A Cross-cultural Comparative Analysis Of Sino-American Family Conflicts Management In Sitcoms Growing Pains And Jia You Er Nv

This thesis explores and compares the dynamics of familial conflicts in Chinese andAmerican families. By randomly selecting15episodes from a Chinese sitcom Jia You ErNv and15from an American sitcom Growing Pains, this study attempts to comparativelyanalyze the Sino-American family conflicts by identifying the differences between Chinesecultural values and American cultural values through the comparative analysis of Sino-American family conflicts.Based on two of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions and Rahim and Bonoma’sTwo-Dimensional Model of the styles of handling interpersonal conflict, and by theintegration of the qualitative and quantitive research, this research compares theSino-American family conflicts in three aspects: the cultural value context and the culturalreason leading to the conflicts; the conflict management styles being resorted to by the twofamilies; and the changes and new findings in the conflict management strategies of thetwo families.With the guidance of the theories and the related researches, the purposes are at lastreached that one is to learn more about China and America through observing the culturesof these two countries; and the other is to inspire the related government departments andscholars to pay more attention to the research of the cultures.