Practical application of "potential" theory in cross-cultural communication

Cross-cultural communication occurs when the information generated and disseminated by members of one culture is received by members of another culture. American communication scholars Porter and Samwa (R.E. Porter &; L.A.Samovar) thinks that "the best understanding of cross-cultural communication lies in the cultural differences in understanding social things".

According to schema theory, in cross-cultural communication, because the sender and the receiver come from different cultures, their personal experiences may be very different under different cultural backgrounds, so the social communication schema in their minds will also be very different, which will affect their choice, understanding and processing of information and their behavior. The important problem to be solved in cross-cultural communication is how to reduce misunderstandings and enhance cross-cultural adaptability.

Cross-cultural adaptation is an important aspect of cross-cultural communication. According to the "adaptation theory" put forward by Young Yun Kim, "(cultural) adaptation is a long-term direct contact and change process between people who have completed the basic socialization process in one culture and another unfamiliar culture."

Cross-cultural adaptation is a complicated process. Individuals adapt to the local living environment by changing their original lifestyles, and communicate and develop relationships with local people. In other words, in the process of cross-cultural adaptation, the original social communication schema of individuals is abandoned or changed due to the change of environment, and at the same time, new social communication schema should be gradually acquired.

The development of transportation technology promotes the worldwide population mobility, and more and more people leave their countries and regions to live abroad for various voluntary or involuntary reasons. Such as businessmen, diplomats, foreign workers, international students, international volunteers, immigrants, refugees and so on. For short-term residents who don't need to live locally, such as tourists and business travelers, there seems to be no cross-cultural adaptation problem.

People who stay for a long time, such as immigrants and refugees, stay for a different time and purpose than those who study and work in different places. For the latter, it is more meaningful to study cross-cultural adaptation. Because they must adapt as soon as possible in a short time to complete the set goals, and at the same time they will face new "acculturation" after returning to their hometown. Schema theory can be used to further explain various phenomena in cross-cultural adaptation and contribute to the training of cross-cultural adaptation.

First of all, the personal social interaction schema is constantly formed and strengthened by the influence of the environment in the process of personal growth. It is naturally formed and developed because it constantly encounters similar situations, and it is often unconscious. However, in the process of cross-cultural adaptation, the lack of corresponding schema due to lack of experience will cause the following difficulties:

First, in cross-cultural adaptation, due to the lack of adaptation schema to a specific environment, it is difficult for people to effectively identify and deal with the environment and situation, which leads to high uncertainty and psychological anxiety. This is the most common difficulty in cross-cultural adaptation. For example, people who rarely take the subway in China go to Tokyo, Japan, because they don't adapt to the various signs and transfer modes of the subway, and feel that it is difficult to travel; American businessmen who deal with the Japanese for the first time often misunderstand because they can't figure out the true meaning of what the Japanese say. When China students first arrive in the United States, they will feel "at a loss" even in the common room.

Second, under the cross-cultural background, due to the lack of corresponding social schema, it is impossible to predict or control the development of situations and events, and it is difficult to choose appropriate strategic behaviors. For example, when a rural woman from China first came to the United States, she didn't know how to seek treatment from local people or medical institutions for her sick children because of language barriers and financial difficulties. When she gave the medicine she carried with her to the child, she was accused of abuse because the medicine expired and was temporarily deprived of the child's custody; Later, because he could not accept this painful fact, he kept calling the dependents designated by the authorities to ask for his children back, thus facing the accusation of "harassment crime" This extreme case shows that if there is no corresponding scenario schema, people will not be able to accurately identify the context, and if there is no corresponding strategy schema, it will be difficult to achieve the goal and thus difficult to adapt.

Thirdly, in the cross-cultural environment, the lack of schema for acquiring new knowledge affects the process of learning new knowledge; For example, many foreign students from China are smart and confident at home, but when they first arrive in the United States, they find it difficult to study. This is due to the lack of American teaching method training rather than intellectual factors.

Fourthly, under the cross-cultural background, due to the lack of corresponding emotional schema, it is difficult to share feelings with local people, and people often feel anxious, lonely and "outsiders". For example, it is difficult for international students in China to communicate with Americans about food and drink, and it is also difficult to understand each other's enthusiasm for baseball games. There are also great differences in the understanding of "emotional communication" between China and the United States.

Secondly, people who have completed the basic socialization often take a schema response to the environment because of the existence of the inherent schema in their minds. Schema response is more accurate and effective in the same or similar situations, but in the cross-cultural background, if there are mistakes in situational cognition, it will often lead to mistakes in goal selection and strategy selection.

Automatic schema reaction often begins to reflect, adjust or change after frustration, accompanied by corresponding emotional schema. For example, Jiao Lin, an international student from China, took part in freshman labor in an American university for the first time. He took the initiative to help a girl lift the board, but was accused of "gender discrimination" by the other party, which put him in trouble. Many foreign students, when they first arrived in the United States, mistook the greeting "When shall we have dinner together" for an invitation, causing all kinds of troubles.

The basic social people's response to the environment is often schema-driven rather than data-driven, reactive rather than learning. The higher the degree of socialization in the original culture, the worse the cross-cultural adaptability, and the more difficult it is to adapt. Therefore, people often find that adults are slower to adapt than children, and their language ability is weak. People who don't know much about local culture have better language skills, while those who know more about local culture adapt slowly. The research shows that children under 9 years old have no difficulty in "cross-cultural adaptation" after immigration, while people over 15 years old will strongly feel "cultural conflict" in cross-cultural adaptation.

Previous theories of cross-cultural adaptation often emphasized the cultivation of personal characteristics and abilities. For example, ICC theory emphasizes to improve the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication from three aspects: motivation, knowledge and skills. Individuals should have and pay attention to the cultivation of respect, tolerance, tolerance of ambiguity and empathy. [19] However, schema theory emphasizes the relationship between individuals, society and environment. The social environment that emphasizes personal growth has an important influence on the formation of personal schema, including personal social cognition, thinking mode and behavior mode.

Although previous theories acknowledge the influence of social environment on people, they are all unified in a cage and lack an accurate core concept, while schema theory concretizes it with the concept of schema, which is convenient for further study. At the same time, it also highlights the important role of context schema in people's social interaction.

In cross-cultural adaptation, people need to recognize different situations and learn the corresponding social schema to ensure the appropriateness and effectiveness of behavior. This further enhances the operability of cross-cultural adaptation training, such as strengthening situational teaching in foreign language teaching. In the study, we can further investigate the differences of social schema between people in different cultures in the same situation, or the differences of behavior and thought caused by the differences of scenes in different cultures, so as to further improve the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. In a word, as a new theoretical model, schema theory shows a new prospect for cross-cultural communication research.