What is cross-cultural communication?

The so-called cross-cultural communication means that people from different cultural backgrounds come together to share their thoughts, feelings and information. The English name of cross-cultural communication is cross-cultural communication, which was also called cross-cultural communication in the early days. Cross-cultural communication first appeared in America. The United States is an immigrant country, and cultural collisions occur from time to time. Immigrants from all over the world emphasize and maintain their own culture, thus forming a multicultural pattern in the United States. Therefore, cross-cultural communication has attracted extensive attention from American scholars and people from all walks of life. Not to be outdone, Japan took the lead in holding the first international symposium on cross-cultural communication in Tokyo on 1972, with more than 2,000 participants. 1974, the United States officially announced the establishment of SIETAR (Intercultural Education, Training and Research Association). China's cross-cultural communication research started late. Professor Hu Wenzhong, a famous linguist of Beijing Foreign Studies University, began to study cross-cultural communication in the early 1980s, and his works are quite abundant. At present, he has compiled and published many books such as Introduction to Cross-cultural Communication and Cross-cultural and Language Communication. At present, cross-cultural communication has developed into a comprehensive discipline which is fully valued by international scholars and integrates anthropology, linguistics, psychology, communication and sociology.

What is the significance of cross-cultural communication?

Cross-cultural communication is the communication between people with different cultural backgrounds. Close cross-cultural communication is an important feature of today's world. With the acceleration of economic globalization, cross-border and cross-cultural communication activities are becoming more and more frequent, and the cross-border communication of people with different cultural backgrounds is increasing. The emergence of a large number of multinational companies makes the trend of diversification of labor cultural background increasingly obvious. Cross-cultural communication is becoming more and more important. At the same time, cross-cultural communication, as a new discipline, has attracted more and more attention from linguistics and language teaching. Scholars have studied all aspects of cross-cultural communication and achieved many results. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects:

The first is the study of cultural differences. Cultural differences have not changed the universality of communication, but the involvement of cultural factors has increased the complexity and difficulty of communication. Since the anthropologist Calvero oberg popularized the word "cultural shock", cultural differences have been the focus of people's attention. This concern is carried out from two different levels: on the one hand, it is the cultural comparison between different countries, nationalities and cultural systems, such as the cultural differences between the East and the West, between China and Japan, between Japan and the United States, and so on; On the other hand, in order to effectively compare and analyze the above cultures, scholars have extracted some important dimensions from different cultures. There are four famous cultural dimensions of hofstede, six cultural dimensions of Ryan and Diest Fenno, and five cultural dimensions of Strom penas.

In this model, different graphics represent different cultures; Smaller figures similar to cultural figures represent individuals influenced by culture, and the differences between them indicate that the formation of individuals is also influenced by other factors besides culture; Arrows represent the transmission of information between cultures. The consistency between information mode and personal mode means that when information leaves the culture that encodes it, it contains the intention of the coder. However, when the information reaches the culture, it will be decoded, the influence of the decoded culture becomes a part of the information meaning, and the implied meaning of the original information is modified. The more similar the cultures are, the closer the decoding result is to the implied meaning.

D.Hymes( 1974) puts forward a framework for analyzing communication events, which further embodies the influence of cultural differences on communication. Generally speaking, cultural differences have an impact on all aspects of communicative participation structure. The communication participation structure is generally summarized into eight items, which are represented by the eight letters of the word "Shuo". These include:

S: "setting" and "scene", that is, background and occasion. P: "participants", that is, participants. In specific communication activities, the age, gender, race, occupation, social status, background characteristics and factors of the participants have an impact on communication. E: "Ends", that is, the participants' personal communication purpose, including the expected outcome (oute) according to the agreement (that is, social and cultural agreement) and each participant's personal goals. A: "Behavior sequence" means the sequence of communication behaviors, including the content (topic) of information and the expression form of content. K: "Key" refers to tone, including tone, expression and posture. Serious, joking, exaggerated or ironic, quiet or with a sense of color, and so on. Me: "Instrumentality", that is, media and channels, mainly refers to which language or language variety (such as dialect and register) is used to transmit information, whether it is spoken or written. N: "Norms" mainly refer to various agreements that people must follow in their speech acts when communicating. Specifically, it is to communicate participants' "when to say, when not to say, when to say, to whom, when to say, where to say, how to say" and so on. G: "Genre", that is, genre, refers to the types of discourse in communication activities, such as poems, fables, myths, prayers, jokes, riddles, curses, speeches, letters, comments and announcements.

Third, the study of cross-cultural communication skills. Participation structure is an unwritten rule of culture for communication. Both sides of communication may not know the participation structure of the other culture, or even the specific situation of the participation structure in their own culture. This requires both parties to be more psychologically tolerant of the uncertainty in communication and the "abnormal" situation. & gt

The Importance and Significance of Cross-cultural Communication

The English name of "intercultural communication" is "cross-cultural communication". It refers to the communication between native speakers and non-native speakers, and also refers to the communication between people with different language and cultural backgrounds.

Cross-cultural communication, as a new frontier science, is born under the background of economic globalization, and the research in this field is undoubtedly born to meet the needs of such an increasingly developed cross-cultural international communication and interpersonal communication. Because this subject must study the differences in value orientation and way of thinking formed by different cultural backgrounds, the differences in role relations and behavior norms caused by different social structures, the differences in cultural symbols and code systems accumulated by different ethnic customs, and the differences in language rules and communication methods restricted by different communication situations. All these studies should not only carry out in-depth theoretical exploration, but also pay attention to practical application research, so as to make this subject more scientific, perfect and enriched, so as to better serve this era.

The importance of cross-cultural communication;

1, cultivate * * *, and eliminate cultural centralism.

The feeling of * * * is to put yourself in the other's shoes to experience the joys and sorrows, thus producing an emotional * * * sound. The reason why people from different cultural backgrounds can't communicate easily is often due to their different understanding of specific cultural phenomena. In cross-cultural communication, one of the main reasons for communication failure is the lack of * * *, the inability to correctly understand and evaluate other people's values, the lack of common background, and the lack of tolerance towards our specific world outlook and cultural backgrounds with different values. To develop the sense of * * *, we must first admit the differences between different cultures, and only in this way can we find the direction and breakthrough point of developing the sense of * * *. Secondly, we should have a sense of "transposition", eliminate the interference of various stereotypes on different cultures, and put ourselves in the perspective of others to understand cultural phenomena. Know yourself correctly, eliminate the prejudice of ethnocentrism, and eliminate the state of separation between self and environment. Third, we must look at the problem from the standpoint of the information receiver and imagine the problem from the perspective of the information receiver. We should get rid of the prejudice of cultural centralism and not discriminate or belittle other cultures. Only by understanding and understanding different cultures objectively, fairly and comprehensively can we eliminate all kinds of cultural obstacles in the process of cross-cultural communication.

2. Develop two-way communication. Communication is a cyclic interactive process, which includes the sender, the receiver and the information itself.

Communication is actually a process of encoding, decoding and interpreting information. Due to cultural differences, people from different cultural backgrounds will bring different values, beliefs and customs in the process of communication. When interpreting information from another culture, they always understand it according to their own cultural background and the decoding method decided by them, which leads to inaccurate understanding of the other party's information and wrong judgments and decisions. Therefore, two-way communication contributes to the interpretation of information from different cultural backgrounds. The characteristic of two-way communication is that both parties participate in the process of encoding and decoding, and the feedback obtained from the results of two-way communication can help to further explain the intentions of both parties. Through two-way communication and feedback, we will further promote the enthusiasm of cross-cultural communication, broaden the channels of communication, sum up and popularize the good experiences in communication in time, and correct the problems in communication in time. Ambiguous intentions in the first round of communication can be solved in the second round of communication. Although two-way communication will be interfered by many factors, it is a more effective way of communication than one-way communication.

3. Conduct cross-cultural training to improve cross-cultural communication skills.

Training is also a basic means to develop effective cross-cultural communication. At present, the vast majority of multinational companies in China focus on the pure technical training of employees, while ignoring the cross-cultural training of employees, especially managers. Cross-cultural training is only the basic means to solve cultural differences and carry out effective cross-cultural communication. The main contents of cross-cultural training should include the knowledge and understanding of the national cultures of both sides, the training of cultural sensitivity and adaptability, language training, conflict handling ability training, regional environment simulation and so on. The purpose is to alleviate possible cultural conflicts and promote understanding of the business philosophy and customary practices of employees in the host country; Maintain a good and stable interpersonal relationship within the organization, keep the internal information flowing and the decision-making process efficient, and strengthen the team spirit and enterprise cohesion. This kind of training can generally be carried out by the training department within the enterprise, or ... >; & gt

What is intercultural communicative competence?

Is to have the ability to communicate normally and effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds. For example, when communicating with people from other countries or nationalities, you live in different regions, have different cultures and customs, and naturally have different ways of thinking. For example, the same gesture may represent diametrically opposite concepts in different cultures. This requires communicators to understand the background of these two cultures at the same time in order to communicate effectively.

How to improve cross-cultural communication ability

The main purpose of English curriculum standards is to make the process of language learning a process in which students form a positive attitude, think positively and practice boldly, improve cross-cultural awareness and form autonomous learning ability. Cross-cultural communication refers to the activities of people from different cultural backgrounds to achieve smooth communication through various means. Through the study of cross-cultural communication, students can understand their own culture, accept cultural differences, understand and respect different cultures, improve their critical thinking ability, and have the knowledge, skills and values of cross-cultural communication to understand the relationship between people. In the traditional foreign language teaching mode, simply instilling grammar knowledge can not effectively cultivate students' cross-cultural awareness. Teachers should gradually expand the content and scope of cultural knowledge according to students' age characteristics and cognitive ability. Cultural knowledge about English-speaking countries involved in teaching should be closely related to students' daily life, knowledge structure and cognitive level, and can stimulate students' interest in learning English culture. It is necessary to expand the scope of students' contact with foreign cultures, help students broaden their horizons, improve their sensitivity and ability to distinguish the similarities and differences between Chinese and foreign cultures, and lay a good foundation for developing cross-cultural communication ability. First, cultivate students' cross-cultural awareness in vocabulary teaching. Vocabulary contains rich cultural connotations. Therefore, in the process of English vocabulary teaching, teachers should not only teach students the correct pronunciation and original meaning of English vocabulary, but also pay attention to accepting the cultural meaning of the vocabulary taught, so that students can fully grasp the cultural phenomenon that English vocabulary does not correspond to Chinese vocabulary, thus cultivating students' cross-cultural awareness. For example, "red" symbolizes "joy, auspiciousness, jubilation and enthusiasm" in our China culture, which is a commendatory term. However, in English culture, "red" is associated with "danger, violence and bloodshed". Teachers should fully explore the cultural connotations of English words in vocabulary teaching, make induction, summary and comparison, find out other special cultural meanings of these English words with Chinese meaning, and give full explanations in class. At the same time, when learning English words containing idioms, proverbs and allusions, we should lose no time to introduce these words to students, enrich their cross-cultural knowledge, and teach students to use these words in situations so that students can use them correctly. For another example, in China, dogs are relatively humble animals, and most people describe them in a derogatory sense. China idioms: Dogs look down on people, dogs fight with people, friends with friends, etc. , all with derogatory colors. However, in Britain, a dog is a pet. Therefore, when foreign friends say enviously, "You are a lucky dog!" Sometimes, it is easy to cause a contrast in understanding and affect the relationship between friends. Therefore, if teachers introduce appropriate cultural knowledge to students in the teaching process, it will stimulate students' interest in learning English, so that students can master English vocabulary unconsciously and fully understand English vocabulary in happiness. Second, cultivating students' cross-cultural awareness in reading teaching is an important means for people to obtain information, a channel for junior middle school students to understand foreign politics, economy, history, religion and customs, and an important task and means for English learning. In the teaching process, junior high school English teachers should not only introduce students to the cultural background knowledge in reading materials, but also dabble in cultural factors other than the language materials that students are puzzled and difficult to understand, so that students can better understand the differences between the culture of this country and their own culture. Only in this way can students see the close relationship between language and culture from a large number of language materials, so as to deepen their understanding of English national culture and their own national culture, effectively cultivate their cross-cultural awareness, and then improve their communicative competence. Junior high school English teachers can introduce the relevant background of the text in detail before introducing new lessons when teaching new lessons. In order to increase the interest of teaching and stimulate students' interest, teachers can use multimedia-assisted teaching to introduce new courses, present vivid and influential materials to students and activate their background knowledge. Then, teachers and students read together, so that teachers and students can participate in reading, ask questions and answer each other. In question and answer, teachers should be more sensitive to the differences between Chinese and western cultures, guide students to find and solve problems, deepen their understanding of reading materials, and cultivate students' cross-cultural awareness. In reading teaching, strengthen the introduction of English discourse thinking mode. For example, the basic characteristics of many English articles are: first summarize, then elaborate, first get to the point, then step by step, well-organized, closely linked, while many Chinese paragraph thinking modes are generally not so open ... >>