Discourse System Analysis

As a new independent subject, intercultural communication has a short history; but as a kind of society phenomenon, it has existed in human society since ancient times. During recent decades, with the development of transportation and communication means, especially the rapid spread of International Internet, intercultural communication become more and more frequent and extensive in our daily lives. So an increasing number of people begin to realize the necessity and importance of intercultural communication in our modern society. At the same time, more and more scholars begin to pay attention to the study of intercultural communication. L.S. Harms even think intercultural communication is the most main characristic of communication in recent 20 years. In his eyes, the intercultural communication is as important as the creation of language.In traditional intercultural communication study, many scholars discuss the process of communication on the basis of description of cultural characteristics. However, as we know, cultural characteristics usually refer to some abstract characteristics of a whole community, while communication often takes place between or among individuals. So it's unavailable to use whole abstract characteristics to guide our individual communication, because the stereotypes in our mind may lead to the failure of communication.A new subject, Interactional Sociolinguistics, provides us a brand-new perspective to research intercultural communication. This new subject put forward its unique viewpoint about the essence and content of intercultural communication. From an Interactional Sociolinguistic perspective, any communication should be interpersonal communication. Of course, intercultural communication is included. So in that sense, intercultural communication is in fact interpersonal communication. And interpersonal communication should carry out through discourse systems, so discourse is communication between or among individuals. Cultures, however, are large, superodinate categories; they are not individuals. Cultures are a different level...