《跨文化交际》课程自学材料

《跨文化交际》课程自学材料

Part One Defining Culture

一．讨论题

1. How do you think culture and communication are related?

2.What are the barriers you experienced in intercultural communication? And

how did you handle them?

3. Work in groups to decide which of the following belong to overt culture and which to covert:

A. What and how people eat

B. How to keep healthy

C. How to raise children

D. How to do business

E. How to use time

F. How to introduce people

G. How to participate in ceremonies

H. Rules for facial expressions and eye contact

I. Rituals

J. Etiquette

K. Work speed

L. What is right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, clean or dirty, good or bad, etc.

M. Theories of disease, sin, death, god or gods, sanity, self, etc.

4. Can you add more to the above list? Which of them do you think are more likely to cause problems in intercultural communication? And why do you think they are?

二、分析、解答题

Please read the following example (taken from Scollon & Scollon, 2000) and study how communication is affected by culture.

Two men meet on a plane from Tokyo to Hong Kong. Chu Hon-fei is a Hong Kong exporter who is returning from a business trip to Japan. Andrew Richardson is an American buyer on his first business trip to Hong Kong. It Is a convenient meeting for them because Mr. C hu‘s company sells some of the products Mr. Richardson has some to Hong Kong to buy. After a bit of conversation they introduce themselves to each other.

Mr. Richardson: By the way, I‘m Andrew Richardson. My friends call me Andy. This is my business card.

Mr. Chu: I‘m David Chu. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Richardson. This is my card.

Mr. Richardson: No, no. Call me Andy. I think we‘ll be doing a lot of business together.

Mr. Chu: Yes, I hope so.

Mr. Richardson (reading Mr. Chu‘s card ) : Chu, Hon-fei. Hon-fe i, I‘ll give you a call tomorrow as soon as I get settled at my hotel.

Mr Chu (smiling): Yes, I‘ll expect your call.

When these two men separate, they leave each other with very different impressions of the situation. Mr. Richardson is very pleased to have made the acquaintance of Mr. Chu and feels they have gotten off to a very good start. They have established their relationship on a first-name basis and Mr. Chu‘s smile seems to

indicate that he will be friendly and easy to do business with. Mr. Richardson is very particularly pleased that he has treated Mr. Chu with respect for his Chinese background by calling him Hon-fei rather than using the western name, David, which seems to him an unnecessary imposition of western culture.

In contrast, Mr. Chu feels quite uncomfortable with Mr. Richardson. He feels it will be difficult to work with him, and that Mr. Richardson might be rather insensitive to cultural differences. He is particularly bothered that Mr. Richardson used his given name, Hon-fei, instead of either David or Mr. Chu.

How do you account for their different impressions? Does culture play a role in the communication between these two men?

(You may turn to 跨文化交际自学参考答案)

三、思考题：

1. We have learned some characteristics of culture. For example, culture is learned. Culture can be learned through diverse ways, proverbs being one of them. Now study the following proverbs and decide what value(s) they represent, which of them are still strong in the American culture and the Chinese culture respectively, and which don’t apply any longer.

Proverbs

1.Blood is thicker than water.

2.Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

3.Too many cooks spoil the broth.

4.The early bird catches the worm.

5.God helps those who help themselves.

6.Haste makes waste.

7.Time is money.

8. A man‘s home is his castle.

9.Think three times before you take action.

10.Modesty makes you progress; conceitedness makes you lag behind.

(You may turn to 跨文化交际自学参考答案)

2. Read the following and think about the questions:

Some years ago, several international businessmen were on a conference cruise when the ship began to sink. ―Go tell those fellows to put on life jackets and jump overboard,‖ the captain dir ected his first mate.

A few minutes later the first mate returned. ―Those guys won‘t jump,‖ he

reported.

―Take over,‖ the captain ordered, ―And I‘ll see what I can do.‖

Returning moments later, he announced, ―They‘re gone.‖

―How‘d you do it?‖ asked the fir st mate.

―I told different things to different people. I told the Englishman it was the sporting thing to do, and he jumped. I told the Frenchman it was _____; the German that it was a command; the Italian that it was ______; the Russian that it was _____; so they jumped overboard.‖

―And how did you get the American to jump?‖

―No problem,‖ said the captain, ―I told him he was ______!‖

Questions:

1) Can you decide to whom each of the following words was actually used by the captain?

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