The development of Intercultural communication as a field df study?
Intercultural communication as a phenomenon is really universal, nowadays it takes place everywhere. When you talk with a British lecturer, you are having intercultural communication with him. When you correspond with a westerner through e-mail, you are engaged in intercultural communication. When you watch a French film, or read a French novel, you are engaged in intercultural communication. Although you don’t see the person, the French person is actually talking to you through the book or the novel. So you are having the intercultural communication with him or her.
Intercultural communication dates back to thousands of years ago.
A long time ago, when people started intermingling with each other, when people were having trade relations with others, there were intercultural communications. A very good example is the “silk road”. A lot of traders from different countries interacted with each other in their business reactions. There was intercultural communication.
Intercultural communication is a daily occurrence, and it takes place everyday. In today’s world, intercultural commun ication has become increasing important, because it is so easy for people of different cultural background to come together and communicate.
How about the development of Intercultural communication in
China? After I did some research in the library, I know that Intercultural communication in China has a fairly short history. People started taking an interest in intercultural communication in the early 80s. Teachers of foreign languages started studying the relationship of language to culture. And Professor XuGuozhang was the first who wrote about cultural loading words, the cultural meaning of words. Many articles, actually hundreds of articles were written on intercultural communication. And then there were followed by books (probably more than 20 books). And three conferences have been held. (first in harbin, second in Beijing, third in Shenzhen, a fourth will be in Xi’an) A national association called China Association for Intercultural Communication was set up in 1995. The scholars involved in this field of study include the teachers of foreign languages, teachers of Chinese as foreign language, linguists and psychologists.
As Intercultural communication develops faster and faster, we must study Intercultural communication hardily. Because we want to communicate more effectively with people from other cultures. If we are ignorant of other cultures, we just talk to them like talk to other Chinese, forgetting their cultural backgrounds; we’re likely to make mistakes. But if we remember their cultural differences, bear in mind that we have take their culture into consideration, then we are less likely to make mistakes.。