| With the rapid development of the society and globalization of the economy, people have more opportunities to communicate with the other people coming from different cultures. In the process of cross-communication, people always misunderstand each other, especially when they use nonverbal behaviors to communicate. Since a few decade years ago when this "hidden dimension" of communication was discovered, many aspects of nonverbal communication have been studied . However the research in correlating it with culture has flourished only in recent years as the quick development of cross-culture communication. Factually, culture and nonverbal communication are inseparable. It is culture "teaches" its people from their cradle how to behave nonverbally. Culture determines when, where ,and how it is appropriate to convey or communicate certain thoughts, feelings or internal states, though sometimes the form of the nonverbal behaviors representing is the same . Meanwhile, it tends to determine the specific nonverbal behaviors that represent on specific thoughts, feelings or states of the communicator. Different cultures may have different nonverbal behaviors to express the same idea. Therefore , the importance of studying nonverbal communication from culture is self-evident. Traditional research only focuses on the discussion of the nonverbal behavioral differences in cross-cultures. The author of this thesis attempts to explore how the different cultural variations affect nonverbal behaviors based on the former researchers' researches.This thesis is composed of five parts: The first part introduces the reason and purpose of the thesis; The second part presents theories of nonverbal communication,(1)dimensions of verbal and nonverbal communication ;(2) functions of nonverbal communication;(3)classification of nonverbal communication;(4)variables that determined the potential for nonverbal communication .Part three elaborates five cultural variations which affect nonverbal communication. (1)individualism and collectivism; Many anthropologists, social psychologists, and communication scholars have devised taxonomies that can be used to analyze key behavioral patterns found in cultures The first , developed by Greert Hofstede, identifies three value dimensions that are influenced and modified by culture. They are individualism-collectivism; masculinity-femininity and power distance . Individualism-collectivism is the major dimension of cultural variation used to explain cross-cultural differences in behavior. In individualistic culture, individuals' goals will be placed on the fist place. An "I" consciousness prevail: competition rather than cooperation is encouraged; personal goals take precedent over group goals; On the contrary, group goals have precedence over individuals' goals in collectivist culture. People in individualistic culture see themselves as individual first and emphasizes individual initiative and members of groups second, while people in collectivist culture see themselves as members of groups first and foremost. There can be no doubt that individualism-collectivism is one of the most fundamental dimensions that distinguish cultures one from the other. (2)high-and low-context; According to Hofstede's individualism-collectivism, we can find broad differences between cultures. Hall's low-and high-context scheme focuses upon cultural differences in communication processes. Hall argues HC cultures do not value explicit forms of communication the same way as do LC cultures. Verbal codes are more prevalent in LC cultures. People from LC cultures are often perceived by people from HC cultures as excessively talkative, belaboring the obvious, and using redundancies whereas people from HC cultures may be perceived by those from LC cultures as nondisclosure, sneaky, and mysterious. NVC in HC cultures and that in LC cultures are also quite different, because nonverbal codes provides the context for all communication, and people from HC cultures are particularly affected by contextua... |
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