BodylanguageinInterculturalBusinessCommunication商务活动中的肢体语言

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1、本科生毕业论文设计题目 商务活动中的肢体语言 作者姓名 指导教师 所在学院 外国语学院 专业（系） 商务英语 班级（届） 2011 完成日期 2011 年 5 月 8 Body language in Intercultural Business Communication摘 要肢体语言是非语言交际的重要组成部分并和文化紧密联系在一起。我们必须承认世界各国的肢体语言与语言一样，也有相似之处。然而，由于地域，种族，文化习俗的差异，不同文化的肢体语言有许多差异,熟练的掌握肢体语言在跨文化交际中十分必要，尤其在商务场合中。商务沟通是一种正式的沟通方式，一般包括会议，面试，集体讨论，工作报告，演讲等。

2、商务场合更为正式并且要求掌握更多的肢体语言知识。由于肢体语言在商务交际中发挥重要作用,为了在跨文化交际中能够成功地进行交流，我们应该了解不同文化的肢体语言。本文将首先讨论肢体语言的涵义，并重点对肢体语言在商务交际中的作用进行研究探讨，并对中西文化中的肢体语言（包括面部表情，手势，眼神交流，身体接触，姿势）进行对比研究，进而寻找方法避免商务活动中的误解。关键词：跨文化交际文化差异 肢体语言 肢体语言功能肢体语言差异AbstractBody language is an important part of nonverbal communication and it is connected wi

3、th culture. We should realize that body language, like verbal communication, has many similarities all over the world. However, body language from different cultures has many differences because of different regions, races and cultural customs. Having a good knowledge of body language is necessary i

4、n intercultural communication. Whats more in business communication, which is more complicated, body language plays a more important role. Generally, business communication is a formal means of communication, like: meetings, interviews, group discussion, presentation, speeches etc. Its much formal a

5、nd requires more knowledge about body language. As body language plays an important part in business communication. In order to make successful exchange in cross-cultural communication, we should know the body language from different cultures. We will first discuss what is body language and then we

6、will focus on the study of the functions of body language in intercultural communication and a comparative study of body language between Chinese and western countries in terms of facial expression, Gestures, eye contact, physical contact and posture and then find ways to avoid misunderstandings in

7、business communication.Key Words: intercultural communication, cultural differences, body language, function of body language, differences of body languageTable of Contents Introduction1Chapter I A brief introduction of body language and its fuction31.1 The conception of body language31.2 The reason

8、 lead to body language differencescultural differences41.3 The function of body language51.3.1 Repeating61.3.2 Substituting61.3.3 Complementing71.3.4 Contradicting81.3.5 Regulating9Chapter II A constructive study of body language between Chinese and western country112.1 Contrastive study of facial e

9、xpression112.2 Contrastive study of gestures122.2.1 The same gesture with different meanings in different cultures122.2.2 Different gestures with same meaning132.2.3 Gesture and meaning in one culture without equivalent in other cultures132.3 Contrastive study of eye contact142.4 Contrastive study o

10、f physical contact152.5 Contrastive study of posture15Chapter III Ways to avoid misunderstandings in business communications183.1 Increase awareness of body language183.2 Combine the culture and context in understanding the body language193.3 Respect other nations culture values and social customs19

11、Conclusion21Reference22Acknowledgement24 IntroductionAll the human beings on the earth, despite differences in theirbackground and culture, engage in common events every minute to communicate. When people discuss the human communication, they will think of the verbal communication immediately. Verba

12、l communication is a very important process in communicating but not the single means. Anyone can never neglect the other part in communication -nonverbal communication. In fact, the whole process of the human communication consists of two parts, that is to say, nonverbal communication and verbal co

13、mmunication. Sometimes nonverbal communication is more important than verbal communication. The former mainly produces the vocal effects, while the latter will lead to vision, sense and touch effects. In many communicational situations, these effects of the nonverbal communication are more obvious t

14、han that of the verbal communication .Body language is an important part of nonverbal communication. People could express their feelings and attitudes through facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, and physical contact and so on. “Silent language expresses more information than verbal language.

15、Because it contains much information. According to some researchers abroad, in peoples daily life, nonverbal communication takes part over 65% in all of information exchange. Many experts have shown the importance of body language in the cross-cultural communication. A psychologist Birdwhistell prop

16、osed a formula that: total impact of message =7% verbal + 38% vocal +55% body language 1. The misunderstanding and cultural crash often occur in the cross-cultural communication due to unfamiliar with the body language of another culture. Business Communication differs from communication in general.

17、 It is unique in its purpose. One communicates internally with his team members, his boss, his peers and others. He communicates externally with customers, competitors and service providers outside the organization. In both cases, his communicate with one very specific purpose: to create his busines

18、s. So in the process of business communication, it is not a complete communication while ignoring the cultural differences of nonverbal communication. The article first discuss what is body language and find the reason lead to differences of body language ,after that it focuses on functions of body

19、language and a comparative study of body language in order to lessen conflicts in cross-culture business communication and make it much better and easier.Chapter I A brief introduction of body language and its function1.1 The concept of body languageBody language reflects a certain cultural backgrou

20、nd and in a certain tradition, body language is determined by its customs and traditions. Psychologist David Abercrombie also pointed out: we speak with verbal organs but we talk with our body 1.The study of body language has a long tradition.More than 2,000 years ago, the ancient Roman politicians

21、Cicero had pointed out that all psychological activities were associated with movements. Gesture was just a kind of human language which everybody, even barbarians, could understand. As we know, body language as a non-verbal language also had been recognized early by people of western countries. In

22、1872, C.Darwin published the article of Modal Expression of Human and Animal. He had firstly created a research method of linking the non-verbal language of human to the expression of animals that still was widely used in the field of human academic, social language academic, social psychology profe

23、ssion and so on.In the early 1950s, westerners have been studying body language comprehensively and systematically. However there were three most influential works about body language, including Kretschmers Physique and Character and The Variation of Human Physique and Efrons Gesture and Environment

24、.In 1952, Birdwhistells book of Introduction to Kinestics had conducted a systematic research on body language and created the word of Kinesics. He thought that we should study body language by the way of researching language. And he firstly created the word of Kineme as the minimum body language on

25、 researching body language. Through this way, he could compare the structure of behavior with the structure of language so that the research of body language was to be Code Research System. Albacon, an American psychologist, provided more precise figures that the information of someone was composed

26、of three aspects: 55% of body language, 38% of the tone and 7% of the words(毕继万,1999). In 1980, the study of body language has been as a new discipline. The subjects of zoology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, cross-cultural communication study also promote the study of this subject. And many l

27、inguists have been researching body language more deeply 9.The writer think that body language is a term for communication using body movements or gestures instead of, or in addition to, sounds, verbal language or other communication. It forms part of the category of paralanguage, which describes al

28、l forms of human communication that are not verbal language. This includes the most subtle of movements that many people are not aware of, including winking and slight movement of the eyebrows. In addition body language can also incorporate the use of facial expressions.1.2 The reason leads to body

29、language differencescultural differences The reason lead to body language differences is cultural differences. It is known to all that culture differs from country to country. Then what is culture? How does it influence the body language? The article elaborates the question as following. According t

30、o the experts, culture is learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set of symbols whose meaning provides a set of orientations for members of a society. These orientations, taken together, provide solutions to problems that all societies must solve if they are to remain viable. Besides, Culture det

31、ermines how people view others and themselves, they behave, and how they perceive the world around them. Another definition is that culture is a set of learned core values, beliefs, standards, knowledge, morals, laws, and behaviors shared by individuals and societies that determines how an individua

32、l acts, feels, and views oneself and others (Mitchell, 2000)13.Then how does culture influence the body language? Firstly, culture is a group-level phenomenon. Culture itself is a phenomenon that can only be observed once it is shared by the vast majority of the individuals belonging to a certain gr

33、oup. For example, the ethnic Han culture is shared by the Han nationality. The westerners do not belong to the culture of Han nationality 4.There is no culture observed by one signal person. People from the same culture have a set of fixed rules and regulations which is agreed unanimously. T he grou

34、p will gradually develop a series of body language that is shared by all the members. For example, the westerners will hug each other when they greet someone while the Chinese people will shake hands. These body languages are agreed by their fellows from the same culture.Secondly, culture is a uniqu

35、e set of attributes that subsumes every area of social life. This implies that different cultures have different values and customs. The people of a culture follow the rules and behave in accordance with their culture. As body language is culture-bound, people from the same culture share the same bo

36、dy languages. We know that cultural differences result in the body language differences. Thus culture is very important in understanding human behavior and hence cant be ignored when conducting international business.1.3 The function of body languageBody language not only complements verbal informat

37、ion, but also repeats, regulates, contradicts, substitutes and contradicts verbal information. These contents of every word that people said were comparatively firm; however, they only belong to some literal meaning. Actually, what people said are some kind of behavior with aims and consciousness. T

38、his information, which should contain the motivation, feeling and attitude, usually expressed through body language. Especially when body language and voiced language are used together, body language undertakes almost all the pragmatic meaning and emotional meaning expressed of voiced language. Ther

39、e are basically five functions in communication: repeating, complementing, substituting, regulating and contradicting.1.3.1 RepeatingPeople should realize that they do not talk continuously, but do give out signals continuously through body language when they are in someone elses company. For the mo

40、st part they communicate on the content at the same time. Repeating means some of the nonverbal information can be repeated with oral language. Specifically we express the content through words and through body language. Furthermore, repeating means that people do the related behaviors while speakin

41、g, which are to illustrate and emphasize the meaning the speaker likes to express. Movements of head and hands are always playing a role of strengthening when talking to others.For example: When reading some excellent works and wonderful sentences, we will slap the table and shout “bravo”. Striking

42、the table is an accompanying behavior, expressing excitements and pleasure. At the right moment when a speaker says We have to give up it, his head tend ahead and his palm or his fist press heavily on the desk to show his firm attitude. One more example, you tell somebody that the office building li

43、es to the west of the teaching building and meanwhile your finger is pointing to the west to repeat it. Sometimes when you say the number one, you put out one of your fingers to help you express your idea. When you ask the students to keep quiet in class, you may saySilence! Stop talking! and you pu

44、t your index in the palm of another hand to make a gesture of “stop”. The gesture with words to reach an effect that silence is the best way. Chen Yuan said: “The most important communicational tool used by human beings is of course language; however, it does not mean that language is the only tool.

45、 It also depends on many other nonverbal behaviors. Actually, social communication usually mixed two kinds of tools-verbal and nonverbal. When one is speaking, gesture, eyes movement, posture and facial expression are always accompanying voiced language. Repeating is the fuction of body language. Al

46、l the movements including all the nonverbal behaviors are behaved as one aim-deepen the impression of meaning 15.1.3.2 SubstitutingBefore languages were produced, people had to use a variety of gestures to explain what they want to say in order to communicate better or live better. Obviously it beca

47、me the main tool of communication, and now we see that some individuals use relative body language when they cannot or it is inconvenient to express their feeling to achieve the same results instead of oral language and written language. That is what we said of communicative function. Sign languages

48、 that are used by the deaf and dumb, judging gesture that were used in sports competitions by the judges, gestures that were used by policemen who direct the cars and people on streets all belong to substitutable body language. Whats more, in daily life people shake hands to send their respect to ot

49、hers, waving hands to say goodbye, clapping hands to welcome others. Communicative functions of body language are mainly used in the following situations: First, more simple and concise body languages are used to stress the main information. For example, in a competition, people around are very nois

50、y, its difficult or impossible for the athletes to hear each other, so they give each other a gesture of v to increase their confidence. And now we often see that in a football match when the player kicked a goal, he took off his clothes and ran around the playground to show his excitement. We still

51、 remember that in 2004 Athens Olympic Games, when Liu Xiang got the Gold medal, he put up the national flag and run around the playground. Second, in some special backgrounds, the using of body language can be more implicit and proper. In public places, someone may be impolite or rude; at this momen

52、t his friends want to point out his defects in words but were afraid of hurting his pride, so they use eye contacts to prevent him. Third, when words are unnecessary and it is better to be silent than saying anything, only eye contact or smile will be more useful. Fourth, because of the special envi

53、ronment, people can only use nonverbal communication. For example, policemen have a certain body language that can only be understood by them. When they are going to rescue a hostage they will use eye contacts or gestures to convey information in order not to be discovered by the criminals.1.3.3 Com

54、plementingAccording to the psychologist Birdwhistell, the communicative message conveyed by verbal behaviors in conversation only contains 30%, and the other messages are all conveyed by nonverbal means (basically body language). That is to say, sometimes the voiced languages were powerless and the

55、nonverbal behaviors will complement these speech acts by eye contacts, facial expressions, gestures, postures, etc. These silent body languages start by remedy the powerlessness and inadequacies. British Prime Minister Churchill, who paid much attention to speech art, said in one of his lectures tha

56、t our living level was higher than any other historical periods, we ate too much. Then he stopped and stared at the audience and pointed at his own big stomach and said: “This is the most powerful proof.”2 Churchill used nonverbal acts twice to modify voiced language. First he stopped intentionally

57、to cause the publics attention, and then the body language that he pointed at his own big stomach achieved a lively result. Nowadays, written examinations and interviews are always included in an employment. Through the interview, the examiner judge the employees full-scaled qualities by distinguish

58、 different nonverbal language behaviors. Whats more, at the same time when a teacher praised someone, he would pat the student on the shoulder with a smiling face. All the behaviors are a complement to the oral words. Many examples exist in our daily lives. Suppose you are on a phone call, a friend

59、comes to visit you. You will nod your head or give a gesture or give him a glance to ask him to sit down and wait for you. We see sometimes information conveyed by nonverbal acts has no relation with oral words. That is to say, what we have said and what we have done are two different things. Thanks

60、 to these nonverbal behaviors especially the eye contact, facial expression, gesture, posture, etc. Language becomes more symbolic, emotional and lively.1.3.4 ContradictingCompared with language communicative functions, nonverbal behaviors are more reliable and accurate to convey information and rec

61、ord the decisive meaning in language environment. Because languages sometimes are insincere in ones words and nonverbal behaviors are the real feeling from ones heart. For example, you have received a present from your friend that you do not like. Though you will say, I like it very much happily, yo

62、ur facial expression will show that you are unhappy. That is to say, your facial expression contradicted with what you said. A boy told his mother lightly that it was not him who broke the vase, but he dare not look at his mothers eyes. Sometimes nonverbal behaviors will be contrary to the speech ac

63、ts, however, it seems to be more credible. Just like when a naive child refused the food people gave to him, he may say No, thanks, but actually he stared at the food for a long time, and his tongue moved to show that he wanted to eat it very much only because his parents did not allow. A man said t

64、o his colleague You have done a good job but at the same time his face may show his dissatisfaction. And we will know that on the one hand, sole speech acts without the company of nonverbal behaviors in communication are always difficult to communicate efficiently. On the other hand, we should know

65、that nonverbal behaviors could only express the accurate information under a certain language environment.1.3.5 RegulatingSometimes conversation can be described as a series of listening and speaking, such as start chatting, change topics and give an end to it. Nonverbal behaviors are usually used to regulate su