跨文化交际期末复习例文

跨文化交际课程期末复习

Communication Analysis

Case 1:

Mr. Smith is a director of a small private company. Now he is interviewing candidates for the position of assistant manager. He selected a bright and ambitious applicant. Later, he discovered that this applicant was from the country Levadel (a fictitious country). Since he thinks that all Levadelians are stupid and lazy, he has decided to select someone else for the position.

Answer for reference

This case reflects one of the barriers of intercultural communication---- prejudice. Prejudice refers to the irrational dislike, suspicion, or hatred of a particular group, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Prejudice involves an unfair, biased, or intolerant attitude towards another group of people. The attitude of the boss just had the prejudice towards the applicant.

Case 2

Wang Jie is an excellent doctor in a big traditional Chinese medicine hospital in Hangzhou. Mike is his newly-made American friend who came to China to learn traditional Chinese acupuncture only two months ago. Last month, Wang Jie was promoted as deputy director of the hospital. Hearing the good news, Mike suggested going out for a drink. But to his great surprise, Wang Jie told him that he had declined the promotion. When asked why, Wang J ie took two Chinese sayings “人怕出名，猪怕壮” and “树大招风”in broken English as the response, which made Mike even more puzzled.

Question : Would you help Wang Jie by interpreting the two Chinese sayings properly and providing fuller explanations for his declining the promotion?

Answer for reference

1)“人怕出名，猪怕壮”means that people are afraid of being popular or famed just as the pig is afraid of being fat. As a fat pig is readily to be killed by the man, a popular person is easily to criticized by the public.2)“树大招风”mean that a big tree is easily destroyed by the wind. Just like the big tree, a famous person will be easily exposed to the public criticism.3) Mike comes from America, which tends to be defined as individualist culture. In his culture, people value independence and try to unique rather than similar to others. As a result, they do not fear the actions that call attention to the self; in fact they often seek the notice of others. While in collectivist culture, great importance is attached to the uniformity i nstead of uniqueness. Going one’s own way is not favored and would even arouse criticism from the others. People are afraid

of being different from the others. Since Wang Jie is a Chinese, whose culture is usually regarded as collectivist-oriented, he is afraid of being unique. To be promoted deputy director means not only responsibility but also uniqueness and fame. Although he is an excellent doctor, probably he doesn’t want to be more famous by being deputy director with the fear that a famous person tends to be the target of criticism and be easily found fault with, just as the fat pig and big tree would first take risk of losing their lives.

Case 3

Li Lan had an American friend Susan. They usually had lunch together and Li Lan often asked Susan for advice on problems she faced adjusting to American society. Susan gave Li Lan a lot of advice and helped her to improve her English. Once Li Lan needed urgently a big sum of money to pay her tuition fee. Since she has no other friends in the States, she turned to Susan for help and promised that she would return the money soon.

To Li Lan’s great disappointment, this time Susan didn’t seem happy to lend the money to her. Though Li Lan returned the money as she promised, they didn’t get along well from then on.

Answer for reference

Li Lan asked to borrow money from her American friend Susan, which is rarely part of Western friendship. Li Lan and Susan have different expectations of friendship.

In the West, people prefer to be independent and equal rather than dependent, so they don't feel comfortable in a relationship in which one person gives more and the other person is dependent on what is given. Among friends they mostly provide emotional support to each other and spend time together, so they rarely borrow or lend money to each other. They would ask for a loan from the bank rather than from their friends. While in China, people expect their friends to be loyal to each other, and they even take risks for their friends. So they would give not only emotional support to each other but also concrete help to each other, such as helping to find a job, solving a problem, or even giving money to help one out over along period of time. So when a friend is in need, the first person he or she wants to ask for help is naturally his/her friend.

Case 4

Jim and Li Zhen were students together at Leeds University in Britain. A year later, after graduating, Jim went to Shanghai as a visiting scholar on a year’s exchange.

Jim had never been to China before. Li Zhen took him to a classical piano concert performed by a famous Chinese pianist. During the performance people were talking and at one stage someone ran up onto the stage and presented the pianist with a bunch of flowers during the playing of a particular musical item. This happened several times during the evening. It also happened when two singers were on stage singing some songs that he was playing. Jim thought all these things quite strange. At the end of the performance the audience applauded the pianist and he applauded them. The