Verbal Communication Strategies In International Business Negotiations, Cross-cultural Comparison

With the development of global economic integration, cooperation among countries all over the world becomes closer. International business negotiation plays a more and more crucial role in today's business activities, and win-win principle has attracted more and more attention from many interest groups in the world. Based on the theories of Cooperation Principle, Politeness Principle, Face Theory and Indirect Speech Act, and on the case analysis of face-to-face international business negotiations between people from China and other western countries, the research purpose is to study pragmatic strategies and make an intercultural comparison of them in the situational context---international business negotiation.The research shows that in international business negotiations, the application of various pragmatics strategies---Cooperation Strategy, Politeness Strategy, Indirect Speech Act Strategy, Humor Strategy and Side-stepping Strategy, has close relation with the cultural backgrounds of international business negotiators. If business negotiators come from different culture backgrounds, they are liable to adopt different pragmatic strategies during negotiations. If they don't understand this is caused by cultural differences, the negotiation may fail due to cultural conflicts.The research results drawn from the present study are that the application of pragmatic strategies plays a crucial role in international business negotiations. Moreover, to some extent, cultural causes determine pragmatic strategies. Cultural differences are the fundamental reasons of negotiators'pragmatic strategies. The knowledge of pragmatic strategies and their related cultures can lead negotiators to success.