An Inter-cultural Comparative Study Of Chinese And American On Apology Delivery With Body Language

In the development of human civilization,language has functioned as a carrier of idea expression.Apology,as one of speech acts in daily life,plays a vital role in building up and maintaining interpersonal relationship.However,due to differences in culture and language,the way the Chinese people utilize body languages to present their apology might vary from the way people from foreign countries.Hence,the inter-cultural comparative study of Chinese and American on apology delivery with body language is to deepen people’s understanding of Chinese and Western culture in terms of apology and body language use,and to avoid the unnecessary conflict and misunderstanding caused by the misuse of body language in making an apology.This thesis applies quantitative and qualitative methodologies as well as SPSS software to analyze data collected from the first season of Chinese series Lohas Family and the fourth season of American Modern Family.Based on the two different culture backgrounds,the author has explored the impact of body language on apology making,and the underlying cultural elements of choosing diverse apology strategies.In such backgrounds,the thesis finds that there is mutual impact between body language and apology.The more serious the apology would be,the more effective the body language use is,and vice versa.Regarding the Western culture,facial expression is the most obvious way to express apology of body language,followed by eyes direction and postures.And the findings show that Western people are more likely to use rich body languages and to make apology more frequently compared to the people in the Chinese series.When referring to the studies on body languages and apology,the author has found that there are few researchers investigating the relationship between body languages and apology.Therefore,this thesis is to fill in the gap in research by studying the body language,to avert the inappropriate body languages utilized for apology,to improve the effectiveness of apology to a great extent,and to better human inter-cultural communication.