A Study Of Chinese And British Views On Love And Marriage From The Perspective Of Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory

Nowadays,the increasing development of economic globalisation promotes the deeper development of international communication and cooperation.People's actions in economic communication among various countries usually make it possible to create different kinds of intercultural relationships.Cultural difference may usually cause some issues like culture shock and even culture conflict,which are harmful for the developments and interactions between various social cultures.In the domain of intercultural communication,it is critical to identify the cultural distinctions among different countries,so as to lessen the possible conflicts and obtain better intercultural relationships.Looking through the whole world,it is prominent that the cultures between eastern and western countries greatly vary from each other.As two types of representatives,culture differences between China and Britain are most prominent.These distinctions are not only seen in various aspects of social life,but also shown in Chinese and British love and marital cultures.This thesis is for discussing the differences between Chinese and British views on love and marriage as well as their enlightenment for contemporary studies on the values of love and marriage.To reach these goals,the methods of textual analysis and contrastive analysis are adopted.Love in a Fallen City and Lady Chatterley's Lover are both classic novels from China and Britain,which are both important in literary history and enjoy great influence.Besides,the views on love and marriage embodied in the two novels are extremely typical that can deeply reflect both societies In application of Geert Hofstede's cultural dimension theory,this thesis,by taking examples from Chinese novel Love in a Fallen City and British novel Lady Chatterley's Lover,parses what are the Chinese and British values upon love and marriage and their differences according to the six dimensions,“Power Distance”,“Uncertainty Avoidance”,“Individualism vs Collectivism”,“Masculinity vs Femininity”,“Long-term Orientation vs Short-term Orientation”,and“Indulgence vs Restraint”.Besides,the thesis also discusses some enlightenment of the differences in those values,which is useful in contextualising contemporary views upon love and marriage.The results uncover that:under the influence of traditional culture and feudal system,Chinese values upon love and marriage show the features of high power distance,strong uncertainty avoidance,collectivism,masculinity,long-term orientation,and restraint in the early 20^th century.At the same time in Britain,the Industrial Revolution promoted social movements,people's minds are changing.The British views on love and marriage are relatively different that can be seen as low power distance,weak uncertainty avoidance,individualism,femininity,short-term orientation,and indulgence.For the contemporary enlightenment,recognising the different love and marital values between Chinese and British people can not only be useful in dealing with intercultural communications and inner cultural family relationships but also be meaningful for the harmony and the development of the society.Generally,the significance of this study mainly covers two aspects.Academically,through the analysis of cultures of love and marriage presented in Chinese and British literary works,this thesis identifies the distinctions between Chinese and British views on love and marriage under the cultural dimension theory.It is a significant reference for the intercultural values studies and will bring forward some feasible advice in order to enable Chinese and British people to interact deeply and solve some problems around family and social relationships.From a long term perspective,the study can also promote the development of intercultural communications and studies.On the other hand,this theoretical study also contains some practical significance.With the understanding for distinctions of Chinese and British views upon love and marriage,people under different cultural backgrounds can respect and learn from each other in real interactions and try to figure out the common points while keeping culture diversity.It is meaningful for dealing with contemporary intercultural relationships about marriage,family,even societies and countries.