An Empirical Study On The Chinese College Students' Tolerance Toward Americans' Violation Of Chinese Taboos

Taboos, as a lasting and complicated social cultural phenomenon, pervade every aspect of human life. But it does not mean that violation of taboos will be tolerated on every occasion. Since taboos exist in the context of cultural backgrounds and social values, people from different culture have different tolerance toward different kinds of taboos. Thus, study on people's different tolerance toward taboos is of great importance in establishing a harmonious relationship. After the investigation of the previous relevant studies, it is easy to discover that the researches on taboos before have mainly concentrated on summarizing Chinese or English taboos respectively or making a contrastive study on Chinese and English linguistic taboos. There are few studies on Chinese taboos in the settings of intercultural communication. Therefore, the present study which focuses on the Chinese college students'tolerance toward Americans'violation of Chinese taboos is generated.This study attempts to find out the characteristics of the Chinese college students' tolerance toward Americans'violation of Chinese taboos. Meanwhile, the variable of gender involved is observed for the investigation of its influence on the Chinese college students'tolerance when Chinese taboos are violated by Americans. With such measures as questionnaire, pre-interview and post-interview, the present study assesses college students'different degree of tolerance with first-hand data. The SPSS is adopted to analyze the data and Chi-square tests are conducted to see whether there are differences between the experimental groups.In this study, sixty sophomores and juniors from Beijing Normal University and Anhui University are picked out as the subjects. They are investigated in order to discover:(1) the features demonstrated in the Chinese college students'tolerance when Chinese taboos on interactions, clothing, diet habits and topics are violated by Americans; (2) the impact of the variable of gender on the Chinese college students' tolerance when Chinese taboos are violated by Americans. The major findings of the study are as follows: First, the Chinese college students'tolerance is relatively high when Chinese taboos on interactions, clothing, and diet habits are violated by Americans while their tolerance is still very low when the taboos on topics are violated. However, the Chinese college students'different tolerance toward these taboos in the intercultural communication does not conform to the classification of the four types of taboos. Specifically, the taboos on sending others a book, the diet habit of putting one's elbows on the table, and leaving rice in one's bowl after meal can be tolerated by most of the Chinese college students in the intercultural communication; in spite of the Chinese college students'relatively high tolerance, taboos on sending the aged a clock, addressing the elders by their name, sticking chopsticks in the food of the bowl, wearing white/black on the occasion of an old person's birthday, men wearing a green hat, and talking about the death are still not tolerated by many Chinese college students; taboos on men wearing crop top, calling others 38, and talking about sex in public are not tolerable to most of the Chinese college students.Secondly, there is significant difference between the Chinese female and male college students in their tolerance toward the taboos on dressing in white/black on the occasion of an old person's birthday, men wearing crop top publicly, talking about sex in public and calling others 38. But in other eight situations, variable of gender does not influence their tolerance.The study provides some significant insights into Chinese taboos that are crucial for the Americans as well as other foreigners who want to achieve a successful intercultural communication with the Chinese college students and can be a complement to the current research on taboos, most of which are about English linguistic taboos and simply theoretical ones. Moreover, guided by the implication of this study, unnecessary misunderstandings and hostilities could be avoided, which is conducive for China to obtain a fairer environment for development in the world.