j: I‘ll bring the Kleenex.
(I suppose the film is a tear-jerker)
2: Good morning. Do you have anything to treat complete loss of voice? f: Good morning sir. What can I do for you today?
(We don‘t have anything to treat complete loss of voice) 3: I do think Mrs. Jenkins is an old windbag, don‘t you? a: Huh, lovely weather for March, isn‘t it? (I don‘t want to talk about it)
4: What on earth has happened to my roast beef? g: The dog is looking happy.
(Perhaps the dog has eaten the roast beef) 5. Would you like a cocktail? It‘s my invention. i: Well, mmm uh it‘s not that we don‘t not drink. (I‘m a bit dubious about drinking that cocktail)
6. Are you going to Steve‘s barbecue? h: It is an outdoor party. (I‘m not going to it) 7: Did you buy her a rose? b: I bought her a flower. (I didn‘t buy her a rose)
8: We went to see ―The Omen‖ last night but it wasn‘t very scary? c: It would keep me awake all night. (I think ―The Omen‖ is scary)
9: Would you like something to drink? d: Well, I‘ve been on whiskey all day.
(Whiskey, please / Something other than whiskey, please) 10: Is John a good cook e: He‘s English.
(No, he isn‘t, for the English are generally not good cooks)
More examples:
1. A: Can you tell me the time? B: Well, the milkman has come.
(No, I don‘t know the exact time, but I can tell you that the milkman has come so that you may
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be able to tell what the approximate time it is now.) 2. A: Do you like your new dress? B: It‘s pink.
(No, I don‘t like it, for it‘s not my favorite color.) 3. A: Did finish your homework? B: I started it.
(No, I didn‘t finish my homework.)
4. A: I really like the dinner. B: I‘m a vegetarian.
(I didn‘t like the dinner because meat had been the main course.) 5. A: Has the machine been fixed?
B: Tom is away but he will be back soon. (No, but it will be fixed soon.)
Identifying Difference: Communicating or Communicating Effectively
Exploration
Try to explain why we sometimes find it very difficult to communicate effectively with others, and then to suggest what we can do about it.
Communicating with others may not be easy, but communicating effectively with others can be far more difficult. This is especially the case in intercultural communication.
There are many factors that will probably contribute to ineffective communication.
Linguistically, one‘s familiarity with the language used in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, sentence patterns, etc. will to a large extent determine whether or not one can communicate effectively with the other. Culturally, one‘s knowledge of the people with whom one is communicating will also decide how effectively one can communicate with them. While
communicating with someone who is culturally different, knowing much about the person‘s speech habits, modes of thinking and social customs will surely increase the possibility of mutual
understanding. One more thing that we should pay attention to is that people are inclined to look at issues from their own point of view, and therefore, they usually attach very different meanings to (or interpret) messages that they transmit to the other or receive from other. This will, more often than not, lead to misunderstanding in communication.
If we want to improve our communication with others, we have to improve our mastery of the language(s) used for communication, to learn more about others and their culture(s), and to enhance our awareness of differences existing between people from various cultural backgrounds. It is also hopefully advised that we should try to put aside all the biases originally rooted in our minds toward others who may be so culturally different from us and to show proper respect for their cultures no
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matter how strange they may appear to us.
Group Work
Work with your group members to try to explain why we Chinese tend to end our meals with our friends and others in the way described above.
Eating may be one of the most important social activities in Chinese people‘s everyday life. Few, if any, countries in the world have a richer culinary tradition than China. Chinese food is
famous for its rich diversity of dishes, but the concept of face is important as any ingredient. Without knowing the concept of face, you cannot claim that you understand Chinese culture.
When the roles of host and guest are clearly defined, as is always the case on formal occasions, it is customary for the hosts to pay the bill, often after the guests have departed. When the occasion is less formal, and the roles of host and guest are not clearly defined, however, the payment of the bill becomes a matter of face, which is of extreme importance in China. As the bill is brought to the table, one or more of the persons at the dinner table will insist on paying it. You will see them
struggling with one another for the bill, each pulling money from his or her pocket and pushing back the outstretched arm of the other, that an onlooker could have easily mistaken the scene for a fight. Though nowadays young people tend to go Dutch when they have a dinner with their friends, this type of scene is still very common in restaurants across the country. Foreigners may think that the practice is absurd, but that‘s still the way we Chinese maintain our individual dignities in social contacts.
Translation
文化有时候被称为我们的心智程序，我们“头脑的软件”。但是，我们可以进一步引申 这个用电脑所做的类比，把文化看作是支持运行的操作环境。文化就像电脑使用的 DOS 或者 Unix 或者 “视窗”（Windows）等操作系统一样，使我们能在各种各样的实际应用中处理信 息。 用“视窗”这个比喻来描述文化似乎也很有吸引力。文化就是我们心灵的视窗，透过它 我们审视生活的方方面面。一个社会中不同个体的视窗是不大一样的，但都有着一些重要的 共同特征。
文化就好像是鱼畅游于其中的水一般，人们想当然地把文化看成是客观存在的事实，因 而很少去研究它。文化存在于我们所呼吸的空气之中，文化对于我们了解我们自身之为何物 是必不可少的，就正如生命离不开空气一样。文化是特定群体的共有财产，而不单是个体的 特征。社会按照文化设定的程序运作，这种程序来自于相似的生活体验以及对这种生活体验 之含义的相似阐释。
如果文化是一种心智程序，那么它也是现实的心灵地图。从我们很小的时候开始，文化 就告诉我们应该看重什么、偏好什么、规避什么和做些什么，文化还告诉我们事物应该是什 么样。文化为我们提供超越个体经验可能的理想典范，帮助我们决定应该优先考虑的人或事。 文化为我们建立起行为准则，并视遵守这些准则的行为为正当、合法。
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Case Study Case 5
In China, it is often not polite to accept a first offer and Heping was being modest, polite and well-behaved and had every intention of accepting the beer at the second or third offer. But he had not figured on North American rules which firmly say that you do not push alcoholic beverages on anyone. A person may not drink for religious reasons, he may be a reformed alcoholic, or he may be allergic. Whatever the reason behind the rule, you do not insist in offering alcohol. So unconscious and so strong are their cultural rules that the Americans equally politely never made a second offer of beer to Heping who probably thought North Americans most uncouth.
However, what we have to remember is that cultures are seldom a strict either-or in every instance for all people and there are always individual differences. Probably this young Chinese nurse was very different from Heping or, unlike Heping, she may have known something about the American cultural rules and was just trying to behave like an American when she was in an American family.
Case 6
When a speaker says something to a hearer, there are at least three kinds of meanings involved: utterance meaning, speaker‘s meaning and hearer‘s meaning. In the dialogue, when Litz said ?How long is she going to stay?‘ she meant to say that if she knew how long her mother-in-law was going to stay in Finland, she would be able to make proper arrangements for her, such as taking her out to do some sightseeing. However, her mother-in-law overheard the conversation, and took Litz‘s
question to mean ―Litz does not want me to stay for long‖. From the Chinese point of view, it seems to be inappropriate for Litz to ask such a question just two days after her mother-in-law‘s arrival. If she feels she has to ask the question, it would be better to ask some time later and she should not let her mother-in-law hear it.
Case 7
Keiko insists on giving valuable gifts to her college friends, because in countries like Japan, exchanging gifts is a strongly rooted social tradition. Should you receive a gift, and don‘t have one to offer in return, you will probably create a crisis. If not as serious as a crisis, one who doesn‘t offer a gift in return may be considered rude or impolite. Therefore, in Japan, gifts are a symbolic way to show appreciation, respect, gratitude and further relationship.
Keiko obviously has taken those used items from Mary, Ed and Marion as gifts, for she
probably doesn‘t know that Americans frequently donate their used household items to church or to the community. Mary, Ed and Marion would never consider those used household items given to
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Keiko as gifts. No wonder they felt very uncomfortable when they received valuable gifts in return.
Case 8
As the Chinese girl Amy fell in love with an American boy at that time, it seems that she
preferred to celebrate Christmas in the American way, for she wanted very much to appear the same as other American girl. She did not like to see her boyfriend feel disappointed at the ―shabby‖ Chinese Christmas. That‘s why she cried when she found out her parents had invited the minister ‘s family over for the Christmas Eve dinner. She thought the menu for the Christmas meal created by her mother a strange one because there were no roast turkey and sweet potatoes but only Chinese food. How could she notice then the foods chosen by her mother were all her favorites?
From this case, we can find a lot of differences between the Chinese and Western cultures in what is appropriate food for a banquet, what are good table manners, and how one should behave to be hospitable. However, one should never feel shameful just because one‘s culture is different from others‘. As Amy‘s mother told her, you must be proud to be different, and your only shame is to have shame.
Materials for Reference
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How to Define Culture
Culture is notoriously difficult to define. In 1952, the American anthropologists, Kroeber and Kluckhohn, critically reviewed concepts and definitions of culture, and compiled a list of 164 different definitions. Apte (1994: 2001), writing in the ten-volume Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, summarizes the problem as follows: ?Despite a century of efforts to define culture adequately, there was in the early 1990s no agreement among anthropologists regarding its nature.‘ Despite these problems, I propose the following definition:
Culture is a fuzzy set of attitudes, beliefs, behavioral conventions, and basic assumptions and values that are shared by a group of people, and that influence each member‘s behavior and each member‘s interpretations of the ?meaning‘ of other people‘s behavior.
This definition draws attention to a number of issues. Firstly, culture is manifested at different layers of depth, ranging from inner core basic assumptions and values, through outer core attitudes, beliefs and social conventions, to surface-level behavioral manifestations. Figure 1 is a diagrammatic representation of the different layers of culture.
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跨文化交际英语教程答案-新编跨文化交际英语教程
