On The Cross-culture Interpersonal Communication In An International Ship Arrest Case

There are various interpersonal cross-culture communications in international ship arrest cases.In a particular ship arrest case,due to the attending parties are located in different countries or areas,the cross-culture issue or even conflict may occur frequently between the parties in a same ship arrest case.This article makes its analysis on the basis of a real case in transnational ship arrest,focusing on the interpersonal cross-culture communication issues.The effect of cross-culture communication between the relevant persons,and the misreading in such cross-culture communications will be reviewed retrospectively by applying the theory of cross-culture legal community and the theory of hermeneutics in cross-culture communications.At the start of the article,the global legal regimes and the legal history backgrounds of the international ship arrest are briefly introduced,based on which the nature of local-knowledge and the multivariant characteristic of the legal cultures at different local regions is summarized.The cross-culture legal community and the distinguishing feature of their discourse in this case are discussed consequently,through the analysis on the education and professional experiences of the attending parties as well as their discourse used in written communications,and by using the legal community theory and especially the recent legal cross-culture communication theory.More emphasis is put on the discussion of the legal discourse community in this real case,based on its formation mechanism of the inter-textuality promoted by the international arrest conventions.Further,the article moves ahead into the hermeneutics theory relating to community communications,and provides an approach on how to adjudicate on this cross-culture legal misinterpretation between the two parties,from the perspectives of the pre-understanding and the fusion of horizon in the hermeneutics theory.A suggestion is then given that a real fusion of horizon in cross-culture legal interpretation can only be achieved by adopting the hermeneutics approaches in addition to the traditional legal interpretation approaches.Thereafter,the article concentrates its analysis on a serious culture misreading in this case.The reason for this particular culture misreading and a recommended resolution towards it is then raised,after bringing in the horizon-expectation theory in addition to the said fusion of horizon in cross-culture understandings.Some thoughts are summed up at the end of the article,especially on the improvement of interpersonal cross-culture communications in handling the international litigation cases,as well as on the enhancement of the Chinese enterprise’s international communication capabilities through the members of its cross-culture discourse community stepping globally.