美中婚姻观的跨文化对比研究-英语--本科毕业设计.doc

桂林电子科技大学毕业设计（论文）报告用纸 IV
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毕业设计(论文)

题 目： 中美婚姻观的跨文化对比研究
A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Concepts
about Marriage between Chinese Culture
and American Culture
院 （系）： 外国语学院
专 业： 英 语
学生姓名：
学 号： 0800610126
指导教师单位： 大学外语部
姓 名：
职 称： 讲 师

题目类型：√理论研究 实验研究 工程设计 工程技术研究 软件开发

2012年 5月 25日

诚 信 宣 言

我， ，郑重宣布：除了参考文献所标明引用的资料和内容之外，本论文中不包含有任何已经被其他高等教育机构所接受的学位或学历论文资料，也不包含有其他任何人已经正式出版的资料内容。
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日期： 年 月 日

Declaration

I, , the undersigned, hereby declare that this dissertation does not contain any material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any institutions of higher learning and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, this dissertation does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except when due reference is made in the text of the dissertation.
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摘 要

在跨文化交际中由于不同文化圈的人的思维方式，宗教信仰，价值观念，社会制度等的不同，交际的过程充满矛盾和障碍。人类是情感的动物，其情感的表达方式与其生活的文化环境密切相关。本文以跨文化交际理论为依据，发现价值观念系统的若干重要方面对中国人和美国人的婚姻观有着重要影响。
家庭是社会的基本组成体，夫妻又是家庭的最主要要素。婚姻关系是人际关系中最密切最长久的一种。但由于地理环境、历史背景、文化，发展过程及其他方面的不同 ,各个国家，各个民族又有其独特的婚姻观念，婚嫁习俗。与具有五千多年悠久历史的中华民族相比 ,美利坚民族仅仅走完二百多年的历史征程 ,中美文化自然会有相去千里的个性。美国社会张扬“个性”,重视个人的权益和自由 ;而中国社会注重伦理生活 ,注重人与人之间的相互依存关系。所以相对的，中美之间的婚姻文化也会有所不同。
通过对本课题的研究，其目的是增加中美两国人民对对方文化的了解，架起沟通的桥梁，使中美两国人民能够互相学习，拉近中美民族的距离。
本论文主要分为以下几个方面：
一．首先主要介绍跨文化交际理论和本论文研究的目的。
二．第一章主要介绍中美婚姻观的三个不同之处，即结婚目的不同，择偶方式不同和夫妻关系的不同。
三．第二章主要介绍导致中美婚姻观不同的原因，主要有几个因素，那就是价值观和经济方式和生存环境的不同，其中价值观的不同还包括文化方式，个人主义和集体主义，还有宗教的不同。

四．第三章，总结全文。
关键词：婚姻；跨文化；中美文化；夫妻关系；价值观

Abstract

In the process of cross-cultural communication, because people from different culture have different ways of thinking, religious beliefs, values and social systems, the communication process is full of contradictions and obstacles. Humans are emotional animals; their expression of feelings is closely related to the cultural environment they live in. This paper is based on the theory of intercultural communication, discover the value system has an important impact on the concept of marriage between Chinese and American culture.
Family is the basic component of society, and husband and wife is the main element of a family. The marriage tie is the closest and longest relationship in the interpersonal relationship. Every nation has its unique marriage ideas and wedding customs because they have the different environment, history, culture and develpment. Compared with Chinese nation with more than 5000 years of history, United States just completed his journey of 200 years; it is no wonder that these two countries have the quite different personalities. American society focuses on the individual rights and freedom, while Chinese pay attention to the ethical life and the interdependence relationship. So relatively, the marriage culture between China and America will be different.
Through the study of this subject, people will gain a better understanding to these two countries’ marriage ideas and learn from each other.
This paper is divided into the following aspects:
First, firstly is mainly introducing the theory of intercultural communication and the objective of this thesis.
Second, the first chapter is mainly introducing three differences in the concepts of marriage between Chinese culture and American culture. And the three different aspects are the purpose of getting married, the differences of selecting a spouse and the differences in the husband-wife relationship.
Third, the second chapter mainly focuses on the factors which cause these differences. And the factors are the values, cultural patterns, individualism, collectivism, religion and economic way and living environment.
Fourth, chapter three is the conclusion.
Key words: marriage; cross-cultural communication; Chinese and American culture; husband-wife relationship; value

Contents

Introduction 1
1. Differences in the Concepts of Marriage between Chinese Culture and American Culture 1
1.1 The Differences in the Purpose of getting married 1
1.1.1 The Purpose of getting married in China 2
1.1.2 The Purpose of getting married in America 2
1.2 The Differences of Selecting a Spouse 3
1.2.1 How Chinese People Select a Spouse 3
1.2.2 How American People Select a Spouse 4
1.3 The Differences in the Relationship between Husband and Wife in Marriage 4
1.3.1 The Chinese Husband-Wife Relationship. 5
1.3.2 The American Husband-Wife Relationship 5
2. The Factors contribute to these Differences in the Concepts of Marriage between Chinese Culture and American Culture 6
2.1 Differences in Values 6
2.1.1 Differences in Cultural Patterns 7
2.1.1.1 Individualism versus Collectivism 7
2.1.3 Differences in Religion 8
2.2 Differences in Economic Way and Living Environment 9
3. Conclusion 9
References 11
Acknowledgements 12

桂林电子科技大学毕业设计（论文）报告用纸 第 12 页 共 12 页

Introduction
Intercultural communication is the process of people from different religion, society, ethnic group, and educational backgrounds engage in communication. Intercultural communication has the same meaning with cross-cultural communication. In this sense it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them. It studies situations where people from different cultural backgrounds interact. Aside from language, intercultural communication focuses on social attributes, thinking patterns, and the cultures of different groups of people. It also involves understanding different cultures, languages and customs of people from other countries. Intercultural communication plays a role in anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology and communication studies. Intercultural communication is also referred to as the base for international businesses. Intercultural marriage is one of the typical and importantant embodiments of intercultural communication, for which the theory can be applied to resolve and analyze the conflicts and problems in the marriage. China and America are two different countries, and their understanding to marriage should be different,too. In this paper, I will use the intercultural communication theory to analyze the differences in marriage between Chinese culture and American culture.
With the passing of the time, intercultural marriage is becoming incresingly popular both at home and abroad. However, the differences in the culture, environment, background, development and values between China and America result in the emergence of various problems. This paper will integrate the previous studies to analyze the differences in the concepts of marriage between Chinese culture and Ameriacn culture and try to find a solution, and this study is based on the theory of cross-cultural communication. Through the study of the project, people will gain a better understanding of the differences in the concepts of marriage between Chinese culture and American culture, and futhermore to analyze the factors that contribute to the differences in marriage between China and America, and ultimately find a practical solution to these problems.
In brief, the thesis tries to study the following questions:
(1) What are the differences in the concepts about marriage between Chinese culture and American culture?
(2) What are the factors that contribute to the differences in marriage between China and America?
1. Differences in the Concepts of Marriage between Chinese Culture and American Culture
1.1 The Differences in the Purpose of getting married
Both man and woman want to reach a certain expected result through the establishment of marriage relationship. And the differences in the concepts of marriage between Chinese culture and American culture are firstly manifested in the purpose of getting married, which is completely different in China and America.
1.1.1 The Purpose of getting married in China
Chinese people pay attention to the interdependent relationship with their friends and relatives. In their eyes, marriage is not only a joining together of two individuals, but also a union between two families. In ancient China, parents would choose a wife for their son. On the surface, they seemed to do this for their son; actually, they did this for the whole family. In traditonal Chinese society, marriage is a family event. When a girl officially became a family’s daughter-in-law, the first thing she had to do was to worship the ancestors and salute her husband’s family. And from this you can see that traditional Chinese marriage was subject to the interests of the family. The purpose of a man marrying a woman is having a son to carry on his family name, which is his responsibility and obligation.
In today’s Chinese society, this kind of traditional marriage has undergone great changes. Instead of getting married with propagating the family race as the main purpose, young people tend to choose “love first” marriage. But it is still not a simple matter for love to become the primary purpose of marriage in a highly traditional society like China. According to a survey about the quality of marriage conducted by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in Shanghai, Guangdong, Gansu and Harbin, one fourth of the subjects got married for the reason of “love”. The statistical results showd that, only two percent of the subjects chose to marry because they loved each other so much, twenty five percent chose the marriage because they thought they love each other before they got married, fifty six point five percent got married because they got good relations before they married, and sixteen percent of the people had no feeling to each other before they got married (允康，2010). The survey showed that not all the people geting married because of love, some of them even had no feeling to each other at all when they got married.
1.1.2 The Purpose of getting married in America
The purpose of getting married in America firstly is for the affection between the lovers to achieve a perfect result. Secondly they want to look for a long-term heterosexual partner to satisfy their psychological and physical needs. Western society attaches great importance to the development of personal independence, and people there have a strong sense of independence and self-centeredness. In western society, individualism is extremely popular, people think marriage is just the combination of two individuals and love is the foundation of marriage. In their views, marriage without love is immoral and of low-quality. An American woman who was interviewed for her opnion on marriage once said, marriage is just a kind of form, it is not very important. The important thing is the feeling when two people are together. If the feeling is gone, then she think their relationship is just a burden and it is good for both of them to give up this relationship (董茜,2000). Louis Harris, a well-known US expert in sociology conducted a survey, and the statistic showed that, 83% of American men and women believe that love is the primary element to get married, and 90% of the American people also believe that love is the first condition to maintain a happy marriage (蔡琪,2000). So from the survey, we can see that seeking true love is the most important purpose of geting married for most Americans.
Therefore, we can learn that, to get married in America is the right of individual, and Chinese marriage is more like to fulfill their obligations.
1.2 The Differences of Selecting a Spouse
According to China Youth Daily in 2009, several teachers and students of Nankai University recently completed an interesting survey. They selected some spouse-seeking advertisments in Tanjin and Boston’s local mainstream newspapers to study the differences of selecting a spouse in these two cities. The survey showed that the words and sentences often appeared in men’s advertisments in Tianjin newspaper were “have a stable job”, “no bad habbits” and “responsible and women’s advertisments always emphasized that they were kind, virtuous and from a good family; while in Boston, both men and women would indicate their races, religious beliefs and hobbies, they would say they loved sports, they were smart and had a sense of humor. According to the analysis of the samples of the spouse-seeking advertisments, a psychology professor in Nankai University concluded that Chinese marriage seekers paid more attention to the economic condition and responsibility, while Americans were more concerned about the congeniality in life and spirit.
1.2.1 How Chinese People Choose a Spouse
China has a feudal history of more than 2000 years; the feudal ideas attached great importance to kinship. It’s a commom phenomenon that children will rely on their parents until they graduated from school. And parents are taken care of by their children when they are old. “To arrange a match by parents’ order and on the matchmaker’s word” is the traditional way of selecting a mate, which has been popular for thousands of years. This ancient way of choosing a mate is also reflected by Chinese people’s awareness of caring for each other and the psychology of interdependent Since the enacting of the policy of reform and opening-up, along with economic development and cultural exchange between China and America, Chinese young generation are no longer affected by the traditional ideas, they get a chance to choose their spouses freely. They believe that being free to choose a mate is also an important part to realize their self-value. When young people fall in love, they believe that whether the partner’s interests and character are congenial or not is an important factor for them to get along with each other. However, due to the influence of Chinese traditonal culture and ethics, today parents still meddle in their children’s growth, and expect their children to develop along the way they have designed for them. Most of the young people growing up under the wings of their parents are not independent enough, and independence is the prerequisite for free love Therefore, parents still have an important influence on their child’s marriage. In a sense, on the issue of selecting a spouse, parents are still indirectly “in power”.
There are two impartant traditional standards to choose a spouse in China. Firstly the girl must come from a clean background, and secondly the groom’s family and bride’s family must be well-mached in social and economic status. The bridegroom’s family usually request that the bride is from a clean background. When choosing a spouse for their son, the first thing the parents do is to investigate whether the girl is from a cl