如何进行有效的跨文化交际

How can we reduce cross-cultural misunderstanding in verbal and non-verbalcommunication?Abstract:With the development of globalization, the chance of encountering foreigner is increasing. However, the different culture form the different mind. As a result, it’s easy for interlocutor to make misunderstanding with each other. The aim of paper is discuss the major reasons for misunderstanding and some suggestions of reduce cross-cultural misunderstanding and hope to help someone who wants to dealing with foreigners. This paper first of all will introduce the basic cross-cultural constitution. Then it will talk about three major reasons from culture and finally mention two good habit of cross-cultural communication.Keywords:cross-cultural communication, reason, suggestionIntroductionCross-cultural communication means any communication between people who differ in language and cultural background. In other words, if you are dealing with foreigners, you should pay attention to what should be notice and how to communicate appropriately base on differences in language and cultural background. And with the strengthen of our country, cross-culture communication is more common. L.S.H. arms thought, communication in the world has gone through five stages: the production of language; The use of words; The invention of printing technology; The rapid development of transportation and means of communication in the past 100 years; Intercultural communication. As a English major students, intercultural communication not only improve our skills, but also widening our vision.Reasons from cultureThe first reason is individualist cultures and collectivist cultures. An individualist culture is one in which people tend to view themselves as individuals and to emphasize the needs of individuals. And collectivist culture is one in which people tend to be view themselves as members of groups(families, work units, tribes, nations), and usually consider the needs of the group to be more important than the needs of individual. So westerner tend to be individualist. They more believe in themselves than others, and rely on themselves as much as possible. Meanwhile, they wish others do the same as them. For example, when they got in trouble, theymay not hope to get help from others, even parents or classmates. But in China, people tend to feel them have an obligation to help others of their group. We all know that Westerners view the privacy important. It also is an expression of individualist. In addition, individualist is usually not willing to accept responsibility for something another member of their group has done. In contrast, people in collectivist tend to feel more that they are representatives of their groups, and to accept more responsibility for what other members of their groups do. In china, individualism means selfishness, is negative connotation. But it has no negative connotation in English. In this way, Chinese like to give suggestion to others and think it’s thoughtful behavior. But Westerner won’t accept it. Because they may think it’s none of your business.The second reason is high context and low context. Low context means that people are expected to pay more attention to the words used in communication than to the context in which things are said. High context is people are expected to pay much attention to the context in which communication take place - who the speaker is, where and when the conversation is taking place, body language, and so forth -and when people interrupt what others mean, they often give more weight to the context than to the actual words said. In China, communication is implicit and people pay attention to indirect communication. Chinese people emphasize social harmony and does not express their feelings directly. They also disdain the verbal aggression. However, Westerner tend to put most of their ideas and feeling into words,and then state these ideas and feelings plainly and openly. The direct example is they like to begin paragraph with a “topic sentence” that states the point of the paragraph. The interesting conflict in my mind is if a Westerner asks Chinese to do something and Chinese says “I’ll think it over”, the westerner will assume the answer is “yes”, but this means “no”.The last reason is tight culture and loose culture. Tight culture expect a relatively high degree of conformity. Loose culture, in contrast, don’t demand a high degree of conformity. There is a widely range of views as to what is considered normal behavior. And even if they don’t like the way someone acts or lives, they tend to tolerate it, instead of criticizing it or surprising. For example, there are many more right-handed people than left-handed ones, so the left-handed people are different. In loose culture, children who favour their left hand are generally not encouraged to use their right-hand. Whereas, in tight cultures children who favour their left hand are encouraged or forced to use their right hand.Suggestions of reduce cross-cultural misunderstanding In my opinion, for one thing, we should build the habit of consciously making an effort to avoid stereotypes. The points I mentioned earlier also is a stereotypes about foreigner actually. Some conclusion may help us understand some thing quickly, but people is different from thing. Conclusion represent many people but not everyone applies to the conclusion. Conclusion is a first step, and we need to get into the habit of thinking about other cultures in a more nuanced way. After of all, we can’t justsatisfied with knowing a few simple conclusion about other cultures. For another, we also should build the habit of making a conscious effort not to judge other culture to quickly. Because when you interpret the behaviors of foreigner, you don’t have enough background to help you understand their behavior, so you have to guess or use your imagination much more. if you judge foreigners’ behavior quickly, without thinking carefully and getting as much information as possible, it’s very likely that your comment will be at least partially wrong. So we’d better think more consciously and carefully about the intercultural communication.Bibliography:[1] Greet, Hofestede. Cuture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values[M]. Newbury park:Sage Publications, 1984.[2] Don, Snow. Encounters with Westerners: Improving Skills in English and Intercultural Communication[M]. Shanghai :Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2014.[3] Hall, Edward. Beyond Culture[M]. New York:Doubleday, 1976.。