Study Of Cultural Differences Based On Nonverbal Communication

With the rapid development of globalization, people have more opportunities to communicate with each other from different cultures. In the process of intercultural communication, people always misunderstand each other, especially when they use nonverbal behaviors to communicate. So it is urgent to study how to better communicate with people from different cultures.Humans have two types of communication:one is verbal communication, which is carried out by verbal behaviors; the other is nonverbal communication (NVC), which is fulfilled by nonverbal behaviors.In daily communication, however, people are usually only aware that differences in language make communication difficult, but neglect the facts that communication also depends on nonverbal codes, and that communication is the combination of verbal and nonverbal systems.Actually, nonverbal cues are one of the main causes for misunderstanding and cultural conflict between people of different cultures. Nonverbal communication is affected and altered by culture. Norms and interpretation of nonverbal behavior vary greatly from culture to culture. Thus, it is critical to have an understanding of nonverbal behavior and cultural differences apart from mastering target languages to ensure that cross-cultural communication goes on well.So far, the study of cross-cultural NVC is far from comprehensive. Traditional research only focuses on the discussion of the meaning and functions of specific nonverbal behaviors, without exploring nonverbal communication from culture. This thesis is designed to make a comprehensive study on the nonverbal behaviors in different cultures and further explore the systematic cultural variations reflected by different nonverbal behaviors and nonverbal means.This thesis is composed of five parts, which introduces the historical perspective, categories and manifestations of nonverbal communication, elaborates some typical cases caused by misunderstanding nonverbal behaviors, discusses the cultural differences affecting NVC, and puts forward some suggestions to improve nonverbal communicative competence. This paper aims at arousing reader's awareness of the cultural differences in nonverbal communication so as to promote their intercultural communication level.