Cultural Conflicts in Intercultural Communication.doc

Cultural Conflicts in Intercultural Communication跨文化交际中的中西文化冲突摘要：跨文化交际指任何在语言和文化背景方面有差异的人们之间的交际。在跨文化交际中文化冲突不可避免，文化对于中西文化冲突的影响显而易见，因此本文提出文化的定义并详述了文化的特性。文化是一个复合的整体，包括知识、信仰、艺术、道德、法律、风俗、以及人类在社会所获得的一切能力与习惯。文化是习得的，是与社会成员分享的，是动态可变的，它包含价值观与人们的直觉，文化也影响人们对事物的看法。文化冲突是一种因文化差异产生的冲突，其中包含情感冲突、认知冲突、价值冲突、目标冲突、及利益冲突。社会、经济、历史及宗教则是造成文化冲突的原因。关于在跨文化交际中如何预防文化冲突有两种有效策略。其一是对冲突的明确意识、其二是对另一种文化的熟悉，包括另一种语言良好的掌握、对于习俗的丰富知识以及对价值观的明确理解。在交际中良好的准备与恰当的提问两种交际技巧也可以有效处理文化冲突。笔者旨在使更多的人意识到中西方文化的差异以及其对跨文化交际的影响，以此增强人们的跨文化交际能力，避免在跨文化交际中中西文化冲突的发生。关键词：跨文化交际；文化；冲突Cultural Conflicts in Intercultural CommunicationAbstract：Intercultural communication is an academic field of study and research that focus on how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate with each other.Cultural conflicts in intercultural communication cannot be avoided because the individuals are from different cultural backgrounds. So cultural conflicts become problems under discussion and how to solve those cultural conflicts is an urgent issue.To help solving cultural conflicts in intercultural communication, the paper mainly describes culture and cultural conflicts and offers three strategies in dealing with these cultural conflicts. It focuses on culture for its significant influence on intercultural communication. Culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. Culture is learned; it is shared; it is dynamic and heterogeneous; it involves perception and values; and it furnishes attitudes. However, cultural conflicts can be divided into affective conflict, cognitive conflict, value conflict, goal conflict and conflict of interest. Society, economy, history and religion are the causes of those cultural conflicts. At last, the essay offers two strategies and two skills for dealing with cultural conflicts. They are clearness with conflicts, familiarity with other cultures which includes a good master of language, rich knowledge of customs and a clear idea of values. Two skills of solving cultural conflicts are planning and asking questions. After reading this essay, the writer hope readers would be more aware about cultural conflicts so that they can have a better understanding in an intercultural communication.Key Words: Culture; conflict; intercultural communicationTable of Contents1. Introduction. 12. Culture.22.1 Definition .22.2 Characteristics of culture32.2.1 Culture is Learned.32.2.2 Culture is Shared42.2.3 Culture is Dynamic and Heterogeneous.42.2.4 Culture Involves Perception and Values.52.2.5 Culture Furnishes Attitudes63. Cultural Conflicts. 63.1 Connotation. 63.2 Types of Cultural Conflicts.63.2.1 Affective Conflict.73.2.2 Cognitive Conflict.73.2.3 Value Conflict.73.2.4 Goal Conflict.83.2.5 Conflict of Interest. 83.3 Causes for Cultural Conflicts.83.3.1 Society and Economy.83.3.2 History.93.3.3 Religion. 104. Strategies for Dealing With Cultural Conflicts. 114.1 Clearness With Conflicts. 114.2 Familiarity With Other Cultures.114.2.1 A Good Master of Language.114.2.2 Rich Knowledge of Customs.114.2.3 A Clear Idea of Values . 125. Skills of Solving Cultural Conflicts. 126. Conclusion.13References.151. IntroductionIntercultural communication is a form of global communication. It is used to describe the wide range of communicative problems that naturally appear within an organization made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. It seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them.For the world today is characterized by an ever growing number of contacts resulting in communication between people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, various cultural conflicts in communication appear nearly everywhere in the communication between people from different cultural background. It is urgent for researchers to be aware of those conflicts and try different communicative methods to solve them in order to have a better communication in different social affairs. The writer does several research about different bibliography and make a conclusion from those documents in intercultural communication with the aim of finding effective methods to solve Chinese-Western cultural conflicts in intercultural communication.The paper describes five types of cultural conflicts in intercultural communication and offers three strategies of dealing with these cultural conflicts. It first focuses on culture because it has a significant influence on intercultural communication. The definition and characteristics are both mentioned. Then we comes to five different types of cultural conflicts. They are affective conflict, cognitive conflict, value conflict, goal conflict and conflict of interest. Next we have the analysis of causes of those cultural conflicts. At last, the essay offers two strategies and two skills for dealing with cultural conflicts. They are clearness with conflicts, familiarity with other cultures, planning and asking questions 2. CultureIntercultural communication may be said to occur when people of different cultural backgrounds interact, but this definition seems simplistic. To properly define intercultural communication, it is necessary to understand the world “culture”, for culture is often considered the core concept in intercultural communication.2.1 DefinitionWu and Yan (2009) said that, culture belongs to the mental wealth and the material wealth which are created by human. However, what is the correct definition of culture? Definitions of culture are numerous. E. B. Tylor, for example, a nineteenth-century anthropologist who provided one of the earliest formal definitions of the term, describes culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Lustig & Koester, 1999: 28)Martin and Nakayama (2005: 27) define culture as learned patterns of perception, values and behaviors, shared by a group of people, that is also dynamic and heterogeneous. However, Lustig and Koester (1999: 30) define culture as a learned set of shared interpretation about beliefs, values and norms, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of people.According to Varner and Beamer (2005: 5), culture is the coherent, learned and shared view of a group of people about lifes concern that ranks what is important, furnishes attitudes about what things are appropriate, and dictates behavior.“Culture is like the water fish swim in a reality that is taken for granted and rarely examined. It is in the air we breathe and is as necessary to our understanding of who we are as air is to our physical life. Culture is the property of a community of people, not simply a characteristic of individuals.” (Varner & Beamer, 2005: 5)Samovar, Porter and Stefani (2000: 36) define culture as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religions, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.2.2 Characteristics of culture Regardless of so many definitions we have examined, there would have been a great deal of agreement concerning the major characteristics of culture. Examining these characteristics will help us become better communicators for two reasons. First, as we move through these characteristics, the strong connection between culture and communication will become apparent. Second, since culture is in the taken-for-granted realm and below the conscious level, learning about culture can therefore be a stimulating awakening as you convey meaning in intercultural communication so that cultural conflicts can be better aware.2.2.1 Culture is Learned.Culture is not something we are born with; rather, it is learned. “All of us are born with basic needs needs that create and shape behavior but how we go about meeting those needs and developing behaviors to cope with them is learned.” (Porter, Samovar & Stefani, 2000: 38) “On the basis of cultural learning, people create, remember, and deal with ideas.”(Kottak, 2004: 86) Martin and Nakayama (2005:27) give us examples as follows: most Americans eat holding a fork in one hand, but when they use a knife, they shift the fork to their other hand. Europeans think this is clumsy; they simply eat with fork in one hand and knife in the other. Another example is that: while Americans and Japanese share a need to be loved, Americans tend to express feelings of love more overtly, while Japanese are taught to be more restrained. So, when we are born, we do not know how to be a male or a female, American or Chinese, and so on; rather, we are taught. We have to learn how to eat, walk, talk, and love like other members of our cultural groups and we usually do so slowly and subconsciously, through a process of socialization. For example, a Chinese child adopted by an American family will embrace American cultural values; likewise, a Korean child raised by a Japanese family will exhibit Japanese cultural values.2.2.2. Culture is Shared Culture is shared. Culture is an attribute not of individuals per se but of individuals as members of groups. It becomes a group experience because it is shared with people who live in and experience the same social environments. So our perceptions are similar to those of other individuals who belong to the same cultural groups. Culture is transmitted in society. We learn our culture by observing, listening, talking, and interacting with many other people. Shared beliefs, values, memories, and expectations link people who grow up in the same culture. For example, according to Varner and Beamer (2005: 29), white Americans seem to share a perception that things are getting better for African Americans and that racial attitudes and interactions are improving. By contrast, many African Americans share a perception that, while equality between races has improved, there is still a long way to go. We share our opinions and beliefs with many other people and we are most likely to agree with and feel comfortable with people who are socially economically, and culturally similar to ourselves. This is one reason why Chinese abroad tend to socialize with each other, just as Americans and British do when they are abroad. Birds of a feather flock together, but for people, the familiar plumage is culture.2.2.3. Culture is Dynamic and HeterogeneousMartin and Nakayama (2005: 31) said that culture is dynamic, or changing, and can often be a source of conflict among different groups. We must recognize that culture is not rigid and homogeneous but are dynamic and heterogeneous.Seeing culture as dynamic and heterogeneous opens up new ways of thinking about intercultural communication. After all, the people from a particular culture are not identical and any culture has many intercultural struggles. For instance, when we speak of Chinese culture or French culture, we ignore the diversity that resides in that culture. That “Chinese culture” may refer to the main land Chinese or to the Chinese from Hong Kong, who speak Cantonese. The label “Chinese” thus obscures incredible diversity. Yet, cultures are not heterogeneous in the same way everywhere. Martin and Nakayama (2005:32) gave us two examples as follows: “there are poor people in the most nations. The poor in the United States are open viewed with disdain, as people to be avoided; in many European countries, by contrast, the poor are seen as a part of society, to be helped by government programs. Likewise, gender issues are not framed the same way in all countries. For example, in the United States, gender equality is defined in terms of equal pay and career opportunities. In some Middle Eastern countries, women may be seen to have equality because they have tremendous power within the home and family but less influence in public arenas.”2.2.4. Culture Involves Perception and ValuesMartin and Nakayama (2005:28) said that cultural groups share perception, or ways of looking at the world. Culture is something described as a sort of lens through which we view the world. All the information we receive in a given day passes through this perceptual lens. We select, evaluate and organize information (stimuli) from the external environment through perception. Thus, all of our prior learning the information we have already stored in our brains affects how we interpret new information. Some of this learning and perception is related to the values of cultural groups we belong to. Values have to do with what is judged to be good or bad, or right or wrong, in a culture.Martin and Nakayama (2005: 29) also mentioned another metaphor for culture: a computer program. They referred that culture serves as a “program of the mind” that every individual carries within him or herself. These programs of the mind, or patterns of thinking, feeling, and potential acting, work just like computer software. That is, they tell people (subconsciously) how to walk, talk, eat, dance, socialize, and otherwise conduct their lives.Culture involves value thus culture affects behavior. “Behavior comes directly from attitudes about how significant something is how it is valued. Values drive actions.” (Varner & Beamer, 2005: 10) In other words, the shared interpretations about beliefs, values affect the behaviors of large groups of people. Thus cultural differences are evident in the varying ways in which people conduct their everyday activities, as people “perform” their culture in their behavioral routines. (Lustig & Koester, 1999: 32)2.2.5. Culture Furnishes AttitudesVarner and Beamer (2005: 9) defined attitude a tendency to respond the same way to the same object, situation or idea. Attitudes range from positive to negative and attitudes change. You can have an attitude tow