摘  要

在当今社会，饮食文化已经成为社会文化生活中的重要内容,它的差异也是跨文化交际中影响交际的因素之一。随着全球化的影响，中美两国之间的交流也越来越频繁。从中美两国人的饮食习惯和风俗中可以看出两国人的性格特点和价值取向。本文采用文献研究法、跨学科研究法及对比性研究法等方法，介绍中美餐饮文化差异并分析中美两国人不同的性格特点，以有助于增进两国人民的相互了解、文化交流和推动两国关系的健康发展。
本文由六部分组成。引言和结论外，作者主要对比分析了用餐礼仪、餐具使用、烹饪习惯等中美餐饮差异。同时进一步探讨了中美人性格差异：中国人性格的间接，注重内涵, 不够理性，依赖他人，注重群体与和谐意识，讲人情，而美国人个性爽朗，直接，理性和独立，注重个体意识与竞争意识等。

关键词：中美交流；饮食文化；性格特点

Abstract

In today's society, food culture has become an important part in the social and cultural life, and differences in food culture is also one of the factors that affect the communication results in cross-cultural communication. With the accelerating pace of globalization, the exchanges between China and the United States will become more frequent. The human characters and value orientation can be seen from the eating habits and customs of the people of the two countries. With the literature research method, interdisciplinary approach and comparative study, this paper mainly describes the dining differences of the two countries and the two countries’ personalities reflected from the dining differences, aiming to help enhancing the mutual understanding and cultural exchanges of the two peoples and for promoting the healthy development of bilateral relations.
The paper is composed of six parts. Besides introduction and conclusion, The writer analyzes differences between Chinese and Americans in dining etiquette, use of tableware as well as cooking habits. Furthermore, the writer explores into the personalities of the Chinese and the Americans from their dining differences. The Chinese are indirect and connotive, unrational and dependent, and group-conscious and harmony-conscious. And Chinese stress and prompte a so-called “interpersonal” philosophy. While the American are straightforward and direct, rational and undependent, and individual-conscious and competitive-conscious.

Key words: Sino-US exchanges; food culture; personalities

1 Introduction
With the accelerating pace of globalization, intercultural communication become more frequent, and intercultural communicative competence become more important. United States plays a key role in international exchanges. Whether in the learning of English, or in intercultural communication, we must have a good understanding of America’s history, local conditions and customs, traditions, lifestyle, value, personality traits, and so on. As countries and nations have different cultural backgrounds, communicating parties often feel the cultural shock between different countries and nations. To avoid communication obstruction, cooperation and communication failures in cross-culture communication of China and the United States, the most original method is to introduce cultural customs and cultural differences between the two countries, for example, the dining differences of the two countries and from which can we understand their personalities.