A Study On Intergenerational Conflicts And Communication In Chinese American Immigrant Families

With the development of globalization, people in different countries will have to encounter much more frequent communication with each other. Immigration thus becomes a common phenomenon throughout the world. In this context, intergenerational relationships in Chinese American immigrant families, particularly intergenerational conflicts between immigrant parents and American-born and American-raised children attract scholars’attention. Intergenerational relationships in these families are more complicated than common families. The intergenerational conflicts in immigrant families not only have the characteristics of common generation gaps, but also have the characteristics of intercultural conflicts. Given the differences in cultural backgrounds and values between the immigrant parents and their children, the intergenerational conflicts in these immigrant families are inevitable.Amy Tan is a representative of contemporary Chinese American writers. In 2001, she published her fourth novel The Bonesetter’s Daughter. American literary critics gave enthusiastic reviews. The Bonesetter s Daughter is the most autobiographical among all her novels. Tan is good at depicting Chinese immigrant families in the United States, especially the intergenerational relationships between Chinese immigrant mothers and American-born and American-raised daughters. Therefore, the thesis chooses the novel The Bonesetter s Daughter as the corpus to analyze the intergenerational relationships in Chinese American immigrant families.Based on the theoretical framework of the discourse systems and the discourse analysis approach to intercultural communication, the thesis analyzes the intergenerational conflicts in Chinese American immigrant families. Then the author mainly applies the intercultural communication theory to explore cultural factors behind the intergenerational conflicts in immigrant families. At last, the author provides some suggestions to improve intergenerational communication in Chinese American immigrant families.Through analyzing the intergenerational discourse systems of Chinese American immigrant families, the author finds out that Chinese immigrant parents and their American-born and American-raised children have intergenerational conflicts on ideology, socialization, forms of discourse and face systems. Chinese immigrant parents and their children have differences in cultural values, religions and acculturation, which shows the cultural factors behind the intergenerational conflicts in Chinese American immigrant families. Parents and children in immigrant families can achieve a better communication through increasing shared knowledge and dealing with miscommunication.