An Investigation On Collectivism And Individualism In Non - Verbal Communication Between Chinese And Thai Students

In this paper,under the guidance of individualism collectivism theory, using the questionnaire designed by the author, the comparative study of nonverbal communication Chinese students and Thailand students in China, aims to explore the influence of individualism collectivism on intercultural communication, carries on the quantitative analysis and the non language behaviors in this cultural dimension change and change trend. Study of intercultural nonverbal communication individualism collectivism has received the attention of scholars, from the current study has the following characteristics: 1.the small number of studies. The individualism collectivism values research mainly involves many fields: verbal communication, English teaching, translation psychology, and scholars on the nonverbal communication of individualism values collectivism of the little attention, which makes the research in this area has lagged behind. 2.the research scope is narrow. It’s limitations in some aspects of nonverbal communication, such as time, space or body language in different cultural values or the difference of cultural orign. 3.most studies remain at the theoretical level, the lack of depth and persuasive writings. Because culture is dynamic, in real life, and reflects the theory of individualism collectivism in nonverbal behavior on the occurrence of certain deviation is a normal phenomenon. So far, a systematic and comprehensive study on the cross-cultural empirical research on non language communication individualism collectivism values is very little, mainly in Chinese and American cultures collectivism and individualism more articles, research and empirical investigation and non language communication in the individualism collectivism values of the article, more rare.Individualism collectivism is the theory of the cultural model of values of Hofstede. He argues from the perspective of cultural individualism group is the western countries represented by the United States, collectivism is the core with China as the representative of the oriental culture values, which is one of the most typical of the comparison of Chinese and Western culture. Triandis on the basis of Hofsted, individual research shifted from the macro, the influence factors of individual differences in individualism collectivism values. Based on the above theory, this paper takes 200 college students from China and Thailand cultural background as the research object, in order to non-verbal communication as the content, and the use of SPSS11.0 statistical software for statistical analysis of the questionnaire, obtained the following findings:(1) the people of intercultural nonverbal communication, reflects the collective individualism "the concept of the value of. Non verbal behavior in subjects, Thailand students(non Chinese) showed the trend of individualism and Chinese students in some aspects, the overall performance of the collectivism. The results of this study and the previous research conclusions are basically consistent, is slightly different: in the middle of Thailand’s young people, gradually showing the tendency of individualism culture and Chinese culture is collectivism culture;(2) effects of individualism collectivism values of intercultural nonverbal communication is mainly manifested in five aspects: self concept and the attitude towards privacy, moral concept, the concept of time and interpersonal relationship. Among them, self concept and the attitude towards privacy are influenced by their respective mainstream values is deep, so the relatively significant difference. The second is the interpersonal relationship and the attitude towards privacy, while the differences and the concept of time is minimal, the influence is less obvious;(3) according to the results of the study, nonverbal communication has undergone some changes in the dimension of individualism collectivism value. The Chinese people from the original collective gradually turned to individualism, such as self concept, time concept and the concept of privacy and so on, the Chinese people show that the trend of individualism collectivism, but is still dominant. In Thailand culture, collectivism individualism culture reflected, but more dominant position.Has a certain practical significance of the findings. Nonverbal communication in business etiquette, business negotiations and business conflict management plays an important role, the correct understanding and use of non-language behavior under different cultural backgrounds can not only improve their own quality, also can facilitate the success of international business. At the same time in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, teachers should improve the ability of cross culture communication, at the same time in the teaching not only teach the cultural differences in knowledge, but guide the students how to improve their cross-cultural awareness incommunicative situations, which can be in communication not only can say is good, and can be used well. At the end of the article also proposes some limitations of the research and puts forward some suggestions for further research.