Revisiting The Three Climatic Types Of Paradox In Intercultural Communication Studies In China

Intercultural communication studies resulted from cultural differences and in cultural differences for the purpose of bringing its deductive function into full play.Descriptions of cultural differences in the 1980s and the early 1990s were very well received and appreciated,as manifestations of traditional Chinese culture were visible and vocal in cultural practice and cultural changes in those times were at a relatively slow pace,thus forming a striking contrast to western cultures.With intercultural exchanges increasing rapidly,the first cross-cultural paradox in ICS in China was pointed out to warn readers of large-scale cultural descriptions for bridging cultural gaps and at the same time building up invisible "walls" in the form of cultural stereotypes for separating people from different cultural backgrounds.To stop describing cultural differences would mean the end of intercultural communication as an area of study and so "fixed-traits view" on ICS led to the second type of paradox,termed "culture paradox in intercultural communication research",which drew readers’ attention to the importance of studying dynamic co-cultural groups.Then in the age of "Alone Together" or new new media with various forms of communication taking place on the Internet,invisible or multicultural identities brought about the third type of paradox in ICS.Although these three climatic paradoxes are discussed as three representative journal papers were published in 1995,2014 and 2016 respectively,this is not to emphasize the order of time but to emphasize the intensifying complexity of the paradoxical nature of describing cultural differences and ways of resolving the paradoxes.The first one focuses on how to replace old cultural stereotypes with new ones,the second one emphasizes the importance of studying co-cultural groups in context,and the third one attaches greater importance to studying co-cultural groups and seeks the most salient cultural identity of a multicultural interlocutor in context.The dynamic view on culture is not to wipe out cultural differences but to find new groups of people with new cultural traits.