An analysis of Culture differences between China and America

【Abstract】The communication between China and the rest of the world is becoming increasingly frequent with the rise of China. As one of the widely used language forms in communication， address form is inevitably affected and constrained by culture. This paper tries to explore the culture differences between China and western countries（take America as an example） through the analyses of the different address forms， and attempts to find some useful enlightenment for intercultural communication.

【Key words】 address form； cultural difference； intercultural communication

1. Address form

Address form is an important linguistic category in communication. It is used to address a person in family， organizational and social life. As Zhao yuanren（1980） puts， address form is more than a grammatical unit. It has vivid social features， and it can manifest the social attributes， values about social relationships as well as traditions and cultures of the whole society. Every nation has its unique addressing system， so it is of great significance to get cultural differences via the analyses of different addressing forms.

2. Analyses

In terms of occasions， address forms can be classified into two categories： kinship address forms and social address forms. The following analyses are based on this classification.

2.1 Kinship address

Kinship addresses are terms for blood relations and for affinities. They are used between different members within a family no matter with direct or indirect relations.

In English， the kinship address system is very simple and it covers only three generations. For older generation， there are grandmother， grandfather， granduncle and grandaunt. For parental generation， apart from mother and father， there are only uncle and aunt in English. For same generation， they use brother and sister. And for children of their uncle or aunt， they all called cousin no matter for male or female.

While in Chinese， the address forms are much more complicated. For older generation， there are corresponding address for brothers， sisters and spouses of grandparents besides grandmother and grandfather. The same principle goes with the parental generations.

From the above comparison， we can tell that Americans differentiate address forms by gender； while in China， different address forms are used for different ages， genders， seniority， consanguineous and affinal relations. This disparity manifests that the American culture is one which centers individuals and independence. Each person is separate and people look after only themselves and their immediate family.In this culture， equal or horizontal relationship is treasured by people and people are rather independent of each other. On the contrary， China is a typical collectivism country in which people are integrated into strong， cohesive in-groups which continues throughout a lifetime to protect in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

2.2 Social address

Social addresses forms are used to establish， maintain and strengthen social relationships. Generally there are two types of social address： pronouns of address and nouns of address.

Pronouns of address are those pronouns that people use to call people in stead of their names. In America， children learn to think in terms of “I” ， while Chinese prefer to think in terms of ”we”. Another fact is that in English there are only one second person pronoun， but in Chinese， there are two words：Ni and Nin（Dou Weilin， 2011）. The former one is used between normal relationship， the other is used when the speaker wants to show his respect to listener.

Nouns of address includes address according to the title， professions， the relation and intimacy between the interlocutors. Contrasted with China， America has less rules or taboos. Using titles to address people is a must only in some official occasions， such as court， or congressional conferences. In other cases， it is acceptable that people call each other by names， no matter what are their social status.

The comparison shows that American is a low power distant culture. In this culture， supervisors and managers may have power， but it is not emphasized.Power is relatively evenly distributed.While China is a high power distant culture，which means that the degree in acceptance of the fact that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally is high.In this culture， differences in organizational status and ranks are clear-cut. Employees have a great deal of respect for those in high positions.

3. Enlightenment for intercultural communication

In intercultural communications， the utmost important thing is that we should not assuming similarities or differences. If we do not know the culture， we better ask people rather than assuming they are the same or different. As we discussed， cultures are constantly developed and changed.We should also update the knowledge of culture differences we learn previously. We need to bear keen awareness of the current culture during intercommunication. Culture is much more complicated than we can describe verbally and the differences between Chinese and American culture discussed in this paper are only the tip of the iceberg of these two cultures. As a phenomenon of daily occurrence， intercultural communication is of great importance， but the history of its study in China is much shorter. The studies on these aspect want endless endeavors.

【References】

[1]Fred E.Jandt. An Introduction to Intercultural communication： identities in a global community[M]. Fifth Edition. London： Sage Publications， Inc， 2007

[2]竇衛霖.跨文化商務交際[M].北京：高等教育出版社，2011.

[3]趙元任.語言問題[M].商務印書館，1980.