Contrast Between Chinese Greetings and English Greetings

Contrast Between Chinese Greetings and English Greetings
Abstract:As is known to all, greeting is not only an integral part of the language, but also an important part of social etiquette. It is used frequently in daily life. In daily communication, appropriate greetings manners is the key to establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships. Since China is totally different from the Western countries both in its history and its culture, it is undoubtedly that greeting, which is closely related to the cross-culture interactions, may easily lead to misunderstanding. Understanding the differences in Chinese and English greeting well can avoid misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication. In this paper, we shall focus attention on study the similarities and differences in Chinese and English greetings.
Key Words: greeting, English, Chinese, cultural differences, cross-cultural communication
Introduction
  As China enters WTO, the relationship between China and other English-speaking countries become closer and closer. Because of the negligence of the strategies in cross-cultural communication, a lot of misunderstandings appear. It is necessary for us to learn more about cross-cultural communication and greeting differences. So how to start a perfect communication becomes so important nowadays. Since greetings occur among people all over the world, it appears to be a wonderful component of social behavior. To understand cultural differences in greetings better will definitely make a great improvement of human relations in cross-cultural communications.
Greetings are used to establish a communication or maintain social contact. It is a very important component in social etiquette. It is also one of the cultural blocks in cross-cultural communication. To know much about the greeting differences can enhance our cross-cultural communication. A contrast between English and Chinese greetings helps people to promote their cross-cultural awareness. Greetings,...