CulturalDifferencesBetweenChineseandAmerican

毕业论文（设计）1.IntroductionAs a tool of social communication,language is the bond of culture as well as itscomponent.The languages in different nations refract different cultural environments,lifestyles,ideas and points of view,religious rituals,values and thinking habits.Human languagecommunication is the primary means of interaction,but non-verbal communication also has animportant communicative function.Body Language is the expression of a person's silent andauthentic language inner world,non-verbal means of the most spectacular.Psychologist andresearcher Albert Mehrabian argues that 93 percent of all social meaning in face-to-facecommunication is conveyed through nonverbal cues,38 percent is communicated by howpeople use their voices (rate,pitch,and volume of speech),55 percent is the result of facialexpressions (smiles,eye contacts,and frowns),whereas only a paltry 7 percent is verbal(Gouran,1992:109).The social anthropologist Edward T.Hall also claims that 60 percent ofall our communication is nonverbal (Translated by Meng Xiaoyun,1988).The percentagesmay be disputable,but the point is that nonverbal communication contributes a great deal tosharing meaning.Different people in different countries can communicate with body language.In somecases,body language is enough to express all of the information;language is superfluous.Body Language includes space distance,eye contacts,physical contacts,postures,facialexpressions and other nonverbal body signals.With the development of globalization,thecollisions between different cultures become increasingly fierce.It is well known that Chineseculture is the typical oriental culture,and the United States is the western world's mouthpiece.Therefore,with the comparison of body language in the two countries,we can divine the wholefrom a part.2