A Comparative Study Of French And Confucius Institutes

Under the background of fast development of economic globalization, the exchanges and commmunication of the world’s economy, politics, culture and other aspects have became increasingly frequent. The role of language and culture in international communication is becoming more and more prominent. Goverments or organizations pay more attention to the promotion of their native languages and culture. The degree of internationalization of national language and culture not only shows the embodiment of national cultural soft power, but also becomes the way of competition of the comprehensive national strength.France, as established western developed country, has already paid attention to the construction of cultural soft power in the nineteenth century. In 1883, the French Alliance emerged at the right moment. For a hundred years, it was committed to the international communication of french and french culture, gaind a wealth of experience, and made outstanding achievements. French culture is recognized and loved by all over the world. As an organization of cultural communication, French Alliance has made undeniable contributions. China has a long history and five thousand years of splendid culture, the economic develops rapidly after the reform and opening. The comprehensive national strength of China has been enhanced greatly. In this background, learning mandarin and Chinese culture is becoming a hot trend in the world. Since its establishment in 2004, Confucius Institute develops very fast, the high quality of language teaching and rich culture promotion has been appreciated not only by collaborating countries and regions, but also by professionals. But Confucius Institute started late, it still has some deficiencies in the aspect of language and cultural communication. Based on the former researches, this thesis analyzes the advantages and experiences of French Alliance and the deficiencies of Confucius Institute from the point of cultural communication, and draws some inspiration or reference for the future development of Confucius Institute.This thesis is divided into four parts. The first part is the introduction. Firstly, It discusses the background and significance of this research. And then it is about the literature reviews of cultural communication, cultural communication of French Alliance and Confucius Institute. The last paragraph of this chapter presents the research methods and innovation points of this paper.The second part is also the first chapter. It starts from culture, elaborates the definition, connotation and function of culture. This part puts forward the concept of cultural communication on the basis of the communication function of culture, analyzes its features and functions and proposes the cultural communication mode theory. This paper adopts Lasswell’s "5W" mode as the theoretical basis of the whole research, elaborates the process of cultural communication, and then connects language promotion and cultural communication after understanding the relationship between language and culture.The second chapter is divided into two parts. The first one presents the general situation of Confucius Institute and French Alliance. The second part summarizes the present situation and the issues of Confucius Institute on the basis of "5W" theory and then summarizes the experience and achievement that French Alliance gains during the developing process according to the theory of "5W".The third chapter concludes the advantages of French Alliance according to the comparative study above, and clearly point out the desired improvement of Confucius Institute, so as to inspire its future development.