A Contrastive Study Of Chinese And Western Body Language In Intercultural Communication

With the rapid development and globalization of economy, people have more opportunities to communicate with others coming from different cultures than before. In the process of intercultural communication, there always arise a lot of misunderstandings even cultural conflicts, especially when people communicate in nonverbal way. Looking from previous studies on nonverbal communication, more emphasis is placed on general introduction of its classifications or functions in communication or teaching, which provides motivation and possibility to study it interdisciplinarily and interculturally. As a major form of nonverbal behaviours, body language is a sign system. Intercultural communication in body language is intrinsically a process of encoding and decoding of these signs in specific cultural context to complete information exchange and interpretation. The signifier and signified of body language signs are vastly influenced by culture. Some body languages have common conveyance in most cultures around the world as well as some others have their unique cultural connotation. The appropriate selection and use of body language depend on cultural context to a large content and culture specifies the understanding of body language.Based on theories of semiotics and intercultural communication, this thesis is intended to make a contrastive analysis of different aspects of body language in Chinese and western cultures. The materials and examples are selected from daily life and movies. The study is expected to offer effective help to understand differences and cultural factors of body language. Several suggestions and tips in intercultural communication are also supplied with the expectation of reducing cultural conflicts and misunderstandings to communicate successfully.