跨文化交际

1.Culture refers to the total way of living of particular groups of people. It includes everything

that a group of people think, say, do, and make.

munication generally refers to the process in which participants create and share

information with one another as they move toward reaching mutual understanding.

3.Intercultural communication generally refers to the communication between culturally

diverse people

4.Value represents a kind of principle or standard. That means it can serve as a kind of guide. It

is applied in every aspect of our life, not just limited to a specific field or to a certain category of things. Value is normative: it sets norms.

5.Among the most influential and pioneering research has been work carried out by Harvard

professors Kluckholn and Strodtbeck during the mid-twentieth century. They selected 5 communities in the Southwest and conducted a study of their differing values. The results of the study appeared in their book Variations in Value Orientations (1961). They suggested that members of all cultural groups must answer, consciously or unconsciously, the following important questions:

What is human nature?

What is the relationship between humans and nature?

What is the relationship between humans?

What is the preferred personality?

What is the orientation toward time?

According to Kluckholn and Strodtbeck, there are three possible responses to each question as they relate to shared values. (See Table 4.1)

Human nature Basically good Mixture of good

and evil

Basically evil

Relationship between humans and nature Humans dominate Harmony Nature

dominates

Relationship between

humans

Individual Group oriented Collateral Preferred personality Doing Growing Being

Time orientation Future oriented Present oriented Past oriented

6.Based on his survey of over 88000 employees of IBM, a large multinational business

organization with branches in 66 countries, Dutch scientist Geert Hofstede identified four dimensions that drive cultural differences: individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity-femininity.

7.Stereotype, a perception process, is a form of generalization about some group of people.

8.Culture shock: Troublesome feelings such as depression, loneliness, confusion, inadequacy,

hostility, frustration, and tension, caused by the loss of familiar cues from the home culture 9.Denotation: the direct, explicit meaning or reference of a word or term.