A Study Of Cultural Symbiosis In Ted Chiang's "Story Of Your Life"

Ted Chiang is one of the most famous contemporary Chinese American science fiction writers.With a small number of works,he almost won every prestigious award for science fiction writers in the United States,including Nebula award,Hugo award,Locus award,the John W.Campbell Award for Best New Writer and so on.The novella "Story of Your Life" is the representative work of Ted Chiang.It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1999 and won the Theodore Sturgeon Award in the same year,as well as the 2000 Nebula Award for Best Novella.In 2016,the science-fiction film Arrival,based on the novel,was released,triggering the heated discussion about the book and the author around the world.From the perspective of cultural studies,based on the theory of cultural symbiosis,this thesis reveals Ted Chiang's appeal for the cultural symbiosis of Chinese and American cultures by analyzing the cultural conflicts in the novella "Story of Your Life".This thesis is comprised of five parts:the introduction,the three chapters of the argumentation,and the conclusion.The introduction contains a brief overview of the author's life experience,the novella "Story of Your Life",the literature review concerning the novella both at home and abroad,and the research task,methodology and structure of the thesis.The body part of the thesis is composed of the following three chapters.In the second chapter,the two major cultural conflicts and their consequences in the novella are sorted out:the failure of the cultural communication between humans and aliens and the inter-generational conflict between the heroine Louise and her daughter.The focus of the third chapter is exploring the root causes of the two cultural conflicts in the novella.Firstly,the mainstream value of white supremacy in American society leads to its exclusion of foreign ethnic minorities.Secondly,the divergence of values between the first-generation Asian skilled immigrants and their children results in the serious inter-generational contradictions between the two generations.The last but the most important root cause of cultural conflicts is that the fundamental difference between Chinese and western cultures is inevitable.The fourth chapter is the generalization of the core connotations of cultural symbiosis that were revealed in the novella.Cultural symbiosis is not only a harmonious state of cultural coexistence,but also an effective method to resolve cultural conflicts.In this novella,Ted Chiang highlights the two core connotations of cultural symbiosis:the coexistence of diverse cultures and the goal of win-win.The last part of this thesis is the conclusion.Ted Chiang's dual cultural identity as a Chinese American undoubtedly has a great impact on his science fictions writing.The novella "Story of Your Life" is seemingly a grand narrative of the communication between humans and aliens,but in fact it shows the author's deep concern on the fate of human beings and expressed his wish and appeal for the cultural symbiosis of Chinese culture and American culture.This novella not only reveals the difficulties of Chinese Americans'integration into the mainstream of the American society,but also continues the tradition of writing on "mother-child detachment" in the Chinese American literature,which reflects the author's emphasis on family ties.