由《喜福会》看中美文化差异和冲突

Cultural Gaps and Conflicts Between China and America from a Study of The Joy Luck Club 由《喜福会》看中美文化差异和冲突By Feng Die （冯蝶）Supervised by Associate Prof. Guo Xihua （郭锡华）Jiangnan University Wuxi Jiangsu China June 2007 ContentsAcknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………iAbstractampKey Word………………………………………………………..………………………ii1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………12. Analyzing the Cultural Gaps and Conflicts between China and America in Detail from a Studyof The Joy Luck Club……………………………………………………………………………….4 2.1. Different values…………………………………………………………………………….5 2.2 Different concepts of family………………………………………………………………..8 2.3 Different ways of speaking and behavior………………………………………………….123. Looking forward to the future of cultural differences between China and

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Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to my thesis supervisor Associate Prof. Guo Xihua. She not only guidesme to write this thesis in time but also provides me with useful reference materials. Without herpatient assistance and friendly encouragement it would not have been possible for me to completethis thesis in such a short period of time without reducing its scholarly quality. My special thanks should go to my friend Lee who has generously shared his referencematerials with me and exchanged ideas on this subject. I especially thank my family and myroommates who have supported me during my research on this topic. i Abstract amp Key Words Abstract: This paper mainly discusses different cultures. As a rule interculturalcommunication refers to the communication between people from different cultures. Underdifferent cultural circumstances there are tangi ble differences in people’s both values and modesof thinking. Consequently cultural gaps and conflicts are apt to come into being. From this pointof view this article intends to approach and analyze some concrete manifestations of differencesin Chinese and American cultures by means of the novel The Joy Luck Club which is

ChineseAmerican female novelist Amy Tan’s maiden work. This article can be divided into three parts.The writer of the paper tries to explain the definition of intercultural communication and similarlythe history of studying it in both China and America in the first part. It also chiefly passes onAmerican cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall’s theories with respect to interculturalcommunication. His most famous theory on high context and low context cultures is includedwhich has usually been adopted and cited by other experts to research into interculturalcommunication. In the meantime the brief introduction of the novel The Joy Luck Club is equallyhelpful for readers to better understand the reason why this novel is chosen to be as the analyticalsubject. The second part is to make good use of Hall’s theory on high context and low contextcultures to analyze the concrete manifestations of distinguishable cultures between China andAmerica. Firstly there are differences between Chinese and American values. Chinese cultureadvocates collectivism on the contrary American culture supports individualism. SecondlyChinese concept of family differs from American one. Chinese culture emphasizes traditional andconservative concept on the premise of collectivism while American culture stressescomparatively