General cultural differences.docVIP

General cultural differences 　　[Abstract] Different cultures would be the reason to understand the same thing as opposite ways. This paper discusses the differences in cross-cultural communication and business English. 　　[Key words] General cultural differences；Chinese；Westerners 　　1. Introduction 　　In recent years， with the accelerated paces of reforming and opening， the foreign contacts are more and more extensive. The world today is characterized by an ever-growing number of contacts between people with different languages and cultural backgrounds. In this paper， the author would discuss the differences in cross-cultural communication and business English. In the first part， it shows the general difference between China and the western countries， and then discusses the different points in business English based on the cross-culture context. 　　2. General cultural differences between Chinese and westerners 　　Politeness 　　Cultural differences on politeness between westerners and Chinese can be found in many aspects of daily communication， including addressing， greeting and parting， compliments， apologies， thanks and so on. When people meet acquaintances or friends， people usually greet each other. The purpose of greeting is to establish or maintain social contact. So formulaic expressions are often used， but such formulaic expressions often causes conflict because of the great cultural differences between Chinese and native English speakers. In English， people often employ the following expressions to greet each other “Good morning/evening/afternoon.” “Fine day， isn’t it？ ” “How is everything going？” “Have you eaten yet？” “What are you going to do？” “Where have you been？” etc. Westerners treat them as real question. While in Chinese， we always say ni chi le me （你吃了吗？）ni shang na li qu（你上哪里去？）ni gan shen me qu（你干什么去？） to show our consideration. Parting may be divided into two steps. Before the final prating， there is usual a leave-taking. Western and Chinese cul