The Ways Towards Understanding-The Cultural Conflicts And Identity In The Joy Luck Club

Intercultural communication is a new discipline of the world, which studies communication problems that naturally appear within a group of people from different cultural background. It not only involves understanding culture, languages and customs of different people, but also focuses on thought patterns and social systems. Since the world interacts more and more often because of globalization, the study of intercultural communication becomes helpful in getting a more effective communication without losing cultural traditions.Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club describes four families that moved from China to San Francisco, United States. In San Francisco, mothers and daughters experience great cultural shock. The daughters'intercultural marriages make the family become an intercultural family. This thesis will discuss cultural conflicts and cultural identity from the perspective of the intercultural family relationships in The Joy Luck Club. Through the discussion, the thesis aims to prove that the clear recognition of one's cultural identity is the primary condition of moderating cultural conflicts.The first chapter gives an introduction about the motivation, significance, points of innovation and methodology of the thesis. Some background knowledge of The Joy Luck Club and its author Amy Tan will also be covered.The second chapter reviews the present studies on intercultural family relationships and The Joy Luck Club. This thesis takes Romano's theory on intercultural marriage and Stuart Hall's theory on cultural identity as the theory basis.The third chapter analyzes cultural conflicts caused by intercultural relationships based on the textual analysis of The Joy Luck Club. A lot of conflicts between mothers and daughters, daughters and husbands, mothers and husbands will be analyzed in third chapter.The fourth chapter argues cultural identity. After mothers and daughters' recognition of each other's cultural identity, they reconcile.The last chapter is conclusion. The Joy Luck Club describes the reconciliation between mothers and daughters after they recognize each other's cultural identity. On the other side, the analysis of Chinese and American culture helps me to gain a deeper understanding of Chinese traditional culture and be more capable to communicate with others with keeping Chinese traditional culture.