The importance of cross-cultural communication in learning a second language.
Abstract
As the development of globalization，more and more people have opportunities to communicate with each other from diverse cultural background．Therefore, it is essential to understand some cultural factors which affect the interaction among people. This paper first point out the importance of cross-cultural communication. Then point out the cultural differences in learning a second language and explore the causes of the phenomenon of cultural differences.Then tell the method of eliminate barriers to cross-cultural, point out the principles, strategies, cultural sensitivity and others
Key words:cross-cultural, communication, language, similarities, differences, eliminate barriers
Content
Ⅰ、Importance of cross-cultural communication (4)
Ⅱ、Cultural differences in learning a second language (5)
(一) Some cultural differences and conflict in learning a second language (5)
(二) Explore the causes of the phenomenon of cultural differences (7)
Ⅲ、Method of eliminate barriers to cross-cultural and Strategies in learn thesecond language (8)
（一）P rinciples (8)
（二）S trategies in learning a second language (9)
（三）C ultural sensitivity (9)
（四）O thers (10)
V、Conclusion (10)
VI、References (10)
Ⅰ、Importance of cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication refers to communication between people with different cultural backgrounds, namely what was going on between people of different cultural backgrounds interact. With the development of social economy, people who have different cultural backgrounds between the cooperation more and more frequent. Modern society with its advanced technology has brought businessmen considerably closer and more opportunities for doing business with each other. People in Eastern countries watch the movies produced by the west; while the Western consumers wear clothes made in the eastern countries. As a consequence, cross-cultural communication is become more and more important in our life.
Communication is an important mean of expressing yourself because it exists different ways of expression and so different kind of communication depending on the culture you belonging to.
The way of communicating will not be the same as other countries and it is important to know some values of other cultures and so of other ways of communicating for, first of all, avoiding some misunderstandings and then knowing better some aspects of different cultures. Language is a tool for human communication, so people cannot leave the language of communication in business. The language differences also brought some obstacles to the business communication. Sentences and word standard features determines the differences of syntactic structure between Chinese and English. In addition, there are differences between Chinese and western in the way of thinking.
That is why cross-cultural communication is an essential exercise to do; a person who come from a certain country does not necessarily get the same ideas about time, death, identity, as the other one from a different country because each person has its own identity .
First, a national identity, defined by a surname, a first name, citizenship, and a "personal" identity perceived as what are your activities, your opinions about issues or your experience in life .
Sometimes, your own identity can be modified or influenced by different factors, for example religion, your environment, your family.
The latter example seems to be a paradox because you can get your own opinions about something but you can be "influenced" by your familial surrounding or the society where you live(especially some notions that parents and even society teach you when you are a child, as patriotism or nationalism) .
This influence can replace your previous vision of life and changing your way of expressing yourself and so your way of communicating but you can also adapt this
influence to your own way of thinking and it can be resulted in a different way of communicating .
In spite of a certain influence coming from a close surrounding, everyone can develop its own identity through its opinions and experience and this is interesting to notice that even within a close group of people, each person get different identities which are expressed through diverse means of communication .
Intercultural communication. As globalization and localization intensify in every corner of the world, however, the field is increasingly confronted by more fundamental issues of identity, community, and humanity. In effect, intercultural communication is the only way to mitigate identity politics, social disintegration, religious conflicts, and ecological vulnerability in the global village. Human survival and flourishing depends on our ability to communicate successfully across differences.
II、Cultural differences in learning a second language
(一)S ome cultural differences and conflict in learning a second language
1.Greeting.
In China, meet acquaintances greeting, often said: “where you go?””where to eat? “ If these greetings from literal translation into English, American or British people may be at a loss and confusion, may also cause misunderstanding. They believe It’s none of your business, American people greeting generally use “Good mo rn ing”, “How do you do”, etc. Between close people say "Hello" with Hello or Hi.
https://www.360docs.net/doc/185083119.html,. “Xiao Zhang” “Xiao l i” that call in Chinese seem to be very kind, commonly used “eldest brother” “elder sister” not to two English, Chinere old man naturally accept the called like “old zhang”“old Li”, but British and Amer ican old man is not used. English name generally a first-name basis, some call in Chinese it seems perverse, rude, no education such as children don't call grandparents “grandpa and grandma”, but a first-name basis.In Chinese, we can use the word such as teacher, manager and surname even used as a salutation, whereas in English can't say the teacher zhang, engineer Wu, etc. Commonly used in our English class “Good morning teacher” is not quite correct, because the teacher is a kind of professional in Engli sh, is generally not used as a name, should be “Good morning Sir/Madam”.
3.Privacy conflict. Chinese people’s concept of privacy is weak, they think personal belonging to the collective, with exquisite work relations, care about each other, very willing to understand other people's ups and downs, each other are also willing to be honesty. While westerners very pay attention to personal privacy, pay attention to personal space, don't want to too much to mention their own things to
others. Chinese people often ask each other's age, marital status and children occupation and even income in first met, but in English culture, age, address, work unit of marriage and family income situation faith topic belongs to the category of personal privacy, such as taboo others asked.
4.The conflict on aspects of the praise and congratulations. We pay attention to modest in communication when low statue of people, when faced with praise or congratulations, even in the heart glad, it is inevitable that the modest self-denigration has a mouth, which symbolizes modesty polite, think modesty is a virtue, not is disrespect for others. In the west, when people are praised and will be glad to have a chance to say 'thank you to accept. When westerners heard Chinese so no others praise or hear about the denial of their own achievements, even belittle yourself, they will feel very surprised, think Chinese people don't honest, will misunderstand each other question there judgment.
5.Catering customs differences. Hospitality of the Chinese nation, often in communication occasions cigarettes toast each other, even if a table delicacies with, master always speak a few words of many forgives pleasantries such as owners sometimes use chopsticks to the guest's bowl clip vegetables, use for ways to persuade guests to eat more food to drink more. In western countries, people respect for individual rights and interests, when you eat, not hard to your food in your bowl, what they eat what they like, they will not use all way to advise guests get drunk.
6.Say goodbye. Chinese people said goodbye to the guest to the door or the gate downstairs, even on the road, the guest said to his master, "Don't trouble to come out, please’, master and finally say “please walk slowly”etc. If these words literal translation into English is not in conformity with the British and American people's habits, the British say Goodbye just smiled and said Goodbye gestures or say Goodbye.
7.The conflict of the time concept. Westerners is deeply rooted concept of time is money, they are very cherish the time, in the life tend to be time made careful arrangements and plans, and formed the good habit of the appointment. In the west to visit someone must advance notice or agreement, and explain the purpose of the visit time and place, can be carried out only after it has been agreed on the use of Chinese in time of great randomness, generally do not like westerners strictly carried out in accordance with the plan.
8.Thank terms. Chinese people use “thank you” far behind American and British people as frequently, only when someone else has helped with said. American and British people both between family members, and between higher and lower levels, between the span, for one small thing, even in all say thank you. The Chinese answer 'Thank you used to say, this is my duty. If the literal translation of it's my duty will
make American and British people do not happy, because it' s my duty meaning is: I don't want to do this, but it is my duty to do, the proper answer is it's a pleasure. Some occasions said in English, “Please”don't use English “please”, such as let others advanced door or when getting on or off, are usually said “After you”, ask people to eat the food at the dinner table, smoke or drink, just to please people, generally with the “help yourself”.
9.Figurative Language. Our daily life often use animals to describe the characteristics of people, but this kind of metaphor is often due to the difference of language and culture background and have different meanings. The dog can often refers to people in English, such as ”you are a lucky dog”, means you are lucky. But in Chinese, with the dog metaphor take derogatory sence, such as “Dog bites Dongbin”, “rascally dog” etc. English and Chinese will use different color words said similar metaphor or symbol meaning, such as “to be green-eyed”(mean jealous), “green hand”(mean rookie) etc.
(二) Explore the causes of the phenomenon of cultural differences
Cause of the differences between Chinese and western culture phenomenon is because the two sides have different cultural traditions of Chinese and western different historical background, will bring people thought behavior for the differences, even conflict.
1.Differences between thinking mode.Notice to logic, and analysis the western
mode of thinking, and thinking mode, show the intuitive wholeness of the
east, so Chinese people tend to be particularly heavy depending on intuition,
pay attention to experience and feeling in the process of understanding,
often in contact with experience and feeling to his motivation. This kind of
thinking mode, has obvious general and fuzzy and form a mind-set that can
identify and simplify the process of the classification of the external
perception, ignoring the difference of individual things, exaggerate and the
other related to a particular social group cognitive attitude, often with
emotion, accompanied by fixed creed.
2.Conduct not identical. In communication, people often to use its social norms
to judge the rationality of the each other behavior, due to the differences
between both sides of the code of conduct, often produce misunderstanding
or unhappy, the best way to understand each other's code of conduct is to do
as the Romans do.Such as the Chinese pat young children head said a
friendly, but in the west. This is a kind of respect children.
3.Different orientation value. Every culture value system, can help people
distinguish between beauty and ugliness good and evil. In Chinese culture,
people respected modest and polite, pursue the happy-go-lucky, don't like
competitive, line above all, a person will not, the collective orientation
dominate. While western culture advocate individualism, let it is a sign of
lack of enterprising spirit, is lazy incompetent synonym, advocate
independent thinking independent judgment, think personal interests
supreme.
4.Pragmatic transfer. The phenomenon of things and behavior evaluation and
interpretation is built on the basis of culture itself, communication in
intercultural communication people tend to ignore the pragmatic migration.
A kind of cultural standard specification can only be explained according to
its specific conditions in their own, and not to describe another culture, the
deep cause of the failure of the cross-cultural communication is that people
lack of sensitivity to the social language differences.
5.
Ⅲ、Method of eliminate barriers to cross-cultural and Strategies in learn the second language
（一）Principles
In order to achieve effective communication, we must follow certain principles as a guide in the communication process. Some authoritative communication experts agree that to achieve effective management of cross-cultural communication, must adhere to the following principles: ：①、Completeness- includes three aspects: First, provide each other with all the information he needs so that each can be completely and accurately understand the information. The second is to answer all the questions raised by the other side. Third, would like to offer each other additional information he needs②、Simplicity-or conciseness is without prejudice to other aspects of the information under the premise of using as few words to convey the message that the information necessary to complete and no extra modification ingredients③、Care-means in the communication process always take each other on the mind, put yourself in conversation with each other, not angry, not abuse, you can not accuse each other for no reason④Concreteness-the message refers to the two sides are not vague, general, but should be clear and definite and vivid.⑤、Clarity-that require your mind to accurately convey the information to the other's mind. Since the use of words by personal experience, knowledge, values and other effects, so one should accurately convey the information to the other party is not easy. ⑥、Politely-refers to the communication process to care about each other and respect each other.
（二）Strategies in learning a second language
1.Make full use of raw materials in English.
The expert points out, a person to learn a second language well, you should contact a lot of language materials reading English original materials not only helps us to master English expressions, and help us to understand the social history and cultural background of British and American countries. Therefore, students should be looking for the right to read newspapers and books, the full use of listening material for training and imitating, efforts to increase the positive transfer and reduce the negative transfer. At the same time, the rapid development of science and technology today, the application of a variety of media and the Internet provides greater convenience for people to live on the Internet, we can more directly quickly to get the most intuitive and the original English material, such as reading a lot of problem sets and even the listening material to the original film and television works, etc.
https://www.360docs.net/doc/185083119.html,e the American way to think.
Since there are differences between Chinese and western way of thinking, we
should not always use Chinese grammar rules to set of English in the basic
English teaching, we don't want to let students do too much translation, especially for beginners. Because impressions corresponding word deep mother tongue
interference can make us can't understand the words correct meaning in the
discourse, and is commonly used in reading and writing, mother tongue thinking, it Can make us form finding corresponding discourse structure and Chinese
corresponding word in Chinese logic framework and English grammar rules or even understand the habit of sentence by sentence translation, Therefore, we need to cast off the yoke of the Chinese way of thinking, get into the habit of thinking in English directly.
3.Understanding of Chinese and western cultural differences
When we communicate with British and American people, not only want to use their language, and use their culture, Because language and culture are closely linked indivisible. We can systematically read some books about western culture and newspapers, because they can from different angles to reflect the cultural
background of the English language, Also often compare English and Chinese, because the grammar language thinking and culture between the two different will lead to communication barriers. Comparing method can help students better understand the differences between them, so as to avoid the communication
barriers.
（三）Cultural sensitivity
Culturally sensitive people understand human behavior and cultural influence has transformed the understanding of culture with people from different cultural backgrounds to establish effective relationships. Enhance communication in cultural sensitivity necessary to understand other people's cultural background; second is to
understand ourselves.
（四）Others
There are "speaking" there are "listening", whether active listening, critical for communication effects. One study found that managers communicate with one day for about 70 percent of the time, which accounted for 9% of writing, reading, 16%, 30% talk, listen accounted for 45%. Visible, listening in interpersonal communication plays an important role, it is used to communicate with people spent nearly half of the time. Active listening will help us to receive information and to expand the amount of information that enables us to understand each other's ideas and proposals to reduce the communication misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, active listening is also expressed respect for each other, will help to improve mutual relationships and conflict resolution.
IV、Conclusion
There, "said" there "listening", whether active listening, critical for communication effects. One study found that managers communicate with one day for about 70 percent of the time, which accounted for 9% of writing, reading, 16%, 30% talk, listen accounted for 45%. Visible, listening in interpersonal communication plays an important role, it is used to communicate with people spent nearly half of the time. Active listening will help us to receive information and to expand the amount of information that enables us to understand each other's ideas and proposals to reduce the communication misunderstanding. Meanwhile, active listening is also expressed respect for each other, will help to improve mutual relationships and conflict resolution.
Finally I want to say is that we both in what circumstances, and always will be face to the cross-cultural communication problems, even in a country's different regions, cultures there may be quite different. Understand cross-cultural communication skills make individuals and organizations in the fierce competition in the complex benefit.
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