A Study Of Hofstede's Intercultural Communication Theory

In the context of the diversified development of world politics,economy and culture,intercultural communication studies explain the social relations and social exchanges among different cultures in the global society and provide basic theories and practical strategies for international political,economic and cultural communication.This paper takes "Hofstede's intercultural communication theory" as the research object,and takes the current situation of its application in various fields of cross-cultural communication at home and abroad as the research background.By reviewing three important historical transitions in the development of cultural studies,this paper aims to explore the direct or indirect historical influence of this background on Hofstede's formation of intercultural communication theory,and to examine the connotation,composition and its value and significance of Hofstede's cultural theory in the overall development of cross-cultural communication.Starting from the core theories of "mental programs","value measurement","cultural onion diagram" and "five dimensions of culture",this paper analyses Hofstede's intercultural communication thoughts and theories,which mainly include the following four aspects.First of all,as a culture of "mental programs",it means to equate "culture" with "mental programs",while presenting three uniqueness levels and the operationalized description of "mental programs" in empirical research is often ignored by researchers.Secondly,the measurement of values is the premise for the emergence of the cultural dimension theory of intercultural communication,however,few researchers have studied Hofstede's distinction,classification and specific measurement methods on value.Furthermore,the cultural expression forms of different depth levels presented by the cultural "onion diagram" have attracted much attention,while the content,scope and relevance of each circle are seldom interpreted.In addition,the five dimensions of culture are the most widely used concepts,so to some extent,it can represent Hofstede's theory of cross-cultural communication.Nevertheless,without the support of "mental programs","value measurement" and "cultural onion diagram",what extent can its cultural dimensions represent a culture's dimension,how to understand the five dimensions of cultural differences at the national,personal and cultural levels,and why it can be directly applied to intercultural communication theories and practice,these questions are neglected.Not only that,in the process of transferring to the theory of intercultural communication,relevant applied research is very extensive,but the following theoretical validity and applicable boundary problems are still lack of deep theoretical reflection.The research focus of this paper is to discuss the idea of intercultural communication in Hofstede's cultural theory,and his dimension theory of intercultural communication.This paper focuses on Hofstede's theory of cross-cultural communication and his dimension theory of cross-cultural communication.It points out the possibility and rationality of Hofstede's cultural theory transferring to intercultural communication theory.It mainly collects,collates and summarizes the application status of Hofstede's cultural dimension theory in the fields of intercultural communication at home and abroad.It uses qualitative analysis to analyze the "historical transition" of his cultural theory from the historical level,and to analyze its core theories such as "mental programs","value measurement","cultural onion diagram" and "cultural five dimensions" from the content level.What's more,By using the method of comparative analysis,it compares Hofstede's cultural theory with the conceptual categories of "habitus","culture" and "values" proposed by Bourdieu,Kluckhohn,Rokeach,Schwartz,etc.,explores the possibility of the transfer of his cultural theory to cross-cultural communication theory as comprehensively as possible,and further explains the applicable boundary and validity of his intercultural dimension theory.