Let’s Mince Words
Fri Jan 16, 2009 at 4:49 pm By admin
By Valerie Sartor
Even if a foreigner is fluent in Chinese, or if a Chinese is fluent in English, miscommunication and misunderstandings still are common.
In our global age, miscommunication occurs everywhere, all the time, among people of dissimilar cultural backgrounds.
Social norms, beliefs and values, both covert and overt, affect intercultural communications despite good intentions and great translators. Even when participants may be using the same linguistic code, their cultural styles can cause conflict.
Understanding something about discourse strategies helps Westerners and Chinese grasp each other better.
An analysis of the way words are used, as well as non-verbal communication signals, is imperative for seasoned translators.
Yet even if Chinese friends or interpreters are fluent in English (or another language), it’s important to realize that they bring Chinese cultural beliefs and values to every interaction. Thus, successful communication requires an understanding of culture as well as language.
For this reason I heartily urge all foreigners to become familiar with basic Confucian principals.
Likewise, Chinese businessmen I know appreciate that the Western style differs from their way of doing things – and so they study Western business practices.
For example, Western corporate thinking is driven by utilitarian doctrine: Western businessmen are goal-oriented, focused, against rhetorical speaking, and inclined to act deductively. Consequently, even modern, young Chinese businessmen may perceive Westerners as aggressive and forceful in their conversation and behavior.
Similarly, Western businessmen, experts and tourists may feel baffled by the oblique and meandering Chinese conversational style. Chinese communication patterns are heavily influenced by Confucian traditions - not by deductive reasoning. This ancient system emphasizes face relationships and interpersonal politeness over efficiency.
The dynamics of a business conversation could be broken into four parts: the introduction, the exchange of information, the sell, and closing the deal. Anglo-Americans and Europeans frequently feel very eager to get right down to business and clinch the deal; Chinese prefer to build rapport and establish understanding about why the business is mutually advantageous. They prefer to slowly build trust.
Chinese discourse derives from ancient Confucian ethics still revered in China today. Ancient Chinese society laid down specific rules governing proper human relationships. In fact, Confucian communication etiquette espouses four cardinal principals: respectfulness – making sure no face is lost; modesty – never bragging, being self-denigrating; refinement – acting with dignity and grace; and open-heartedness – behaving toward the other person with kindness, generosity and warmth.
This last attribute is based on 人 – “ren” - the Chinese character that encompasses compassion, empathy and feeling for all human beings. According to Confucian thought, a perfect gentleman embodies “ren” in all of his actions, not just speaking. He must think of others before himself, and take their needs into consideration before making decisions. He must share knowledge and resources, and strive to create community and harmony among groups.
This final point - striving to create harmony in a group - frequently baffles Westerners. In a group situation, Chinese businessmen will structure the way they talk quite differently than Westerners. Often, Chinese style includes quick speech, frequent turn-taking, avoidance of pauses, repetitious speech, and participatory leadership. All of these things confuse foreigners. Western businessmen may not be able to follow the conversational flow because the Chinese may speak too fast at times, or move quickly, jumping from point to point in a non-linear fashion. Moreover, topics and sentences are often repeated by various group members, sometimes several times. A Chinese subordinate could finish, or add to the sentence spoken by his leader; this is considered highly inappropriate by Western standards.
Chinese conversational norms, remember, are based on Confucian ideology. The goal of the speakers is to convey warmth, affiliation, and a sense of solidarity - as opposed to simply exchanging information, clinching a deal efficiently and going on to the next thing. Every Chinese wants the people involved, foreign and Chinese alike, to feel as if he or she is being treated as a friend rather than a business partner. During business negotiations personal experiences are brought up in order to generate warmth and connection between the parties. Small talk and personal vignettes encourage closer relationships. In contrast, Westerners separate the personal from the business, and feel frustrated by this “excess” chat.
In conclusion, Confucian tradition values the subtle aspects of feeling and relationship over the impersonal transmission of information. The Western way of channeling facts is efficient but impersonal. These cultural differences in assumptions about the function of language have significant effects on Chinese/Western communications, despite the fact that either party may be bilingual. The best thing to do when in China is relax; Enjoy the relationship building process. Consider the idea that business deals represent more than mutually beneficial contracts: they also can establish long-term interpersonal cooperation and harmony for everyone involved.
Loading ...
January 20th, 2009 at 7:39 am
She’s a very smart cookie. Foreigners have got to start adapting to Chinese style in order to understand how to deal with Asians. As a Chinese I have had years and years of experience with foreigners; very few take the time and trouble to get familiar with or even read Confucius - but we Chinese try to understand Western philiosophy in order to do business with the Western mindset. As China gets stronger and stronger Westerners will have to put more energy toward studying the Eastern mind, and perhaps even Chinese language. There are more Chinese Internet users now than English - that’s a pretty potent sign, don’t ya think?
January 21st, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Nah…
January 21st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Hi Tai Wu,
Excellent point. One of my favorite culture books is called “When Cultures Collide,” by Richard D. Lewis. Mr. Lewis maps out how to understand many business cultures of the world, country by country. As the world becomes more globalized, these cultures indeed will collide as they never have before.
The United States has long enjoyed relative isolation thanks to oceans of seperation (the Atlantic and Pacific), and neighborly but fenced off relations with those to the north and south. But it has basked in its English-centricity for too long.
Europeans are further ahead linguistically, thanks to their physical interconnectedness.
As geography begins to play second fiddle to the Internet, global travel, and other elements of globalization, and China emerges as another superpower, the world will no longer have the luxury of avoiding the tenets of Confucianism and quite possibly the written characters upon which Chinese civilization was constructed.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:59 am
Great Article… I appreciated learning about significant and interesting differences in the way the two cultures perceive (misperceive) communications. This reminds me of Deborah Tannen’s book, “You Just Don’t Understand”, which explores how men and women can interpret the same question and answer quite differently: “Can we stop for coffee?” as “Can we talk now?” (woman), but “No thanks, I’m not thirsty” (man).
Of course there are other cultures and countries that slide by the intended communication and others that try to preserve customs and language (France). From understandably a Western tradition, I’d say that movement to learn the other’s culture and true communication is grounded in, yes, American pragmatism … let’s get to the goal. If it takes learning Confucian principles, so be it, and Darwinian survival inserts itself into business; we’ve had only a relative minute of time since our inception to learn and practice this vs milennia of venerable Asian tradition. How long was it that Japan and China had fiercely walled themselves off from the West?
Maybe Asian countries also ultimately use the same pragmatic intent when exercising respectful relationships in the pursuit of their own closely held goals.
Keep up your good work of 3-D writing.