跨文化交流最需要克服的因素不是通常意义上的语言和习俗，而是价值观之间的差别。由于中美两国之间地域文化的大不相同，价值观的形成路径也大不相同，在对中美价值观比较的过程中，认真分析这些不同的因素，将有利于中美的友好长久的交往。
随着全球化进程的加快，来自不同国家，地区和不同文化的人们之间的交流越来越频繁。在当今世界的政治，经济和文化交流中，中文和英文这两种主要语言占据着主导地位。一个民族的语言承载着该民族的深厚文化，非语言行为（沉默）也受到文化的影响。在跨文化交际中，可以通过学习逐步获得语言交往，但是根植于文化中的无声学习必须依靠对文化及其价值的深刻理解。
关于沉默的研究，从一开始，人们就认为沉默是完全消极的反应，然后逐渐认识到它的积极方面，现在它与跨文化交流有关。尽管人们越来越关注沉默，并且已经注意到了理解跨文化交流中沉默的重要性，但是没有人能够比较两种语言对话中沉默的使用，因此本文从这一点开始。由于关联理论的研究对象包括显式和隐式交流，而沉默是典型的隐式交流，因此关联理论可以更好地解释转弯时的沉默。
关键词：沉默；中美文化；跨文化；语言交际
Abstract
The most important factor to overcome in cross-cultural communication is not the language and customs in the usual sense, but the differences between values. Due to the differences in region and culture between China and the United States, there are different paths in the formation of values, which is worthy of serious study. So in the process of comparing the values between China and the United States, careful analysis of these factors can play a positive role in the exchanges between the two countries.
With the acceleration of globalization, people from all over the world, regions and different cultures communicate with each other more and more frequently. The two major languages, Chinese and English, occupy a dominant position in the political, economic, and cultural exchanges of the world today. Just as the language of a nation carries the profound culture of that nation, so nonverbal behavior—silence is also affected by culture. In cross-cultural communication, language communication can be gradually acquired through learning, but the silent learning deeply rooted in culture must rely on a deep understanding of a culture and its values.
Regarding the study of silence, from the beginning, it was considered that silence was a completely negative reaction, and then gradually recognized its positive side, and now it is connected with cross-cultural communication. Although people are paying more and more attention to silence and have noticed the importance of understanding the meaning of silence in cross-cultural communication, no one has compared the use of silence in two language dialogues, and this article starts from this point. Since the research objects of relevance theory include explicit and implicit communication, and silence is a typical implicit communication, relevance theory can better explain turn taking silence. Therefore, this article chooses to use relevance theory to analyze silence in Chinese and English conversations in order to compare the use of silence in the two languages.
Key words: Silence; Chinese and American cultures; cross-cultural; language communication
Contents
1.Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Significance of this Research
1.3 Structure of the Thesis
2. The Basic Aspect of Silence
2.1 Definition and Limited Meaning of Silence
2.2 Silent Features and Characteristics
3. Using Background
3.1 Silence in the Use of Literature and Film
3.1.1 Silence in the Use of Literature
3.1.2 Silence in the Use of Film
3.2 Silence in the Use of Literature and Film
4. Silent Cultural Attachment
4.1 Cultural background
4.2 Values
4.3 Encoding
5. Literature Review
6. Conclusion
References
Acknowledgments
1.Introduction
1.1 Background
With the development of China's economy and culture, Sino-US exchanges have become more frequent and deepened. When conducting cross-cultural communication, people usually pay more attention to verbal communication, but may ignore the information transmission of nonverbal behavior. In fact, both nonverbal communication and verbal communication are indispensable means in human communication.
American scholar Samovar found through quantitative research that in formal face-to-face interaction, only about 35% of the social content of information is conveyed by language, and the rest are conveyed by nonverbal behavior. The pioneer of non-verbal research, Rei Birdwester, put forward a similar view. He believes that “in an ordinary conversation between the two people, the communicative connotation of the situation carried by the language element is less than 35%, and the reason is that the language part brings more than 65%." Their research shows that non-verbal communication plays a very important role in interpersonal communication.
Non-verbal symbols contain rich content, including: sign language, body language, facial expression language, adverbial language, appearance and dress language, etc. In real communication, people have noticed that non-verbal signs such as their manners, gestures, and facial expressions have an important impact on interpersonal communication, and more and more attention is paid to the role of non-verbal signs in interpersonal communication. However, people's emphasis on nonverbal signs is more manifested in the aspects of sign language, body language, appearance and dress language, and may overlook the "silence" problem in nonverbal communication.
1.2 Significance of this Research
In fact, silence, as a kind of nonverbal sign, is ubiquitous in nonverbal communication and has a significant impact on interpersonal communication. "According to statistics, the proportion of silence in conversations ranges from 5% to 65%, and generally reaches about 45% to 50%." This shows that silence is an indispensable part of the conversation, and silence and language together constitute conversation. The effect of silence on conversation is much more than that. It not only helps to form a conversation, but more importantly, silence itself may contain complex and profound meanings.
Bai Juyi described silence in "The Pipa Xing": "The cold and astringent strings of the ice spring are frozen, and the sound of Ning will not pass for a while. Don't be sad and hateful. At this time, silence is better than sound." In human communication, misunderstandings of words can lead to tragedies, as well as misunderstandings of silence.
In today's globalization, people can reduce the helplessness of communication caused by language barriers through foreign language learning. People can change their dresses and learn sign language and body language in different cultures to meet the needs of cross-cultural communication. However, if you don't understand the different meanings and pragmatic environments of silence in different cultures, it will also bring obstacles to cross-cultural communication. Therefore, this article focuses on the issue of silence in non-linguistic signs in interpersonal communication. Through the cross-cultural comparison between China and the United States, this article compares the issue of silence in the cross-cultural context of China and the United States, and analyzes the underlying reasons based on the results of the comparison. Exploring the differences between silence in different contexts of China and the United States will help people understand the differences between silence in Chinese and American cultures and improve people’s cross-cultural communication skills.
1.3 Structure of the Thesis
First of all, silence generally exists in interpersonal communication, which is the prerequisite for the comparison of silence issues in the cross-cultural context of China and the United States. Silence, as a nonverbal symbol, is widespread in interpersonal communication. Whether in China or the United States, as long as there is interpersonal communication, there may be a problem of silence. Second, the different cultural backgrounds of China and the West determine that the connotation of silent information is different, so misunderstandings in communication are inevitable. At the same time, both China and the United States are multi-ethnic countries, and the collision and integration of different ethnic cultures from within the country has continuously promoted the development of their own cultures in their respective historical development processes. In other words, the cultures that belong to China and the United States are themselves an inclusive complex. With the deepening of Sino-US exchanges, the degree of mutual influence between cultures has gradually strengthened, and this will inevitably involve the issue of silence in exchanges. Therefore, there is a possibility for a silent comparison between the two countries.
2. The Basic Aspect of Silence
2.1 Definition and Limited Meaning of Silence
The first thing to explain is that the problem of silence studied in this article is the silence in interpersonal communication, and does not involve the silence of organizational communication and mass communication. The silence mentioned in this research refers to all the silent state and the silent expression of a problem or event by the speaker unconsciously or consciously in the process of interpersonal communication (face-to-face interpersonal communication). Although we have defined silence, there are many manifestations of silence. If we do not classify it, it is impossible to have a deep understanding of silence. Lakoff pointed out: "In the structure of English conversation, it is wrong to treat the silent phase of silence without distinction, and treat it equally."
This is because some of the silence in interpersonal communication are pauses when speaking, and some are consciously not speaking to express thoughts. They have different roles in conversation. Therefore, these silences cannot be generalized. The criteria for distinguishing silence are diverse, and many researchers have put forward their own views. This article mainly uses Sacks and Levinson's classification of silence, and refers to the definition of silence in the "Modern Chinese Dictionary" to classify silence. When people communicate, the silence that occurs in the non-conversional position of the conversation is called intra-turn silence, that is, pause. Pause mainly occurs in the process of a person's speaking, and it is an inevitable phenomenon in the process of speaking. Pause is not only a physiological need for pronunciation, but also a need for the speaker to think. Generally speaking, "this kind of silence can avoid the flat and straightforward narrative of language expression, reflecting the psychological process of the communicator". The pause in the turn is short. If the pause is too long, it will affect the normal communication. The gap appears in the transitional position in the conversation, that is, between one turn and the other. At this time, one speaker has finished his turn, and the next speaker has not yet begun to speak.
Blank is also the position of switching association in conversation, and it belongs to the silence between turns. The blank appeared because there was a problem with the rules in the turn-taking, that is, after C ended the turn, neither N was specified nor anyone chose, and C did not continue the conversation, and then a blank was formed. This silence often gives people an uncomfortable feeling and creates an embarrassing atmosphere.
The above-mentioned three kinds of silence appear as supplementary components of language, or are caused by people needing to breathe and think when speaking, or they are at regular intervals in turn-taking, or the talker has not been able to perform normal turn-taking. These three This kind of silence can be regarded as a pause-a small pause and a big pause. Meaningful silence is completely different from the above three types of silence. Meaningful silence is just like its name. It is a meaningful silence. It is also a language, a silent language. It is not a simple interval, but an expression. Has a certain meaning. Meaningful silence is also a transitional position that appears in the conversation, but it is not a silence between turns but a full-round silence. It appears because the rules of turn-taking in the conversation are violated, that is, C is selected. When N stopped speaking, the selected N did not speak. At this time, there was a whole round of silence. It is a silence with belongingness, which can be attributed to a certain talker. For example, when a husband and wife quarrel, one party talks to the other party while the other party remains silent. This silence is not a pause or a gap, but a nonverbal symbol of silence to express one's feelings, that is, in anger.
Silence due to personality or speaking ability is a classification based on consideration of individual differences. In the "Modern Chinese Dictionary", the first definition of silence is: "I don't like talking and laughing". It is the character of the person who does not like to talk and laugh. If a person's personality is not talkative, then it is obvious that he will be more silent in interpersonal communication than ordinary people. This explanation is also applicable to people with weak speaking ability. A person's weak speaking ability means that there will be more silence in his speech than ordinary people. To sum up, the classification of silence, the first four types of silence and the fifth type of silence belong to two different levels, the reason to discuss them side by side is to grasp the silence more comprehensively.
2.2 Silent Features and Characteristics
Silence is essentially a non-verbal sign, which has the characteristics of non-verbal signs, such as no fixed structure, discontinuity in communication, etc. The characteristics of silence are specifically expressed as: First, silence lacks systemi-city. Compared with linguistic signs, silence, as a nonverbal behavior, has no fixed rules or patterns. There is no definite rule about when, where, and how people use silence. Therefore, to correctly understand the specific connotation of silence, it usually needs to be combined with context.
Secondly, silence has distinctive cultural characteristics. Non-verbal signs usually have distinct cultural characteristics. The same non-verbal signs may have the opposite meaning in different cultures, and so is silence. The same silence may have diametrically opposite meanings in different cultural contexts. Silence is often given a positive meaning in Chinese culture. The so-called "Soundlessness is better than sound at this time", "Illness comes from the mouth, and curse comes from the mouth." They all reflect the affirmation of the positive meaning of silence in Eastern culture. On the contrary, in American culture, people emphasize the power of language, and silence is a negation of language from a certain perspective, so silence is more of a negative meaning in American culture. For example, students’ silence in classroom teaching. Under Chinese culture, students’ silence in classrooms is very common. Students’ silence is a form of courtesy. Under American culture, students’ silence in classrooms will give The teacher was hit hard, this silence meant that the students did not understand or did not cooperate.
Third, the meaning of silence is vague. Silence has rich connotations. British linguist Ronald Wardhau pointed out: “Silence can express respect, comfort, support, opposition, uncertainty or other.” In fact, the connotation of silence is much more than that. In different cultures, silence can also There are different meanings. Silence can express respect, politeness, consent, support, comfort, understanding, trust, humility, composure, promise, thinking, indifference, depression, opposition, contempt, sadness and other meanings. It is precisely because silence has rich connotations, and the meaning of silence is uncertain. It is necessary to combine specific context and cultural background to determine its specific meaning, which makes the meaning of silence vague.
Finally, silence is usually combined with verbal communication. In interpersonal communication, silence and language usually accompany each other and go together. Sometimes, silence appears as a supplement to language; sometimes, silence itself expresses meaning and is regarded as a silent language. The existence of language hides silence, while the lack of language reveals the existence of silence. Therefore, the question of silence can be explained to some extent through consideration of language. First, silence can control communication. An important role of pauses in the conversation in interpersonal communication is to control the conversation between the two parties. "In a successful communication, one person should alternately play the two roles of "speaker" and "listener", and should not dominate the entire conversation. This naturally involves how the two sides of the conversation reach a tacit understanding between the succession of these two roles.
The embarrassing situation of talking, or not talking. Pause is an important sign of natural turn transfer. " It can be seen that the existence of silence realizes the natural transfer of the turn and controls the progress of communication. Second, through silence, people’s inner emotions can be judged. Interpersonal communication is often accompanied by emotional communication, and emotional communication is People’s nature. Silence is rich in meaning. It can express many meanings of "angry, sympathy, approval, care...". In fact, while silence conveys meaning, it also expresses a certain emotion. According to silence, we can judge people. The inner feelings of people. For example: silence when two people quarrel expresses people’s anger, silence when facing a disaster expresses feelings of sympathy and understanding. Third, silence can replace language. "Some information Types and certain information forms require verbal communication to express meaning, but some do not. " Meaning in silence can express a complete meaning alone. At this time, silence is not a pause, but silence itself represents an answer. This expression does not require language, and is an expression that has the same function as language. Therefore, in some cases, silence has the function of replacing language. Fourth, silence is a symbol that reflects social relations. "Like speech acts, non-verbal acts are also a sign of the social relationship between the two parties during interpersonal communication. It marks the communicator's 'power' and 'equality' relationship." Silence as a non-verbal symbol can reflect the communication during interpersonal communication. The social relationship of "power" or "equality". In Chinese culture, silence has the meaning of humility. When the young and the elder or the humble and the venerable have interpersonal communication, the silence of the young or the humble can express their respect for the elder or the venerable and express their humility. This shows the social relationship of "power". "Power" means power, influence, status, etc. In American culture, people emphasize equality, and everyone is equal regardless of age or status. Therefore, whether it is young or old, people with power and people without power, they emphasize the role of language when communicating. They recognize the smoothness of dialogue and deny the meaning of silence. This also reflects the social equality of communicators in American culture. relationship.
3. Using Background
3.1 Silence in the Use of Literature and Film
3.1.1 Silence in the Use of Literature
Although non-verbal communication came into being before verbal communication, it only began in the 1950s as a new subject. For a long time, when people talk about communication, they always think of language first. Language is indeed a main means of people's communication, but in addition to language, people also use other means to express feelings and convey information. Silence is one of the important means. Silence is a part of non-verbal communication. As a widespread phenomenon, it is often ignored by people and given its derogatory meaning, that is, the lack of speech and the lack of communicative function. Correct interpretation and application of silence can increase mutual understanding and promote smooth communication. With the acceleration of the process of globalization, people from different countries, regions and different cultures communicate with each other more and more frequently. The two major languages, Chinese and English, occupy a dominant position in the political, economic, and cultural exchanges of the world today. Just as the language of a nation carries the profound culture of that nation, so nonverbal behavior—silence is also affected by culture. In cross-cultural communication, language communication can be gradually acquired through learning, but the silent learning deeply rooted in culture must rely on a deep understanding of a culture and its values. In recent years, with the in-depth development of pragmatics as an applied subject at home and abroad, the phenomenon of silence in communication has attracted more and more attention from scholars. However, most scholars study silence in communication from various theories of pragmatics, and rarely do research from theories of cross-cultural communication, and most scholars use qualitative analysis methods to study silence, and seldom use quantitative analysis. Methods. For students of English linguistics, it is very important to put the linguistic theories learned in daily life. This article takes the silence in English and Chinese movies as the research object, and takes Hofstede's cultural dimension as the starting point to compare and study the profound cultural phenomena carried by English and Chinese. Cultural differences are one of the main factors leading to the failure of cross-cultural communication. Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory is an important theory for analyzing cultural differences. He uses five cultural dimensions to describe and compare cultural differences: collectivism/individualism, Power distance, uncertainty avoidance, feminine/male orientation, long-term orientation/short-term orientation, but this article only conducts research from the two cultural dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance.
3.1.2 Silence in the Use of Film
This paper collects 100 silence phenomena from 19 English movies and 14 Chinese movies randomly selected. Through quantification, we find that there are 12 silence phenomena in English movies due to the cultural dimension of power distance, due to avoidance of uncertainty. In this cultural dimension, there are 17 silent phenomena. In Chinese movies, because of the cultural dimension of power distance, there are 26 silent phenomena. Because of the cultural dimension of avoiding uncertainty, there are 13 silent phenomena. The data of the cultural values survey conducted by Hofstede in IBM is: China’s power distance index is 80, that is, the power distance index in Chinese culture is 80; the power distance index in the United States is 40, and the United Kingdom is 35. After synthesis, the English culture is obtained. The medium power distance index is 37.5; China’s uncertainty avoidance index is 30, that is, the uncertainty avoidance index in Chinese culture is 30; the uncertainty avoidance index in the United States is 46, and the United Kingdom is 35. The certainty index is 40. The data obtained through the analysis of this article is compared with the data obtained by Hofstede, and the proportions are roughly the same, which can prove that Hofstede’s conclusion is correct, and finally summarize the similarities and differences between English and Chinese cultures, that is, Chinese Culture is a culture with a high power distance, and English culture is a culture with a low power distance. In terms of avoiding uncertainty, they are all low avoiding uncertainty. Chinese culture is slightly lower than English culture, but the difference is not big. This article is not only conducive to improving students' ability to learn foreign languages and intercultural communication skills, but also helps to promote mutual communication and communication between people, avoid potential misunderstandings in the process of intercultural communication, reduce communication barriers and even conflicts, and enrich the theoretical results of cross-cultural communication.
3.2 Silence in the Use of Literature and Film
Through the comparison of silence in the traditional Chinese and American contexts, it is found that there are differences in silence in the traditional Chinese and American contexts. There are numerous reasons for the differences, such as the different ways of thinking between China and the United States, and different language views. This part uses the theory of cross-cultural communication to analyze the reasons for the silent differences between China and the United States. Various cultures in the world, Chinese culture and American culture happen to be the most typical representatives of collectivism and individualism. The feudal system in ancient China for more than two thousand years was based on totalitarianism. Although the socialist country after the founding of New China was completely separated from the rule of feudal totalitarianism, the spirit of collectivism advocated by socialist countries still emphasizes that collective interests are above all else.
People still live in social groups with a relatively stable social structure, and value the interests of the collective and the state, and individual interests are subordinate to the interests of the collective and the state. In such a social group, people pay attention to their words and deeds, and strive to make them conform to the potential norms of the social group in which they live. Compared with collective interests, individual interests are relatively secondary. Therefore, people will not strongly or actively express their own needs and emphasize individual interests. This social interaction model with collective interests as its core inevitably requires people to put collective interests first, maintain social harmony and order, avoid contradictions and differences, and maintain a harmonious atmosphere when interacting. This is reflected in interpersonal communication. Even if people have different opinions, in order to maintain the harmony of the collective order, they may not express it easily, and often adopt silent methods to help maintain harmony. Therefore, in a social culture characterized by collectivism, silence is not only a way for people to express their feelings, it has become an indispensable stabilizer for maintaining collective harmony among collectivist groups.
Compared with a country characterized by collectivism like China, the individualistic characteristics of the United States are particularly prominent. The United States is a country that advocates freedom. It emphasizes personal interests above all else and encourages people to pursue self-worth and achieve individualized development. This is reflected in interpersonal communication, where people dare to express their opinions, express their opinions directly, free speech, and are not superstitious in authority. There is an American proverb "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." It means that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This means that you can only express your opinions and others will know.
It can be seen that in the United States, which is characterized by individualism, language is fully affirmed, and differences in opinions are not directly related to the harmony of relationships with others. This is a typical culture of dealing with things and not dealing with people. Expressing different opinions on a problem will not only be regarded as an act that destroys the atmosphere of harmony, but will be recognized and appreciated by others. In such a culture, if a person often keeps silent and agrees with the opinions of others, it will be regarded as an expression of lack of opinion. Therefore, in interpersonal communication, in addition to the indispensable silence as a turn-taking, Americans seldom adopt silent communication.
4. Silent Cultural Attachment
4.1 Cultural background
Silence is a special kind of nonverbal communication. Different cultural situations have different interpretations of silence. Among them, cultural background, values and discourse coding methods affect the meaning of silence. Different historical and cultural backgrounds and origins will give people a completely different understanding of language and silent language. During the five thousand years of development in China, Laozi, the founder of Taoism, was the first thinker to put forward the concept of language. His concept laid the foundation for the concept of language in Chinese culture. Lao Tzu believes that the relationship between man and nature cannot be realized by language alone, and the ability of language is limited. This also shows that Lao Tzu does not pay much attention to language. He advocates that those who know do not speak, but those who speak do not know. "Laozi" also said: "Many words and counts the poor, it is better to keep the middle", which means that you would rather not say than make a mistake in order to be criticized by others. In modern times, the phenomenon of Chinese people being silent about uncertain things is widespread. This is also a unique phenomenon of language stereotypes influenced by ancient language thoughts.
4.2 Values
In the West, Christianity is the main body of Western belief. They believe that God used magical power to make the world born in chaos, and God used words to give instructions to create everything in the universe. Therefore, to a certain extent, in the eyes of Westerners, language is the link that maintains the relationship between people and the world, and has a sacred effect. Westerners' emphasis on language is reflected in the "New Testament", which talks about the presence of language with God, and language is God. Therefore, this view of language creation has always influenced the thinking of Westerners in verbal communication. They talk freely and rarely appear silent. The values of Western individualism make it pay attention to personal consciousness and personal interests, and self-centered. They advocate laissez-faire personality and individualized development. This kind of value reflects in communication: they are more inclined to use confrontational strategies, dare to express their own opinions, believe in freedom of speech, speak directly, and do not obscure. For Westerners, language is a tool to express information, convey ideas and persuade others. Dumb means "silent" and "dumb" in English, but it also means "stupid". The connection between silence and stupidity in Dumb reflects the negative and negative attitude of Westerners towards silence. However, Chinese society advocates collectivism and pays attention to intra-ethnic relations. Individuals put collective interests above their personal interests. In order to maintain social harmony and harmony, even if they have different opinions, they will not directly express them. Hofstede pointed out that in interpersonal communication, individuals with collectivistic tendencies usually adopt avoidance and silence when facing different opinions. This value is reflected in the communication as cautious, reserved and silent. Statements such as "silence is golden" reflect the Chinese people's recognition of silence. The Chinese believe that influence is not mainly achieved by language, but language is mainly a tool for maintaining collective harmony.
4.3 Encoding
American anthropologist Hall regards "silence" as a criterion for distinguishing high-context culture and low-context culture. The process of individual communication is actually the process of encoding and decoding language information by both parties in the conversation. However, in different cultures, individuals have different ways of encoding and decoding silent speech. According to Hall’s point of view, the communication information of high-context culture represented by Chinese culture is either embedded in the social context and culture, or internalized deep in the individual’s heart. Only a small amount of language information exists in the transmission of information. In the process of communication, Chinese silence may contain information such as the time, occasion, and the age, gender, and status of the speaker. At this time, silence is more important than language. In the low-context culture represented by American culture, the information exchanged by language belongs to the explicit code, and the communication environment and context only play a small role. Therefore, Americans often do not use silence when communicating. Language is the real tool they use to convey information. This is why Americans understand silence as indifference and ignorance.
5. Literature review
At present, Chinese scholars focus more on silence as a non-linguistic symbol. Both research and theory in this field are usually introduced only as non-linguistic symbols. In Sun Yingchun's Introduction to Cross-Cultural Communication, one of the chapters is the non-linguistic symbol in communication, and silence is discussed as a symbol in this section. Chen Junsen mentioned the issue of silence when describing the sublingualism of non-linguistic symbols.
Most of China's research papers on silence involve linguistics, psychology and sociology. For example, in the study from the perspective of language, most scholars focus on discussing the language function of silence, explore the communicative function of silence and study the influence of silence on interpersonal relationships.
American scholars began to study silence earlier. In the 1970s, more and more American scholars began to study silence. Dennis Coulson, for example, incorporated silence into context, and in Discourse of Silence (Kurzon, 2007) he divides silence into intentional and unintentional; Gradually, American scholars began to study silence from its basic definition to practice, classified it, and studied the importance of silence in communication.
Some scholars also put forward the practical function of silence in conversation, divided the practical function of silence into five categories, pointing out that each of these five functions has advantages and disadvantages, so that the study of silence practice has taken a step forward.
6. Conclusion
Silence often contains different meanings in different cultures. Therefore, it is likely to affect the smooth progress of people's communication activities in cross-cultural communication. Based on this, silence has become a non-verbal sign that is more concerned in cross-cultural communication research.
This article starts with the meaning of silence when studying the issue of silence in the cross-cultural context of China and the United States. First, it compares the issue of silence in the traditional context of China and the United States with text analysis as an example. The study finds that silence does exist in the traditional context of China and the United States. The difference in meaning. Silence is given a positive meaning in the traditional Chinese context, and it is given a negative meaning in the traditional American context. The meaning of silence in the traditional Sino-American context is related to the type of silence in the traditional Sino-American context. The silence in the traditional Chinese context mainly refers to a kind of meaning silence, which is a communication strategy used by the speaker consciously. The silence in the traditional American context refers to more than a certain amount of pause in interpersonal communication. Although they all appear as silence, they are not the same type of silence. Using the theory of intercultural communication to analyze the silent difference in the cross-cultural context of China and the United States, it is found that this difference is related to the different national cultures of China and the United States, and is mainly manifested in two dimensions: the power gap between China and the United States and individualism— —Differences in the dimensions of collectivism.
When analyzing the issue of silence in the modern context of China and the United States, based on the interview data, it is found that there are differences between Chinese and American respondents in the following four aspects: Chinese and American respondents’ understanding of silence; Chinese and American respondents’ attitudes towards meaning silence And application; factors that influence the attitude and use of silence by Chinese and American respondents; and the understanding of silence in cross-cultural communication by Chinese and American respondents. The results of the interview show that the differences between Chinese and American respondents on the question of silence are affected by three aspects: Chinese and American cultural classics; the different polite principles between China and the United States; and the role of context in interpersonal communication.
This shows that in the traditional Chinese and American contexts, silence has been given different meanings. The difference in meaning affects the understanding and application of silence by the Chinese and American people. Therefore, fundamentally, there are significant differences between the meaning of silence in the traditional Chinese and American contexts and the understanding and use of silence by the Chinese and American people. However, in addition to the differences, we have also seen subtle changes in the attitude of Chinese respondents to silence.
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Acknowledgments
Time flies, and my college life is coming to an end without me realizing it. Looking back on these four years, I have gained a lot and this experience is valuable. I believe this precious treasure will have an important impact on my future life.
First of all, I would like to thank my advisor who was conscientious, sincere, and gave us unfailing help.
At the same time, I would like to thank my roommates and friends, thank you for your constant care and help. Meeting you in this life is my greatest experience, and I sincerely wish you all a prosperous future, and I also thank Huashang University for providing me with a great learning platform.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents. Your care and love have been my motivation to move forward. Your support and understanding have always been my strong backing.
