摘 要：随着经济全球化的不断加快，跨文化交际变得越来越频繁。但由于文化习俗的差异，不同地域的人在跨文化交际中会遭遇文化冲突。面子是文化的一个重要组成部分，它对人们的社会交际会产生很大的影响。由于不同文化背景的人对面子的认识存在差异，他们之间的交流势必会受到阻碍。本文在研究布朗、莱文森等学者的面子观的基础上，运用文献分析法，总结了中美两国不同的面子文化，并从社会文化与地理环境两个方面探讨了形成不同面子文化的原因，以此提高中国学生跨文化交际的能力。

关键词：面子观；文化差异；对比分析

Abstract：With the acceleration of economic globalization, intercultural communication becomes more and more frequent. Due to different cultural conventions, people in different areas will encounter cultural conflicts in intercultural communication. As an important part of culture, face has a great influence on people's social communication. Since people from different cultural backgrounds have different understandings of face, they will encounter many obstacles in social communication. On the basis of researching Brown, Levinson and other scholars’ concept of face, by this literature analysis method, the paper summarizes different face cultures between Chinese and American, and discusses the reasons for the formation of different face cultures from socio-cultural and geographical environment, so, it can improve the ability of Chinese students on intercultural communication.

Key words: face perspective; cultural difference; comparative analysis

Contents

摘 要： i

Abstract ii

I.Introduction 1

II. Theories Related to Face 1

2.1 Western Perspective of Face 2

2.2 Chinese Perspectives of Face 4

III. Face Culture in China and America 6

3.1 Face Culture in China 6

3.2 Face Culture in America 7

IV. Roots for Different Perspectives and Reflections of Face Culture 8

4.1 Socio-cultural Environment 8

4.1.1 Chinese Social Culture 8

4.1.2 American Social Culture 10

4.2 Geographical Environment 10

4.2.1 Chinese Geographical Environment 11

4.2.2 American Geographical Environment 12

V. Conclusion 14

Bibliography 15

Acknowledgements 16

A Comparative Analysis of Chinese and American Face Culture

 I.Introduction

Due to the difference of culture background, Chinese and westerners have their own communication modes, and have lots of conflicts and collisions in many ways, especially, Chinese and westerners have differernt response to the problem of face. In the process of communication, if not paying attention to this intercultural communication, it may cause misunderstanding and even conflict, irreparable consequences. This shows it is important to understand the differences of face between Chinese and Western cultures, this is because the concept of face is not only a social phenomenon can be observed, but also the specific cultural values reflected in Chinese and Western languages. Lin Yutang once said, face is psychological, rather than physical, it is abstract and elusive, it is the most delicate standard of Chinese regulating social interaction that touches the most delicate point of the Chinese Social Psychology. Although the “face” in the sense of the psychological process is similar, but it carries lots of sociological value, it is reflected in different origins of culture, social attributes, aspects of personal wishes in the west. “Face” concept was first introduced to the West by Chinese anthropologists Hu Xianjin. After the American scholar Erving Goffman researched on this concept, the more relationships are discussed in detail for the study of sociolinguistics provides a lot of data. The “face” has been systematically studied by Brown and Levinson, and they proposed a “face saving theory.”

This paper focuses on the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, “face culture” were analyzed so as to understand why such differences existed.