Language Distance Affect The Flow Of China's Bilateral Trade

As a medium for human communication,language is an increasingly established communication tool for human beings in long-term life and is applied in all aspects of life.It is natural that language should be used at all stages of international trade.However,the study of linguistic economics in China has just started and there are few studies on the relationship between language and international trade.Therefore,this dissertation aims to explore the relationship between language distance and China's international trade flow from the perspective of linguistic economics and sociology.The language distance mentioned here mainly refers to the real extent of the gap between two different languages.It can also be understood as to how people of a country learn another language.According to the previous studies,the language gap is likely to affect a country's international trade flows.Firstly,Based on the research and demand preference theory,this paper theoretically explores the impact of language distance on China's international trade flows.From the perspective of transaction cost theory,language distance will increase time cost,translation cost,information search cost and information asymmetry.From the perspective of demand-preference theory,language is a manifestation of national culture.When the differences in language and culture between countries are small and the demand for various products is also small,the trade volume between the two countries will be large and the trade scope will be greater.The smaller the linguistic and cultural differences between the two parties and the smaller the psychological distance,the more likely they are to generate trade demand.Non-verbal misunderstandings are reduced due to the linguistic and cultural similarities between the two parties during the trade exchange,and the affinity index of both peoples.Increasingly,people are more likely to recognize each other's needs and increase the volume of trade in international trade.Secondly,the current situation of trade in recent three decades are expounded from three aspects: the total volume of China's import and export trade,the international competitiveness of China's export products and the regional distribution of import and export trade.Sample countries are selected from China's major trading regions,Asia and Europe,for empirical analysis.Finally,based on the traditional trade gravity model,this paper constructs an extended model of trade gravity by substituting the variables that measure the distance between Chinese Mandarin and the distance between English languages.It chooses nine major trading nations in China and Europe in 2007-2015 and makes the empirical analysis of the impact of language distance on bilateral trade flows between China and other countries.The result of this paper is consistent with the traditional research.The economic scale of trading countries is positively correlated with the international trade flow,while the geographical distance is negatively correlated with the international trade flows.As for the language distance,the results show that: the language distance between each country,Mandarin Chinese and the language distance to English are negatively correlated with the bilateral trade volume.That is,the closer each country's language is to the language of Mandarin Chinese or English,the lower the transaction cost and the greater the bilateral trade volume.And there is no crowding-out effect between the language distance of Chinese and the language distance of English.On the contrary,the international trade between the two countries will have a multiplying synergistic effect due to the convenience of language,which further illustrates that language distance plays an important role in international trade flow.The effect is stable and significant.In addition,we also find that the language distance between Asian sample countries and Mandarin Chinese in our country has a more significant impact on bilateral international trade flows than in the sample countries in Europe.According to the results of this article,we should strengthen the emphasis on language in international trade and improve the language service level in foreign economic and trade activities.On the one hand,it is necessary to strengthen national education in English proficiency;on the other hand,we must step up efforts to promote the international promotion of Chinese and distinguish between Chinese promotion policies in different regions.Taking "One Belt,One Road" as an opportunity,efforts should be made to develop the language service industry in many aspects Tap the new training model of language service personnel and promote the rapid and sound development of China's economy.