On Dynamic Communication Patterns And Their Roots Between Chinese And Americans

In the past most human beings were born, lived, and died within a limited geographical area, seldom encountering people from different cultural backgrounds. However, this is not the case in the 21^st century as rapid changes take place in global economy, technology, transportation, and immigration policies. The wheel of human history has driven people inexorably forward from isolation to integration, so that people in the world are becoming more and more interdependent upon each other. Nevertheless, although intercultural communication is an inevitable phenomenon, it is not always successful. People would frequently feel confused when interacting with people who are from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Therefore, there is a growing sense of urgency that we need to increase our understanding of people from different cultures.According to Samovar and Porter, the less the cultures are alike, the greater the influence of culture on communication will be, and the more likely the messages will be changed (C. Hu 11). Thus, failure in intercultural communication often arises here. The Chinese culture is the representative of the Eastern culture while the American culture is the typical one of the Western culture. The two cultures were born in different geographical areas and developed in a rather parallel way without cross-influence. Therefore, when Chinese communicate with Americans, problems often occur because Chinese culture and American culture differ from each other greatly. In this thesis, the author attempts to analyze, by using Chen Guoming's model of communication, the dynamic communication patterns of Chinese and Americans when they interact with each other. Then, from the perspective of cultural patterns, thinking patterns, physical environments and histories, the author tentatively tries to clarify the roots of the dynamic communication patterns between Chinese and Americans. Through analyzing specific cases, the author illustrates that generally when communicating, Chinese tend to use high-context, indirect, self-effacement and silent patterns, while Americans tend to use low-context, direct, self-enhancement and talkative patterns. Therefore, when Chinese and Americans communicate with each other, they have to adapt to each other by building up "a third culture" in terms of communication pattern if they want to guarantee successful intercultural communication.After analyzing the dynamic communication patterns between Chinese and Americans, the author further discusses the roots which lead to the dynamic communication patterns from four aspects, they are (1) cultural patterns including collectivism vs. individualism, interdependent self construal vs. independent self construal, high-context vs. low-context, Confucianism vs. American beliefs, and high face-concerns vs. low face-concerns; (2) thinking patterns including synthesis vs. analysis, and spiral sequence vs. linear sequence; (3) physical environments including geography and climate, and layout of city and architecture; (4) histories.Since the study of intercultural communication between Chinese and Americans is a broad issue, what the author has discussed in this thesis covers only a small part. However, this research, hopefully, will encourage a further study in this field.