Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
To my students
Dear students,
First, welcome (huan ying) to visit this blog!
I have been thinking to set up an online Chinese learning community since last year. From my teaching experience, I found that many of my students have little opportunity to practice Chinese after the classes and feel a bit isolated geographically. Importantly, setting up online community allows learners to exchange ideas, encourage each other, engage their interests without time and space restriction, learning can take place at any time or any places you like... In a word,there are great benefits for the learning from development of educational view. so I'd like to say this blog has been set up by me, but it belongs to you, all my students!
It's your space to express your feelings in Chinese learning, write down your comments, edit your information and openly share your expertize and vast resource. This blog a bit like a garden, a little tree or one corner of the world, which needs every members' efforts and commitment to learn together, improve together, share your tears (may not now)and your happiness together!
Lastly, wish all of my students will really enjoy, experience and work in your garden, your space to achieve your learning goals!
First, welcome (huan ying) to visit this blog!
I have been thinking to set up an online Chinese learning community since last year. From my teaching experience, I found that many of my students have little opportunity to practice Chinese after the classes and feel a bit isolated geographically. Importantly, setting up online community allows learners to exchange ideas, encourage each other, engage their interests without time and space restriction, learning can take place at any time or any places you like... In a word,there are great benefits for the learning from development of educational view. so I'd like to say this blog has been set up by me, but it belongs to you, all my students!
It's your space to express your feelings in Chinese learning, write down your comments, edit your information and openly share your expertize and vast resource. This blog a bit like a garden, a little tree or one corner of the world, which needs every members' efforts and commitment to learn together, improve together, share your tears (may not now)and your happiness together!
Lastly, wish all of my students will really enjoy, experience and work in your garden, your space to achieve your learning goals!
Sunday, October 29, 2006
An evaluative report on learning materials production
This report examines some important issues to be considered in the production of learning materials. The development of a nation human resource depends to some extant on the availability of learning materials. Various people produce learning materials to either contribute towards knowledge or as a profit making venture. Learning Materials may include textbooks, videos and audio tapes, computer software, and visual aids. The choice of selecting a type of material is determined by what one aims to achieve at the end and how you want it. That is the style of presentation. The type chosen influence the content and the procedures of learning. The choice of deductive vs inductive learning, the role of memorization, the use of creativity and problem solving, production vs. reception, and the order in which materials are presented are all influenced by the materials.
Irrespective of the type of material or style of presentation, one major issue of concern should the context within context within which the proposed users are found. It is quite important in the production of relevant materials for any group of people. A basic awareness of how the book sector (learning materials) works is a first step. The curriculum, production processes, distribution and usage are very important aspect of learning materials development. In Ghana, it is reported that a quantity of books donated to some schools are supposed to burnt just because they were not relevant to the needs of the people (GNA-13/01/06) That may be just the tip of the ice berg. The internet is loaded with materials that one finds it a bit difficult at times to ascertain the authenticity of most. Student a are many a time cautioned by their tutors as to reliability of some materials picked from the world wide web.
My personal experience with the health learning materials teaches me that some materials are produced without the relevant research to ensure that what ever is produced will be relevant, affordable, and practical where the introductions of technologies are involved. Clarke (1989) argues that communicative methodology is important and that communicative methodology is based on authenticity, realism, context, and a focus on the learner. A clear definition of your learners is very important to ensure the materials suit the target groups.
Deciding the target groups
The first and foremost thing to decide is the target groups of the materials. This can be done by knowing the age group to benefit from the material. It will be a good idea not to choose a very wide range as needs changes with age. Technical groups could also be targeted. But once again bear in mind there may various degrees of proficiency and must therefore be given great consideration.
After getting your target group; you need to consult the national /local education authorities for the curriculum for the targeted group. This is to ensure that you material fall within the national/ local frameworks and needs. As a matter of fact, curriculum, learning materials, teaching methods are all designed with the learner in mind. In a study of English textbooks published in Japan in 1985, the textbooks were reviewed and problems were found with both the language and content of many of the textbooks (Kitao et al., 1995). English textbooks for example should have correct, natural, recent, and standard English. Since students' vocabulary is limited, the vocabulary in textbooks should be controlled or the textbooks should provide information to help students understand vocabulary that they may not be familiar with. For lower-level students, sentence structure should also be controlled. Many textbooks use narratives and essays. It would be useful to have a variety of literary forms (for example, newspaper articles, poetry, or letters), so that students can learn to deal with different forms.
Aims and objectives
A clear definition of the aims and objective may be very important in materials development. Aims are usually statements couched in fairly general terms of what one intends to do during a course of a lesson. Objectives on other hand are usually statements designed to identify what students should do or be able to do, in order to demonstrate that they have learnt something (Lockwood 1998).These word are of much value when designing materials that are self instructional. They turn to direct the student should expect throughout the lesson and what the student must achieve at the end. Self evaluations are based on the objectives.
Existing materials
There are various materials already in the system for which we make very little use of. To ensure that you don’t reinvent the wheel, the need to look at what is already available is quite important in every setting. Visit libraries, educational book depots, search on the internet and the various institutions that deal with learning materials. You may find materials that are similar to what you want to develop. Study these materials well before embarking on a new one.
Types of materials
Strategic decisions regarding the page size of printed material, methods of packaging and storing, typographical grid adopted, type of binding, use of colour and paper quality will be considered and illustrated. The implications for these decisions, as well as type-face and spacing will be discussed. Participants will be invited to assess the suitability of the layout and design of their current teaching materials and suggest revisions
Learner support
With the increasing demand for students to develop self intuition to learning demands that learners are supported within the text. This is done by directing learners as to what to do at each point in reading, question their understanding which motivates them to read over again, reflect on processes where applicable and at the end give exercises to be carried. Where exercises are included in learning materials ensure that the answers are included for easy self assessments.
Text books and manual take different approaches. Textbooks assume a teacher will be there to help the student, little or no self assessment, occasionally summarises, dense layout and aims at scholarly presentation. Self instructional materials on the other hand, are written for the learners use, major emphasis on self assessments, content unpacked and aims at successful teaching. (Lockwood 1998) Irrespective of the type of materials being developed these learning supports could be included to help the learner. In the case of videos you need to determine the style of presentation
Writing
The writing and development stages will involve developing manuscript, editing draft, pre-testing and final editing. Writing could be very tedious when you are not committed to what you are doing. Writing well is a complex, difficult and time consuming activity( Elbow, P.1998) The ability to devote time to the writing process demands a lot of commitment on the part of the writer to come out with the first draft. Some writers have tried to produce perfect scripts and end up reviewing their documents over and over. The need to ensure that that you develop your materials along prepared outlines is very important. There is no need adding a fresh topics after you have developed your outline and commenced writing. Such ideas are better kept for the next edition.
After the first draft is ready you do your own editing of the draft to take out typographical mistakes and make it ready for technical editing. Technical editing involves asking someone in the same field to look at the document and making the necessary recommendations for modification of draft.
To enable you determine how difficult your text will be with respect to your target audience, you need to perform a Cloze Text or Fog Index on document (Lockwood 1998). This is ensure that your target audience can read and understand your text. On the other hand you can pre-test the script with a sample of the target population. Pre-testing is advisable when the target audience are technical people like Nurses where terminologies will be technical.
Design of material
The importance of effective visual communication through high quality graphic design, particularly in learning and teaching, should not be underestimated. In textual materials you need to decide on the font size, pictures, spacing of text, number of columns, cover pages. Very colourful books and big font sizes may be for children and us the age increase too dependence on colourful picture decrease. Font sizes also may decrease with age however the accepted standard font size for adults is usually front twelve. Design issues are not carried out in isolation. It is done during the initial planning of the book or the material and it depends much on the target group for choices made.
References
Lockwood, F. (1998) (ed) The Design and Production of Self-Instructional materials. Great Britain: Biddles Ltd.
Lockwood. F. (1994) (ed) Materials Productions in Open and Distance Learning. London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd.
Elbow, P.(1998) Writing With Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process
Oxford: Oxford University Press
http://www.anu.edu.au/CEDAM/flexed/flexiblematerials.html
http://www.celts.monash.edu.au/staff/learn-mat/general-inf.html#2.3.2(date accessed 12/01/06)
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=97535
http://www.unesco.org/education/blm/chap5_en.php
Irrespective of the type of material or style of presentation, one major issue of concern should the context within context within which the proposed users are found. It is quite important in the production of relevant materials for any group of people. A basic awareness of how the book sector (learning materials) works is a first step. The curriculum, production processes, distribution and usage are very important aspect of learning materials development. In Ghana, it is reported that a quantity of books donated to some schools are supposed to burnt just because they were not relevant to the needs of the people (GNA-13/01/06) That may be just the tip of the ice berg. The internet is loaded with materials that one finds it a bit difficult at times to ascertain the authenticity of most. Student a are many a time cautioned by their tutors as to reliability of some materials picked from the world wide web.
My personal experience with the health learning materials teaches me that some materials are produced without the relevant research to ensure that what ever is produced will be relevant, affordable, and practical where the introductions of technologies are involved. Clarke (1989) argues that communicative methodology is important and that communicative methodology is based on authenticity, realism, context, and a focus on the learner. A clear definition of your learners is very important to ensure the materials suit the target groups.
Deciding the target groups
The first and foremost thing to decide is the target groups of the materials. This can be done by knowing the age group to benefit from the material. It will be a good idea not to choose a very wide range as needs changes with age. Technical groups could also be targeted. But once again bear in mind there may various degrees of proficiency and must therefore be given great consideration.
After getting your target group; you need to consult the national /local education authorities for the curriculum for the targeted group. This is to ensure that you material fall within the national/ local frameworks and needs. As a matter of fact, curriculum, learning materials, teaching methods are all designed with the learner in mind. In a study of English textbooks published in Japan in 1985, the textbooks were reviewed and problems were found with both the language and content of many of the textbooks (Kitao et al., 1995). English textbooks for example should have correct, natural, recent, and standard English. Since students' vocabulary is limited, the vocabulary in textbooks should be controlled or the textbooks should provide information to help students understand vocabulary that they may not be familiar with. For lower-level students, sentence structure should also be controlled. Many textbooks use narratives and essays. It would be useful to have a variety of literary forms (for example, newspaper articles, poetry, or letters), so that students can learn to deal with different forms.
Aims and objectives
A clear definition of the aims and objective may be very important in materials development. Aims are usually statements couched in fairly general terms of what one intends to do during a course of a lesson. Objectives on other hand are usually statements designed to identify what students should do or be able to do, in order to demonstrate that they have learnt something (Lockwood 1998).These word are of much value when designing materials that are self instructional. They turn to direct the student should expect throughout the lesson and what the student must achieve at the end. Self evaluations are based on the objectives.
Existing materials
There are various materials already in the system for which we make very little use of. To ensure that you don’t reinvent the wheel, the need to look at what is already available is quite important in every setting. Visit libraries, educational book depots, search on the internet and the various institutions that deal with learning materials. You may find materials that are similar to what you want to develop. Study these materials well before embarking on a new one.
Types of materials
Strategic decisions regarding the page size of printed material, methods of packaging and storing, typographical grid adopted, type of binding, use of colour and paper quality will be considered and illustrated. The implications for these decisions, as well as type-face and spacing will be discussed. Participants will be invited to assess the suitability of the layout and design of their current teaching materials and suggest revisions
Learner support
With the increasing demand for students to develop self intuition to learning demands that learners are supported within the text. This is done by directing learners as to what to do at each point in reading, question their understanding which motivates them to read over again, reflect on processes where applicable and at the end give exercises to be carried. Where exercises are included in learning materials ensure that the answers are included for easy self assessments.
Text books and manual take different approaches. Textbooks assume a teacher will be there to help the student, little or no self assessment, occasionally summarises, dense layout and aims at scholarly presentation. Self instructional materials on the other hand, are written for the learners use, major emphasis on self assessments, content unpacked and aims at successful teaching. (Lockwood 1998) Irrespective of the type of materials being developed these learning supports could be included to help the learner. In the case of videos you need to determine the style of presentation
Writing
The writing and development stages will involve developing manuscript, editing draft, pre-testing and final editing. Writing could be very tedious when you are not committed to what you are doing. Writing well is a complex, difficult and time consuming activity( Elbow, P.1998) The ability to devote time to the writing process demands a lot of commitment on the part of the writer to come out with the first draft. Some writers have tried to produce perfect scripts and end up reviewing their documents over and over. The need to ensure that that you develop your materials along prepared outlines is very important. There is no need adding a fresh topics after you have developed your outline and commenced writing. Such ideas are better kept for the next edition.
After the first draft is ready you do your own editing of the draft to take out typographical mistakes and make it ready for technical editing. Technical editing involves asking someone in the same field to look at the document and making the necessary recommendations for modification of draft.
To enable you determine how difficult your text will be with respect to your target audience, you need to perform a Cloze Text or Fog Index on document (Lockwood 1998). This is ensure that your target audience can read and understand your text. On the other hand you can pre-test the script with a sample of the target population. Pre-testing is advisable when the target audience are technical people like Nurses where terminologies will be technical.
Design of material
The importance of effective visual communication through high quality graphic design, particularly in learning and teaching, should not be underestimated. In textual materials you need to decide on the font size, pictures, spacing of text, number of columns, cover pages. Very colourful books and big font sizes may be for children and us the age increase too dependence on colourful picture decrease. Font sizes also may decrease with age however the accepted standard font size for adults is usually front twelve. Design issues are not carried out in isolation. It is done during the initial planning of the book or the material and it depends much on the target group for choices made.
References
Lockwood, F. (1998) (ed) The Design and Production of Self-Instructional materials. Great Britain: Biddles Ltd.
Lockwood. F. (1994) (ed) Materials Productions in Open and Distance Learning. London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd.
Elbow, P.(1998) Writing With Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process
Oxford: Oxford University Press
http://www.anu.edu.au/CEDAM/flexed/flexiblematerials.html
http://www.celts.monash.edu.au/staff/learn-mat/general-inf.html#2.3.2(date accessed 12/01/06)
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=97535
http://www.unesco.org/education/blm/chap5_en.php
Monday, May 01, 2006
Chinese lady in advertisement
(a) Facial structure
From her appearance, it is more likely that the model is a Japanese woman since she has high cheek, sharp jaw, and a quite straight facial structure. The tilted head makes her face look thinner. The emphasis of her fairly thinness has paradigmatic relationship with the name of the brand -Virginia Slims. This specifically assures the viewers will become slim, and beautiful as the model.
(b) The woman’s age
She seems to be in the womanhood of 25-35 years old, who are quite mature, and usually are not interested in the superficial fashion, and concern more about self-valuation and their own lifestyle. Traditional orientation women at this stage of age usually confuse their value since they not only do the most of housework but also take the responsibility for looking after children. On the other side of life, they also long for their own space, own time without losing self-identity. However, husbands always dominate family economy, and wives have to obey their husband both mentally and physically. To some degree, the slogan of “finding your voice” becomes a medium speaking out their needs of independence, empowerment, and freedom. When the targeted costumers read the text of this advertisement, they would likely accept the connotation of the message.
In addition, women at these age are increasingly concerned their beauty. Since girlhood has gone, they gradually put some weight and are going to enter the fearful middle age, in which they are facing the coming crisis to loose male gaze and sexual enticement. For this purpose, the advertisement of Virginia Slims conveys the message for the targeted costumers: if you try our product, you will become beautiful, sexual, and confident as I am.
(c) Ethnicity
The appearance and traditional costume of the model suggest that she is an orientation female. In East Asia culture, the ideal codes of the traditional femininity are gentleness, reticence, and conformity. As Kim and Chung (2005) examined “the numerous Hollywood films about eastern country e.g., Sayonara (1957), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) and Japanese War Bride (1952), as well as western literature e.g. Memoir of the Geisha (1999) and musicals (e.g. Madam Butterfly) … historically, represented Asian woman as exotic, enticing, subservient, pampering, self-effacing, self-sacrificing and sensual.” The slogan “Find Your Voice” is an important signifier, which implies that the traditional Asia women have non-voice, non-status in the society.
(d) Facial expression
The woman’s emotion was difficult to be decoded in this advertisement since she does not show any significant emotion. Her obscure smile is a kind of self-indulgence, superiority and confidence. This does not fit in the code for traditional orientation female, which emphasizes the value of innocent, humble, vulnerable.
This polar opposition is formed by the contradiction between woman’s superiority and the stereotype image. She tilts her head towards the left side, and she slightly looks downwards. Deacon, et al (1999, p190-194) examine “the distance between camera and subject combines with camera angle to activate a range of connotations prevailing social and visual conventions in middle-class Anglo Saxon cultures have taken full shots and mid-shots, with the subject directly at a camera held by an adult and meeting the viewer’s eye, as the norm, suggesting both respect for personal space and an equality of status based on a consensual relationship. Deviations from this norm are then employed to suggest greater intimacy, unequal power and authority, threat or vulnerability.” Therefore, the way of her looking suggests she is much more powerful than the viewers, and she is superior to the viewer. Interestingly, in traditional Chinese and Japanese culture, one sense of aesthetics particularly advocated is that female should bow their head to show respect, obedience, and self-restraint when they meet the others or speak with authority including their husband, the mother in the law.
This polar opposition reveals the theme of Virginia Slim advertisement. Women who consume their product will be more powerful, liberated and confident.
(e) The woman’s gesture
She curls her fine hands like a butterfly close to the chest. The gesture of butterfly is a symbol of female in Chinese culture. There is Chinese saying called “zao feng yin die”, which metaphorize women into beautiful butterflies to attract men. Here, this connotes the woman’s sexuality. The woman put her thumb on the middle finger to show more feminine and sophisticated.
(f) The woman’s make up and costume
The key lighting focuses on the woman’s face from the sideway. Under the strong light, the woman obviously has heavy make-up, such as black eyebrow, red lip and painted fingernail. It conveys passion and sexuality. She wears traditional Chinese silk costume with different shining colours, which also suggests that she is wealthy and in an upper class. Obviously, the targeted customers for Philip Morris are wealthy, middle age Asia women who are able to afford Virginia Slims.
From her appearance, it is more likely that the model is a Japanese woman since she has high cheek, sharp jaw, and a quite straight facial structure. The tilted head makes her face look thinner. The emphasis of her fairly thinness has paradigmatic relationship with the name of the brand -Virginia Slims. This specifically assures the viewers will become slim, and beautiful as the model.
(b) The woman’s age
She seems to be in the womanhood of 25-35 years old, who are quite mature, and usually are not interested in the superficial fashion, and concern more about self-valuation and their own lifestyle. Traditional orientation women at this stage of age usually confuse their value since they not only do the most of housework but also take the responsibility for looking after children. On the other side of life, they also long for their own space, own time without losing self-identity. However, husbands always dominate family economy, and wives have to obey their husband both mentally and physically. To some degree, the slogan of “finding your voice” becomes a medium speaking out their needs of independence, empowerment, and freedom. When the targeted costumers read the text of this advertisement, they would likely accept the connotation of the message.
In addition, women at these age are increasingly concerned their beauty. Since girlhood has gone, they gradually put some weight and are going to enter the fearful middle age, in which they are facing the coming crisis to loose male gaze and sexual enticement. For this purpose, the advertisement of Virginia Slims conveys the message for the targeted costumers: if you try our product, you will become beautiful, sexual, and confident as I am.
(c) Ethnicity
The appearance and traditional costume of the model suggest that she is an orientation female. In East Asia culture, the ideal codes of the traditional femininity are gentleness, reticence, and conformity. As Kim and Chung (2005) examined “the numerous Hollywood films about eastern country e.g., Sayonara (1957), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) and Japanese War Bride (1952), as well as western literature e.g. Memoir of the Geisha (1999) and musicals (e.g. Madam Butterfly) … historically, represented Asian woman as exotic, enticing, subservient, pampering, self-effacing, self-sacrificing and sensual.” The slogan “Find Your Voice” is an important signifier, which implies that the traditional Asia women have non-voice, non-status in the society.
(d) Facial expression
The woman’s emotion was difficult to be decoded in this advertisement since she does not show any significant emotion. Her obscure smile is a kind of self-indulgence, superiority and confidence. This does not fit in the code for traditional orientation female, which emphasizes the value of innocent, humble, vulnerable.
This polar opposition is formed by the contradiction between woman’s superiority and the stereotype image. She tilts her head towards the left side, and she slightly looks downwards. Deacon, et al (1999, p190-194) examine “the distance between camera and subject combines with camera angle to activate a range of connotations prevailing social and visual conventions in middle-class Anglo Saxon cultures have taken full shots and mid-shots, with the subject directly at a camera held by an adult and meeting the viewer’s eye, as the norm, suggesting both respect for personal space and an equality of status based on a consensual relationship. Deviations from this norm are then employed to suggest greater intimacy, unequal power and authority, threat or vulnerability.” Therefore, the way of her looking suggests she is much more powerful than the viewers, and she is superior to the viewer. Interestingly, in traditional Chinese and Japanese culture, one sense of aesthetics particularly advocated is that female should bow their head to show respect, obedience, and self-restraint when they meet the others or speak with authority including their husband, the mother in the law.
This polar opposition reveals the theme of Virginia Slim advertisement. Women who consume their product will be more powerful, liberated and confident.
(e) The woman’s gesture
She curls her fine hands like a butterfly close to the chest. The gesture of butterfly is a symbol of female in Chinese culture. There is Chinese saying called “zao feng yin die”, which metaphorize women into beautiful butterflies to attract men. Here, this connotes the woman’s sexuality. The woman put her thumb on the middle finger to show more feminine and sophisticated.
(f) The woman’s make up and costume
The key lighting focuses on the woman’s face from the sideway. Under the strong light, the woman obviously has heavy make-up, such as black eyebrow, red lip and painted fingernail. It conveys passion and sexuality. She wears traditional Chinese silk costume with different shining colours, which also suggests that she is wealthy and in an upper class. Obviously, the targeted customers for Philip Morris are wealthy, middle age Asia women who are able to afford Virginia Slims.
(a) Spatiality
This advertisement has spread two pages, on the right side page there are a plenty space left. Berger (1998) argues that in American culture, the design of the advertisement often leave much of space indicated the wealth.
(b) Lighting
This advertisement mainly employs two types of lighting, one is the light from the sideway to emphasize the contrast of the colour. The other is backlighting which is used to demarcate the bright foreground to make the sophisticated female image stand out to catch the viewers’ attention from the blur background (Deacon et. al., 1999).
(c) Colour
The picture has a very warm colour. The background is made of coral red and a sort of yellow, which looks like the smoke of cigarette. In comparison with the glamour female image and the whole magnificent picture, two pieces of shadow are extremely obvious. One is close to the woman’s face, the other is in the middle of the picture produced by the sideway of the lighting. A pack of cigarette, brand name and the slogan “Find Your Voice” is in the middle of the shadow to draw the viewers’ attention on the production information.
Not only do two shadows well emphasize the impression of the brand of the cigarette information, but also it reveals profound meaning. The woman’s extremely white face was contrasted with the extremely black shadow. What is the purpose? By analysing the paradigmatic relationship between picture and its text information “My voice reveals the hidden power within”, the image of sophistication, sexuality, and wealth conveys the woman’s expectation of independence, freedom, and equality. These are the woman’s internal power symbolised by Virginia Slims cigarette.
(d) Special shots used
There are two special shots associated with the theme. Mid shot or waist shot is used to make a closer contact with the viewers to produce an intimacy. The shot focusing on the woman’s face from below suggest that she is looking down to show her superiority and confidence.
Typefaces and its metaphors
The typeface of the Philip Morris’ logo and the product slogan conveys rich messages. Firstly, the advertisement reassures the viewers that Virginia Slims makes them lose weight, and keeps them slim. The logo of Virginia Slims was deliberately designed in a thin font as the shape of lengthy cigarette. Secondly, in the slogan of “Find Your Voice”, an extra line is deliberately put under the letter “o”, making it look like smoke of a cigarette, and the shape of the letter “i” is designed like a burning cigarette. The letter ‘F’ is also designed vaguely to show a gesture of lighting a cigarette, -see fig. 2.
Figure 1 Virginia Slims advertisement “find your voice”
Figure 2 Typefaces of “i”, “o” and “F” in the slogan “ find your voice”
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Friday, March 03, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Cross-cultural and gender differences in patterns of communication
Because of increasing globalisation and internationalisation, more and more educators will find themselves working in diverse cultures, and multicultural interaction becomes common on the multinational campus. Therefore, it is becoming more and more important to communicate within diverse cultures.
To achieve effectiveness of communication in multicultural environment, it is inevitable to identify the different phenomena across cultures, called cross-culture. The relationship between culture and communication has been well explained by Gao and Ting-Toomey (1998). They investigated that the difference of culture causes various difference in communication behaviour. How the messages are presented and interpreted in a particular cultural context influences the outcome of any communication. This essay will mainly focus on the comparison between English and Chinese cultures.
The intended objects of the essay are Chinese students who are new comers to study in the UK recent years. These new comers often feel confused, stressful in communication and interpersonal relations facing the entirely different social-cultural background. Interpersonal stressors experiencing studying abroad contributed fifty percent of their major perceived stress (Spering, 2001). Bewaring cross-culture and gender difference can help them to adjust psychology promptly, to make right prediction and respond correctly in communication. Meanwhile it also helps English educators to understand Chinese culture to transmit their teaching smoothly. Eventually, this will help both of them to implement the transform from monoculture to bicultural even multicultural and promote the development of economic and education for both countries.
A clarification here needs to be made for the term of Chinese. It mainly refers to distinctive Chinese, a typical Mainland Chinese. Since China is so large, and Chinese spread all over the world such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada and USA. Discrimination in geography, age and districts can cause significant differences in characteristics of communication.
2 Literature review
In this section, the variation of communication may be classified on the basis of the eastern and western cultures into four dimensions: individualism and collectivism, low and high context communication, power distance, and masculinity-femininity.
2.1. Individualism and collectivism
The major dimension in cultural variability is individualism-collectivism widely used to explain the difference of behaviour in the cross-culture. In the individualistic culture, the individuals’ goal is over group’s, the “I” identity is prior to “we” identity. The people in the individualistic culture emphases the individuality, individuals’ initiative and achievement rather than group relationship. They often tend to be universalistic and even apply the same value standards to all without conscious. In collectivistic culture, in contrast, individuals’ interest is under the goal of group, and group memberships are more important than individuality. They tend to be particularistic and apply different value standards for members of their in groups and outside groups (Gudykunst 2004).
This dimension has been fully developed by many researchers. For example, Ting-Toomey (1994), Chu (1989) and Hofstede (1980) illustrated clearly that individualistic culture emphasizes on individuals’ initiatives, right, independence, autonomy, freedom and achievement. In the western countries, such as, Australia, England, Canada, France, people consider family relations, loyalty, and harmony less important. In collectivistic cultures, in contrast, people stress fitting in and belonging to the in-group, and they focus on a “we” identity. Inclusion and approval are considered as their major needs. China is a collectivism culture country, just like many other Asian countries, India, Japan and Korea. People there focus on group’s goals, value traditions.
However, the relationship between individualism and collectivism is not always opposite or conflict. To some extends, they are compatible and have similarities in some universalism value. For example, they both value cooperative and supportive primary relations, productive and innovative task performance, and gratification of self-oriented needs and desires (Schwartz and Bardi, 2001)
2.2 Low and High-Context Communication
Low and high context are the predominant forms in communication process used by both individualists and collectivists. Low-context communication tends to be direct, precise, and clear. In contrast, high-context communication tends to be indirect and it often is ambiguous (Gudykunst, 2004). In general, people use more high-context form in collectivism culture than in individualism culture.
Low and high-context communication often cause misunderstanding. Individualists using low context communication often think that high context members’ speech is ineffective, evasive. For example, American people express itself in such common injunctions, as “Say what you mean” “Don’t beat around the bush,” “Get to the point”. One way around this is that individuals can make educated guess to avoid misinterpretation depending the relationship and situation (Levine, 1985).
In addition, to manage cultural variation and to avoid misunderstanding, Gudykunst (2004) provides a very good advice for students studying aboard. He suggested that the member of low-context culture tends not to emphasis the situational factors when they explain the behaviour of members of culture in which high context message predominate. In comparison, internal factors are not to be emphasized to individual enough when trying to explain the behaviour of members of culture in which low-context messages predominate.
2.3 Power distance
Power distance has defined by Hofstede & Bond (1984, p.419) as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally”.
People in high power distance cultures accept power as part of society or a basic fact of life. Individuals are treated unequally, and subordinates normally are dependent on superiors. In contrast, individuals from low power distance cultures believe power should be used only when it is legitimate and prefer expert or legitimate power. There is limited dependence of subordinates on boss. Individuals are viewed equally.
On the other hand, if expectancy of power distance is violated, miscommunications and misunderstanding will become commonplace. Subordinates in low power distance may want more personal respect from his or her supervisor, and superiors in high power distance expect more deference and humility from the subordinates (Ting-Toomey, 1999). Understanding this cultural difference in power distance can help us to know strangers’ behaviour in role of relationship and improve our communication skills with strangers (GudyKunst, 2004).
2.4 Masculinity versus femininity
As the above dimensions, masculinity and femininity tendencies exist in all cultures. Hofstede (1991, p82-83) definite “Masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are clearly distinct (men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life), femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlap (both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life)”.
Understanding cultural differences in masculinity and femininity is very helpful for us to communicate with strangers in the cross-culture.
3. Reflection and analysis my experience
3.1. Expectation differences for English and Chinese students in the study
Cultural difference between English and Chinese is also embodied as different behaviour in the classrooms. In last semester, I surprisingly found that English students tended to openly speak much more than Chinese students in the classroom. They actively expressed their ideas and opinion, even more likely to clarify the lecturers’ statement when they were not sure about it. Listening to a confident talk by an English student, I felt he or she was a teacher. Chinese students generally tended to be quiet, rarely have a long self-expression, or debate in the big group. At the most of the time, they only responded when they were questioned. Even when they could not understand on some occasions, they seldom asked for an explanation but preferred to work it out individually after the lecture.
At the beginning of the semester, another interesting thing was the difference in using personal pronouns. My fellow Chinese student unconsciously used “we” to express her individual opinion. The English tutor stressed that it would be more appropriate if using “I” to express a personal feeling since “I” is self- responsible for individuals’ own ideas and opinion. This is the first impressive thing for me to approach English culture. The difference of individualism and collectivism culture can cause problems in communication.
In Chinese culture that is dominated by collectivism, the meaning of “we” implicates the group’s feeling or opinion. A speaker feels more comfortable when he or she uses “we” because he/she is talking something generally to avoid unnecessary connection with him/her. Furthermore, using “We” sounds more powerful, impressive and objective.
In contrast, listening more and speaking less in Chinese culture is considered as a merit. Talkative person can be thought as showing off and inelegant behaviour. In many traditional Chinese family, when a family member have get together to discuss something, parents often teach their children not to cut in when the adults are talking. Children are encouraged to follow their parents’ instructions rather than persuade or debate with them.
However most of the individualism cultural countries like USA, UK, Children are expected to be a good speaker and they are being nurtured to practice communication skills when they are in the primary schools. In the classroom, English children are encouraged to express themselves from basic emotion word, such as, happy, sad, miserable, angry. Clear and logical expression on one’s ideas, feeling, and opinions has been regarded very importantly. Individual characteristics and capacity is emphasized. In contrast, for Chinese student growing up in a collectivistic culture, they are repeatedly told to be “han xu” (keeping feeling inside and speaking indirectly). Clarifications and self-expression in the classroom may be considered as challenging and offending the lecturer. Feeling shy and hesitant respondents may be regard as the impression of considerable.
3.2 Low-high context comm.
I was aware of the direct speak of English people when I just came to the UK. It is first time that I shared a house with foreign students. An English housemate always borrowed money from me. A few months passed, there was no sign of paying the money back. I could not think out a way to get it back. My English friend suggested me asking him directly. Honestly, I was very surprised at this idea since it may cause the housemate embarrassment. My Chinese friend suggested that I could borrow him the same mount of money with an excuse.
The reason of Chinese people “beat around the bush” is to protect their existing relationship and maintain group harmony. Chinese people think that speaking can be a good thing but also can be a bad thing. As Gao and Ting-Toomey (1998, p38) explained “direct communication may place them in an unmanageable situation and thus cause damage to their existing relationship”. They pointed out two features of Chinese indirect communication.
The first feature is that indirect speaker really wants to convey what is implied or unsaid rather than what is said. Gao and Ting-Toomey (1998, p38) found “In Chinese culture, children are taught and encouraged to apply cha yan guan se (examining a person’s words and observing his /her countenance in) in their communication with others.”
The other feature is that listener and speaker are in an equal position in a conversation. The message need to be understood by decoding according to the situation, the non-verbal communication, social background.
3.3 Hesitant and assertive communication between Chinese and the English
Assertiveness emphasizes individual’s right, feeling, and thoughts. It is very important communication skill in individualism culture, assertive speaker sound more powerful, forceful, and confident. Assertive communication is to make direct statements regarding speaker’s feelings, thoughts, and wishes. Speaker stands up for their rights and take into account the rights and feelings of others (Matthew, et. al. 1995).
However, Chinese people prefer using hesitant speech rather than assertive talk. Gao and Ting-Toomey (in 1998, p78) suggested “learning to talk in a hesitant manner and to decipher hidden messages is both desirable and necessary for Chinese.” Speaking in an assertion manner for Chinese people is not only to be interpreted as “rude” attitude, but also can hurt the listeners’ face and break up the friendship forever, sometimes even cause grudge deeply.
Last semester, we had a session on assertive communication. One episode happened between my classmates, raise an interesting question how to appropriately use assertive communication in cross-cultural environment?
My Chinese classmate just learnt assertive communication. Certainly, she was keen on practice to see what will be different. But the result was chaotic, her tone was astonished for us. The receiver from an African country was cross and felt very strange about her behaviour since her assertive words sounded unfriendly and inappropriate.
Although assertive speak is very useful and effective way to hold individual’s right back and control the situation actively, in an intercultural group, assertion sometimes cause misunderstanding or a conflict. A receiver may consider it as an aggressive or offensive behaviour, not an assertion. A sender needs to carefully consider the group norm and a receiver’s cross cultural background. Hartley (1999) suggested that in North America and Western Europe, assertive behaviour is culturally acceptable, but other cultures have different values on humility and submission. In these cultures, people regard assertive behaviour as inappropriate, unfriendly, or even offensive in some situation.
3.4 Misunderstanding on politeness and impoliteness in cross-culture.
Neill and Caswell (1993, P14) stated that many types of non-verbal signals are culturally variable, which offer rich possibilities for misunderstanding. For example, English pre-school tend to touch black boys, this has been interpreted as control, with the teachers being stricter with black boys, but black boys may interpret the touch as friendly. Closeness and touch for majority of Chinese pupils show affection and friendliness, but are entirely bad for English pupils.
Chinese can be considered as a high contact culture, in which people tend to stand closer and more touch than in a low contact country, e.g. Britain. However, we cannot oversimplify the distinctions. For instance, eye contact has been encouraged in Britain and is a symbol of self-confidence and respect to the others. English teachers may think Chinese students’ eye contact level is inadequate and evasive. Particularly in an interview, I need to cautiously “staring” the English interviewer. If I look my Chinese lecturer in the eye, he or she certainly feel uncomfortable and considered me as an impolite person.
Chinese culture, like most complex societies, have many status distinction based on power and occupation. A teacher is very respectful and powerful person for Chinese students. Younger students often look down, stand still without much body movement and avoid eye contact showing obedience when teachers talk to students. The tones of students’ voices tend to be soft, tender. The teachers often have serious expressions, stand within certain distance, more smile than laughing. The way of reaction as if a boss and subordinates interaction. People in an individualistic culture commented it humorously “like an apple polisher” (Remland, 2003, p360).
However, in China, once students become very familiar with their young lecturer, students will treat them freely and intimidated. In particular, male students treat male lecturers as their friends. For instance, they may have friendly touch and speak loudly, having rich facial expressions. The lecturers often feel pleasant to accept the way they are treated. In contrast, English lecturers may feel Chinese students are very rude.
Therefore, Chinese students in the UK, which has a low contact culture, need to be look out their non-verbal communication. As Osborn and Motley (1999, P66) said, “when we interact with those from other cultures, we need to be especially aware that our own nonverbal norms are not universal. We need to be especially observant, patient, and empathetic toward the ways in which a given behaviour may elicit completely different interpretations in intercultural interactions. ”
3.5 Gender difference
Deborah Tannen and John Gray, famous for international best-seller statuses, stated that the difference of masculinity and femininity is human nature. Hartley (1993) argued that the source of differences in masculinity and femininity is nurtured caused by people’s biases. Whichever opinion is, no one can deny differences exist between masculinity and femininity.
However, people unconsciously ignore these differences in the daily life, which cause a great deal of misunderstanding and misinterpreting. For instance, female feel that male are more aggressive, bad listeners, impolite, dominant; male artributly think female are sensitive, dependent.
One of my awful experiences was about my male housemate. Honestly, I original thought he as a friendly and nice guy. We often talk about many things on the life and study experience. However, once he said to me “piss off, pumpkin head”, I felt very angry. Although he kept explaining for his careless and he never really think like that. This matter changed my impression about him and I thought he was a rude person.
Later, I realized that he just considered me as one of his close friends so he used his familiar “verbal aggression”. As Osborn and Motley (1999) stated that verbal aggressiveness, such as friendly insults, teasing, challenges, and so on, are signs for male to indicate closeness and bonding. Male only use verbal aggression to their fairly closed friends. When male becomes very comfortable with a particular female, they sometimes use these “friendly” verbal aggression devices.
There are many differences between male and female in specific behaviours, such as, positive minimal responses, function of questions, topic shifts, conversational turn, problem sharing, and so on (Osborn and Motley, 1999). Understanding these differences in communication behaviours between male and female can change our stereotype mentioned at the beginning of this section and feel pleasantly interact with opposite sex.
4 Implication of cross culture
By examining the difference between Chinese and western communicative patterns and gender difference, Chinese students can make a correct self-conception to know themselves well, to view themselves objectively, openly and directly, and to appropriately reveal their real feelings, thoughts and suggestions to western counterparts. They will be able to monitor themselves and modify their communication being more expressive.
Once Chinese students aware and compare intercultural communication, understanding western social custom and norm, they will release themselves from culture shock, they will not feel frustrated, stressful, even alienation in an unfamiliar environment. Besides, by observing and tolerating social blunders, they will adopt the host culture flexibly and maintain their positive attitude in the new environment.
Furthermore, taking special training in assertion, Chinese students can make an initial a conversation in various aspects, select an appropriately behave in diverse context. Positively adopt a person’s other-oriented ability to interaction, seek the same thoughts and feel the same emotions as the other person. Preparing them to be competitive communicators in diverse cultures and eventually transform from monoculture person into a multicultural person.
Reference:
1. Chu, G.C. (1989) Change in China: where have you gone Mao zedong? Centre view (East-West centre), 3- 7.
2. Gao & Ting-Toomey (1998, 5th edit.) Communicating effectively with the Chinese: communicating effectively in multicultural contexts, London: Sage
3. Gudykunst B. William (2004, 4th edit.) Bridging differences, effective intergroup communication, London, Sage
4. Hartley Peter (1999 2nd edit) Interpersonal communication, London, Routledge
5. Hayes N. & Orrell S. (1993 3rd edit.) Psychology an introduction, Edinburgh, Person Education Limited.
6. Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations, London: McGraw-Hill.
7. Neill Sean and Caswell Chris (1993) Body language for competent teachers, London: Routledge.
8. Matthew, M, Martha, D and Patrick, F (1995, 2nd edit.) Messages: The communication skills book, Orkland, C.A
9. Osborn S. and Motley T. M. (1999), Improving communication. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
10. Remland M. (2004 2nd edit.) Nonverbal communication in everyday Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
11. Schwartz, S. and Bardi, A. (2001). Value hierarchies across cultures. Journal of cross-cultural Psychology, 32: 286-290
12. Spering, M (2001)Current issues in cross-cultural psychology:Research topics, applications, and perspectives
13. Ting-Toomey, S. (1994 edit.) The challenge of facework, cross-cultural and interpersonal issues. New York: State University of New York Press.
14. Ting-Toomey, S. (1999). Communicating across cultures. New York: The Guilford Press.
15. Yang. K. S. (1981) Social orientation and individual modernity among Chinese students in Taiwan. The journal of Social Psychology, 113: 159-170.
To achieve effectiveness of communication in multicultural environment, it is inevitable to identify the different phenomena across cultures, called cross-culture. The relationship between culture and communication has been well explained by Gao and Ting-Toomey (1998). They investigated that the difference of culture causes various difference in communication behaviour. How the messages are presented and interpreted in a particular cultural context influences the outcome of any communication. This essay will mainly focus on the comparison between English and Chinese cultures.
The intended objects of the essay are Chinese students who are new comers to study in the UK recent years. These new comers often feel confused, stressful in communication and interpersonal relations facing the entirely different social-cultural background. Interpersonal stressors experiencing studying abroad contributed fifty percent of their major perceived stress (Spering, 2001). Bewaring cross-culture and gender difference can help them to adjust psychology promptly, to make right prediction and respond correctly in communication. Meanwhile it also helps English educators to understand Chinese culture to transmit their teaching smoothly. Eventually, this will help both of them to implement the transform from monoculture to bicultural even multicultural and promote the development of economic and education for both countries.
A clarification here needs to be made for the term of Chinese. It mainly refers to distinctive Chinese, a typical Mainland Chinese. Since China is so large, and Chinese spread all over the world such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada and USA. Discrimination in geography, age and districts can cause significant differences in characteristics of communication.
2 Literature review
In this section, the variation of communication may be classified on the basis of the eastern and western cultures into four dimensions: individualism and collectivism, low and high context communication, power distance, and masculinity-femininity.
2.1. Individualism and collectivism
The major dimension in cultural variability is individualism-collectivism widely used to explain the difference of behaviour in the cross-culture. In the individualistic culture, the individuals’ goal is over group’s, the “I” identity is prior to “we” identity. The people in the individualistic culture emphases the individuality, individuals’ initiative and achievement rather than group relationship. They often tend to be universalistic and even apply the same value standards to all without conscious. In collectivistic culture, in contrast, individuals’ interest is under the goal of group, and group memberships are more important than individuality. They tend to be particularistic and apply different value standards for members of their in groups and outside groups (Gudykunst 2004).
This dimension has been fully developed by many researchers. For example, Ting-Toomey (1994), Chu (1989) and Hofstede (1980) illustrated clearly that individualistic culture emphasizes on individuals’ initiatives, right, independence, autonomy, freedom and achievement. In the western countries, such as, Australia, England, Canada, France, people consider family relations, loyalty, and harmony less important. In collectivistic cultures, in contrast, people stress fitting in and belonging to the in-group, and they focus on a “we” identity. Inclusion and approval are considered as their major needs. China is a collectivism culture country, just like many other Asian countries, India, Japan and Korea. People there focus on group’s goals, value traditions.
However, the relationship between individualism and collectivism is not always opposite or conflict. To some extends, they are compatible and have similarities in some universalism value. For example, they both value cooperative and supportive primary relations, productive and innovative task performance, and gratification of self-oriented needs and desires (Schwartz and Bardi, 2001)
2.2 Low and High-Context Communication
Low and high context are the predominant forms in communication process used by both individualists and collectivists. Low-context communication tends to be direct, precise, and clear. In contrast, high-context communication tends to be indirect and it often is ambiguous (Gudykunst, 2004). In general, people use more high-context form in collectivism culture than in individualism culture.
Low and high-context communication often cause misunderstanding. Individualists using low context communication often think that high context members’ speech is ineffective, evasive. For example, American people express itself in such common injunctions, as “Say what you mean” “Don’t beat around the bush,” “Get to the point”. One way around this is that individuals can make educated guess to avoid misinterpretation depending the relationship and situation (Levine, 1985).
In addition, to manage cultural variation and to avoid misunderstanding, Gudykunst (2004) provides a very good advice for students studying aboard. He suggested that the member of low-context culture tends not to emphasis the situational factors when they explain the behaviour of members of culture in which high context message predominate. In comparison, internal factors are not to be emphasized to individual enough when trying to explain the behaviour of members of culture in which low-context messages predominate.
2.3 Power distance
Power distance has defined by Hofstede & Bond (1984, p.419) as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally”.
People in high power distance cultures accept power as part of society or a basic fact of life. Individuals are treated unequally, and subordinates normally are dependent on superiors. In contrast, individuals from low power distance cultures believe power should be used only when it is legitimate and prefer expert or legitimate power. There is limited dependence of subordinates on boss. Individuals are viewed equally.
On the other hand, if expectancy of power distance is violated, miscommunications and misunderstanding will become commonplace. Subordinates in low power distance may want more personal respect from his or her supervisor, and superiors in high power distance expect more deference and humility from the subordinates (Ting-Toomey, 1999). Understanding this cultural difference in power distance can help us to know strangers’ behaviour in role of relationship and improve our communication skills with strangers (GudyKunst, 2004).
2.4 Masculinity versus femininity
As the above dimensions, masculinity and femininity tendencies exist in all cultures. Hofstede (1991, p82-83) definite “Masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are clearly distinct (men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life), femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlap (both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life)”.
Understanding cultural differences in masculinity and femininity is very helpful for us to communicate with strangers in the cross-culture.
3. Reflection and analysis my experience
3.1. Expectation differences for English and Chinese students in the study
Cultural difference between English and Chinese is also embodied as different behaviour in the classrooms. In last semester, I surprisingly found that English students tended to openly speak much more than Chinese students in the classroom. They actively expressed their ideas and opinion, even more likely to clarify the lecturers’ statement when they were not sure about it. Listening to a confident talk by an English student, I felt he or she was a teacher. Chinese students generally tended to be quiet, rarely have a long self-expression, or debate in the big group. At the most of the time, they only responded when they were questioned. Even when they could not understand on some occasions, they seldom asked for an explanation but preferred to work it out individually after the lecture.
At the beginning of the semester, another interesting thing was the difference in using personal pronouns. My fellow Chinese student unconsciously used “we” to express her individual opinion. The English tutor stressed that it would be more appropriate if using “I” to express a personal feeling since “I” is self- responsible for individuals’ own ideas and opinion. This is the first impressive thing for me to approach English culture. The difference of individualism and collectivism culture can cause problems in communication.
In Chinese culture that is dominated by collectivism, the meaning of “we” implicates the group’s feeling or opinion. A speaker feels more comfortable when he or she uses “we” because he/she is talking something generally to avoid unnecessary connection with him/her. Furthermore, using “We” sounds more powerful, impressive and objective.
In contrast, listening more and speaking less in Chinese culture is considered as a merit. Talkative person can be thought as showing off and inelegant behaviour. In many traditional Chinese family, when a family member have get together to discuss something, parents often teach their children not to cut in when the adults are talking. Children are encouraged to follow their parents’ instructions rather than persuade or debate with them.
However most of the individualism cultural countries like USA, UK, Children are expected to be a good speaker and they are being nurtured to practice communication skills when they are in the primary schools. In the classroom, English children are encouraged to express themselves from basic emotion word, such as, happy, sad, miserable, angry. Clear and logical expression on one’s ideas, feeling, and opinions has been regarded very importantly. Individual characteristics and capacity is emphasized. In contrast, for Chinese student growing up in a collectivistic culture, they are repeatedly told to be “han xu” (keeping feeling inside and speaking indirectly). Clarifications and self-expression in the classroom may be considered as challenging and offending the lecturer. Feeling shy and hesitant respondents may be regard as the impression of considerable.
3.2 Low-high context comm.
I was aware of the direct speak of English people when I just came to the UK. It is first time that I shared a house with foreign students. An English housemate always borrowed money from me. A few months passed, there was no sign of paying the money back. I could not think out a way to get it back. My English friend suggested me asking him directly. Honestly, I was very surprised at this idea since it may cause the housemate embarrassment. My Chinese friend suggested that I could borrow him the same mount of money with an excuse.
The reason of Chinese people “beat around the bush” is to protect their existing relationship and maintain group harmony. Chinese people think that speaking can be a good thing but also can be a bad thing. As Gao and Ting-Toomey (1998, p38) explained “direct communication may place them in an unmanageable situation and thus cause damage to their existing relationship”. They pointed out two features of Chinese indirect communication.
The first feature is that indirect speaker really wants to convey what is implied or unsaid rather than what is said. Gao and Ting-Toomey (1998, p38) found “In Chinese culture, children are taught and encouraged to apply cha yan guan se (examining a person’s words and observing his /her countenance in) in their communication with others.”
The other feature is that listener and speaker are in an equal position in a conversation. The message need to be understood by decoding according to the situation, the non-verbal communication, social background.
3.3 Hesitant and assertive communication between Chinese and the English
Assertiveness emphasizes individual’s right, feeling, and thoughts. It is very important communication skill in individualism culture, assertive speaker sound more powerful, forceful, and confident. Assertive communication is to make direct statements regarding speaker’s feelings, thoughts, and wishes. Speaker stands up for their rights and take into account the rights and feelings of others (Matthew, et. al. 1995).
However, Chinese people prefer using hesitant speech rather than assertive talk. Gao and Ting-Toomey (in 1998, p78) suggested “learning to talk in a hesitant manner and to decipher hidden messages is both desirable and necessary for Chinese.” Speaking in an assertion manner for Chinese people is not only to be interpreted as “rude” attitude, but also can hurt the listeners’ face and break up the friendship forever, sometimes even cause grudge deeply.
Last semester, we had a session on assertive communication. One episode happened between my classmates, raise an interesting question how to appropriately use assertive communication in cross-cultural environment?
My Chinese classmate just learnt assertive communication. Certainly, she was keen on practice to see what will be different. But the result was chaotic, her tone was astonished for us. The receiver from an African country was cross and felt very strange about her behaviour since her assertive words sounded unfriendly and inappropriate.
Although assertive speak is very useful and effective way to hold individual’s right back and control the situation actively, in an intercultural group, assertion sometimes cause misunderstanding or a conflict. A receiver may consider it as an aggressive or offensive behaviour, not an assertion. A sender needs to carefully consider the group norm and a receiver’s cross cultural background. Hartley (1999) suggested that in North America and Western Europe, assertive behaviour is culturally acceptable, but other cultures have different values on humility and submission. In these cultures, people regard assertive behaviour as inappropriate, unfriendly, or even offensive in some situation.
3.4 Misunderstanding on politeness and impoliteness in cross-culture.
Neill and Caswell (1993, P14) stated that many types of non-verbal signals are culturally variable, which offer rich possibilities for misunderstanding. For example, English pre-school tend to touch black boys, this has been interpreted as control, with the teachers being stricter with black boys, but black boys may interpret the touch as friendly. Closeness and touch for majority of Chinese pupils show affection and friendliness, but are entirely bad for English pupils.
Chinese can be considered as a high contact culture, in which people tend to stand closer and more touch than in a low contact country, e.g. Britain. However, we cannot oversimplify the distinctions. For instance, eye contact has been encouraged in Britain and is a symbol of self-confidence and respect to the others. English teachers may think Chinese students’ eye contact level is inadequate and evasive. Particularly in an interview, I need to cautiously “staring” the English interviewer. If I look my Chinese lecturer in the eye, he or she certainly feel uncomfortable and considered me as an impolite person.
Chinese culture, like most complex societies, have many status distinction based on power and occupation. A teacher is very respectful and powerful person for Chinese students. Younger students often look down, stand still without much body movement and avoid eye contact showing obedience when teachers talk to students. The tones of students’ voices tend to be soft, tender. The teachers often have serious expressions, stand within certain distance, more smile than laughing. The way of reaction as if a boss and subordinates interaction. People in an individualistic culture commented it humorously “like an apple polisher” (Remland, 2003, p360).
However, in China, once students become very familiar with their young lecturer, students will treat them freely and intimidated. In particular, male students treat male lecturers as their friends. For instance, they may have friendly touch and speak loudly, having rich facial expressions. The lecturers often feel pleasant to accept the way they are treated. In contrast, English lecturers may feel Chinese students are very rude.
Therefore, Chinese students in the UK, which has a low contact culture, need to be look out their non-verbal communication. As Osborn and Motley (1999, P66) said, “when we interact with those from other cultures, we need to be especially aware that our own nonverbal norms are not universal. We need to be especially observant, patient, and empathetic toward the ways in which a given behaviour may elicit completely different interpretations in intercultural interactions. ”
3.5 Gender difference
Deborah Tannen and John Gray, famous for international best-seller statuses, stated that the difference of masculinity and femininity is human nature. Hartley (1993) argued that the source of differences in masculinity and femininity is nurtured caused by people’s biases. Whichever opinion is, no one can deny differences exist between masculinity and femininity.
However, people unconsciously ignore these differences in the daily life, which cause a great deal of misunderstanding and misinterpreting. For instance, female feel that male are more aggressive, bad listeners, impolite, dominant; male artributly think female are sensitive, dependent.
One of my awful experiences was about my male housemate. Honestly, I original thought he as a friendly and nice guy. We often talk about many things on the life and study experience. However, once he said to me “piss off, pumpkin head”, I felt very angry. Although he kept explaining for his careless and he never really think like that. This matter changed my impression about him and I thought he was a rude person.
Later, I realized that he just considered me as one of his close friends so he used his familiar “verbal aggression”. As Osborn and Motley (1999) stated that verbal aggressiveness, such as friendly insults, teasing, challenges, and so on, are signs for male to indicate closeness and bonding. Male only use verbal aggression to their fairly closed friends. When male becomes very comfortable with a particular female, they sometimes use these “friendly” verbal aggression devices.
There are many differences between male and female in specific behaviours, such as, positive minimal responses, function of questions, topic shifts, conversational turn, problem sharing, and so on (Osborn and Motley, 1999). Understanding these differences in communication behaviours between male and female can change our stereotype mentioned at the beginning of this section and feel pleasantly interact with opposite sex.
4 Implication of cross culture
By examining the difference between Chinese and western communicative patterns and gender difference, Chinese students can make a correct self-conception to know themselves well, to view themselves objectively, openly and directly, and to appropriately reveal their real feelings, thoughts and suggestions to western counterparts. They will be able to monitor themselves and modify their communication being more expressive.
Once Chinese students aware and compare intercultural communication, understanding western social custom and norm, they will release themselves from culture shock, they will not feel frustrated, stressful, even alienation in an unfamiliar environment. Besides, by observing and tolerating social blunders, they will adopt the host culture flexibly and maintain their positive attitude in the new environment.
Furthermore, taking special training in assertion, Chinese students can make an initial a conversation in various aspects, select an appropriately behave in diverse context. Positively adopt a person’s other-oriented ability to interaction, seek the same thoughts and feel the same emotions as the other person. Preparing them to be competitive communicators in diverse cultures and eventually transform from monoculture person into a multicultural person.
Reference:
1. Chu, G.C. (1989) Change in China: where have you gone Mao zedong? Centre view (East-West centre), 3- 7.
2. Gao & Ting-Toomey (1998, 5th edit.) Communicating effectively with the Chinese: communicating effectively in multicultural contexts, London: Sage
3. Gudykunst B. William (2004, 4th edit.) Bridging differences, effective intergroup communication, London, Sage
4. Hartley Peter (1999 2nd edit) Interpersonal communication, London, Routledge
5. Hayes N. & Orrell S. (1993 3rd edit.) Psychology an introduction, Edinburgh, Person Education Limited.
6. Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations, London: McGraw-Hill.
7. Neill Sean and Caswell Chris (1993) Body language for competent teachers, London: Routledge.
8. Matthew, M, Martha, D and Patrick, F (1995, 2nd edit.) Messages: The communication skills book, Orkland, C.A
9. Osborn S. and Motley T. M. (1999), Improving communication. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
10. Remland M. (2004 2nd edit.) Nonverbal communication in everyday Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
11. Schwartz, S. and Bardi, A. (2001). Value hierarchies across cultures. Journal of cross-cultural Psychology, 32: 286-290
12. Spering, M (2001)Current issues in cross-cultural psychology:Research topics, applications, and perspectives
13. Ting-Toomey, S. (1994 edit.) The challenge of facework, cross-cultural and interpersonal issues. New York: State University of New York Press.
14. Ting-Toomey, S. (1999). Communicating across cultures. New York: The Guilford Press.
15. Yang. K. S. (1981) Social orientation and individual modernity among Chinese students in Taiwan. The journal of Social Psychology, 113: 159-170.
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