中西文化差異比較英文

1、The di f ference between chi nese and wester n cu ItureWith the rapidly challging word, people throughout the world have found it increasingly necessary to minimize the rate of misunderstanding due to miscommunication in their contacts with another. In the oast most human beings were born, lived, an

2、d died within a limited geoographical area, never encountering people of other cultural backgrounds. It might be said that technological advances have been most effective in creating the borderless word, the global community. As our world shrinks and its inhabitants become interdependent, people fro

3、m remot cultures increasingly come into contact on a daily basis. It is no longer hard to find situations in which membes of ince isolared groups of people. Now these people may live thousands of miles away or right next door to each other. So all the people are faced with the challenge of understan

4、d this world. So when the east meet west, there are many problems. Some problems are listed as follows.First of all, the way of eating. All huaman beings have certain basic needs. Our fundamental needs for things that keep us alive. This is the physioligical need. All individuals must eat in order t

5、o survive. But what people eat, when they eat, and the manners in which they eat are all patterned by culture. No society views everything in its environment that is edible and might provide nurishment as food. Americans eat oysters but not snail. The French eat snails but not locusts. The Jews eat

6、fish but not pork. The Hindus eat pork but not beef. The Russiand eat beef but not snake. We all have ideas about what kinds of food are good to eat. We also have ideas about what kinds of food are bad to eat. As a result, people from one culture often think the food that people from another culture

7、 eat are disgusting or nauseating. Dislike is not the only reason why some culture will not eat a certain food. In some clture, certain foods are taboo. Sometimes the food taboos may be so strong thrat just the thought of eating forbidden foods can cause an indivdual to feel ill. We can also find cu

8、lture difference in way of bring up children treating the early, greeting each other, saying and spending money before other people do in everyday, but in some English-speaking countries, people do not agree with us. We chinese may enjoy something that is not usually consider as edible by the Englis

9、h-speaking people. Generally we perfer to have thing hot and much emphasis on the taste. We eat from one plate when we are eating with others, and we like to seat one by one, and in the shape of a round. On theopposite, some English-speaking contries, most of the people like to seat in two rows, two

10、 people face to face. They have their own plate.On the aspect of table manners, there are many differences between chinese and English-speaking people. For example, in some Englishi-speaking countries, Bread plates are to the left of the main plate, beverage glasses are to the right. Salad fork, kni

11、fe and soup spoon are further from the main plate than the main course knife, fork and spoon. When eating bread rolls, break off a piece before buttering. Use the knife only to butter the bread, not to cut it. They should not start eating before your host does or instructs to do so. At larger meals,

12、 it is considered okay to start eating once others have been served. When finished, place the knife and fork together at five o' clock witthe fork on the left. It is considered rude to answer the telephone at the table. If need to take an urgent call, excuse self and go outside. Try to eat all t

13、he food you are served. But in China, the table manners are different. Chinese traditionally eat rice from a small bowl held in the left hand. The rice bowl is raised to the mouth and the rice pushed into the mouth using the chopsticks. Some Chinese find it offensive to scoop rice from the bowl usin

14、g a spoon. If rice is served on a plate, as is more common in the West, it is acceptable and more practical to eat it with a fork or spoon. The thumb must always be above the edge of the bowl. The host should always make sure the guests drinks are sufficiently full. One should not pour for ones self

15、, but should offer to pour for a neighbor. When your drink is being poured, you should say "thank you" and tap fingers on the table to show appreciation. When people wish to clink drinks together in the form of a cheer, it is important to observe that younger members should clink the edge

16、of their drink below the edge of an elder to show respect.Secondly, the way of communication. Form birth to death, communication plays an integral part in our life. There are some language problems, including the different styles of using language such as direct, indirect; expansive, succinct; argum

17、entative, conciliatory; instrumental, harmonnizing; and so on. These different styles can lead to wrong interpretations of intent and evaluation of insincerity, aggreeiveness, deviousness, or arrogance, among other. The misinterpretation nonverbal signs and symbols such as gestures, postures, and ot

18、her body movements. It is a definite communication barrier. But it is possible to learn the meanings of these observable message,usually in informal rather ways. It is more difficult to understand the less obvious unspoken codes of the other cultures. Language, as the carrier of culture, is created

19、during the process of human beings' productive labor and serves as the tool of communication to convey the message between people. However, it has been endowed with magic and power in particular language acts. As the old saying goes, troubles come out of the tongue. Superstitious people think th

20、at the language itself can bring about fortune or misfortune so that taboos to restrict the use of language are created. Anyone who violates them will get punishment, whereas those who faithfully obey the restrictions of language taboo will get protection. Furthermore, linguistic taboos change with

21、the development of society .The paper firstly analyzes the evolution of linguistic taboo. It is indicated in the paper that linguistic taboo exists in almost every aspect of people ' s life and is a universal social phenomenon in China and Britain. Both Chinese and English cultures are in agreem

22、ent about linguistic taboos such as pronunciation taboo, and vocabulary taboo. However, influenced by different cultural backgrounds, ideologies and the concepts of value, Chinese and English linguistic taboos also have differences, as is discussed in the paper from the aspects of taboo subjects, ta

23、boo numbers and names. At last, this paper puts forward two effective ways of avoiding taboo, that is, using euphemism and having a good knowledge of the taboo culture. And this discussion would help English learners improve their ability of cross-cultural communication and achieve better communicat

24、ional effects. For example, During the feudal times, people were not equal to the rulers and were suppressed by their superiors. The distinction between the upper and the lower classes was also reflected in the evaluation of the language used by them respectively. The words of upper class used were

25、considered good and elegant while those used by the lower class were regarded as vulgar and indecent and should be avoided in the speech of ladies and gentlemen. In modern society, as a result of the development of science and technology, many natural phenomena are no longer mysterious. Human beings

26、 not only constantly improve their abilities to exploit the world where they are living through their great wisdom and knowledge, but also make efforts to explore the extraterrestrial world. Science has much more say in today s society. Thereby, the superstitious elements in linguistic taboos decrea

27、se while those reflecting spiritual civilization increase.In short, by comparison, we can find that both Chinese and English communication reflect people psychsology for good will, for safety and fortune and pleasantness. The Chinese and English people restrict their words and deeds through taboos,

28、trying to keep a harmonious relationship between human and nature, or between people and society. They are a rflection of people ' s pursuit of freedom and equality.The most important, the different way of family structure, family values and family education. Family structure is the big differen

29、ce between east and west, traditional Chinese, amony many other Asians, repect their elders and feel a deep sense of duty toward them. Children repay their parents' sacrifices by being successful and supporting them in old age. This is accepted as a natural part of life in China. In contrast, ta

30、king care of aged parents is often viewed as a tremendous burden in the English-speaking countries, where aging and family support are not honored highly. In some English-speaking countries are still extrmely family-oriented. They are dedicated to helping their children and will sacrifice greatly fo

31、r their children to get an edcuation. In turn, the children are devoted to their parents, who often live nearby. Grown children who go away and leave the country for the economic reasons typically send large parts of their salary home to their parents and the rest of the family. Or in some Asia, any

32、 decisions or actions are done from family consideration, not individual desires. Peope's behavior is judged on whether it brings shame or pride to the family. The children are trained to rely on their families, to honor elderly people, and to fear foreigners. And many of them think that their a

33、ctions in this life will influence their status in the next life.The way of family edcation is also the different. We all know the family education is the elementary education for children. Many serious problems have appeared in our education system in recent years. Almost everyone has realized the

34、importance of solving these problems and many people have presented a lot of valuable suggestions. There are many types of family education in the world and each of them shows distinctive features and is closely responsive to its culture. And American family education is the most famous one among th

35、em. There are great differences in the concepts of education, methods of education and results of education between East family education and West family education. In some English-speaking countries, parents ' aims are to train their children to have the ability of adapting to environmental var

36、iety and the ability of living independently. Based on this concept, most American parents emphasize more to train their children s ability ofindependence once they are born. They generally believe that children s growth mrely on their own experiences, because they think that children should form a

37、self-supporting will and the capacity to live independently since their childhood. And the capacity comes from the training in the early age. The so-called training contains many aspects, such as work, temper will, patience, the spirit of hard work, etc. However, the most fundamental training is the

38、 ability of adapting to hard conditions.Through the process of work, children will form the labor sense, learn some work skills and form a habit of labor. Besides, children can learn how to overcome difficulties, temper their willpower, develop their talents and skills, rich their knowledge, and for

39、m a habit of hard work and thrifty by working in hard conditions. It is just in the unconsciously process that children will obtain the independent survivability and take the responsibilities for the society. Compared with some English-speaking countries, Chinese parents have a very different concep

40、t of children ' s education. Some parents in China only care about whether the children have a promising future, a good job, a good life or not. Based on these expectations, the majority of parents feel that their responsibility for their children is to create as good conditions as possible they

41、 can so that the children will not worry about anything in the future. Chinese parents would like to provide everything what they can for their children in the process of children' s growth. In short, they would like tosacrifice anything if their children can live better with their help. Therefo

42、re, in the process of chidren ' s growth, the most important thing the parents concerning is to developing their children ' s intellect, except for caring children' s daily life. In oimake their children have a good performance in study, become outstanding, or even become a famous person

43、 in the future, they would not let children do anything except studying. As for the childrens independence, civic awareness and their abilityadapting to the society in the future, they consider little or not at all. From these aspects we can find the obvious differences of family education between A

44、merica and China.When we faced with those difference between West and East, we should give some advice to solve these problems. According to the three big difference that pointed, we should find some way to deal with these problems.We can study other languages and learn to expect in nonvwebal forms and other cultural aspects. We can train ourselves to meet int