跨文化交际英语思考题目(8)

American cultures?

4) How are friends important to you? And why?

5) What are the differences in the concepts of friends between the Chinese and American cultures?

4. Read the following passage and think about the questions.

Katherine came to Beijing in 1998 and found a job as an English teacher in a foreign language institute. Soon after her classes began, she found that her students showed no interest in her teaching and quite a few of them avoided to ask the Director, Prof. Wang, for help. One day, she came to the Director and told him that she would like to talk to him about her problem. The director looked at his timetable and asked if they could meet at ten o‘clock on Thursday morning and she agreed.

On Thursday she arrived at the Director‘s office at the exact time of their appointment when she found that Prof. Wang was talking with another teacher in Chinese. Seeing that she had come, Prof. Wang smiled to gesture a seat and asked her to sit down. She got herself seated, and the professor excused himself and carried on the talk with the teacher. About five minutes later, he concluded his talk and made a profound apology before he began to talk with Katherine. The Director showed great concern and asked her what the problems was. Just as she was specifying her problem, another Chinese teacher came in, with a form that apparently needed signature of the Director. The Director smiled an apology to Katherine again and turned to talk with that teacher, also in Chinese. Katherine became impatient, wondering why their talk should be interrupted since they had already made an appointment. She was so upset and got choked by their talking in Chinese in front of her that she became quite angry. Although their talk continued, she was apparently unhappy about what had happened. 1). How can you explain the Director‘s behavior to Katherine?

2). According to Katherine, what kind of rules did the Director violate in their communication?

5. Read the following passage and think about the questions.

A Canadian colleague and I traveled to Guilin with our admirable guide Heping Liu in very hot weather. Sight-seeing is thirsty business, we did not trust the water, and delighted in the excellent beer which we politely offered Heping. Heping refused, we said nothing and drank our beer, while poor Heping watched. One day Heping must have been desperate because he accepted the first offer. Only when I saw that Heping in fact liked beer very much did it then occur to me to ask him whether maybe in Chinese it was not polite to accept a first offer.

Indeed, it is not and Heping was being modest, polite and well behaved and had every intention of accepting the beer at the second or third offer. But Heping had not figured on North American rules which firmly say that you do not push alcoholic beverages on anyone. A person may not drink for religious reasons, he may be a reformed alcoholic, he may be allergic. Whatever the reason behind the rule, you do not insist on offering alcohol. So unconscious and so strong are our communication rules that we equally politely never made a second offer of beer to Heping who

16

probably thought North Americans most uncouth.

1) To avoid intercultural misunderstanding, do you think the Chinese guide should not have refused the first offer? And why or why not?

2) If you were to offer or be offered something, how would you behave? Would you behave in the Chinese way or the American way? And why?

6. Read the following and think about the questions:

Mr. Zhao and Mr. Qian have been on good terms with each other, though Mr. Zhao lives in China while Mr. Qian became an overseas Chinese working in the United States. The two both have children about the same age. Mr. Qian has two brothers who live in the U.S. and manage their family businesses. And both Mr. Zhao and Mr. Qian have business that seems fairly prosperous.

In recent times, however, Mr. Qian is bogged down with some difficulties, and in fact, his business is almost on the rocks. But, he has an opportunity to invest in a very promising venture but at the moment does not have enough cash. He realizes that this venture will be able to help him nurse his business back, and that his two brothers do not have the large sum he needs. He weighed the situation carefully and then telephoned Mr. Zhao for help. Mr. Zhao gladly lent him the money, and the venture did turn out very profitably for Mr. Qian, who was then able to repay Mr. Zhao with the interest immediately.

Later that year, when Mr. Zhao‘s daughter was applying for a course in the United States, he called Mr. Qian to help to get his daughter into the college by using his connections. Mr. Qian acquiesced and secured a place for Mr. Zhao‘ daughter. A year later, Mr. Zhao‘s nephew was going to the States. He asked Mr. Qian if his brothers could help him and give him a job when he got there. Again, Mr. Qian complied without hesitation.

But when this was known by one of Mr. Qian‘s American friends, Jackson, he didn‘t seem to be able to understand all the assistance Mr. Qian had given to Mr. Zhao, though Mr. Qian had told him a lot about the relation between them. Jackson said that Mr. Zhao was asking too much. Questions

1) Why do you think Jackson said that Mr. Zhao was asking too much?

2) What differences are there between the Chinese understanding of friendship and the American one?

Part Seven Language and Culture

一、讨论题

Words for animals and plants usually have the same denotations in different languages, but very often have distinct connotations. For example, ―dog‖ has quite different connotations in Chinese and English. gou(狗) is quite derogative in China: 狗急跳墙，狗仗人势，狼心狗肺， 狗腿子，etc. But ―dog‖ in the west is considered the best friend of …… 此处隐藏：7473字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……