Each of these needs influences the image we want to present ourselves to strangers, the aims we have and the habits we follow. Moreover, all of them work together to influence the images, the aims and the habits as well.The knowledge component of communication competence refers to the awareness of what we need to do to communicate in an appropriate and effective way. It includes a specific awareness of the skills and how they can be used when communicating with strangers. When communicating with strangers, we also need to have knowledge about strangers groups. The knowledge, in detail, first includes the knowledge of how to gather information about strangers and their groups so that we can interpret their messages accurately. And it also includes the knowledge of group difference. To communicate effectively, we must understand real differences between our groups and strangers groups. We often are aware of differences based on our ethnocentrism, prejudice, sexism, ageism and stereotypes. These differences, however, may not be real. Recognizing difference often facilitates effective communicating. The third one is the knowledge of personal similarities. While understanding differences is important, we also have to understand similarities if we are going to communicate effectively with strangers. Understanding similarities at the group level is important, but finding similarities at the individual level is critical if we want to develop relationships with strangers. The last one is the knowledge of alternative interpretations. Effective communication requires that we minimize misunderstandings or maximize the similarities in the ways messages are interpreted. To accomplish this, we must recognize that there are many ways that messages can be interpreted and often these interpretations involve evaluations of strangers behavior.The skills necessary to communicate effectively and appropriately with strangers are those that are directly related to managing our uncertainty and anxiety. Managing our anxiety requires at least three skills: ability to be mindful, ability to tolerate ambiguity and ability to manage anxiety. Managing uncertainty minimally requires four skills: ability to be mindful, ability to empathize, ability to adapt our behavior and ability to make accurate predictions and explanations of strangers behavior.Therefore, according to the three components of perceived competence, we should first motivate the students to communicate. That is to say, we should cultivate their interest and desire in the communicating through various methods. Then, with the motivation to communicate, we should inspire students awareness of what they should do to communicate in an appropriate and effective way. That is to say, we need to make them be aware of the specific skills of communication and the appropriate use of them to communicate. Finally, having known how to communicate appropriately and effectively, we should impart the skills to avoid uncertainty and anxiety to the students. With the knowledge and skills of communication, the students can smoothly, appropriately and effectively communicate with foreigners.Firstly, the school authorities can open the classes that are given by a Chinese teacher and a foreign teacher at the same time. The two people can introduce the differences between the cultures and employ the interesting differences of the cultures to inspire students to communicate. The teachers can give various situations and topics to the students and lead them to take part in the situations to feel the cultural differences. Moreover, at the same time, the students should be asked to be mindful, observe the interactions and conclude the reasons for the unsuccessful ones. Therefore, after much more interactions, the students may increase their predictability for the others behaviors when communicating with foreigners under the similar situations.With such measurement, the student can gain the knowledge of the group differences and further increase the predictability of the behaviors. In addition, through the class interaction, we can ask them to be mindful to observe the personal similarities and group differences in order to communicate appropriately and effectively.Secondly, many students do not dare to interact with others in that they are afraid of making mistakes, which stems from the emphasis of our education on the accurateness and correctness of the pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Therefore, we should make them be aware that during the practical interaction, it is not important to be correct and accurate in the use of grammar and they should put their attention on the communication skills and cultural differences. Thus, we can motivate them to communicate with regardless of the mistakes.Thirdly, in addition to the study of the foreign cultures, we should also strengthen students study about the traditional Chinese culture. Only with a good mastery of the Chinese culture, can the students further to understand other cultures. And based on the study of Chinese culture, the students can compare different cultures. Through comparing study, we can effectively increase the cultural sensibility of the students and therefore, increase their cross-cultural communication consciousness and equal communication consciousness.Another function of learning the traditional Chinese cultures is to sustain our self-conception. To sustain our self-conceptions is much more difficult when we communicate with strangers than when we communicate with members of our own groups. Schlenker explains that our self-conceptions are made up of the various identities we have and our theories of ourselves. (Schlenker: 1986) Therefore, our self-conceptions may influence how we communicate with strangers and the choices we make when we want to form relationships with others. J. H. Turner contends that we try to maintain our self-conceptions, even going to the point of using defense mechanisms to main our views of ourselves. (Turner: 1988) Our need for self-concept support may directly influence our communication.We have mentioned that finding the personal similarities is important while finding the similarities at the group level also works. Therefore, with a better understanding of our own culture, they can better obtain the similarities at the group level during the international communication. And the increased cultural sensibility can also make them be mindful to gather information of differences and similarities during the international communication.Fourthly, the ability to empathy is also an important component which may directly affect the quality and the effect of the communication. It mainly means that during the communication, the participants should consciously get rid of the national cultural stereotype and communicate with others with the viewpoint of another cultural stereotype in order to smoothly communicate. Therefore, they may avoid the conflicts during the communication.The ability to empathy is not an important ability in international communication, but an essential ability even in in-group communication.Fifthly, we should fully employ the Internet and various modern median to impart various aspects of other cultures to our students. We should encourage students to make friends with foreigners, widely read literatures, see various foreign films and listen to radios and songs to learn other cultures. Sixthly, the problem of misinterpreting strangers behaviors is compounded when we communicate with strangers because we tend to interpret strangers behavior on the bases of our own frames of references. Therefore, in the classes, the teachers should consciously give some lectures on the comparison study on the different meaning of words, different meaning of nonverbal behaviors and different meaning of speech acts between cultures. 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