A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Body Language On The Basis Of Cultural Dimensions

China is melting into the world economic integration along with theadvancement of the Chinese economy and fast growth of foreign trade. More andmore intercultural communication between China and foreign countries arebrought about by the trend of world economic globalization and integration.The combination of both verbal communication and nonverbalcommunication can be viewed as an entire process of human communication.Body language is an important part of nonverbal communication and plays asignificant role in daily communication. It may be used consciously orunconsciously. When we interact with a person from another culture, there may bemisunderstanding, since body behaviors are culture-specific. China is a highcontext country with the concept of Confucianism at the core of it, while in thelow context culture; America is dominated by the idea of individualism andindependence. The culture mode determines the way people act and behave.In order to minimize the misunderstanding between Chinese and Americansin cross-cultural communication, the thesis tries to discuss the importance of bodylanguage in intercultural communication from the perspective of CultureDimensions Theory. China is a symbol of eastern culture while America is arepresentation of western culture. The author mainly clarifies the differences fromgestures, postures, eye contact, facial expressions and touch. Questionnaire designis included in the thesis to make the data analysis more reliable. From thequestionnaire, the differences are clearly illustrated. Then the thesis explains thereasons that cause the variations from individualism vs. collectivism, powerdistance, masculinity vs. femininity and uncertainty avoidance indexsystematically. In order to explore the differences between Chinese and American people in great depth, some cases are cited in the fifth part of the thesis withexplanations in great detail. Finally, the author gives a conclusion and putsforward some suggestions on how to strengthen cross-cultural communicationskills.By means of questionnaire research and case analysis, the main findings ofthe thesis can be summarized as follows: Body language is part of the culture andcontains profound cultural meaning, which can be regarded as a valuable asset forall the human beings to possess and share. Accepting the variations in bodylanguage under different cultural contexts is needed. In view of the culturaldimensions theory, the author has found that people in high context cultures tendto be more implicit and prefer to use body behaviors rather than words to expressthemselves in communication. They also like personal closeness, while in lowcontext cultures like America, people use less touch and stand apart to keepdistance in conversation. Also, people from individualistic cultures smile a lot butkeep certain body distance from others to set themselves assured, while incollectivistic cultures, people smile less and fond of depending on each other aswell as prefer closeness. Emotional display is usually avoided in collectivisticcultures to keep harmony. Then, in high power index countries, touch betweenfemale and male is discouraged and avoided in public places but low in powerdistance countries, it is just the opposite.