7030411075_李萍论文定稿5

科学技术学院NANCHANG UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OFSCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY学士学位论文THESIS OF BACHELOR（2011 —2015年）题目：On Cultural Differences in Non-verbalCommunication浅谈非言语交际的文化差异学科部：人文学科部专业：英语班级：11（2）班学号：7030411075学生姓名：李萍指导教师：黄美英起讫日期：2015年2月～2015年5月浅谈非言语交际的文化差异专业：英语学号：7030411075 学生姓名：李萍指导老师：黄美英摘要:我们日常交流主要分为言语交际和非言语交际，非言语交际指的就是除了言语交际之外的包括肢体语言，面部表情，眼神等等的交际符号，二者在我们的交流过程中都扮演着很重要的角色，但是大多数人往往都会忽略非言语交际的重要性。

非言语交际是我们表达思想，表明态度很重要的载体，而且每个国家的文化都不同，所以我们很有必要对非言语交际进行研究，这样有助于我们更好的进行跨文化交际，也可以帮助我们英语专业的学生更好的了解国外的人文知识及文化背景，同时有效地避免以后我们在跨文化交往过程中出现错误。

本文就中国和外国跨文化交际中的非言语交际进行了深入研究，比如面部表情，眼神，手势，肢体语言等等，本课题主要从这几个方面对中外非言语交际的差异性进行研究比较，明确阐述非言语交际的定义内涵，并指出非言语行为在实际的交际过程中会起到什么样的作用，同时也详细分析国内外非语言交际产生差异的原因以及正确的处理方法，为我们消除跨文化交际的障碍。

关键字：非言语交际，文化差异On Cultural Differences in Non-verbal CommunicationAbstract:Our daily communication can be divided into verbal communication and non-verbal communication, non-verbal communication means communication symbols except verbal communication including body language, facial expression, eye contact and so on, both of them play important roles during our communication process. However, most of us will ignore the importance of non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication is the important carrier by which we express thoughts and ideas, what’s more, different country has different culture in non-verbal communication, so it is of great importance for us to carry on further investigation on non-verbal communication, so that we can make cross-cultural communication more fluent, as English major students, we can understand more about the different culture and general knowledge in different countries, at the same time, we can avoid more mistakes in cross-cultural communication. In this thesis, I carry on investigation on non-verbal communication between China and English-speaking countries, such as facial expression, eye contact, gesture, body language and so on. This thesis mainly compares the culture differences between China and English-speaking countries in these aspects, it will state the definition of non-verbal communication clearly and its function in daily communication, in the meantime, it will analyze the reasons and solving methods to help us remove barriers in cross-cultural communication.Key Words: Non-verbal Communication，Cultural DifferenceCONTENTS摘要: (I)Abstract. ....................................................................................................................... I I Chapter 1 Introduction (1)1.1 Brief Introduction and Definition of the Non-verbal Communication (1)1.2 The Definition of Cross Cultural Communication (1)1.3 The Origin of This Thesis (1)Chapter2 Literature Reviews (2)Chapter3 The Function of Non-verbal Communication (2)3.1Repeating (3)3.2Complementing (3)3.3Substituing (3)3.4Regulating (4)3.5Contradicting (4)Chapter4 Cultural Differences in Non-verbal Communication (4)4.1The Culture Difference in Body Language ........................................ 错误！未定义书签。

4.1.1 The Culture Difference in Gesture (5)4.1.3 The Culture Difference in Hug (7)4.1.4 The Culture Difference in Kiss (7)4.2 The Culture Difference in Facial Expression and Eye Contact (8)4.3 The Culture Difference in Silence Language (9)4.4 The Culture Difference in Space (10)4.5The Culture Difference in Touch (10)Chapter5The Reasons and Resources of Cultural Differences of Non-verbal Communication (11)5.1Reasons of Cultural Differences of Non-verbal Communication (11)5.2How to Avoid Mistakes of Non-verbal Communication (13)Chapter6Conclusion (14)References (16)Acknowledgements (17)Chapter 1 Introduction1.1Brief Introduction and Definition of the Non-verbal CommunicationNon-verbal communication plays an important role in communication, it has the effect of the supplementary regulation, what’ more, it sometimes can replace verbal language to make cultural communication. Non-verbal communication is an old and young topic, the reason is that its history is longer than verbal communication. Before verbal communication, all of us use non-verbal communication to express emotion. However, the study on non-verbal communication started only 50 years ago, and most people only pay attention to body language. Till the late 1970’s ,non-verbal communication research becomes deeper and more comprehensive, There are many kinds of definitions about non-verbal communication, simply speaking, non-verbal communication refers to the communication ways without using language. There are so many ways to express emotions, such as body language, facial express, touch behavior, gesture and so on. Therefore we can realize that non-verbal communication is a kind of wide academic research which covers a wide range, from all the communication with facial expression to wide environment.1.2 The Definition of Cross Cultural CommunicationCross cultural communication means people from different cultural background coming together and communicating with each other, when communicating, we had to use a kind of language, during communicating, people not only like using verbal communication, but also meaningful non-verbal communication. Verbal communication relies on language, including written language and spoken language to convey emotion, express information. Cross Cultural Communication appeared in America firstly, America is a immigrant country, people from different countries all want to protect their own culture, so the multicultural system comes into being. In this aspect, the research of cross cultural communication in China started very late. At present, the study on cross culture has become a kind of multidiscipline which includes anthropology, linguistics, psychology and so on.1.3 The Origin of This ThesisThis thesis is about cultural difference in non-verbal communication, as an English major student, I like studying non-verbal communication and cross-culture communication. What’s more, in my cross-culture communication lessons , my teacher has taught me lots of things about culturaldifferences in non-verbal communication. This thesis will state cultural difference of non-verbal communication between China and English-speaking countries from such aspects as facial express, body language, gesture, space, silence language and so on.Chapter2 Literature ReviewsWhen we research the non-verbal communication, we can consult Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animasl in 1872, this is the first research on the non-verbal behavior of animal. Kretschmer published Physique and Character and The Variation odd Human Physique in the beginning of the new century, these two works made a great difference to the research of non-verbal communication. We can recognized that the research on non-verbal communication only emphasis on one aspect. In 1952, R.L.Birdwhistell published Introduction to Kinesics, this work represents that we start to combine non-verbal communication with interpersonal relationship.People start to realize the importance of non-verbal communication in human being’s communication. In 1960s, Elman and Friesen put much vim on the research of the reason, encoding, function and so on of non-verbal communication. In the work Body Language of Michael Argyle, he believes that non-verbal communication is body language, but in the opinion of Alastair Penacook, non-verbal communication becomes the combines of paralanguage, body language, gesture, and other features.With the development of our country, in recent years, lots of researchers begin to research non-verbal communication in cross cultural communication. In the late 1980’s, there appear lots of literature works , translation works, essay works in China, many of which start to stress Chinese characteristics.Chapter3 The Function of Non-verbal CommunicationCommunication of human beings can be divided into verbal communication and non-verbal communication, of course verbal communication is very important and normal during communication, but non-verbal communication is the inseparable part as well, people also rely on lots of non-verbal signs to communicate with each other. When we chat with each other face to face, words and language can just express 30% of the whole information while non-verbal symbols can help us stress and repeat our emotions, and even sometimes we cannot understand or misunderstanding the meaning of the speaking man, non-verbal symbols can let us understand their meaning. As a matter of fact, in cross-cultural communication, non-verbal communication plays a vital role. Especially when we meet some difficulties in communication, in this case, wecan realize the importance of non-verbal symbols.Non-verbal communication has five main functions: Repeating, complementing, substituting, regulating and contradicting. When we communicate with each other, non-verbal symbols can repeat and stress our language, even when we use non-verbal symbols alone, it can replaces language to express our emotion and opinions.3.1RepeatingMany times, non-verbal communication can repeat verbal communication, we often use non-verbal communication to repeat our meaning when we try to express something important. For example, we can use our gesture to stop when we say the word “Stop”. We can use our finger to direct a certain direction when we tell someone “The teaching building is over there.” What’s more, when we put our index finger to our lips, this gesture means “Keep silent”.However, when we try to use non-verbal behaviors to repeat our verbal communication, we have to notice the differences between different cultures, for example, we always use thumb and finger to make a circle to represent “OK”, it means great, very good. However, in Japan, it represents “Money”, in France, it means “Zero” or “Nothing”. Therefore, we should make clear which kind of meaning the gesture represents in different countries.3.2ComplementingComplementing is similar to repeating, although we can communicate with each other only by language,complement can help us get more information, for example, when we say we are satisfied with his or her speech, if we not only express our feeling in language but also put our arms on his or her shoulders , he or she will feel our praise stronger. We can feel that we can stress our anger if we speak in a voice that is louder than normal communication or we can use our bad eye contact to express our dissatisfaction.In China, we used to keep silent, which is different from English-speaking countries, therefore, in China, if the audience and juries do not give you enthusiastic responses, it does not mean they don’t like your show, on the contrary, people from English-speaking countries, they used to show their emotion very extrovert, they will express their appreciation directly, for example, they will stand up and applaud for you if they think your show is charming very much.3.3SubstitutingWe usually use language when we communication with others, however, when we meet some disabled friends, he cannot hear us, in this way, we can use non-verbal communication to replaceverbal communication. We can speak loudly and enlarge our body language to convey the same feeling. Another example, if we are late for attending a meeting, we cannot speak loud in the hall, we can use silent gesture to tell our partner where is his seat.However, we can’t use non-verbal behaviors to replace verbal behaviors casually, because in different countries, there are lots of differences, in Eastern countries, we are not used to express -ing our emotion through hug or kiss, people from Western countries just like America are used to expressing emotion through hug, but in China, hug always used between same-sex friends or lovers, if you hug your opposite sex friend casually in China, it will make your friend awkward.3.4RegulatingRegulating represents control situation, when we meet lots of situations, we can use non-verbal communication to regulate. For example, before our teacher begins a class, he will keep silent for a while and let the silent tell us we will begin a class, or when I have a show on the stage, if people who sit in auditorium nod their head, we can know that they are agree with my show and I can go on. In other cases, for example, when we communicate with our friend, if he always yawns and looks upset very much, this non-verbal behavior represents he is not interested in our communication, so we had to finish it as soon as possible. Some Chinese are used to keep -ing silent, so it is not easy to control the whole situation, and most people from English-speaking countries dislike to keep silent, they think being silent means you don’t like them.3.5ContradictingIn most situations, non-verbal behavior can repeat or stress the feelings we express, however, non-verbal behavior will express the wrong feeling of what we really want to express. You meet your friends in airport, you will say welcome to friends but maybe you did n’t sleep well and you are so tired, so you break eye contact and speak in low voice, your friends may feel you don’t welcome him. Therefore, we should learn to avoid expressing the wrong meaning by non-verbal behavior sending the wrong information.All in all, non-verbal communication has a lot of functions, all the functions I listed above are the normal phenomenon we can see in our daily lives. In different countries, non-verbal behavior will show different meanings and functions.Chapter4 Cultural Differences of Non-verbal Communication Non-verbal communication represents some commonalities in cross culture, these behavior areknown by people from different culture backgrounds, for example, smile, laugh, cry, frown, these expressing ways are very similar to people from all over the world, but the different characteristics of non-verbal behaviors in different culture are the real question in communication. The wrong non-verbal behavior may lead to a bad non-verbal communication, it will worsen our friendship, even let us lose jobs. Besides, non-verbal communication will present difference because of the different national custom. In this thesis, I will illustrate the culture difference in body language, gesture, eye-contact and so on.4.1 The Culture Difference in Body LanguageBody language is the most important behavior in non-verbal communication, some researchers believe that body language is the basic feature of the whole research of non-verbal communication. Some researchers believe that “The body language is information”. Non-verbal communication concludes body language, body language is the biggest part in non-verbal communication. We can use body movement to convey information, body language is very useful when we communicate with each other, it let us understand each other more easily. For example, when we say “Bye bye”to others, we can shake our hands so that we can let others understand us more quick. Different countries have different body languages, such as people in France and Arab like kiss each other when they meet but people in China will shake hands instead of kiss. People in England don’t like stand too close when they are talking, if you stand too close with a man from England, you should say “Sorry” to him. However, people in Arab like stand very close when they are talking with each other.When you are in another country, it is very important for you to make clear the body languages represent what kind of different meaning, we should follow and respect others' custom in case we feel uncomfortable or make lots of misunderstanding.4.1.1 The Culture Difference in GestureLots of gesture has obvious area and cultural characteristics, we need to study more about other culture and local custom, lots of gestures have many kinds of different meaning, and the gestures has ambiguity. For example, the Americans use thumb and finger to make a circle to represent “OK”, it means great, very good, amazing, wonderful and so on. However, in Japan, it mean “Money”, in France, it means “Zero” or “Nothing” . If we don’t study the cultural difference of different gestures, if we don’t understand the different meaning of the gestures, we will make mistake when we make cross culture communication. I have a symbol example about the gesture of “V”, nowadays, we all know that a “V” with palm outwards represents victory, afterwards, thisgesture has been popularized successfully by British Broadcasting Corporation, it becomes a gesture represent victory for allied forces, and the festered comes to Europe, close with the Nazi movement. However, sometimes, people will use “V” with the palm inward to represent victory, but this gesture will convey a totally opposite meaning, it means rude , insult and so on. During the second world war, because Churchill doesn’t know about this, when he review the army, he point a “V” with palm inwards, he inadvertently showed rude in front of his troops instead of wish them successful. Nowadays, “V” with palm inward still represent dirty, obscenity, insult and so on. In Britain, point thumb means get a lift. In America and Britain, people use “V”to represent “Victory”, in African countries, “V” represents “Two Things” as well.Gesture is a part of body language, different kinds of gesture represents different kind of meanings. We all know that in most countries, nodding head means “Yes”, shaking head means ”No”, but in Arab, India and Albania and some other countries, nodding head means “No”, shaking head means “Yes”. Different fingers represent different meanings as well, in China, point index finger means “One”, Americans and Europeans point thumb means “One”. Chinese point index finger and thumb means “Two”, but Americans and Europeans point index finger and middle finger means “Two”. Our Chinese, we bend index finger means “Nine”, but in Japan, it means steal.We make our index finger and thumb become a circle, in America this gesture means “OK”, in India, it means “Right”, in Thailand, it means “No problem”, in Japan and Korea means “Money”, in French, it means “Nothing”, in Brazil and Italy, it represents a kind of dirty gesture.In China, Chinese always point thumb to show our praise, curl up other four fingers, point little finger means looking down upon others. In Japan, people always point thumb means “Elderly People”, they use little finger means “Lover”.4.1.2 The Culture Difference in Sit UpSit up always represents different meanings in different countries. The man from America like putting one leg on another leg when they sit and tiptoe to the person beside. For the Americans, this kind of sitting gesture does not represents any special meaning, but for Chinese, this is very impolite and hard to accept. There is one thing happened in a university, during class time, a teacher from America tilted his feet towards students, this behavior makes students angry, so students demand to fire the American teacher, because this kind of behavior is a kind of insult for Chinese tradition. Actually, this is only because of the difference between different cultures.About what kind of pose we should take when we communicate with others, standing or sitting, it all has culture difference. Chinese like guest to sit down, because they think the guest's standing are not good for conversation. Therefore, sometimes Chinese like to say “Please come to my homeand have a sit when you are free.”But in Western countries, they prefer to stand up, they like standing up to eat and chat and so on, standing is their custom, they think this will make the atmosphere more harmonious and sweet. However, for Chinese, standing will make them feel very nervous and awkward. This means non-verbal behavior will make different effect for people who has different culture backgrounds.4.1.3 The Culture Difference in HugHug is a kind of gesture represents close very much. Between Western culture and Eastern culture, they has lots of big differences. Hug is a kind of normal custom and etiquette, include Russia, France, Eastern Europe, Italy, Arab and some other countries, hug is a kind of common gesture. Between couples, families, friends, they always hug each other to show close relationship. The Western people won’t hug each other when they first met, between man and woman they will hug each other to show intimate. When someone feels sad very much and distracted, friends and colleagues can hug him to show their comfort and pity. People from China don’t use hug very frequent. In cross-culture communication, only when others actively implement hug, we can follow them, hug always between close friends, man to man, women to women. Because in China, it is improper for men and women to touch each others hand in passing objects, we accepted this kind of position when we were a child, except between couples, lovers, close friends, otherwise hug between simple colleague will be thought irregular behavior. If a man from western country try to hug a Chinese colleague, this friendly behavior may be mistaken for motivation is not pure for Chinese.4.1.4 The Culture Difference in KissKiss has a long history and kiss show close relationship between people. It is said in ancient Roman, women can not drink beer, when their husbands come back from battlefield, they will smell their wife’s mouth to check if they drink or not, afterwards, this behavior becomes the first etiquette when couple meet each other. Kiss often represent close relationship, it is restricted by gender, age, lawyer, status, morals and so on. In Europe and America, elderly member of a family will kiss the forehead of younger member of a family, man only kiss the back head of women, but between same status in a family, they can only cheek to cheek and only between lovers, they will kiss each other. In some countries and areas, kiss doesn’t be restricted for love, kiss can represents respect and care and so on. In the Soviet Union, kiss is just a kind of reward. In China, the kiss is not used very common, kiss only used between couples and lovers.All in all, body language, especially facial expression plays an important role in crosscultural communication, after we study the similarities and differences in different cultures, we can avoid lots of misunderstandings because of the differences of body language.4.2 The Culture Difference in Facial Expression and Eye ContactFacial expression is the most expressive feature in body language, some easy movements just like frown, smile and twinkle can express our emotion as well, but what is the important is we didn’t recognize how we rely on facial expression. Facial expression can let us understand the feeling of each other more delicate, but the using frequency in different countries has big difference.When we combine emotion and facial together, culture is of great importance. The relation between emotion and facial expression in different countries, some are same, but still has lots of differences .For example, Chinese always use smile or laugh to hide the passive emotion, only when we stay with our close friends, we will convey the real emotion, but people in North America always show real emotion to everyone. Therefore, the differences between different culture will make lots of misunderstanding easily, at the same time, respect and understand the differences is the best way to solve contradiction.Eye-contact is a very important aspect in non-verbal communication, eyes can conveys our emotion very strong. As the saying goes “Eyes are the windows of our heart”. This is because when we communicate with others, we always show our emotion through our eyes. People from western countries believe that lack of eye-contact means lack of sincerity, dishonest, or absent, not interested in the topic, or afraid of others, feel ashamed and so on. But in Eastern culture the time of eye-contact is shorter than people from western countries, and we used drooping eyes, especially when we face with our boss or our parents. So people from western countries always feel very uncomfortable when they find that Chinese always don’t give eye-contact, or they think Chinese are looking down upon them. But too frequent eye-contact may represent impolite even rude for Chinese.In the culture of China, if a woman look at a man very directly, it may be thought very indiscreet, under most conditions, man won’t look at woman directly, or he may be thought very rude. In America culture, people should look at others directly, this is the symbol of honest. American people believe that we cannot believe the people who are afraid of look at your eyes. Because for them, afraid of look at their eyes means dishonest, afraid, false, cold, despise and so on. When British people communicate with each other, they used to look at others eyes directly, means they are listening very carefully and serious. Eye contact means look at other people, eye contact can show lots of functions, such as control the degree of closeness, get information, express emotion and so on. Eye contact means respect in a culture, but in an other culture it meansdisrespect. When Chinese have a speech or chat with others, most of us will feel shy to look at others directly, this kind of behavior show disrespect for people from western countries, people from western countries like use eye contact and look at your eyes directly, they use eye contact to get better interaction. The linguist Ling said that in some countries, people will look in the eyes of lower to means respect, but in some countries, it means humiliate.Smile and laugh always convey friendly, closeness, happiness, satisfaction and so on, this show same meaning in China and America, however, in some cases, laugh of Chinese will have a negative impact, let me tell you a story, an American is riding a bicycle, when he fall down, he will feel very awkward, if the Chinese behind him laugh loudly, the American will feel very angry, I remembered that before several months I saw a foreigner knock off the plate incautiously, he feel very awkward, the Chinese around him laugh loudly, make him feel angry very much. Of course, in this kind of situation, the Chinese are not laugh at others, they just convey a series of information: don’t be serious, everything is fine. Therefore, in some cases, smile and laugh only decided by our communication object, if you smile to a unfamiliar Chinese, he will feel very strange, but for people in English-speaking country, smile only represents a kind of friendly.4.3 The Culture Difference in Silence LanguageIn the communication between people from China and people from America, what makes Americans feel uncomfortable is that Chinese always keep silent, for example, during some speeches, the others always listen quietly and doesn’t like to ask any questions, during dinner, the host always ask the guests to eat and drink but lack of communication. People from China prefer the effect of silent, they think being silent has a lot of meanings, they believe that sometimes keeping silent is better than speaking out, but this kind of culture method always be thought of they are not interested in or look down upon others.Silence is a kind of non-verbal communication between people when we are communicating with others, the silence language in different cultures has different effects. For instance, in Eastern countries, we put more positive meanings on silence, but in Western countries, we put more negative meanings on silence. People from China pay more attention on the effect of silence language, in our opinions, we believe that the silence can not only represents wordless applause, wordless protest, default with pleasure, keep your own opinions, but also keep the decision. However, in the Northern Europe and North America, silence means negative, depression, sadness and so on. People from English-speaking countries dislike keeping silent when they are talking with others, they consider that keeping silent means a unsuccessful communication, so we had to noticed this point, no matter in any kind of conditions, we should say something. For example, Americans pay attention to the effect of voice sign when change topic, we has some tips and rules。