作者：郑晓泉
出版社：浙江大学出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
跨文化交际试读：
编者说明
随着交通、信息、通讯、旅游业的高速发展，以及国家与国家之间贸易额、投资额的不断扩大，不同文化背景的个体和群体之间的交流日益增多，跨文化的交际在广度、密度和深度上都发展迅速，不管愿意与否，几乎所有人都不可避免地要与来自不同文化背景的人进行交流，跨文化交际已成为“地球村”每个公民的必然。然而存在于地区之间、国家之间的文化差异甚至文化沟壑必将导致相互间的误解、隔阂甚至冲突，阻碍了来自不同文化背景下人们之间的有效交际。因此，培养对文化差异的敏感性，发展跨文化意识，学会与来自不同文化背景的人进行交流，已成为新时代的迫切需求。在外语教学界，要注重增强学生对文化差异的敏感性、宽容性以及处理文化差异的灵活性，培养学生跨文化交际能力，已经成为普遍的共识。
本教材在内容上，针对高职高专教育人才培养目标、知识结构和能力要求，充分体现理论知识够用为度，着重培养学生跨文化交际技能的目的。第一章以基本知识和理论为主，介绍文化、交际、跨文化交际的定义、概念，阐述交际与文化的关系、文化价值观对跨文化交际的影响。第二、第三、第四、第五、第六章通过对跨文化交际案例的分析，向学生展示文化差异在跨文化交际中的种种表现，以及在特定的国际商务语境中的文化差异。
在体例和编写手法上，教材各个单元的构成形式多样，不求整齐划一，以适合不同需求与兴趣的学生，并给教师留有一定的选择余地，可以结合具体情况更加生动活泼地组织教学。每个章节都配有思考题，给学生留有思考、探讨的空间。同时制作了电子课件。附录中提供了部分讨论题及课堂任务的参考答案。
在选材上，教材选材广泛，编排合理，广泛发掘来自不同文化的人们在进行跨文化交际过程中出现问题、遭遇障碍的案例，以及成功进行跨文化交际的案例，这些案例既有趣味性，又有实用性，给学生大量直观的、感性的实例，帮助学生建构跨文化交际的真实场景。教材适合于高职高专英语教师、高职高专英语专业学生，以及英语翻译、导游和英语爱好者。
本教材主编为郑晓泉（丽水职业技术学院），副主编为蔡红（绍兴托普信息职业技术学院）、郑斌（浙江艺术职业学院）、汤莉（浙江育英职业技术学院）、何雅叶（金华职业技术学院）、朱伟芳（绍兴托普信息职业技术学院），参加编写的人员还有梅雪（丽水职业技术学院）、王芬（浙江长征职业技术学院）、王培辉（衢州职业技术学院）、吴丽云（浙江商业职业技术学院）、谢红月（绍兴托普信息职业技术学院）、徐谨（浙江工商职业技术学院）。全书由郑晓泉总纂。
本教材在编撰过程中，参考了大量专著、教材和论文，得到了有关专家和学者的支持、鼓励和帮助。在此书问世之际，谨表达我们衷心的感谢。由于我们的理论水平和实践经验有限，书中疏漏之处在所难免，竭诚希望得到读者批评指正。谢谢！编 者2010年春CHAPTER 1Understanding Culture and Intercultural Communication
Human beings draw close to one another by their common nature, but habits and customs keep them apart.—Analects of Confucius
Studying a second language without learning the culture is like learning how to drive a car by studying a driver's manual and never getting behind a steering wheel.—K. J. Irving1.1 Understanding Culture1.1.1 Pre-reading
Have you ever encountered foreigners? Have you tried to speak English with native speakers? If not, you may at least have watched some foreign films and been struck by behavior which made you feel uncomfortable, puzzled, surprised, or even shocked. Communicating with people from different countries can be fascinating precisely because of different cultures. Yet such different cultures can all too easily give rise to misunderstandings.
Read the following story told by a Chinese student in Britain about her first invitation to have dinner in an English family. Then find some cultural differences in it.
A month after I had settled down at Warwick University for my M. A. course, I was invited to give a talk to a professional women's organization about my first impressions of Britain. After the talk, quite a few participants gave me their addresses and invited me to visit their families. They were really very friendly and helpful. The first visit left a lasting memory because it was my first time to have dinner at an English home. My hostess picked me up at the university and showed me around the city till sunset. I was very excited about the visit, but at the same time I was wondering who would cook the meal. Her husband? In China, if I'm going to have some visitors to dinner, it usually takes me at least three hours to prepare the eight courses. As soon as we arrived at the house, the lady asked me to sit at the table and said everything was in the oven and ready to serve. She told me she had put food in the oven before she went to the university and after two hours of touring the city, dinner was ready. Can you imagine how many dishes I had? Only one—a stew with meat and vegetables. The meat was overdone and too hard to eat; green vegetables were no longer green. Compared with Chinese food, they were tasteless. I was very much disappointed at their hospitality. However, after I had stayed in Britain for a year and visited many different families, I became more used to the British way of showing hospitality. In Britain, hospitality is not measured by how many dishes are provided as in China. It is shown by giving you freedom to choose whatever you really want. They never press you. They never put food on your plate but just ask you to help yourself. If you, as a guest, are shy or modest, waiting for the food to be put on your plate, you will remain half-starved.
1）为什么这个中国学生在看到英国主人给她准备的晚餐后很失望？
2）你是不是认为英国人不够客气？
围绕这两个问题我们可以展开思考：第一，这个中国学生感到失望是因为在中国，人们为了表示客气，通常会花好几个小时来准备一大桌的美味佳肴，而在英国，女主人却简单地准备了一锅肉煮蔬菜，而且已经煮过了头；第二，英国人不看中招待客人时的饮食是因为在他们的文化中，人们用不同的方式来表达客气，他们注重招待时对客人的重视，会不停地找节目与话题让客人不觉得被冷落，但在饮食上他们比较随意。
不同的国家有不同的文化，不同的文化导致不同的风俗、行为与习惯，那到底什么是文化呢？1.1.2 What Is Culture?
As we all know, different countries have different cultures. "Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another." (Hofstede, 1991)
The word "culture" has numerous meanings. For example, we sometimes say that people who know about art, music, and literature are cultured. However, it has a different meaning for anthropologists (people who study humankind). To an anthropologist it means all the ways in which a group of people act, dress, think, and feel. People have to learn the cultural ways of their community: they are not something that the people in the group are born with.
Instinctive behaviour, on the other hand, is a pattern of behaviour that an animal is born with. Spiders' spinning their webs is an example of instinctive behaviour. The mother spider does not teach her babies how to spin webs. In fact, she is not even there when they are born. They know how to do it when they are born. This is what we mean by instinctive behaviour.
As humans, we learn some of the ways of our culture by being taught by our teachers or parents. We learn more of the ways of our culture by growing up in it. We see how other people in our culture do things, and we do them in the same way. We even learn how to think and feel in this way.
All human beings have certain basic needs, such as eating, drinking, keeping warm and dry, and so on. However, the way in which they take care of their needs depends on the culture in which they grow up. All cultures have ways of eating, dressing, finding shelter, marrying, and dealing with death. The foods that we think are good to eat, the kind of clothes we wear, and how many people we can marry at one time are all parts of our culture.
Our own culture seems very natural to us. We feel in our hearts that the way that we do things is the only right way to do them. Other people's culture often makes us laugh or feels disgusted or shocked. We may laugh at clothing that seems ridiculous to us. Many people think that eating octopus or a piece of red juicy roast beef is disgusting. The idea that a man can have more than one wife or that brothers and sisters can marry each other may shock people from other cultures.
Ideas of what is beautiful differ from one culture to another. The Flathead Indian of North America used to bind the heads of babies between boards so they would have long sloping foreheads. In the Flathead culture, long sloping foreheads were beautiful. Other cultures might think that they are strange-looking and unattractive. Many people cut scars into their bodies or tattoo themselves so that others in their culture will think they are beautiful. Objects are inserted in holes in the nose, lips, and ears in a number of different cultures in many twentieth-century societies. Rouge, lipstick, eye shadow, perfume, and hair spray are all used to increase attractiveness.
When people die, different cultures dispose of their bodies in different ways. Sometimes bodies are burnt. Sometimes bodies are buried in the ground. In many cultures in the past, people were buried with food, weapons, jewellery, and other things that might be useful in the next life. For example, the ancient Egyptians buried people with little human figures made from clay. These clay figures were supposed to work for the death person in the other world. A religious group called the parses exposed their dead on platforms for birds to eat. Some people practice a second burial. After the bodies have been in the earth for several years, the bones are dug up and reburied, sometimes in a small container.
These are just a few of the many different customs that are found in different cultures. Most of the time, the different ways that stand for the customs of different cultures are neither right nor wrong. It is simply that different people do the same things in different ways.The Characteristics of Culture
From the definition of culture, we can generate the basic characteristics of culture as following.Culture is holistic
As a holistic system, culture can be broken down into several subsystems, including a kinship system, an educational system, a religious system, an economic system, a political system, a food system, a corporate system, a sports system, and so on, but the various systems of culture are closely interrelated. Any change in a subsystem will affect the whole system. For instance, attitudes, values, behaviors for work, life, entertainment, and so on changed a lot with appearance of personal computer and mobile.Culture is coherent
Each culture, past or present, is coherent and complete within itself—an entire view of the universe. The pioneer researcher into the study of cultures, Edward Tylor, said in 1871 that culture is "the outward expression of a unifying and consistent vision brought by a particular community to its confrontation with such core issues as the origins of the cosmos, the harsh unpredictability of the natural environment, the nature of society and humankind's place in the order of things".
That different groups of human beings at different times in history could develop different visions is both a cause for wonder, and a cause of misunderstanding. The incredible richness of the variety of cultures fascinates historians, anthropologists, travelers, and nearly everybody.
Regardless of how peculiar a fragment of culture seems, when it is placed within the whole tapestry of the culture, it makes sense. The completeness of cultures also means members looking out from their own seamless view of the universe probably do not see anything lacking in their"unifying and consistent vision".Culture is constantly changeable
Cultures are subject to change over time. Culture loses some of its traits and gains new ones. Every culture changes in time although the rate of change of every culture varies. Some cultures are more open and accepting of change, others tend to resist it. The aspects of culture that change vary across societies. Cultures change in the process of transmission from generation to generation, group to group, and place to place. With the passage of time, new technologies emerge, new modes of work come up, social thinking undergoes transitions and so does culture. Four major mechanisms account for the change of cultures: technological invention, disasters (including natural and human calamities), cultural contact, and environmental factors.Culture is learned and acquired
Culture is not instinctive. We all have to be taught our culture. Culture propagates through generations, which adopt their old customs and traditions as a part of their culture. The ideals they base their lives on is a part of their culture. Cultural values are imparted from one generation to another, thus resulting in a continual of traditions that are a part of culture. We begin to consciously and unconsciously acquire and learn our culture in our early life through senses and from experience, habits, skills, and knowledge. Interaction with family members and friends is the most common way for us to learn about our culture. Other sources for learning our culture are schools, church, media, folk tales, and art. Culture is learned, understood and adopted by the younger generations of society. No individual is born with a sense of his/her culture. He/she has to learn it.
If culture is learned, then it is learnable. That means nobody has to remain for a life-time locked inside only one culture. If you want to understand other cultures, you can learn them—not just learn about them, but accurately get inside them and act according to what is expected in them. Many people have learned more than one culture and move comfortably within them. When circumstances dictate, they make the transition from one culture to another easily.Culture is shared and transmitted
Every culture is shared by a group of people. Members of a society agree about the meanings of things and about the why. Depending on the region they live in, the climatic conditions they thrive in and their historical heritage, they form a set of values and beliefs. This set of principles of life shapes their culture. No culture belongs to an individual. It is rather shared among many people of a certain part of the world. Along with everyone from whom they have learned their culture—older family members, teachers, spiritual leaders, peers, and representatives of legal, political, and educational institutions—they have interpreted life experiences in ways that validate their own culture's views. Therefore, since they have little doubt about that validity, they all share the view that their interpretations are correct. Groups are motivated by common views, and these views are a dynamic force enabling groups to achieve societal goals—protecting economic sources from unscrupulous outsiders, for example.
Culture belongs to a single community. People in a given culture share symbols of that culture. The most obvious set of symbols is language. Cultures also share visual symbols. Company logos, icons, religious images, and national flags are examples of visual symbols.Culture ranks what is important
What is of paramount importance to one group may be virtually meaningless to another. For instance, consider the amassing of wealth. In one Pacific Island culture, the Gururumba of New Guinea, a rich man is required to expend all his carefully amassed fortune—in this case, pigs—in the lavish entertainment of the members of his society. To be able to entertain this way is the real meaning of wealth because it means the giver is owed and therefore has great prestige. But explain that to a businessperson in the Unites States or China or Italy who has spent his or her life amassing wealth! Usually in these cultures resources are to be husbanded and increased, not depleted in one big blow-out. To be sure, businesspeople in these cultures often make generous charitable and philanthropic donations, but their culture teaches them to treat wealth with care and make it grow. Cultures rank what is important. In other words, cultures teach values of priorities. They enable us to evaluate what matters to us or to apply standards to our attitudes and beliefs. For example, a culture may put a high priority on honesty and a low priority on making a minimal effort. Priorities vary from culture to culture. When you understand the priorities people have, you can predict with some confidence how they will probably respond to a specific situation.Culture furnishes attitudes
Attitude is a feeling about things, which is a tendency to respond the same way to the same object or situation or idea in the same culture. People from different cultures can have different attitudes toward the same things. In Mexican culture, a death of an aunt is an event that business associate are expected to view as significant to the family members; a boss is expected to have an understanding attitude toward an employee who is not able to get a report done by a deadline because of the funeral and family needs. In Britain, the attitude toward a business associate's loss of an aunt is that this is a private affair, regrettable and perhaps very sad, but something that should not affect work to a great extent. In fact, for a businessperson, handling the situation well means keeping it from having an impact on work. Reports should come in on time if possible.Culture dictates how to behave
To continue the example of the previous discussion, a brief expression of sympathy by one businessperson to a bereaved work associate at their next meeting is appropriate British behavior. If the association is longstanding, perhaps a card is sent. In Mexico, on the other hand, much more than an expression of sympathy is appropriate behavior. Business associates may attend the funeral, send flowers, offer services such as transporting family members, and visit the family to show respect.
Behavior comes directly from attitudes about how significant something is – how it is valued. Values drive actions. Our life is mostly a composite of actions. Cultural priorities motivate our behavior. In intercultural contracts, cultural differences usually make themselves known first by behavior, which is related to attitudes and which springs from priorities (value) in the future.Layers of Culture
There are many interpretations of culture. We look at culture from a special perspective. We like to compare culture with an onion. Culture, like an onion, consists of many layers. Stephan Dahl, a Spanish scholar, wrote a report of Communication and Culture Transformation—Cultural Diversity, Globalization and Cultural Convergence. In the report, the scholar pointed out that there are three layers in culture, which are:
Surface layer: all kinds of behaviors man conducts. It includes all the direct contents in the field of culture—language, clothes, food, housing, all the products of arts and so on. This is the level of explicit culture.
Middle layer: criterion and sense of worth. Criterion and sense of worth lead to the recognition of being right and wrong. People's behaviors and ways of communication are affected by criterion and sense of worth. But they are not visible, despite their influence on what happens at the observable surface.
Deep layer: basic judgment. People have a basic judgment toward the questions: what is life? How to deal with the problems appearing in life? What is beauty? ... This is the deepest layer: the level of implicit culture. Understanding the core of the culture onion is the key to successfully working with other cultures. The core consists of basic assumptions, series of rules and methods to deal with the regular problems that it faces. These methods of problem-solving have become so basic that, like breathing, we no longer think about how we do it. For an outsider these basic assumptions are very difficult to recognize. Every culture has developed its own set of basic assumptions. These basic assumptions can be measured by dimensions. Each dimension is like a continuum. Cultures differ in how they deal with these dimensions, but they do not differ in needing to make some kind of response.Culture Shock
Culture shock can be described as the feeling of confusion and disorientation that one experiences when facing with a large number of new and unfamiliar people and situations. Many things contribute to it－smells, sounds, flavors, the very feeling of the air one is breathing. Of course, the unfamiliar language and behavior of the native people contribute to it, too. People's responses to culture shock vary greatly, from excitement and energetic action to withdrawal, depression, physical illness, and hostility.
The notion of culture shock calls two useful points to mind. First, most people experience some degree of culture shock when they go to a new country, whether they admit it to themselves and others or not. Culture shock is more a product of the situation of being in a new culture than of the traveler's personal character. Second, culture shock, like other kinds of "shock", is normally transitory. It passes with time.
When an individual enters a strange culture, all or most of these familiar signs are removed. No matter how broadminded or full of goodwill you may be, a series of supports have been removed from you, followed by a feeling of frustration. When suffering from culture shock people first reject the environment which causes discomfort. The ways of the host country are bad because they make you feel bad. When foreigners in a strange land get together to complain about the host country and its people, you can be sure that they are suffering from culture shock.
Another phase of culture shock is regression. The home environment suddenly assumes tremendous importance. To the foreigner, everything becomes irrationally glorified. All the difficulties and problems are forgotten and only the good things back home are remembered. It usually takes a trip home to bring one back to reality.Stages of Culture Shock
Culture shock is divided into five stages. Each stage can be long standing or appears only under certain conditions. Researchers have found that most people go through very similar stages during the process of adapting to a new culture. They have identified five distinct stages, called: honeymoon, rejection, adjustment, acceptance or adaptation, reentry. These five stages of culture shock may occur at different times; different person may have different reactions due to certain factors such as personality type, age, expectation, education background, health condition and major. However, there are some effective ways to fight with the pressure caused by culture shock such as developing a hobby, making friends, contacting with family or concentrating on goals, etc.Stage 1: Honeymoon Stage
Like any new experience, the newcomer is usually excited to be in
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