The Evolution Of Family Etiquette And Interpersonal Communication In Huizhou’s Patriarchal Society

With the evolution of family etiquette, the interpersonal communication in Huizhou’s patriarchal society has changed a lot. This essay aims to discuss what the interpersonal communication looks like by using literature research methodology in an interdisciplinary perspective. During the research, the writer has two considerations:the first one is trying to deal with a practical communication problem instead of forming a certain communication perspective; the second one is trying to describe some native factors rather than some westernized theories. Chinese daily communicative activities are different from western countries, but there are still some similarities. Therefore, traditional Chinese family etiquette is just one of factors, although it is very significant.In the design of framework, the passage can be divided into three independent but interconnected parts. The first part is "concept". In this part, the writer introduces the causes of the decreasing etiquette and Huizhou’s patriarchal society, the writer,who is Zhu Xi, of Family Etiquette, and Zhu Xi’s theories as well as his impacts to human beings in Huizhou. The second part is "relationship", which exists between the evolution of family etiquette and interpersonal communication in Huizhou’s patriarchal society. It consists of three categories:the communication ethics that the family etiquette has identified; the communication networks that the family etiquette has divided; the communication contents that the family etiquette has borne. Therefore, we can form an axis, which includes ethics, networks and contents. The third part is "evaluation". The writer evaluates how the family etiquette has influenced interpersonal communication in Huizhou’s patriarchal society in "institutional" and "governable" perspectives. At the end of this passage, the writer criticizes and summarizes according to the history and current complex, and also additionally remarks the recent family etiquette and interpersonal communication in Huizhou’s patriarchal society.In the progression,the writer tries to research a Chinese style problem in a local perspective, but it does not mean that the passage completely avoids some western concepts, because it seems nearly impossible to be undisturbed during the past two hundred years of westernization and under the background of cultural integration nowadays. To be specific, in the ethics of communication, the writer pays more attention to communication rules, such as the filial piety in Huizhou, the concept on women that men are superior to women, the concept on a marriage between families of equal social rank, religious faith and so on. In communication networks, the writer summarizes the "different pattern" based on the relationship between couples, parent-children, relatives and other social relations. In the contents of communication, the writer summarizes the topics that the local people in Huizhou always communicate according to their clan responsibility, human feelings and patriotic emotions, and the writer thinks the etiquette itself constitutes the basic contents. All the information above fully shows the "Xiang Thinking" that Chinese people have when dealing with daily affairs and conducting interpersonal communication. It is intuitive, vivid and perceptual. It also focuses on "the harmony between men and nature" and "the integration of the subject and the object", it is harmonious because of the tolerance. It is quite different from the tradition of so-called "binary opposition" in the westernized society since Rene Descartes.Because of some history and geography, Huizhou is a typical and traditional Chinese society. This passage is going to use it as a research object, which will not only represent special features of a regional society, but also represent a common phenomenon in whole China. As a consequence, the research in this passage hopes to arouse sympathy among locals and some non-locals. That is what the writer hopes to do. But now, the writer just hopes that this passage can describe the locals and their communicative activities in Huizhou’s patriarchal society.This passage is trying to be brief, however, it is that some chapters are still not easy to understand because the writer has cited a lot from Family Etiquette,local annals as well as a varies of family discipline and motto. The writer has inevitably thought of two serious questions:how much obscure and miscellaneous traditional family etiquette left nowadays? How to combine civilized manners, which cannot be abandoned, with today’s Huizhou’s society?...