浅析社会文化对与陌生人交际的影响.doc

浅析社会文化对与陌生人交际的影响an analysis of sociocultural influenceson communication with strangersabstract: todays world is a village, and it is now possible for any person from an industrialized country to communicate with any person in another industrialized country within minutes. to minimize misunderstandings when we communicate with people from other cultures, to understand the process of intercultural communication and to improve our intercultural communication effectiveness, it is necessary and important to have the conceptual and theoretical knowledge of intercultural communication. communication is very closely connected with culture. when we communicate with people, misunderstanding comes from differences in structures of culture. all these things determine how a person responds to events and other people. the need to understand significant differences in social relations and social identities is a major theme for understanding sociocultural influences on communication.key words: culture; communication; stranger; sociocultural influence; social identity摘要：进入新世纪，“地球村”每个角落的每个公民都不同程度地被卷入了全球化的浪潮，文化交融已成为不争的事实。为了减少交际过程中所产生的误会，也为了提高跨文化交际的效率，拥有理论、系统的跨文化交际知识尤为重要。交际与文化是紧密相连的，我们与陌生人交际时所产生的误解便来自于文化结构的不同。在与陌生人交往的过程中，有诸多的影响因素，如：社会文化、心理文化、环境等因素。而社会文化中，社会关系，社会身份等诸多因素影响着我们与陌生人的交往。因此，培养对社会文化差异的敏感性，缩短社会文化距离，发展跨文化交际能力，已成为新时代的迫切需求。关键词：文化；交际；陌生人；社会文化的影响；社会身份contentsi. introduction1a. purpose1b. significance.1ii. literature review.1a. a brief introduction to intercultural communication.1b. a general view about sociocultural influences on communication.2iii. problems of the research and solutions.3a. the study of communication.3b. the study of culture.4c. the study of intercultural communication5d. who are strangers6iv. sociocultural influences on communication.6a. communication is influenced by the group memberships.7b. social identities guide our communication8v. how to communicate with strangers.9a. communicating effectively with strangers9b. developing relationships with strangers.9c. adapting to new cultures.10vi. conclusion.11works cited.12an analysis of sociocultural influences on communication with strangersi. introductionin the past, most human beings were born, lived and died within a limited geographical area, and never encountered people of other races and/or cultural backgrounds. such an existence, however, no longer prevails in the world now. todays world is a village, and it is now possible for any person from an industrialized country to communicate with any person in another industrialized country within minutes. to minimize misunderstandings when we communicate with people from other cultures, to understand the process of intercultural communication and to improve our intercultural communication effectiveness, it is necessary and important to have the conceptual and theoretical knowledge of intercultural communication. there are several frequently used terms for intercultural communication. such terms as intercultural, international, cross-cultural and multicultural are often used interchangeably. on one level, the study of intercultural communication is represented by culture studies; on another level, culture influences communication.communication systems such as language and nonverbal communication are products of culture. so interconnection is communication and culture that some scholars have been led to use them interchangeably: “culture is communication” and “communication is culture” (varner 156). communication is very closely connected with culture. in reality, almost every aspect of human life is affected by culture, such as the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the jobs we choose, and the ways we communicate with people. when we communicate with people, misunderstanding comes from differences in structures of culture. there are times when we meet people with backgrounds which are different from our own, when we negotiate with a foreign businessman or even a stranger, and then we find that we are differences in languages, food, clothes, attitudes toward time, work habits, social behavior and so on. all these things are cultural differences, and they determine how a person responds to things and people. the need to understand significant differences in social relations and social identities is a major theme for understanding sociocultural influences on communication.ii. literature reviewa. a brief introduction to intercultural communicationthe concept of intercultural communication came in to existence in the united states in the 1920s and 1930s. it was not complete at the beginning. however, more and more scholars began to get themselves involved in this new field in the following years because of the fast change in the world and the development of the international relationships. with more and more research results having been achieved and published, many people have realized that it is both important and necessary for people to learn about intercultural communication for good communication. b. a general view about sociocultural influences on communicationthe sociocultural influences are those involved in the social ordering process. social ordering develops out of our interactions with others when the patterns of behavior become consistent over time (gudykunst 47). we are members of groups because we are born into them or because we join them. groups we are born into include, but are not limited to, racial and ethnic groups, families groups, age groups, and gender groups. groups we join include service groups, occupational groups, religious groups, and entertainment groups. the various groups of which we are members enforce sets of expected behaviors and have shared and, therefore, have an impact on how we communicate with strangers.our memberships in social groups influence the way we see ourselves. our self-concepts are composed of at least two components: social and personal identities. our social identities are derived from our membership in our social groups. our personal identities are based on our unique individual experiences. the degree to which we identify with our groups and feel comfortable about ourselves as individuals influences our communication with strangers.when we communicate with one person and make our predictions about his or her position in a group, then we are engaging in a role relationship. the idea of position can be illustrated best by examples, such positions as clerk, judge, father, mother, boss, physician, professor, student, and so forth. people filling one of these positions are expected to perform certain behaviors. for example, an artist should have a certain kind of artistic temperament and behavior which let you know that he or she is an artist. the sets of behaviors that they are expected to perform are referred to as their roles. our role expectations influence how we interpret behavior and what predictions we make about people in a given role. role expectations vary within any culture, but there is a tendency for them to vary more across cultures. if we do not know strangers role expectations, we inevitably will make inaccurate interpretations of and predictions about their behavior.iii. problems of the research and solutionsin this thesis, we will put the stress on communication, culture, the relationship between communication and culture, strangers, sociocultural influences on communication with strangers, and how to communicate with strangers, which provide us a new angle of view to understand the sociocultural influences and guide us to choose the best way to communicate with people.a the study of communication in order to better understand the relationship between culture and communication, wed better study both of them together. culture cannot be known without a study of communication, and communication can only be understood with an understanding of culture it supports.communication, the basis of all human contact, occurs wherever there are human beings. when a baby is born, it cries. the cry is communication. when you achieve your goal, your friends come and say, “congratulations!” the word “congratulations” is communication. when you run into a friend on your way to school in the morning, you greet him, “good morning!” the expression “good morning” is communication. when you have something difficult to do with your work, you ask someone for help, “would you please do me a favor?” this is also communication.in the following, there are several definitions of communication.“communication is a dynamic, systematic process in which meanings are created and reflected in human interaction with symbols” (wood 1994).“communication includes all methods of conveying and kind of thought or feeling between people” (samovar 1998).“communication requires coding and symbols that must be learned and shared” (smith 1996).communication is a process involving the transmitting and interpreting of message. it is necessary for us to put our ideas into codes that can be transmitted, either verbally or nonverbally. transmitting messages refer to the process of putting our thoughts, feelings, emotions, or attitudes, for example, into a form recognizable by others. the way we transmit and interpret messages is influenced by our background-our culture, our ethnicity, our family upbringing-and our unique individual experiences. for example, different people have different opinions towards a certain event because of different culture background. transmission and interpretation of messages are not static activities. we interpret other peoples messages at the same time we transmit messages to them. we may change what we are saying because of our interpretation of other peoples messages while we are talking. the fact suggests that communication is a process-a process involving the transmitting and interpreting of message.b the study of cultureculture is ubiquitous and multidimensional, as we have it almost anywhere and anytime. it is understood differently by people throughout the world. americans believe that culture is a fast-moving train, which is closely connected with what is going on for the time being. the better you adjust yourself to the present world, the more you understand culture. however, chinese people believe that culture is closely related to the past. the more you know about confucianism or the past, the more cultured you are considered to be. to the outside observers, americans may seem care more about the next big invention. culture is a term which means many different things to different people. some people discuss culture in terms that suggest it is the same as society, while others define it in such a way that they can talk about male and female cultures. in the following, there are several definitions of culture.“culture is mans medium; there is not one aspect of human life that is not touched and altered by culture. this means personality, how people express themselves, including shows of emotion, the way they think, how they move, how problems are solved, how their cities are planned and laid out, how transportation systems function and are organized, as well as how economic and government systems are put together and function” (hall 1959).“culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, institutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generations in an identifiable group of people” (davis 2001).our cultures influence our behavior directly through the norms and rules we use to guide our behavior when we interact with others. our cultures also indirectly affect our communication through the individual characteristics we learn when we are socialized into our cultures. to illustrate, as we are socialized into our cultures, we learn how we are expected to view ourselves. the way we view ourselves, in turn, influences the way we communicate. c the study of intercultural communication-differentiating terminologyputting culture and communication together, we now get intercultural communication. many terms are used to refer to related aspects of communication. if intercultural communication refers to communication between people from different cultures, then intracultural communication refers to communication between people from the same culture (gudykunst 18). for example, if we examine communication between two japanese or between two germans, we are looking at intracultural communication. if we observe communication between a japanese and a german, in contrast, we are looking at intercultural communication. another term that needs to be clarified is cross-culture. while this term often is used as a synonym for intercultural, the term cross-culture traditionally implies a comparison of some phenomena across culture (gudykunst 18). if we examine the use of self-disclosure in japan and germany, for example, we are making a cross-cultural comparison. if we look at how japanese use self-disclosure when communicating with germans and how germans use self-disclosure when communicating with japanese, in contrast, we are looking at intercultural communication.when talking about intercultural communication, the labels race and ethnic group often are used interchangeably. this is incorrect. a race is a group of people who are biologically similar. an ethnic group, in contrast, is a group of people who share a common cultural heritage usually based on a common national origin or language. jews, therefore, are an ethnic group, not a race. an ethnic group may be made up of many races, and similarly, a race may consist of more than one ethnic group.interethnic communication and interracial communication are also different. however, one culture may include several races and/or ethnic groups, and one race or ethnic group may exist in different cultures. this leads to problems in labeling some forms of communication. for example, when a white person from the united states communicates with a black person from ghana, it is both interracial communication and intercultural communication.we need a way to refer to the common underlying process without differentiating among the different “types” of communication. the intercultural communication is the most general. anytime when we communicate with people who are different and unknown and those people are in an environment unfamiliar to them, we are communicating with strangers, however, who are strangers?d who are strangers?strangers, when we conceive of them, are people who are members of different groups and are unknown to us. a person from china visiting another country and a person from another country visiting china are both strangers. however, not everyone we meet for the first time is truly unknown and unfamiliar. sometimes we are familiar with or know something about the person we meet for the first time. fro example, when we meet a close friend of our best friends for the first time, we may be somewhat familiar with that person already because of what our best friends have already told us about that person.when we are confronted with cultural differences (and other forms of group differences, such as gender, ethnic, or class differences), we tend to view people from other cultures (or groups) as strangers. the term stranger is somewhat ambiguous when it is used to refer to aliens, intruders, foreigners, outsiders, newcomers, and immigrants, as well as any person who is unknown and unfamiliar. despite this ambiguity, “the concept of stranger remains one of the most powerful sociological tools for analyzing social processes of individuals and groups confronting new social orders” (shack 2). the major problem which strangers face in their new surroundings is “lack of security.” strangers do not have the necessary knowledge to fully understand their new environment. further, members of the host group do not possess information regarding individual strangers, even though they may have some information about the groups or cultures from which the strangers come (gudykunst 24).iv. sociocultural influences on communicationthere are many factors which influence our communication with strangers, sociocultural, environmental, for instance. our communication is influenced by our cultures and by the group memberships we form within our cultures. our group memberships provide us with social identities that guide our communication. we have numerous social identities that influence our communication with strangers including our cultural identities, our ethnic identities, our gender identities, our age identities, and our social class identities, as well as our identities based on whether we have a disability and our identities based on the role we fill.a. communication is influenced by the membership in social groupsa social group is two or more individuals who share a common social identification of themselves or perceive themselves to be members of the same social category. we are members of many different social groups, such as our families, social classes, racial groups, ethnic groups, sexes, occupational groups and nationalities. if we are conscious of belonging to groups or social categories, those groups are membership groups (gudykunst 92).some scholars isolate several factors that lead us to maintain our associations with our membership groups. first, we obtain positive rewards from our membership in group, including affection, prestige, status, and friendship. seco