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It means If someone communicate with foreigners, how could he notice the differences and communicate with them gracefully because they have different languages and cultures. Nowadays, with the development of the world economy, the globalization has become an irreversible trend. Today’s society, unlike the previous which is closed, is a society of cultural fusion. Everyone in the world is easy to communicate with others by using lots of chat tools. So, intercultural communication is a very useful course both in international trade and in understanding foreign culture.
When we talk about other countries, the most important thing we have to point out is culture which including religion, history, customs, rules, moral sentiment, academic thought, literature, art and so on. What people talk about, how they talk about It, what they see, and how they think are all influenced by their culture. Culture Is a way of life that Is developed and shared by lots of people who share similar sets of traditions, beliefs, values, customs and norms that are passed down from generation to generation. For instance, American is influenced by religion, Protestant culture of Europe.
Puritanism, rationalism and idealism have been the three main sources of American culture. It including individualism, freedom, equality, heroism and so on. The heroism is a very norm idea in American life, we can see it from Holly Wood movies, like Superman and Captain America. And equality is reflected in all social activities and relationships, it refer to everyone has same rights and chances in doing something. But Chinese culture which Influenced by Confucianism. It doesn’t like religion, but ad made lots of principles for how deal with things and how get along with people In our dally life.
The core of Confucianism Is Rene, which Including love, tolerance, kindness, modesty and so on. Meanwhile, Confucius also said that relationship between people is very different, they have different positions, like elder brother and younger brother, the grandpa on mother side and grandpa on father side. And in Confucianism, family is the basis of the society and people relate to other groups and the country in the same way they relate to their family members. The type of social legislation represent its cultural values and social structure.
Greet Hefted offers an approach to understanding the range of cultural differences in value orientation. Hypotheses approach is based on the assertion that people carry mental programs or “software of the mind” that is during childhood and is reinforced by their culture. These mental programs contain the Ideas of a culture and are expressed through Its dominant values. To Identify five dimensions along which dominant cultural patterns are ordered: Individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity versus femininity, orientation to time. From Book Intercultural The first is power distance.
Although in the low said everyone has equal power, all the people in a culture do not have equal power. Depending on the culture, some people may be in higher position than others because age, education, achievements. In Chinese culture, the more elder you are the more power you may have. But in American culture, personal achievements are more important than age. So countries with a larger power distance will believe that each person has his own position in order, and freedom is limited, so they should not disobey their boss’ decisions. In entrant, in low distance power, they have same equal right in talking about decisions.
The second is uncertainty avoidance. There always have lots of changes and uncertain things we must face, but different cultures have different levels in accepting these things. In high uncertainty avoidance cultures, people prefer to using ways to avoid uncertainty. So, they want to be more safe by draw up strategies of their country and company. But in low uncertainty avoidance countries, they don’t willing to think about strategies and Just by their experiences. In this thesis, Chinese culture is similar to American culture. The third is individualism and collectivism.
Individualism means the relationship between self and other people is loosed. Personal interests are more important than the group’s interests. So, collectivism means the group’s interests are more important than personals. Chinese culture is collectivism while American culture is Individualism. In China, members must obey the group and the group is in top position. On the contrary, American is much respect personal ideas and interests. The fourth is masculinity vs.. Femininity. Femininity means people more care about operate with others and be willing to keep well relationship with boss.
They very care about the quality of life and guarantee of work. But masculinity is more care about material possession and income. In this point, Chinese culture and American culture are same. Time orientation is the fifth concern of all cultures. “The time orientation refers to a person’s point of reference about life and work. ” Cultures with a long term orientation means raising and encouraging quality that longing for rewards in the future, firmness and saving money specially. China is a long term orientation country while American is not. We can find evidences from real life of American and China.
Most of Chinese people are more like to buy a house not to rent house, so they like saving money for the future. But American has completed credit system, they can spend money in advance. Each of five dimensions has deep influences of culture on the communication process. Accompanied Chinese culture and American culture, we may not difficult conclude that power distance, individualism and collectivism, time orientation are the Americans with these ideas in our mind. Further more, we could solve lots of problems in foreign area by using this thesis.