A Cross-cultural Contrastive Study On Partings In English And Chinese

As an integral part of communication, partings sometimes determine whether theclosing of the communication is successful. As a politeness behavior in daily life, itprovides the means for establishing and maintaining social relationships. Because of thedifferences of English and Chinese partings, many misunderstanding and unpleasantnessin cross-cultural communication between Chinese people and English-speaking peopleoccur. Therefore, it is very important to understand the different expressions of Englishand Chinese partings and the underlying reasons in order to make language learnersdeepen the understanding of English and Chinese partings and cultures and to avoidembarrassment and misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication.This study mainly applies Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural variability and uses theapproach of case analysis and contrastive analysis. Three main research questions are asfollows: first, the differences between English and Chinese partings; second, the reasonsof the difference between English and Chinese partings; third, the strategies for usingEnglish and Chinese partings in cross-cultural communication. This study takes dialoguesof the first half episodes of The N Power of Family and Modern Family (season4) as thematerial and collects parting cases as examples. All the examples are from the livedialogues in the two TV plays. The study arranges and classifies the cases reasonably andsums up the features; summarizes the characteristics and differences of English andChinese partings from all the cases. The study uses dimensions of cultural variability toanalyze and summarize the collected typical examples and reveals the cultural reasonsbehind the differences.The main findings of the study are as follows: first, the four differences betweenChinese and English partings are emphasis on collectivity V.S. emphasis on individuality;deep concept of hierarchy V.S. equal treatment of everyone; implicit expression offeelings V.S. explicit expression of feelings and loose arrangement V.S. tightArrangement. Second, the reasons of the differences between Chinese and Englishpartings are collectivism VS. individualism; high power distance VS. low power distance;high-context VS. low-context and polychoronic time VS. monochronic time. Third, the three strategies for using Chinese and English partings in cross-cultural communicationare language learners should improve the awareness of the differences between Englishand Chinese partings; language learners should avoid holding the attitude of ethnocentrismwhen using English and Chinese partings; language learner should understand thedifferences between English and Chinese partings and deal with the differences neatly.