篇一：中西文化差异比较(英文)
The difference between chinese and western culture
With the rapidly challging word, people throughout the world have found it increasingly necessary to minimize the rate of misunderstanding due to miscommunication in their contacts with another. In the oa
First of all, the way of eating. All huaman beings have certain basic needs. Our fundamental needs for things that keep us alive. This is the physioligical need. All individuals must eat in order to survive. But what people eat, when they eat, and the manners in which they eat are all patterned by culture. No society views everything in its environment that is edible and might provide nurishment as food. Americans eat oysters but not snail. The French eat snails but not locusts. The Jews eat fish but not pork. The Hindus eat pork but not beef. The Russiand eat beef but not snake. We all have ideas about what kinds of food are good to eat. We also have ideas about what kinds of food are bad to eat. As a result, people from one culture often think the food that people from another culture eat are disgusting or nauseating. Dislike is not the only reason why some culture will not eat a certain food. In some clture, certain foods are taboo. Sometimes the food taboos may be so strong thrat just the thought of eating forbidden foods can cause an indivdual to feel ill. We can also find culture difference in way of bring up children treating the early, greeting each other, saying and spending money before other people do in everyday, but in some English-speaking countries, people do not agree with us. We chinese may enjoy something that is not usually consider as edible by the English-speaking people. Generally we perfer to have thing hot and much emphasis on the taste. We eat from one plate when we are eating with others, and we like to seat one by one, and in the shape of a round. On the opposite, some English-speaking contries, most of the people like to seat in two rows, two people face to face. They have their own plate. On the aspect of table manners, there are many differences between chinese and English-speaking people. For example, in some Englishi-speaking countries, Bread plates are to the left of the main plate, beverage glasses are to the right. Salad fork, knife and soup spoon are further from the
main plate than the main course knife, fork and spoon. When eating bread rolls, break off a piece before buttering. Use the knife only to butter the bread, not to cut it. They should not start eating before your host does or instructs to do so. At larger meals, it is considered okay to start eating once others have been served. When finished, place the knife and fork together at five o’clock with the fork on the left. It is considered rude to answer the telephone at the table. If need to take an urgent call, excuse self and go outside. Try to eat all the food you are served. But in China, the table manners are different. Chinese traditionally eat rice from a small bowl held in the left hand. The rice bowl is raised to the mouth and the rice pushed into the mouth using the chopsticks. Some Chinese find it offensive to scoop rice from the bowl using a spoon. If rice is served on a plate, as is more common in the West, it is acceptable and more practical to eat it with a fork or spoon. The thumb must always be above the edge of the bowl. The host should always make sure the guests drinks are sufficiently full. One should not pour for ones self, but should offer to pour for a neighbor. When your drink is being poured, you should say "thank you" and tap fingers on the table to show appreciation. When people wish to clink drinks together in the form of a cheer, it is important to observe that younger members should clink the edge of their drink below the edge of an elder to show respect.
Secondly, the way of communication. Form birth to death, communication plays an integral part in our life. There are some language problems, including the different styles of using language such as direct, indirect; expansive, succinct; argumentative, conciliatory; instrumental, harmonnizing; and so on. These different styles can lead to wrong interpretations of intent and evaluation of insincerity, aggreeiveness, deviousness, or arrogance, among other. The misinterpretation nonverbal signs and symbols such as gestures, postures, and other body movements. It is a definite communication barrier. But it is possible to learn the meanings of these observable message,usually in informal rather ways. It is more difficult to understand the less obvious unspoken codes of the other cultures. Language, as the carrier of culture, is created during the process of human beings’ productive labor and serves as the tool of communication to convey the message between people. However, it has been endowed with magic and power in particular language acts. As the old saying goes, troubles come out of the tongue. Superstitious people think that the language itself can bring about fortune or misfortune so that taboos to restrict the use of language are created. Anyone who violates them will get punishment, whereas those who faithfully obey the restrictions of language taboo will get protection. Furthermore, linguistic taboos change with the development of society .The paper firstly analyzes the evolution of linguistic taboo. It is indicated in the paper that linguistic taboo exists in almost every aspect of people’s life and is a universal social phenomenon in China and Britain. Both Chinese and
English cultures are in agreement about linguistic taboos such as pronunciation taboo, and vocabulary taboo. However, influenced by different cultural backgrounds, ideologies and the concepts of value, Chinese and English linguistic taboos also have differences, as is discussed in the paper from the aspects of taboo subjects, taboo numbers and names. At last, this paper puts forward two effective ways of avoiding taboo, that is, using euphemism and having a good knowledge of the taboo culture. And this discussion would help English learners improve their ability of cross-cultural communication and achieve better communicational effects. For example, During the feudal times, people were not equal to the rulers and were suppressed by their superiors. The distinction between the upper and the lower classes was also reflected in the evaluation of the language used by them respectively. The words of upper class used were considered good and elegant while those used by the lower class were regarded as vulgar and indecent and should be avoided in the speech of ladies and gentlemen. In modern society, as a result of the development of science and technology, many natural phenomena are no longer mysterious. Human beings not only constantly improve their abilities to exploit the world where they are living through their great wisdom and knowledge, but also make efforts to explore the extraterrestrial world. Science has much more say in today’s society. Thereby, the superstitious elements in linguistic taboos decrease while those reflecting spiritual civilization increase.
In short, by comparison, we can find that both Chinese and English communication reflect people’s psychology for good will, for safety and fortune and pleasantness. The Chinese and English people restrict their words and deeds through taboos, trying to keep a harmonious relationship between human and nature, or between people and society. They are a reflection of people’s pursuit of freedom and equality.
The most important, the different way of family structure, family values and family education. Family structure is the big difference between east and west, traditional chinese, amony many other Asians, repect their elders and feel a deep sense of duty toward them. Children repay their parents` sacrifices by being successful and supporting them in old age. This is accepted as a natural part of life in China. In contrast, taking care of aged parents is often viewed as a tremendous burden in the English-speaking countries, where aging and family support are not honored highly. In some English-speaking countries are still extrmely family-oriented. They are dedicated to helping their children and will sacrifice greatly for their children to get an edcuation. In turn, the children are devoted to their parents, who often live nearby. Grown children who go away and leave the country for the economic reasons typically send large parts of their salary home to their parents and the rest of the family. Or in some Asia, any decisions or actions are done from family consideration, not individual desires. Peope`s behavior is judged on whether it
brings shame or pride to the family. The children are trained to rely on their families, to honor elderly people, and to fear foreigners. And many of them think that their actions in this life will influence their status in the next life.
The way of family edcation is also the different. We all know the family education is the elementary education for children. Many serious problems have appeared in our education system in recent years. Almost everyone has realized the importance of solving these problems and many people have presented a lot of valuable suggestions. There are many types of family education in the world and each of them shows distinctive features and is closely responsive to its culture. And American family education is the most famous one among them. There are great differences in the concepts of education, methods of education and results of education between East family education and West family education. In some English-speaking countries, parents’ aims are to train their children to have the ability of adapting to environmental variety and the ability of living independently. Based on this concept, most American parents emphasize more to train their children’s ability of independence once they are born. They generally believe that children’s growth must rely on their own experiences, because they think that children should form a self-supporting will and the capacity to live independently since their childhood. And the capacity comes from the training in the early age. The so-called training contains many aspects, such as work, temper will, patience, the spirit of hard work, etc. However, the most fundamental training is the ability of adapting to hard conditions. Through the process of work, children will form the labor sense, learn some work skills and form a habit of labor. Besides, children can learn how to overcome difficulties, temper their willpower, develop their talents and skills, rich their knowledge, and form a habit of hard work and thrifty by working in hard conditions. It is just in the unconsciously process that children will obtain the independent survivability and take the responsibilities for the society. Compared with some English-speaking countries, Chinese parents have a very different concept of children’s education. Some parents in China only care about whether the children have a promising future, a good job, a good life or not. Based on these expectations, the majority of parents feel that their responsibility for their children is to create as good conditions as possible they can so that the children will not worry about anything in the future. Chinese parents would like to provide everything what they can for their children in the process of children’s growth. In short, they would like to sacrifice anything if their children can live better with their help. Therefore, in the process of children’s growth, the most important thing the parents concerning is to developing their children’s intellect, except for caring children’s daily life. In order to make their children have a good performance in study, become outstanding, or even become a famous person in the future, they would not let children do anything except studying. As for the children’s independence, civic awareness and their ability adapting to the
society in the future, they consider little or not at all. From these aspects we can find the obvious differences of family education between America and China.
When we faced with those difference between West and East, we should give some advice to solve these problems. According to the three big difference that pointed, we should find some way to deal with these problems.
We can study other languages and learn to expect in nonvwebal forms and other cultural aspects. We can train ourselves to meet intercultural encounters with more attention to situation details. We can use an investigative approach rather than stereotypes and preconceptions. We can gradually expose ourselves to differences so that they become less threatening. We can even learn to lower our tension level when needed to advoid triggering defensive reactions. The overall goal should be to achieve intercultural communication competence.
So the ideal solution to reduce the problems are to share knowledge with others in communication. This is why it is easiest to communicate with other members of the same group. This is why people so often gather together socially with others who are very much like them. Since intercultural communication is communication with members of different cultual groups, and therefore, because we do not share knowledge, assumptions, values, and forms of discourse with them, we must expect there to be problems of interpretation. We must look for these problems, anticipate where they will arise out of our differences, and then plan our aommunications to be as effective as possible.
However, we have to remember that, most of the time, the different ways that are the customs of dfferent cultures are neither right nor wrong. It is simply that different people do the same tings in different manners, even though we can not understand ,we should show the respect. I believe this is the best way to make our life become more comfortable and make the world more harmonious.
篇二：英语毕业论文(中西方文化差异)
中国和西方文化礼仪的差距
英语 王雯
指导老师: 张丽
摘 要
礼仪是人与人之间交流的规则，是一种语言，也是一种工具。由于形成礼仪的重要根源――宗教信仰的不同，使得世界上信仰不同宗教的人们遵守着各不相同的礼仪。由于各国的历史和文化底蕴不同，各国人民在进行礼尚交往时的习惯也有不少差异。特别是中西方之间，礼仪上的差异很大，为了达到这种语言的共鸣，中西方礼仪应该得到重视。
由此可见了解中西方交往的习惯差异是很有必要的。往大处来说,一个国家无论是在政治上还是在经济贸易中，了解对方国家的礼仪习惯，将有利于各国之间的交往。随着中西方文化的不断发展，中西方的礼仪正在相互融合，西方人逐渐接受了中国文化中重情感等合理因素，中国人也逐渐接受了西方文化中先进文明的礼仪和交往方式。 我们得承认，当今国际通行的礼仪基本上是西方礼仪为此本文探讨研究了中西方礼仪的差异，为了减少中西方文化礼仪上的差距，使中西方人们之间的交往更加容易,本文通过对中西方各个方面文化礼仪的不同展开讨论，
差距是有，取其精华，进行中外文化礼仪上的上的交流和沟通，学习。
关键词 ：礼仪；差异；中国的礼仪；西方的礼仪
The differences betweenChinese and western etiquette
Abstract
Etiquette is the rules of communication between people, and it is a language, but also a tool. Since the formation of a major source of ritual – the difference of religious beliefs, what making the world believe in different religions that people follow a different liturgical. As different countries with different historical and cultural heritage, Needless to say there are many differences in habits when people of all countries dealing during the ceremony. Particularly in the etiquette between Western and Chinese is very large, in order to achieve the resonance of the language ,the differences should be taken seriously.
This shows that the habit of understanding between Chinese and Western communication is necessary. Look at the big run, a country both in politics or in
economy and trade to understand the ritual habits of the other country, it will be conducive to the exchanges between the countries. With the continuous development of Chinese and western culture, the Chinese and western etiquette is mutual confluence, and westerners gradually accepted in Chinese culture such as heavy emotion and reasonable factors, and the Chinese also gradually accepted the western culture advanced civilization etiquette and communication mode. We must admit that today's international etiquette is basically the etiquette of western ,therefore this paper studied the differences between Chinese and western etiquette. In order to reduce the gap between the Chinese and western culture etiquette, make the interaction between Chinese and western people more easily, This article discusses on various aspects of differences between Chinese and western culture etiquette. Athough there are many differences, and we should extrct its essence, we can take a tall on chinese and westercultural ceremonial exchanges and communication and learning.
Key words: Etiquette, Differences, Chinese etiquette, Western etiquette
Contents
Abstract(Chinese) …………………………………………I Abstract(English) …………………………………………II Chapter one Introduction ……………………………I Chapter two Differences in several aspects………II Chapter three Theoretical Foundations …………III
2.1Important Symbol of Human Civilization
2.2The Immortal Essence of the Western Civilization
2.3The Integration between Chinese and the Western Ethics
Acknowledgements……………………………………IV
篇三：英语作文-东西方文化差异 -Cultural differences
Cultural differences
There are plenty of. people in the world. They come from different countried, have their
own race, belief and way of life. What is more, their culture is different from others'. So,
there is no doubt that cultural difference exist among lots of countries, especially between
eastern and western countries.
Compared with the way of life, eastern people always have a bath in the evening or at
night in order to relax themselves after one-day's hard work while western people take a
bath in the morning. so as to keep freshly for the whole day. In general, it is true,
especially for Chinese people. We, Chinese people would like to take baths at night rather
than in the morning. It is a kind of habits we behave all the time.
Compared with the relationships, differences are as follow: firstly, eastern people like to
make friends, sometimes through their friends, parents, relatives. While western people
behave a little shyly. They do not want to make friends all the time. Secondly, eastern
people would like to hang out with the person they do not know about quite a lot. while
western people just like going out with the person whom they get along well with.
Finally, eastern people have much more friends than western people for their quite
different way of getting along with. their friends. There is no doubt that eastern people
are more outgoing than western people, so I agree with these a lot.
As for way of solving problems, eastern people always deal with things indirectly. They
pay much attention to many things around them, and always work for a long time to solve
the problem. However, western people just go straight the heart of the problem and solve
it directly and efficiently. As far as I am concerned, this difference between eastern and
western people is quite normal and correct. Eastern people, especially Chinese people
care about things around them a lot, they always want to satisfy everyone's need, so that
they spend much more time to solve a problem than western people.
As for way of thinking, people in eastern areas usually think indirectly. They used to
think about the things around them a lot and try to deal with things in a reasonable even
perfect way. However, in comparison with the eastern people, people in the western areas
often think directly. They pay less attention to the things around them and care much
more about themselves. Honestly speaking, I disagree to this.In my opinion, everyone is
special and has their right and obligations to do things. There is no need for us to critise
others and what we should do is to respect their own. decision.
There are a lot of differences between eastern and western culture. These are the symbols
of their own characteristics and we need time to dig out more differences so as to learn
more about them. Most importantly, we must respect their culture firstly!