A Study Of American And Chinese Cultural Value In The Refusal Strategies

In the process of communication how to exactly transfer the speaker's true intention and let hearer understand it completely is the primary purpose for each communicator. Thus the cross-cultural communicators must not only have a sound language knowledge but also a profound understanding of culture, especially the cultural value which lies in the core of culture and determines its members'acts and behaviors so that they can avoid pragmatic failures.Refusal is face–threatening. If not being handled well, it will bring some negative effects on communicators. With the aim of helping people from different cultural backgrounds communicate smoothly, by using the Discourse Completion Test adapted from that of Beebe (1990) and the classification of refusal strategies proposed by Beebe, this paper makes an empirical research on the refusal strategies adopted by adopted 35 Chinese and 28 Americans.The result shows that there are some similarities as well as a large number of differences in the choice of refusal strategies between Americans and Chinese. Generally speaking, both groups prefer indirect strategies to direct strategies such as the excuse, reason and explanation, statement of regret, statement of alternative refusal strategies, to dissuade interlocutor refusal strategy. However, there are obvious differences in the frequency and contents of direct and indirect refusal strategies and different degree of sensitivity to the social status between the two groups: Firstly, Chinese group utilize a greater proportion of indirect strategies than American group; Secondly, the direct refusal employed by Chinese is less strong and clear than those employed by Americans; Thirdly, the indirect refusal strategies adopted by Chinese appear less definite and vague while those of Americans sound relatively definite and clea; Fourthly, the distribution of direct strategies in American group bears no obvious relationship with social status while in Chinese group it is apparently related to the social status. Language has interwoven with cultural value (Hu, 1998). In other words, language shapes and is shaped by cultural value. So, through the analysis of refusal strategies employed by the two groups, some similarities between American cultural value and Chinese cultural value can be concluded. For example, the collectivism and individualism co-exist in the two cultures. On the other hand, because of the cultural value's stability and its lasting influence upon its members'behaviors and acts, collectivism and hierarchical interpersonal relationship are the dominant cultural value in China while individualism and equal personal relationship prevails the whole American society. For a better understanding of cultural value and its developing trend, some basic factors influencing the cultural value are explored in the study.This study has some merits as well as demerits. It is helpful for communicators to avoid some social pragmatic failures and for them to improve culture and cross-cultural communicative competence. Meanwhile, it provides some new sights for fully understanding the concept of cultural value. But owning to the limitation of author's time and ability, there is still room for improvement, especially in the choice of subjects and analysis of data.