浅析中美隐私观的差异_英语论文

Different Attitudes of Privacy Between Chinese and American Cultures

摘要

本文基于对不同隐私观念的研究。由于受到不同文化、历史、社会规范和价值观的影响，对于隐私的理解和态度也因人而异。通常这些差异就是跨文化交际存在障碍的原因。为了避免这样的尴尬情况，本文着手于隐私的起源与发展，重点探索了中美隐私权文化的不同，以及产生这些不同的原因。本文阐明了隐私的定义并从多个角度举多例进行分析，包括文化、历史社会以及家庭等因素。此外，也提及隐私观念的变化。本文提出一些合理的建议希望能引起人们对隐私观念的认识并且能有助于扩大英语学习者的跨文化背景，从而提高其跨文化能力。

关键词：隐私；差异性；文化背景；交际

Abstract

Different attitudes of privacy is the basis of this study. It is quite normal that people from different cultural backgrounds may understand privacy differently, which was influenced by different cultures, history, social norms and values. The divergence sometimes becomes the obstacle in cross-cultural communication. In order to avoid those embarrassing situation, the origin and development of privacy and the different cultural background among the countries are focused in this paper. It also proceeds to explore different cultures of privacy in China and America, as well as the causes of these differences. Certainly the meaning of privacy should be clarified during the comparison. Additionally there are lots of standpoints considered and plenty of examples used in this thesis, including culture, history, society and family. Besides that, it is also mentioned that people’s attitudes towards privacy have changed with time. This thesis aims to arouse people’s awareness of privacy and put forward some reasonable suggestions. As for English learners, it is useful for them to enlarge the cross-cultural background and develop their cross-cultural ability.

Keywords: privacy; difference; cultural background; communication

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1

2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………2

3. The History of Privacy……………… …………………………...3

3.1 Privacy developed in America……………………………………….4

3.2 Privacy developed in China ……………………………………........5

4. Comparative Study of Privacy……………………………………….6

4.1 Similarities…………………………………………………………………6

4.2 Differences…………………………………………………………...6

5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..9

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...12