Ten persons in a dialogue: A comparative study of interpersonal communication patterns between Chinese and North American cultures.

摘要

Adopting the perspective of symbolic interactionism, this study probed into the cultural differences in the patterns of interpersonal communications across cultures. As everyoneu27s own image of himself or herself, from a symbolic interactionist point of view, is necessarily a configuration of the images of him or her that others have represented to him or her, this study proposed that one in effect interacts with a host of images while engaged in a dialogue. A model of what I call u22ten persons in a dialogueu22 was developed, in which a dialogue between any two people becomes a conversation among eight images. These eight images, along with the two physical beings, constitute the ten u22personsu22 that are constantly talking with and among one another. Cultural differences in interpersonal communications were seen in this study as the different patterns of relatedness between and among those images. On the basis of the u22ten persons in a dialogueu22 model, interpersonal communications patterns are compared between Chinese culture and North American culture. The expected differences were boiled down to the question of face saving (concern for oneu27s own image or face) and face giving (concern for anotheru27s image or face) in face-to-face dialogues. A test was conducted with twenty-four collaborators, twelve Chinese and twelve Canadian. The results indicate that North Americans tend to put more emphasis on gaining face for themselves whereas the Chinese would pay more attention to giving others face.Dept. of Communication Studies. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses u26 Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1993 .C457. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 32-02, page: 0380. Adviser: Christopher R. King. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1993.