跨文化交际的特点

The Major Features of Intercultural Communication

Communication is the process of understanding and sharing meaning. It occurs whenever information is exchanged between a sender and a receiver. Sending signals of one kind or another is inevitable. And the process of sending and receiving message is complex. What a signal means to the sender is not always what it means to the receiver. Therefore, the trick is to transmit appropriate information to appropriate receivers at appropriate times.

Communication is a symbolic behavior. And the most important mode of communication is verbal. Language is a highly developed symbolic system of human communication. As a most basic element of culture, language is the means, by which culture is transmitted from generation to generation and a person’s language greatly influences how he or she perceives the world.

The major features of communication inclouds:

https://www.360docs.net/doc/3a5240750.html,munication is symbolic

Human communication is symbolic. We employ symbols as a way of sharing our internal states. The ability to produce and use symbols enables human beings to share their internal status and infer what another human being is experiencing, thus distinguishing human beings with other animals. Symbols are at the core of communication, but no symbol means the same thing to everyone, because different cultures often employ different symbols and usually assign special meaning to them. For example, dragon has been taken as totem by Chinese for thousands of years, it represents a kind of powerful and propitious animal, although it may never really exist. However, in western cultures, dragon is a kind of fierce and evil animal. Therefore, many people insist that we should not translate “龙” into “dragon”, since

the two symbols represents totally different things.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/3a5240750.html,munication can be intentional and unintentional behavior Communication takes place whenever people attach meaning to messages, even if the sender of the message does not expect his or her actions to be considered part of the communication event. Just like the Chinese phrase—“言者无心，听者有意”, so being aware that your actions convey many potential messages is very important when engaging in intercultural communication.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/3a5240750.html,munication has a consequence

Communication influences other people whether we intend it to be or not. This feature of communication—communication has a consequence—means that when we receive a message, something happens to us. It also means that all of our messages, in one degree or another, do something to someone else. We cannot send message without influencing other people.

4. Communication is dynamic

Communication is a behavioral process. It is not static. Communication is dynamic

like a motion picture, not a single snapshot. What is said can not be unsaid and what is done cannot be undone. Communication is irreversible and unrepeatable. It is very important to realize that communication is dynamic. And when we send signals to others, we’d better think thrice before we act in order not to cause any trouble that can not be made up.

5. Communication is contextual and governed by rules

Context is a key element in both communication and culture. Communication is contextual. Messages exchange always takes place in specific and definable location, not in a vacuum. Different context call for different modes of behavior. The regulations for each context are culturally based. Since communication is contextual and governed by rules, we should never imagine everyone behaves in the same way as we do. And when the context or culture changes, the mode of our behavior must change at the same time. That is what is called “When in Rome do as the Romans do.”

As for culture, it is a complex, abstract, and pervasive matrix of social elements that functions as an all encompassing form or pattern for living by laying out a predictable world in which all individual is firmly oriented. It enables us to make sense of our surroundings, aiding the transition from the womb to this new life. There are three aspects of culture: material life such as material things, essential for human survival; social life such as lifestyles, social organizations, and political and economic relations; and spiritual life such as religion, philosophy, value system, science and art.

The major features of culture are as follows:

1. Culture is not innate, but learned.

As animals, all of us must eat, drink, sleep, find shelter, give and receive affection, and meet all of the other biologic requirements that flesh is heir to. But what we eat when we eat and how we eat are all behaviors we have learned from the groups in which we have grown up. Not only the language we speak and the way we think, but even what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell are conditioned by the culture in which we have been raised.

It is not difficult to find that culture is not innate but learned. When we leave our hometown or any certain culture that we have been very familiar with, and then enter another culture, we will find many things new or strange. But soon we can accustom ourselves to the new circumstance. That is because we can learn the new culture very quickly. I am often amazed by we human being’s ability to adjust to the dynamic circumstances. Whatever obstacle or even disaster, we are able to overcome it.

2. Various facets of culture are interrelated.

Culture is composed of many different facets, such as religion, philosophy, science, art, etc. They are related to each other, they influence each other and interact.

3.Culture is invisible.

This feature of culture suggests that bulk of culture is invisible. That is what is termed as “hidden dimensions”. Culture influences us from the very day we were born but we are rarely conscious of many messages that we are receiving. Members of a culture learn the perceptions, rules, and behavior of the membership without being

aware of it.

We not only learn the cultural behavior below the level of consciousness, but also perform them almost habitually, automatically. Though there is certain conscious learning, we learn the bulk of our culture at the unconscious level. The unconsciousness of the cultural behavior in both its acquisition and expression is an important dimension for intercultural communication because it presents hidden behaviors.

4. Culture is dynamic.

Culture changes continuously over time. It seldom remains still. Taking fashion for example, it changes sooner than the weather. However, the fact that culture is dynamic does not mean culture has no fixed content. Chinese culture has a history as long as thousands of years, time passed, but many facets of culture have survived, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, poems of Tang Dynasty, Chinese characters, etc. They become our classic culture.

5. Culture is ethnocentric.

Ethnocentrism is “a habitual disposition to judge foreign peoples or groups by the standards and practices of one’s own culture or ethnic group and a tendency toward viewing alien cultures with disfavor and resulting a sense of inherent superiority”.Like culture itself, ethnocentrism is not innate. It is learned. Many languages teach a certain degree of ethnocentrism.

It is not difficult to find that people tend to regard their own culture as superior to others. This is why we have capitalist camp and socialist camp in politics, while in language, we are very proud that Chinese is spoken by the largest population and more and more foreigners start learning it; most of the Frenchman can speak English very well, still they think their own language French is most beautiful in the world; Japanese are always proud of their own culture…

Ethnocentrism can be good, because our unique culture is part of our life, we should never forget or give up our own culture. It can alse be bad. The whole world is composed of various different cultures, which is what makes it colorful and fascinating. If some cultures are neglected or contempted, we may lose them for ever. We should allow various cultures to co-exist.

Having realized the major features of communication and culture, we can see how culture influences our interaction with people of different cultural groups, and we can learn to predict and solve possible problems in intercultural communication. Intercultural communication can be easy for us as long as we increase our

cross-cultural awareness.