Sino-US Cultural Context Differences Influences And Constraints On Speech Expression

Cultural context influences and restricts cross-cultural communication. Cultural context has its own distinct characteristics, many factors of cultural context have some direct impacts on speech expression. This paper analyzes impacts of language elements, national psychology, social customs and other factors on Sino-US speech expression by the use of contrast methods. In elements of language, expressers use their nation’s pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar to construct speech expression methods of the national cultural context, so have a direct impact on the recipient’s understanding and analysis; in national psychology, human language expression is a kind of mental activity, certainly will be subject to the constraints of national psychology, which is mainly manifested in moral values, religious beliefs and aesthetic tastes, etc., if both sides of communication do not understand each other’s national psychology, naturally, can not well understand speech expression constructed by specific national psychological factors; social customs also have influences on speech expression, different social customs have different cultural significance, such as eating customs, sports practices, etc., so also affect the cross-cultural communication. In summary, cultural context restricts the entire process of language communication:speech expression of expressers need adapt to their cultural contexts; in the same way, language understanding of the recipients need base on their cultural contexts.