Cross-cultural Comparative Study of Complaint between Family Members in Chinese and American Sitcoms

Cross-cultural Comparative Study of Complaint between Family Members in Chinese and American Sitcoms福建师范大学协和学院外语系英语专业12402200500××××指导教师×××[Abstract] With the increasing international communication, the cultivation of cross-cultural communicative competence becomes increasingly important. Complaint is frequently used in people's daily communication. However, in today's society with globalization speeding up, people with different cultural backgrounds have different understanding of complaint. In this paper, the author makes a cross-cultural comparative study of complaint between family members in Chinese and American sitcoms ands reveal cultural differences that hidden under this verbal behavior phenomenon so as to help people improve the cross-cultural communicative competence effectively.[Key words] complaint; Chinese; American sitcoms1. IntroductionComplaint, which has been studied from many perspectives both in English speaking countries and China, is a common linguistic concept as well as a cultural and social phenomenon. At home and abroad, complaint has been studied in plenty of fields, such as sociology, anthropology, socio-linguistics, and pragmatics. However, there have been few comprehensive and systematical comparative studies of complaint between American and Chinese sitcoms, and this thesis is an attempt of this orientation. It first explores the differences of complaint between American and Chinese sitcoms from many perspectives. What is more, the thesis will go deep into the mind of the people and the culture of the two languages by analyzing American and Chinese complaint. This thesis will offer a special perspective for researchers who are interested in complaint and different American and Chinese cultures revealed in it.2. Different complaint between family members in Chinese and American SitcomsGood Luck Charlie is an American television sitcom airing on Disney Channel in the United States of America. The series was created by Phil Baker and Drew Vaupen, who wanted to create a program that would appeal to entire families, as opposed to children only. Among other decisions, executives included adult-centric scenes and changed the series' title from Love, Teddy to Good Luck Charlie in order to ensure the series would appeal to all family members.Gabe: What's going on?Teddy: Ever since the baby arrived, everyone's been ignoring me. I feel like I'm invisible. I'm just the loser middle kid...The conversation between Teddy and Gabe took place after Gabe ate Mrs. Dabney's food secretly since nobody made supper for him. As Gabe's sister, Teddy was called to bring him home. Gabe who was usually so joyful now seemed depressed and told Teddy nobody paid attention to him since Charlie arrived.Three Children in One Family is China’s famous sitcom, which is mainly famous for it use of humor. Here, this sitcom is used to analyze the complaint.For example:夏雪：你说谁呢？刘星：谁臭美我说谁呗！夏雨：你说谁是臭狗屎！刘星：我说你是。

In this case, there is total refusal to acknowledge the complaint, in so far as the complainee does not even agree to consider that the act or behavior in question is worth blaming. Since the complainces never realize that their actions have displeased the complainers, or the complainees have realized their offensive acts, but are reluctant to make changes, this rejection of the complaints is not good for establishing successful communication between interlocutors.For example: 夏雨:我不干了！你一会左一会右，让我怎么找啊？This can be explained by the fact that intimates both in English and Chinese can complain directly without the need of bearing around the bush. This complaint may be globalization because of which the sitcoms in China try imitating the style andlanguage of the American sitcoms.For eample: 刘星：姐，你说这大过年的咱俩何必呢？The discussion in this part indicates that structures of the act of complaining in the two families are mostly alike with slight distinction.3. The different cultural implication of complaintA cross-cultural comparative study of complaint between family members in Chinese and American sitcoms is conducted and the author reveals cultural differences that hidden under this verbal behavior phenomenon so as to help people improve the cross-cultural communicative competence effectively.3.1 Different pattern of thoughtPattern of thought, as a technical term, does not mean information or knowledge but an activity in this context. It is a rather complex structure. In this structure, language is its superficial expression, beneath which is the layer of feelings and wills; and underneath this layer is people’s attitudes towards the outside world which exist in the form of subconscious behaviors. The concreteness of thought employed by Chinese people is an “informal logic”without form that is abstract. It is free from abstractness of western formal analysis. Concreteness is a concentration of all life and an effectiveness of thought. So many Chinese advertisers, in order to make their advertisements attractive and splendid, use the part of speech, metaphor and flowery language to polish their advertisements.Language usage follows culturally determined patterns, which not only influence the order in which people use words to form phrases, but also influence thinking. In general, American-speaking people have a linear way of thinking, and they are good at analyzing and reasoning. To be exact, their articles usually with a topic sentence pointing out the main idea of the passage straightforwardly. To make a sharp contrast, Chinese people have a spiral way of thinking, and they are good at imagining and intuiting. The theme of a Chinese article is elaborated not directly but in a circuitous way. It often starts with something that does not seem directly related to its subject. Step by step, its theme becomes clear and understandable through a gradual disclosure. Such a cultural contrast is also reflected in their respective advertisements. The Asianmode of communication is often indirect and implicit, whereas Western communication tends to be direct and explicit --that is, everything needs to be stated. Westerners are more prone to making very explicit statements and have little capability with nonverbal forms of expression. Western patterns of thought are elementally linear ones. Contents of the American advertisements are quite clear at a glance.3.2 Different valuesFormally, a value is defined as an ending belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to another. Values are the learned organizations of rules for making choices and for resolving conflicts. These “rules” and guideposts are normative and teach us what is useful, good, right, wrong, what to strive for, how to live our life, and even what to die for. One of its most basic dimensions is the value placed on individualism versus collectivism, an aspect of culture employed in many studies. Hofstede has argued that the difference in the individualism-collectivism dimension represents one of the prime distinctions between Chinese and western cultures. Cultural reality can be expressed, embodied and symbolized by language.Under the impact of Ren and Li in the East and individualism in the West, two entirely different interpersonal relationships, collectivism and individualism exist between these two hemispheres of the globe. Collectivism pertains to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s life-time continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. Individualism as its opposite pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family.As mentioned above, Ren, the most important principle underlying almost all aspects of the people’s life in the Chinese context, deals with relationship, which is the most important characteristic in the collectivist societies. Obviously, relationship must be the predominant value in China. As a matter of fact, every person, ever since he or she was born, was placed into complex and orderly warps and woofs ofhierarchical relationships. Though people’s social status may be unequal, they are equally essential in making the whole society operate.Relationship is almost something people in the West would expect last as they emphasize the importance of individualism over the importance of relationship. In the West, people lay importance on “I” rather than on “We”. Given n ame comes first in the West, only thereafter is family surname added, while in China, where family is the basic unit of the social structure, family surname comes and only thereafter comes the given name. Individual identity, individual rights, individual needs are emphasized over “We” identity and the interest of the group or in-group, and obligations and commitment. As some scholars have pointed out, there is only one principle in the West that regulates interpersonal relationship and that is individualism. The core building block of individualism is the collective unconsciousness of “autonomous self”. Unlike connected self or “we” orientation, individualism tends to dispose each member of the community to serve himself from the mass of his fellows and to draw apart with his family and his friends, so that after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself. Almost every American believes that “God helps those that help themselves.” In this light, dependence or interdependence accompanied by obligations and responsibilities valued in China is absolutely devalued or despised as they may be regarded as threats to self-autonomy and freedom of action or individual rights. Because of the culture background, people in western counties usually pay much attention to individuals that is also reflected in the complaint.4. The Significance of Comparative Analysis of American and Chinese ComplaintThe studies on complaint have already aroused interests among many scholars and linguists since long time ago. Based on the fruits of the forerunners, further studies on this linguistic phenomenon tend to be going on. With the knowledge of pragmatics as the theoretical basis, this thesis aims at conducting a contrastive analysis on the complaint between American and Chinese mainly from theperspectives of situational and cultural contexts. Complaint as a universal phenomenon are formed in all languages and cultures, but it does not mean that the presence or use of taboo could be conformably accepted by all people involved in, because they are deeply embedded in social values and cultural backgrounds of heterogeneous societies. Differences in complaint reflect the particular customs and views of different societies. As is known to all, language is an indispensable carrier of culture. Culture finds a better representation through language use. Thus studying similarities and differences in complaint between American and Chinese sitcoms inevitably involves the perceptive analysis of the cultural context.5. ConclusionComplaint is so widely used in communication in every culture. It is a must for people to know and study them if they want to know and understand the culture. The differences of people employing complaint make the learning of a language and its culture more difficult. Some complaint in a culture that seem to be easy and simple for people from that cultural background may be incomprehensible and strange to people from another culture, because different cultural patterns, social values, and aesthetic standards are reflected in the language, and accordingly, complaint. Complaint is greatly influence by social values of each culture. Different complaint in American and Chinese sitcoms mirror the great differences between the social values of American and Chinese culture. Although significant a lot of common features of complaints are shared by the two cultures differences between them must draw our attention if we want to better understand the uniqueness of social values of the two cultures. Complaint, as such a widely employed way of communication, plays a significant role in the success of cross-culture communication. I hope this thesis may people's attention to the importance of complaint in language and arouse their interest in the study of complaint in cross-culture researches.ReferencesDai Weidong, He Zhaoxiong, Hua Jun. 1989. A Concise Course on Linguistics for Students of English. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Educational Press.Lu Sheng.1990. Language and Culture. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Educational Press. Lin Yutang. 2000. The importance of American English and American Culture. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.Ronald Wardhaugh.1898. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. New York: Basil Blackwell Ltd.230-231.Olshtain, E. 1993. Interlanguage Features of the Speech Act of Complaining. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Osterhammel Jurgen. 2005. Globalization: a short history. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rose, K. 1994. On Validity of Discourse Completion Tests in Non-western Contexts. Applied Linguistics, (15).Chen Jianping[陈建平]，2005，《中国英语学习研究》。