中英思維方式的差異對(duì)跨文化交際的影響.doc

【標(biāo)題】中英思維方式的差異對(duì)跨文化交際的影響 【作者】楊優(yōu)杰 【關(guān)鍵詞】思維方式；差異；跨文化交際 【指導(dǎo)老師】程瓊 【專(zhuān)業(yè)】英語(yǔ) 【正文】I. IntroductionWe have already stepped into 21centry. The global village is no longer an abstract idea in our mind but an absolute fact in our life. Because of the technological, social and political changes, the world now has become a smaller planet. Mass media bring news overseas in home less than a minute; education, business, and immigration all help to reduce the distance between people of different cultures. Transportation is getting much quicker and more convenient, and World Wide Web makes people all over the world get access to new information and news up-to-date. Even in politics, countries that once were enemies are now having a better relationship. All the changes have contributed to the fact that people have to communicate with those from other culture and societies. Theoretically, this kind of communication is called intercultural communication. Intercultural communication is so omnipresent that we especially need to focus on it. Moreover, only through competently interacting with those who are different than ourselves, can we ensure the survival of the global village.Successful intercultural communication sounds ideal, but it does need a lot of knowledge of other people and their cultures and background. Language barrier is obviously one part of unsuccessful intercultural communication, but the most important one is cultural barrier, which is not simply learnt as a kind of language. Many researchers devoted their efforts to the study of the influences of intercultural communication on our culture; however, this thesis aims to discusses the differences of thinking pattern between Chinese and Westerner, analyses the causes of different thinking patterns, and finally, explores the influences on intercultural communication.A good understanding of thinking pattern and cross-cultural communication will help us have a better awareness toward cross-cultural obstacles and troubles. In other words, the thesis paper aims to provide some ideas for the people who are preparing for cross-cultural communication and who are experiencing cross-cultural communication; therefore, the author of the paper attempts to write this essay about patterns of thinking and intercultural communication, which may provide some inspiration for communication and English learners.II. Different Thinking Pattern between Chinese and EnglishEastern and western thought patterns and cultural communication are under the trend of mutual penetration, so the differences of thought patterns between Chinese and westerners are relative.1 In this comparative study, this part briefly tries to sort out some major differences, and these differences are amplified. The main purpose is to suggest that the differences in thought pattern must be given adequate attention. Only being aware of these differences and facing up to these differences we can resolve them. A. Synthetic Vs Analytic Compared with the westerners, Chinese think about the problem usually from the perspective of the overall analysis. This thought pattern is synthetic thinking, which involves all the factors. It also suggests thinking from the every part of the whole. Chinese peoples cognition of an object often comes from combing all the separate parts concerned together. On the contrary, the westerners prefer to use analytic thinking that is opposite to Chinese. They like to separate the whole into constituents to get the nature or relation between the individual constituents. It is obvious that synthetic thought pattern and analytic thought pattern are opposite. B. Holistic Vs Reductive Holistic thought pattern can be manifested from that“the whole is more than the sum of its parts”. It is clear that a building is more than the sum of the constituent bricks, which shows that the parts of each object are inherent from one another and it is inseparably interrelated to one another. Holistic thought pattern emphasizes the full understanding of the unity of the world. It also stresses the inseparable unity of human and nature. While reductive thought pattern is the belief that an object can be understood better if we know the constituent parts. It is firmly believed that each constituent is an independent part. The thought pattern of most Chinese people is holistic. Chinese people like to grasp reality in its entirety. So they emphasize the“whole”. Western thought pattern is more close to reductionism. They prefer to separate things into parts in order to understand them accurately.C. Intuitive Vs Logical Chinese like to perceive an object from the whole through direct senses and experiences. It means that their thought pattern is intuitive. From the point of philosophy, intuition means the immediate judgment and direct understanding of an object, which includes its nature and internal relations. The judgment and understanding come from the knowledge and experience. Intuitive thought pattern tends to distain the function of analysis. It also emphasizes knowledge of experience and direct sense instead of facts and base logical analysis. It provides a powerful cognitive base for shaping a harmonious relationship with the other people and the environment. Western thought pattern is mostly logical. Western people like to break down an object into different levels or parts to analyze. They dont like to resort to experience to grasp an object as a whole. Westerners greatly stress facts. They usually collect facts and data to support their arguments and develop theories. D. Past Orientated Vs Future Orientated As an essential factor of organization system of life, time restricts each behavior under certain circumstance. Different cultures comprehend time from different angle. Deeply and profoundly influenced by Confucianism, Chinese thought pattern shows a feature of past orientation. Traditional norms and approaches are still used today to instruct peoples behavior. In China, people always like to ask whether it has been done before doing something. Chinese people are more interested in complying with the old ideas than the new ones. In contrast to this, westerners are mostly future orientated. They dont like to rely on the past experiences or established standards. They are not confined by social norms and habits. Westerners believe their future will be better and they live more in the future than in the past. Since Chinese people are more influenced by the past experience, they like to pursue stability. Most Chinese firmly believe the principles of ancestor cannot be changed. They are sure that stability is the prerequisite of development. Chinese people like to live and work in peace. They are easily satisfied. Generally speaking, Chinese people do not like adventure, while westerners like to seek change and they are more active.III. Causes of Differences in Chinese and English Thinking PatternsOf all the culture all over the world, there enjoy some common grounds, which are the basis for people from different cultures to communicate with each other. But as each culture possesses its own history and development, in some respect, each culture is unique, so complexity and variety is characteristics of all human cultures.Culture not only includes of behavior but also patterns of thinking; therefore, the basics of thinking differences lie in culture characteristics; they in turn help to form different patterns of thinking.2 Based on geography an culture, the whole world can be divided into two parts-the western and eastern. Because of different geographic environments, living styles, working patterns, behaviors, communication styles, historical backgrounds, political system, economic system, and customs and conventions, the thinking patterns generally show different characteristics; the Chinese stress more on ethic and moral aspects, but English pay more attention to science and technology; Chinese emphasize intuition and imagination, while Americans point sense, logic and positivism. This part attempts to analyze the causes of the difference in the thinking patterns between the Chinese and English.A. GeographyGeography shows its strong connection with thinking patterns and styles. Located in Southeast Asia along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean, China is the worlds third largest country. With an area of 9,6 million square kilometers and a coastline of 18,000 kilometers, its shape on the map is like a rooster. It spans about 50 degrees of latitude and 62 degrees of longitude. The well-cultivated and fertile lands produce abundant crops. Since transportation is not convenient in old china, and the communication with outside world is limited, the fertile lands and abundant crops make people self-contained, which hold up their eagerness to conquer nature. Besides, Chinese people believe that human and nature should cooperate with each other, and nature is divine and can not be conquered.All these factors work together to make Chinese people thinking patterns very introspective and static, they are not trying to conquer nature but find ways to be harmonious with nature.Located in the central part of north America with the Atlantic ocean on the east and pacific ocean on the west, America can divided into three parts-the eastern part full of highlands formed by the Appalachian range, the western part consisting of high plateaus and mountains created by the rocky mountains and the Appalachians, and the central plain between the rocky mountains and the Appalachians. American civilization starts from ancient Greece, The Greece is a country with poor natural resources, barren lands and bad weather, which is neither good for planting nor for cultivating; therefore, they started wars and trades. The western civilization can said to be a history of colonization, an endless process of getting lebensraum, and so is the history and process of America. Actually, the United States of American is the perfect combination of strong survivors and fertile lands. It s just such kind of spirit that promotes the Americans to be competitive, adventuresome, and aggressive, which in turn helps to shape their patterns of thought.B. HistoryHistory plays a certain kind of role in forming the patterns of thought in a particular culture. History shows us that China was a feudal society in the old days. The emperor in each dynasty faithfully strived for the unification of the country. Such kind of pursuit of unification left its mark on the social structure and psychology of the people. The unity is composed of three parts-unity of human and nature, unity of human and society, and unity of human beings; thus, harmony is the essence for the top ruler and also for the common people.Thus, group-orientation and synthetic thinking were shaped in some way. Moreover, in the Qing dynasty, the ruler adopted the close door policy, the policy left china behind the world and china finally was invaded by those European warships and cannons. The long years of close-door life conducted to thinking introspectively and statically. The first Europeans to North American were Icelandic Vikings, about year 1000, but the Vikings failed to establish a permanent settlement and soon lost contact with new continent. Five centuries later, the demand for Asian spices, textiles, and dyes spurred European navigators to dream of shorter routes between east and west. In1492 the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus sailed west from Europe and landed on one of the Bahama islands in the Caribbean sea. Within 40 years, Spanish adventures had carved out a huge empire in central and South American. The first successful English colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.A few years later, English puritans came to American to escape religious persecution for their opposition to the Church of England, and then many puritan colonies were founded. Afterwards, many colonies arrived from many puritan countries. There were ruler who wanted to claim more land and possession; traders who wanted to gather more money; religious descendents who wanted to get rid of persecution or settlement moved west to the Mississippi river and beyond, the good business atmosphere and tender climate attracted more people who wanted to try their lucks in the new land. After gaining their independence, Americans grew more powerful and began to venture abroad. Actually, they never stopped the step of conquering and colonizing. The long period of colonization and unceasing adventures for more move land and goods shaped the Americans characteristics of independence, adventure, aggression and progress which caused their thinking patterns to be individual-orientated, dynamic and extrospectives.C. Life and Production StylesChina has winds dominated by monsoon. It features clear temperature differences in winter and summer. With 80 percent of the population peasants, and the combination of the yellow river, and Zhujiang Delta Area, China is absolutely a big agricultural country. In contrast to the U.S.population, which are mostly urban, two-thirds of the Chinese still live in rural areas, laboring primarily in rice or wheat cultivation.Rational Chinese agriculture is peasant farming. It is communal, not individualistic; survival depends on group cooperation and harmony. Loyalty and obedience to familial hierarchy binds laboring groups together. Many of chinas city dwellers were born and raised in the country and have retained their agrarian values.“Just as most urbane American are influenced by the countrys cowboy roots-shoot first and ask questions later, lay your cards on the table, and so on-most modern Chinese are affected by millennia of living close to the soil.” 3 Moreover, since most Chinese make a living by agriculture, they prefer to stay in a stable area rather than changing locations continuously or find new ways to make a living. All the above factors contribute to the result that Chinese people stick to group-orientation and they are not quite willing to compete and adventure. Although American only gets seven percent of people who work on farm, it is a big food supplies country. Early in the middle of the nineteenth century, cities and towns were blooming across the east and the Midwest, and people were looking for ways to ease the toil of cultivating and harvesting. Robert Fultons steamboat, first launched in 1807, and the development of eastern railway represented the first intrusions of what leo Marx would call the machine in the garden. With these early stirrings of the industrial age to come, Americans began to make full use of the land around them. Rural towns gleaming with the prosperity brought to them by the machine and technology. Group activity was not particularly critical of their changing relationship to nature, but the advent of technology meant that civilization had gained considerable advantage in the continuing struggle between man and the wilderness. Back to the old days when many European immigrants flew to American to try their luck, they settled down new colonies and brought their life styles to American. Since the European countries developed commerce and many Americans would rather try their luck in business rather than in agriculture. That is why American living styles are quite close to commerce. Commercial activity means any business, or adventure or concern in the nature of trade carried on by a person. Commerce means profits to individual; thus, American are more individual-orientated and more aggressive.D. PhilosophyThe most prominent attribute of Chinese thinking is generalization, while for American thinking it is analysis.”41. Confucianism and TaoismConfucius had one overwhelming message: If we are to achieve a state of orderliness and peace, we need to return to traditional values of virtue. These values are based entirely on one concept:ren, which is best translated ashumaneness, but can also meanhumanity,goodness, orvirtue. This humaneness is a practicable virtue. Rather, the job of thegentleman, junzi, was to concentrate on the highest concepts of behavior even when this is impractical or foolish. Like his contemporaries, Confucius believed that the human order in some way reflected the divine order, or the patterns of heaven. More than anything, according to Confucius established the Chinese past as an infallible model for the present. This lays foundation for Chinese past-orientation and introspective thinking styles. We can easily find that Chinese philosophy, the oneness of man and nature-mans harmony with nature-dominating perception of any relation between man and nature. This is just the opposite of the subject-object dichotomy that western philosophy often assumes as the relation between man and the material world. Therefore, Chinese thinking pattern is more apt to take synthetic and relational styles.2. American PhilosophyAmerican philosophy can be traced back to the Greek philosophy, because Greek philosophy formed the basis of all later philosophical speculation in the western world. The ancient Greek emphasizes a nature, mind, science, morals and logic. Many world known philosophers were born in Greek, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Socrates, despite his foundational place in the history of ideas, actually wrote nothing. Most of our knowledge of him comes from the words of Plato. Socrates method of philophical inquiry consisted in questioning people on the positions they asserted and working them though questions into a contradiction, thus proving to them that their original assertion was wrong. The Socratic elenchus eventually gave rise to dialectic, the idea that truth needs to be pursued by modifying ones position through questioning and conflict with opposing ideas. It is an idea of the truth being pursued, rather than discovered, that characte