Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Cultural Value Orientations In Idioms

Idiom as a special way of expression is the crystallization of national collective wisdoms and carries the essence of a national culture. From a cultural perspective, idiom as the product and form of a culture directly comes from the process of human creation. Idiom, like a mirror, can clearly reflect the characteristics of a national culture. Cultural value as the most inner part of culture is definitely manifested and embodied in idiom.With the development of globalization, people of different languages and cultural backgrounds more and more frequently contact and communicate with each other. Intercultural communication has become an unavoidable reality. However, the cultural conflicts and misunderstandings are increasingly uprising. One of the most important reasons is that different nations have formed different cultural values in the development of history. Cultural values are systematic ideas about faith, orientation, advocation, and attitude, which function as guide for actions, judgment standards, principles and yardsticks. Based on the important function of cultural value, the paper will make a comparative study of Chinese and American cultural value orientations by illustrating idioms as evidence and using the five cultural value orientation models put forward by American anthropologist Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck. They are human nature orientation, relationship of humankind to nature, time orientation, activity orientation, relational orientation.The purpose of the thesis is to strengthen and deepen the understanding of differences of cultural value orientations between China and America so as to help us reduce and avoid misunderstandings and conflicts in intercultural communication and improve the intercultural communication awareness and promote the intercultural communication and cooperation between China and America.