Intercultural Nonverbal Communication Research In Foreign Language Teaching

Since the reform and opening up, Chinese economy developed at a fast speed and its cultureprospers, the comprehensive national strength improved increasingly and the international statusand authority obviously enhanced. The new situation like the “China Craze” and “ChineseCraze” has promoted the fierce development of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL):on one hand, a large number of foreign students who have a passion for Chinese culture andwant to learn Chinese come to study in China; on the other hand, Chinese government has sentmany Chinese teachers to teach at abroad, which raises higher requirement for teachers.TCSL teaching is a cross-cultural communicative behavior, which including theintercultural verbal communication and the intercultural nonverbal communication. The twokinds of communication complement each other and both are indispensable. The appliedresearch of the intercultural nonverbal communication in TCSL teaching can improve thenonverbal communicative abilities of both the teachers and the foreign students, reduce theircommunicative barriers, and avoid cultural conflicts. Non-verbal communication mostly makeseffect through sense of sight and touch. Therefore, all communicative activities withoutlanguages are called non-verbal communication, including the expression in one’s eye, gesture,movement, smile, facial expression, dress, silence, body contact, distance between the talkers,the volume of the speaker, sense of time and the use of space, etc.This paper is mainly divided into five parts, namely, introduction, theory foundation, appliedanalysis of cross-cultural nonverbal communication in TCSL teaching, strategies of applyingnonverbal communication in teaching, and conclusion. The paper analyzes the differences ofcodes of conduct among countries like India, Thailand, Korea, Mongolia and china. Besides, thepaper puts forward some strategies of applying nonverbal communication in TCSL teaching.The novelty of this paper is that it compares and analyzes the similarities and differences ofthe way of non-verbal communications between China and some Asian and African countries,including India, Thailand, Japan, Korea and Mongolia, without the comparison of China andEnglish-speaking countries, nor the China and western countries. Meanwhile, the paper reflectsand carries out the principle of combining practice and theory: it combines the cross-culturalnon-verbal communication with the work of teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL); itapplies some theories of the cross-cultural non-verbal communication into the TCSL teaching. Itbrings forward some teaching methods, teaching principles, teaching measures and some do’sand don’ts in teaching.In conclusion, actively launch the research of cross-cultural nonverbal communication has a close relation with our TCSL teaching cause. Establishing our own theoretical system as early aspossible is an urgent affair. This is not only pressed by our external exchange, but also anhonorable assignment to our related scholars.