武汉大学硕士英语口语考试话题之跨文化交流

Stumbling Blocks in International Communication

The six stumbling blocks are assumption of similarities, language difference, nonverbal misinterpretations, presence of preconceptions and stereotypes, the practice of immediate evaluation, and the high anxiety.

A: Hello, Jeremy! I didn’t see you last week. What were you doing?

B: Oh, hello, Tylor! My advisor, Scott, came to China last week and I accompanied with him the whole week.

A: So your advisor is a foreigner? Where is he from?

B: He comes from Australia, and we communicate in English.

A: Wow, that’s pretty cool! Is that difficult for you? I know you can speak English quiet well, but there may be still some stumbling blocks in cross-cultural communication.

B: Yes, yes, you’re right. Even though I can speak English, the language difference is still the biggest barrier in our communication. V ocabulary, syntax, idioms, slang, dialects, and so on all cause difficulty. Scott said that, I clang to just one meaning of a word or phrase in English, regardless of context. And it’s so difficult for me to understand the different meanings of inflection and tonal variations.

A: Yes, that’ it. I know the simple translation of foreign words will cause misunderstanding easily. For example, an English person asks a Chinese person ‘You don’t like our English food, do you?’ The Chinese person

wants to say that he likes the English food and he will say, ‘No, no, I like it!’ Then the English person will be confused whether the Chinese person like the English food.

B: Yes, I know that always happens. How do you think we can remove the barriers in international communication?

A: I think we must communicate with people whose mother tongue is English as much as possible to learn real English.

B: Yes. And we can also see some English movies to learn how to speak authentic English.

A: Yes. I love to talk with you. Hope we can talk about how to learn English next time.

B: Ok, see you later!

A: See you!