从电影《喜福会》看中美文化的差异与冲突.doc

毕 业 设 计（论 文） 设计(论文)题目： 从电影喜福会看中美文化的差异与冲突 学生姓名： 钱佳乐 指导教师： 夏丽云 二级学院： 专业： 英语 班级： 英语1班 学号： 1021126013 提交日期： 年 月 日 答辩日期： 年 月 日 标题小二号“Times New Roman居中（空四行）A Comparative Study of the Different Cultural Values between Chinese and British Residences:from the Perspective of Cultural Semantics（空一行）_（空一行）A Bachelors ThesisPresented toThe School of Foreign LanguagesJinling Institute of Technology（空一行）_（空一行）三号居中In Partial FulfillmentOf the Requirements for theBachelor of Arts Degree（空一行）_（空一行）byWang KaiMay 5, 2011金陵科技学院学士学位论文 AbstractTimes New Roman小五号，页眉须分章显示（空两行）ContentsAbstracti摘 要ii1.Introduction12.Theoretical Foundation: Culture and Cultural Semantics22.1 Comparative Study of Cultures22.2 Cultural Semantics33. Architecture and Culture53.1 Architecture as the Culture Product53.2 Residence64. Residences and the Features74.1 Chinese Residences74.2 British Residences94.3 Comparison of the Main Features95. Cause and the Embodiment115.1 The Cause of the Distinctions115.2 The Embodiment of the Culture125.2.1 Self-reliance and Dependence125.2.2 Privacy and Social Concern136. Conclusion16Bibliography17Acknowledgements19一级标题四号Times New Roman加粗二三级标题小四号不加粗AbstractThe Joy Luck Club is the first novel of Amy Tan,a famous Chinese-American writer. In the novel she mainly describes the relationship between the Joy Luck Club mothers and their daughters and cultural conflicts.The movie is adapted in this novel.This paper mainly discusses different cultures. As a rule, intercultural communication refers to the communication between people from different cultures. Under different cultural circumstances, there are tangible differences in peoples both values and modes of thinking. The movie is set in the age of globalization and in the multicultural American society;it represents the process of misunderstanding, conflicts , understanding and blending between the mothers and daughters.The four mothers all have their own world view, their world view is based on their Chinese life experience. They want to have their own experience about her daughter, and efforts by the expression of motherly love with their daughters build a bridge of communication between cultural differences and conflicts. At first, the girls cannot understand their mothers and their representatives of Chinese culture, but with the passage of time, daughters begin to understand their mothers, sympathetic to their mothers tragic past and eventually accepted their mothers. Therefore, the joy luck club in a mothers love is not only a symbol of Chinese culture, more important is the bridge of the mothers and daughters to understand and, also is the bridge of cultural exchange of China and the United States.Key Words : The Joy Luck Club; different cultures; Mother-daughter relationship; the conflict and fusion; 18金陵科技学院学士学位论文 摘要摘 要喜福会是著名美国籍华裔女作家谭恩美的处女作，作者在小说中主要描述了四对移民母女的关系和她们之间由于文化的差异而引起的冲突.这部电影改编于此小说。这篇论文主要讨论不同的文化。一般来说,跨文化交际是指来自不同文化背景的人之间的沟通。在不同的文化环境下,有实实在在的差异在人们的价值观和思维模式。这部电影以全球化时代和美国多元文化社会为背景，呈现了4对母女由误会，冲突到理解的过程。这四位母亲都有着自己的世界观，她们的世界观又是立足于她们的中国生活经历。她们想把自己的经历一一讲述给女儿,并努力通过母爱的表达在她们与女儿的文化差异和冲突之间建立起沟通的桥梁。起初女儿们不能理解她们的母亲及其代表的中国文化,但随着时间的流逝,女儿们开始理解她们的母亲,同情她们母亲的悲惨过去并最终接受了她们的母亲。因而, 喜福会中的母爱不仅是中国文化的象征,更重要的是母女理解与沟通的桥梁，也是中美文化交流的桥梁。关键词：喜福会；文化差异；母女关系；冲突与融合；金陵科技学院学士学位论文 1.Introduction一级标题“Times New Roman小三加粗居中金陵科技学院学士学位论文 2.Theoretical Foundation: Culture and Cultural Semantics1. Introduction(空一行)Culture is the intellectual and spiritual achievements of human beings. It can be divided into two parts: culture-product and culture-pattern. Culture-product is about the outcomes created by the basic structure and functions of a culture. It concerns the different exterior characteristics of culture systems. However, the culture-pattern is the basic dominating part abstracted from the cultural products of various types, namely, it deals with the interior model of the culture. The culture-pattern is the abstract concept of the cultural products of a culture type, while the cultural products are the specific accounts of the culture pattern. (Liu, 2002:1) Thus, comparative study between cultures is just to reveal the culture pattern through the comparison of the cultural products such as traditional clothes, architectures, religions and so on.正文采用“Times New Roman小四号Architecture is one type of the cultural product created by people of certain culture pattern. There have been lots of books and papers studying on the comparison between Chinese and western cultures through architectural features from a variety of aspects such as concepts of nature, states of independence, aesthetic standards, and ways of naming the architectures and so on. And there are also comparative studies on architectures built in Chinese and British landscape gardens. However, this paper deals with different cultural values in the residences of Chinese and British from the view of cultural semantics. It is mainly divided into three parts. The first part concerns the theories of my paper. The second part is about the architecture as the cultural product reflects the culture and conventions of the people whos living in. Then a brief account on the main features of the Chinese and British residences is given in the third part. And the next part is about the reason of the distinctions and different conventions resulted in the two styles of residences shaped by the values of individualism and collectivism. 每章独立开页(空一行)2. Theoretical Foundation: Culture and Cultural Semantics二级标题“Times New Roman四号(空一行)2.1 Comparative Study of Cultures(空一行)There have been over four hundred definitions made for culture according to the Course of Culturology. Here are two typical ones in the field.引文必须标注，格式为 （姓，出版年份：页码）They take that of the British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor as the first definition of culture. He said: “Culture . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” And A.L.Kroeber defined it as “Culture is made up of exterior and interior behavior patterns. These behavior patterns are obtained and transferred through symbolic signals. The culture represents the remarkable achievements of the group of human, including the embodiment in man-made things; the core part of culture is the traditional idea (namely idea obtained and selected in the history) and especially the value it brought in. On the one hand the culture system can be regarded as the product of social activity; on the other hand it is the determining factor of the movements in the future.” (Wu, 2002:50)Tylors definition has the most far-reaching influence in the field of culturology since the beginning of the subject. And Kroebers is now widely accepted and is considered to be the most complete one.Because of the complication of the culture and its hard to give a complete definition, many scholars are inclined to reduce it into concise parts. For example, someone has divided it into four parts as culture-product, culture-capability, culture-spirit and culture-act-pattern. In order to be pithier, Liu made it into two parts, culture-product and culture-pattern. And the culture-pattern includes the patterns of behavior, thought and value. (Liu,2002:1) And I prefer this type of conception of culture because it sums up the culture in both broad and narrow senses.Culture-product is the culture in broad sense. It includes all the achievements human beings made in the society such as architectures, clothes, laws, literatures, social ideology and so on. Such culture-product is the specific display of the culture-pattern. For example, the features of Chinese quadrangle courtyard show vividly the value pattern of collectivism of the country; while British type of detached houses disclose the individualism of the culture.Culture-pattern, which is the domination of its culture-product, is the narrow sense of culture. The pattern is embodied in all its products and is the abstract image of the achievements. This sense of culture concerns the characteristics and status of the interior structure to make out the internal cause of the external appearances of the cultural products. For instance, because of Chinese value of collectivism, the people would like to live together and the houses are connected together to form a courtyard. And as a result of the individualism, the British prefer the detached houses separated far from each other.Culture can be divided into two parts, culture-product and culture-pattern. Then which sense is the comparison studying on? Generally speaking, such study concerns the culture pattern through comparing the features of the cultural products. For example, this paper deals with the features of Chinese and British architectures to study the cultures. Then, to find out the distinctions of the architectures is on the level of studying the culture-product. However, in order to compare the different cultures, it should be researched on the culture pattern which conducted the distinctions, that is, different values of individualism and collectivism. (空一行)2.2 Cultural Semantics(空一行)Culture is a ethnical phenomenon of the life in human society, and different nations and countries have different cultures. That is, culture is differentiated with national marks. The national character of culture decides that the language depends on culture as the background, namely, language will not exist without its culture; it is the culture that people depending on to comprehend and use a language. As a branch of the cultural linguistics, cultural semantics concerns the ethnocultural semantic character of the words, and the irrational analysis method in form restricted by the national culture; it is research on the influence process that cultural factors affect the semantic part from the aspect of semiotics and semantics; it is the comparison on two languages to reveal the categories of culture-functional semantics and ethnocultural semantics(e.g. culture-synonymy and culture-antonym) and so on.(Wu,2000:17) Language is the product of the culture in the civil society. It shows peoples attitudes towards the world and their standards for activities. Language is a remarkable achievement of the civil human society and the sign of distinguished from the animals. Language depends on culture and is the reflection of culture. Words come out of the life style, living conventions, surroundings, social conditions of a nation. And this conducts the national characteristic of the word and the language.Architecture is the cultural product that most closely related with peoples living activities and also affects the national language and the semantics. 金陵科技学院学士学位论文 3.Architeture and Culture（空一行）3. Architecture and Culture（空一行）Architecture is of the cultural product created in the human society. Its shapes, functions and appearances are all catering for the certain culture pattern of the society. And residence takes the lead position in all kinds of buildings.(空一行)3.1 Architecture as the Culture Product(空一行)Architectures appear as a result of residence, one of the basic material needs of human beings for sheltering from wind and rain. Thus, architectures are considered to be one of the most important material needs for human living. “Material needs for living are the basic needs of great importance for man kinds existence, and they are the base on which people carry out their activities. Judging from the quality of the materials, they are natural. While they are made use of in the society of human civilization, the materials are shaped as a result of catering for peoples tastes of different cultures. Thus, the substances from the natural world had been affected by various cultures and became containers full of cultural information. ” (Liu, 2002:104) Said Liu in his book and he took the building as one of the examples for his comparative study between Chinese and western cultures. Descriptions on how architectures received the cultural meanings were made that: “Houses in the ancient times were very simple without any decoration. With the development of the social technology, people began to add their designing thoughts and decorative things to the simple houses they built as their abilities of building and modeling were strengthened. As time went by, the houses gradually got on cultural information and became the embodiment of different cultures.” (Liu, 2002:117) Resulted in the variation of peoples intention and activities, various kinds of architectures with different functions came into being, such as palaces, churches, temples, gardens and so on. And it is said that: “The ability of building a house demands for a comprehensive capability from a variety of aspects of fields. Architectures can most directly disclose the different cultures and peoples living styles in various areas and historical periods.” (Fan, 2003:25)From this, it is obvious that architecture is the most important one among the cultural products. And it is the culture pattern that leads to the different features.(空一行)3.2 Residence(空一行)House built for living in is the kind of architectures for the basic practical use in the daily life. And it takes a leading position among all the buildings. There is a saying of behavioral scientists that: “The clothes are the expansion of ones skin, while the residence is the limbs.” Such a saying explains to the full that what one thinking in his mind would certainly affect his environmental conditions. (Meng, 2004:2) “Residence is one of the basic living materials of mankind. It is the place where people carry out most of their activities, such as having meals, sleeps, holding marriage, sacrifices and so on. The appearance of the so called houses is the mark of the human civilizations.”(Tang, 2004:5) Wang Wei also said in his book that: “House is certainly a kind of receptacle of concepts besides its basic practical functions for residing, and it keeps a relation to the creation of beauty.”(Wang, 2004:137) From all the words above, the residence maintains most close relationship with peoples life and it is the house people spend most thoughts on. Hence, a conclusion can be reached that architecture is able to mirror the culture of the society and the residence, to some extent, reflects the character and concepts of the residents characters towards the society and the world. Therefore, we can say that the residence is the expansion not only of ones limbs but also of the ideas and concepts. Residence is the form of architecture that can be to some extent a representative of the character and the thoughts of the resident. Then, the main features of residences in a country may surely be the reflection of the traditional culture of the nation.金陵科技学院学士学位论文 4.Residences and the Features（空一行）4. Residences and the Features（空一行）China, one of the birthplaces of the oldest civilizations in the world, has a culture of extensive influence on the world history. The Great Britain is like other countries on the continent which had experienced the Roman Times, the Mid-Ages and the Christ Society, a typical country of western culture. The book of Travels of Marco Polo brought Chinese cultures into the European world and made great impact on peoples lives, including the British. Most of the British people showed great interest in Chinese Confucius, tea, china, classical gardens, etc. Then the culture of tea had been developed in a unique British way and the gardens of “Le Jardin Anglo-Chinois” had once been focused on attentively all over the European continent.Generally speaking, the distinctions between the architectural features of these two countries are obvious because they are typical countries of two extremely different culture patterns in the world.4.1 Chinese Residences Any country has not one certain style of house, but there must be a typical ones or a basic framework to be followed.China is the third largest country in the world with a large territory of various geographical conditions and the climates. As composed of 56 ethic groups, the cultures in China are of various kinds. For these reasons, the residences are of various styles. There are numbers of types of traditional living houses such as the bamboo houses in the southwest of the country, the “den residence” on the Loess Plateau and so on. However, among all the types of Chinese architectures, there is a basic form called quadrangle courtyard as the most original structure on which Chinese architectures developed. Someone explained how the courtyard developed from the basic structure of Chinese common dwellings:The original Chinese form of common people living house is the residence of three rooms in a line with a door in the central one Then as the population grows larger, the family builds houses lengthwise on the two sides and the opposite as the wing-rooms to form an enclosure in the middle. Such an enclosure is cal