The Influence Of Multi-Dimensional Linguistic Factors On China’s International Cultural Trade

International trade of cultural goods will economically benefit Chinese producers and businesses,and strategically help present a multi-dimensional and panoramic view of China.While some observed changes,which are manifested by intensified trade friction and cultural conflict have caused disruptions to global trade environment.Thus,promoting a healthy and sustainable development of international cultural trade carries an important cultural significance for enhancing China’s soft power.Trade partners from different countries rely on consistent and effective communication to see their trade efforts pay off.Thus,language plays a vital part in affecting the success of their communication.Linguistic distance is a significant deterrent to trade between countries.It is necessary to further explore the key influencing factors of China’s international cultural trade from the perspective of language.This dissertation summarizes the characteristic and challenges of China’s cultural trade,and analyzes the influence of language factors on cultural trade through theoretical and empirical analysis.It examines the impact of linguistic distance on cultural trade using panel data from 66 major cultural trade partners.It further explores effective ways to ease the barriers of international cultural trade from the aspects of language dissemination and language competence,and heterogeneity of the above relations is constantly put to use in hypothesis testing from the perspective of economy,trade,politics,humanity and geography.The major findings and implications of this research are summarized below.At present,the proportion of Chinese cultural trade in GDP and total trade is relatively low and its growth rate decelerates as trade conflicts intensify.There is also a structural imbalance in terms of cultural products and target markets.Linguistic distance between countries may inhibit trade in general for a variety of reasons,the most obvious being the cost associated with communicating in other languages.Linguistic distance is significantly negatively correlated with international cultural trade.Meanwhile,language dissemination and competence moderate the negative effects of linguistic distance.Empirical analyses have proved that the relationship between linguistic distance and cultural trade is subjected to heterogeneity.Language distance has an impact on cultural trade through the mediating effect of transaction cost.For countries with higher level of civilization,language distance has a smaller negative impact on cultural trade.For countries with greater political differences are proved otherwise.Language dissemination can effectively alleviate the barrier effect of language distance on cultural trade.Compared with neighboring countries,language dissemination can alleviate the negative effects of linguistic barriers in nonneighboring countries.Compared with developed countries,language dissemination can mitigate the negative effects of language distance in less developed countries.Compared with "One Belt" countries,language dissemination can alleviate the negative impact of language distance in "One Road" countries.Compared with Confucian Asian countries,language dissemination can alleviate the negative effects of language distance in non-Confucian cultural clusters.In countries with more open markets,improved language competence is more likely to mitigate the negative effects of language distance.Improved language proficiency is also more likely to mitigate the negative effects of language distance in FTA countries than in non-FTA countries.Furthermore,improved language competence help mitigate the inhibition effect of language distance in countries with higher export complexity.Some suggestions are put forward in an aim to promote China’s international cultural trade.When it comes to the selection of trading partners,China should give priorities to countries with higher level of civilization and better institutional environment in an attempt to reduce transaction cost as much as possible.More attention should be paid to the accuracy and efficiency of Chinese language dissemination.Appropriate language dissemination strategies can realize the"incremental" effect of language communication.Great importance should be attached to the reinforcement our national language competence in accordance with the demand of international trade,while simultaneously the promotion of Chinese language ability of foreign people should be accelerated.Take into consideration the ever-improving artificial intelligence,neural network and other language technologies,and integrate them with the development of China’s international cultural trade.This dissertation adopts a multidisciplinary approach in an attempt to enrich and deepen theoretical and empirical research in the field of cultural trade.It expands the definition of language and other variables specific to Chinese context.Heterogeneity characteristics are discussed in a multi-dimensional manner so as to provide countermeasures accordingly.