A Comparative Study Of ’Face’ In Chinese And American Advertisements In A Cross-cultural Perspective

With the acceleration of globalization, international advertising, which embody foreign culture andcustomer has become a window to know about the country, playing not only the role of integrating thesocieties, but stimulating global consumption as well.’Face’ as a representation of personal identity, notonly mirrors the age, but provides orientation for cross-cultural advertising communication. The articleinvestigates the relationship between Sino-US advertising language and their social culture, referring toqualitative research interviews to analyse the difference of ‘face’ culture. In order to improve theeffectiveness of international advertising, the adoption of Positioning Strategy regarding to socialenvironment is necessary.There are4chapters in the article, the first chapter concentrate on literature reviews both domesticand abroad, which focus on describing the different ‘face’ phenomena. However sharp contrast exists in‘face’value embodied in Nov-US advertising language. British anthropologists Brown＆Levinsoncompared positive face(others’ recognition) and negative face(individual initiative), whichrespectively applies in China and US, establish a foundation to academic research. The secondchapter explains definition of ’face’ and its characteristics. Advertising media has the swirlingeffects and can provide virtual environment to substitute real experience by constructingrituals to intensify ‘face’awareness.’Face’ mechanism in advertising is in relation toidentity construction, material and spiritual consumption, even some with religion sense. Thethird chapter chooses both Chinese and American advertising samples to examine Chinese ’face’ features of positive face, collective face, self-face and American ’face’ features ofnegative face, individual face, other-face. It is the historical background, family values,worldview(religion) that makes such ’face’ value contrast. The forth chapter provides a’face’-oriented Positioning Strategy in cross-cultural communication, thus with practical value.