Session Interrupted Perspective Comparison Of Sino-us Gender Power Distribution

The issue of power and discourse has been a topic of great interest and of importance in the field of discourse analysis, especially critical discourse analysis. The present paper selects two TV series from China and America into which the distribution of power between male and female in these two cultures is looked.Foucault believes that discourse is power. The dominance in society is discourse dominance, not naked power dominance. As a result, interruption---the most effective way to contend discourse power, becomes the indicator of the distribution of power.In the present paper, the issues is approached from a cross-cultural perspective and analysis is made in terms of five interruption factors,numbers of interruption, purpose of interruption, patterns of interruption, positions of interruption and reactions to interruption. Analyses of the data collected indicate that power imbalance exists in both cultures, with men having more power than women. In the American TV series, it is observed that men have absolute superiority in obtaining power by way of interruption, and they express more desire to strive for power when talking with women; in the Chinese TV series, men have a relatively lower index in the scale of power, compared with their American counterparts, and to some degree, their superiority seems to be challenged by their female interaction partners, who have an increasing sense of being equal. Contrary to their Chinese counterparts, it seems that American women manifest a stronger desire for power striving when their conversation partners are of the same sex.