跨文化交流英语intercultural communication

Intercultural communications are essential in the era of

globalization

HUKai-jun,NO.M060113103

(Shanghai University Of Engineering Science,Automotive engineering,Shanghai201620)

With the rapid development of our modern society,more and more people come to attach a great importance to intercultural communication,especially in the era of globalization.It is not only in china but also all over the world.But what is the definition of intercultural communication?It refers to the communication between different cultural backgrounds.If you talk with your American teacher,intercultural communication takes place.

Culture is notoriously difficult to define. In1952,the American anthropologists,Kroeber and Kluckhohn,critically reviewed concepts and definitions of culture,and compiled a list of164different definitions.Apte(1994:2001), writing in the ten-volume Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics,summarizes the problem as follows:‗Despite a century of efforts to define culture adequately,there was in the early1990s no agreement among anthropologists regarding its nature.‘Despite these problems,I propose the following definition:Culture is a fuzzy set of attitudes, beliefs,behavioral conventions,and basic assumptions and values that are shared by a group of people,and that influence each member‘s behavior and each member‘s interpretations of the‗meaning‘of other people‘s behavior.This definition draws attention to a number of issues.Firstly,culture is manifested at different layers of depth, ranging from inner core basic assumptions and values,through outer core attitudes,beliefs and social conventions,to surface-level behavioral manifestations.

Personally I thingk Culture is what we share with some but not with all other people;it is common to people belonging to a certain group or category,but different from people belonging to other groups or categories.In our life,culture is everywhere and determines how we usually behave.It includes the language in which we express ourselves,the way we raise our children,the deference we show to our elders,the physical distance from other people we maintain in order to feel comfortable,and the way we perceive general human activities such as eating,making love,having a conversation,forming a friendship with someone,etc.and the ceremonials surrounding them.

I ntercultural communication is not new.It has existed as long as people from different cultures have been encountering one another. As intercultural contacts have increased both here and abroad,people have accepted that cultural diversity has become a fact of life. Only during the last30years,however,have people begun a serious and systematic study of exactly what happens during intercultural contacts.They now want to know how cultural diversity is reflected when people come together,when the communication process involves people from different cultures.Perhaps the initial impetus for the study of intercultural communication was the recognition that technology has produced the means for humankind‘s self-destruction.Historically, intercultural communication,more often than not,has employed a rhetoric of force rather