Cultural Conflicts And Reconciliation In The Bonesetter's Daughter From The Perspective Of Cultural Identity

With the development of globalization,the trend of migration has become quite common worldwide.As the world's largest immigrant country,the United States has long absorbed a large number of Chinese immigrants.Among them,many prominent contemporary ethnic writers have emerged,such as Jade Snow Wong,Maxine Hong Kingston,Amy Tan,Fae Myenne Ng and so on.Encountering both Chinese and American cultures from an early age,those writers don't know who they exactly are,and also have many doubts about their cultural identity.Under this condition,their literary works always reflect cultural identity crisis and cultural conflicts of Chinese immigrants.Coming from Chinese culture,it's hard for immigrant parents to completely integrate into the mainstream of American society.On the contrary,brought up in an English-speaking country,their children receive American culture and regard themselves as Americans.A series of conflicts come into being in immigrant families which are caused by different values and cultural identity.Hence,Chinese immigrants' cultural identity has drawn many scholars' attention.This thesis selects Chinese-American female writer Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter as the research material.Based on the perspective of cultural identity,the thesis uses the method of content analysis and textual analysis,and combines Hofstede's Six Cultural Dimensions Theory with Ting-Toomey's Identity Negotiation Theory.Moreover,the thesis analyzes the first and second generations of Chinese immigrants' cultural conflicts and further explores how they reconstruct a new cultural identity by identity negotiation.The thesis is divided into five parts.The first chapter gives a general introduction to the research background and significance,research purpose,and overall structure of the thesis.The second chapter lays the theoretical foundation for the thesis.The related theories used in the thesis are introduced,including Hofstede's Six Cultural Dimensions Theory and Identity Negotiation Theory proposed by Ting-Toomey.What's more,a systematic literature review of The Bonesetter's Daughter is carried out.The third chapter presents the research process from four perspectives: research material,research questions,research focus and research design.Chapter four is devoted to the discussion of cultural conflicts between Chinese-born mother and American-born daughter through content analysis and textual analysis.It analyzes the causes and main manifestations of cultural conflicts in the immigrant family.Then,the process of cultural identity negotiation between mother and daughter is discussed in detail.Finally,the fifth chapter,serving as a conclusion,summarizes the main research results.Meanwhile,the limitations and some suggestions for future research will also be put forward.Based on the analysis of the cultural conflicts in Chinese immigrant families in The Bonesetter's Daughter,this thesis draws the following conclusions:(1)It is inevitable to have conflicts between immigrant parents and the second-generation immigrants,especially in terms of education,forms of discourse,religious beliefs and so on.(2)Cultural identity is fluid,plural and hybrid.Pursuing a single culture is doomed to failure.Immigrants should accept two cultures and reconstruct their cultural identity through identity negotiation.In summary,this thesis attempts to make an in-depth analysis of cultural identity in The Bonesetter's Daughter.The author hopes that it will be helpful for other immigrant families or overseas people when they are caught in cultural conflicts in intercultural communication.The author focuses on the different aspects of Chinese American cultures,and how two generations of immigrants struggle to reconstruct their cultural identity.The successful reconstruction of cultural identity in The Bonesetter's Daughter provides some inspiration for other Chinese Americans in the context of globalization.