On Chinese Cultural Schemas Of Family From The Perspective Of Intercultural Communication

Schema is the knowledge structure of the previous experience existing in human minds. Cultural schema is the system of the learned culture knowledge. People can recognize and understand the cultural phenomenon and behaviors by activating cultural schemas. People from different cultural schemas constructed by cultural environment, social life and customs may have misunderstanding, thus influence intercultural communication. China has the tradition of cherishing family. Chinese cultural schema of family is reflected on many aspects when communicating with English spoken people.The movies are the portraiture and historical representation of the social life, as well as enrichment and mirrors of culture. Movies the author chosen illustrate the emotional experiences and conflicts-coping strategies of the heroes in cross-cultural communication and provide a vivid example for culture collisions in intercultural communication. Relying on three famous movies The Wedding Banquet, Pushing Hands and The Gua Sha Treatment (Skin Scraping Therapy), the author takes the Chinese and American cultural differences as breakthrough to study the Chinese cultural schema of family displayed by Chinese people when they communicate in depth with American people, and then from the perspective of intercultural communication, the author analyzes the influence of Chinese cultural schema of family to intercultural communication. The study focuses on three research questions.·What Chinese cultural schemas of family are probably exhibited when Chinese people communicate with American people?·How does the Chinese cultural schema of family affect intercultural communication between Chinese people and American people?·How to construct the bridge between two different cultural schemas?The purpose of the study is to urge the communicators to understand the different cultural schemas, eliminate cultural estrangement and help them to enhance communication competence to have successful intercultural communication.