Self-construals And Indirectness In Cross-Cultural Communication

With the globalization of economy, cross-cultural communication is very common. Individuals tend to use language to convey their intention. However, people from different cultures use language in different ways. They often have different communication styles, which can create misunderstandings and conflicts. Indirectness, as a communicative device, is available to people of almost every race and language. Generally speaking, indirectness refers to the differences between what it is literally meant and what it is in fact wanted to express. People differ in terms of whether they express their meaning directly or indirectly and whether they look for indirect meanings in remarks of others. Lots of scholars have tried to explain this phenomenon from various angels and aspects. Pragmatic linguists focus on the study of indirectness mainly from the perspective of politeness, which is considered to be universal in different cultures. Yet when individuals from different cultures practice politeness in talk-interaction, they are often influenced by their own distinctive culture and therefore study on indirectness just from the angle of politeness is not enough.Cultural value approaches have widened the research field for the study on indirectness. However, in cross-cultural communication, individuals vary in the extent to which they internalize culture. Since an individual's tendency to communicate indirectly is due to his or personality and attributes, an individual-level analysis which mediates the influence of the culture on indirectness should be taken into consideration. So this thesis will expound indirectness in cross-cultural communication from the perspective of self-construal.Self-construal refers to the belief one maintains regarding how the self is related to others, or the relationship one sees between himself or herself and others. It can be divided into two categories: independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal. Individuals have both an independent and an interdependent self-construal in thinking about themselves. However, one construal is assumed to be more dominant than the other depending on the context. Culture influences self-construals. Members of individualistic cultures are socialized to rely predominantly on their independent self-construal, which is characterized by autonomy and separateness, while individuals of collectivistic cultures are socialized to rely predominantly on their interdependent self-construal, which is characterized by embeddedness and relatedness.By comparison of independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal, differences can be found in the four dimensions: emotion, contextual orientation, perception of power, and face concern. This thesis attempts to expound how the differences influence indirectness from the four dimensions and gets the following findings:â—‹1 Independent selves tend to express their negative or positive emotions, and ego-focused emotions verbally and directly, while interdependent selves tend not to reveal their strong or negative feelings directly or verbally and they tend to restrict expression of ego-focused emotions. Restricting expression of ego-focused emotions causes verbal indirectness, which often goes hand in hand with self-effacement. However, interdependent selves tend to vent other-focused emotions verbally and openly, yet sometimes over verbal output is also to produce implied meaning.â—‹2 Independent selves and interdependent selves vary in the extent to which they depend on context. Independent selves see the self as independent of others, contexts and situations, which requires a context-independent processing style while interdependent selves see the self as interdependent with others, contexts, and situations, which requires a context-dependent processing style. Independent selves with context-independent orientation tend to use low context communication style whereas interdependent selves with context-dependent orientation are inclined to employ high context communication style.â—‹3 Interdependent selves are more sensitive to power than those with independent selves. High power doesn't mean verbal directness. Interdependent selves with high-status may use indirect messages to get their subordinates to identify their true intention.â—‹4 Independent selves are positively associated with self-face concern and interdependent selves with other- and mutual face-concerns. A concern for self-face maintenance in conflict situations is related to direct conflict behavior and a concern for other- and mutual-face maintenance to verbal indirectness to keep harmonious relationship.In cross-cultural communication, misunderstandings occur when interlocutors don't know the differences between independent and interdependent self-construals and the cause of the differences in them, so some strategies are proposed to deal with the conflicts brought about by indirectness, with the purpose of creating successful cross-cultural communication.