Study On W.H.Medhurst’s Cross-cultural Communication

When evaluating a historical figure, we need to build a coordinate. When introducinga preacher, so is also inseparable from around the historical figure of longitude andlatitude. In this paper, I take W.H.Medhurst as the origin of the right Angle coordinatesystem, take the middle of19thcentury as the horizontal axis of the time. The mostimportant period was that he had begun to in the region make up for newspapers services,learning Chinese, editing dictionary, translating religious books, etc, when he arrived inMalacca in1817. He came to Guangzhou for religious communication in1835. In1843,he chose Shanghai as his missionary base, where he founded the London MissionarySociety Press, until the end of1856due to health reasons to return to London. In thispaper,I take W.H.Medhurst’s cross-cultural communication as the longitudinal axis, withthe theory of intercultural communication as the support. I take his newspaper activitiesand publishing performance as masterstroke to discuss, this paper is altogether dividedinto six parts.The introduction part mainly concerns the missionaries research value and meaning,this paper explores the related literature at all times and in all countries aboutmissionaries, and defines some relevant concepts and research methods. The first chapterintroduces the background of cross-cultural communication, review of the missionariesand the wheat is thinking of intercultural communication context. The second chapter isthe focus of this article, explains the wheat is thinking in cross cultural communicationperformance, including Medhurst’s three experience and establish the London MissionarySociety Press after the achievements. The third chapter on wheat have thought spread theideas of history to launch the elaboration, introduced what is thinking communicationideas, political thought and culture, and according to religious communication experience,summed up some principles and strategies of cross cultural communication. The fourthchapter describes Medhurst’s cross cultural dissemination influence and meaning, fromthe modern perspective and the communication of Chinese and Western point of view,discusses his press activities to promote modernization of and for the future lay thesignificance of cultural exchange between China and the west. The last part is theconclusion, through the above discussion, this paper draw a conclusion is that Medhurst is an important preacher, not only in the religion spread made distinctions won in battle,and in such areas as politics, thought, culture and other aspects have made outstandingachievements in the intercultural communication, effectively promoted Chinesedevelopment of modernization, have improved the Chinese news reports, for Chinesepublishing industry has laid a model.