A Research On English And Chinese Modesty From The Perspective Of Cross-cultural Communication

Modesty is considered as a good personality in all nations and it is seen as thetraditional virtue of the Chinese nation. In cross-cultural communication, appropriatemodesty is a sign of politeness. However, different nations have different ways ofexpressing modesty as they are influenced by their respective culture. Scholars at homeand abroad have made certain research on modesty，but researches on comparative studyof English and Chinese modesty have not received adequate attention. This study attemptsto summarize the salient features of expressing modesty in English and Chinese from across-cultural perspective. Through comparative analysis, the research tries to reveal theunderlying cultural reasons and then present several effective strategies and principles ofexpressing modesty, so as to promote a successful cross-cultural communication.This research takes Hofstede’s four culture dimensions as the basic theory and adoptscomparative analysis as the research method. Three main research questions are as follows:first, the features and regularities of modesty in English and Chinese; second, theunderlying cultural reasons of different manifestations of modesty in English and Chinese;strategies and principles to express modesty effectively to make successful cross-culturalcommunication. This study takes interviews from June,2010to June,2014of Yang LanOne On One as the material and collect typical examples of expressing modesty by thehost and the guests at home and abroad. All the examples are from the live dialoguesduring the interview. Arrange and classify the examples reasonably and then sum up themarked features. At last, using the four culture dimensions to analyze, review andsummarize the examples and reveal the deep cultural reasons behind characteristics.The main findings of the research are as follows: first, the features of Chinesemodesty are self-denigrating and respect others, achievements declining, violate qualityprinciple and using modest terms; the features of English modesty are respecting otherswithout self-denigrating, indirect acceptation, following quality principle and using equalexpressions. Second, the reason of Chinese modesty features is that it was influenced byConfucianism, collectivism Modesty Maxim and high power distance in Chinese culture,the reason of English modesty features is that it was influenced by Christianity, individualism, Agreement Maxim and low power distance in English culture. Third, theauthor promotes several strategies to express modesty effectively in cross-culturalcommunication, that is, elevating after depreciating to avoid excessive modesty,downsizing and accepting compliments moderately and integrating self-modesty andself-mockery.