从跨文化视角看中美电影中的英雄主义—以《2012》和《叶问》为例_英语论文

An Analysis on the Heroism in American and Chinese Films from a Cross-cultural Perspective—Take 2012 and Yip Man for Example

摘要

英雄崇拜几乎在每一种文化中存在，在银幕上描写英雄历来是世界各国电影创作的重要内容。尽管各国在电影创作中对于英雄具有着某些一致的看法，但在艺术表现风格和对英雄的定义上却不尽相同。与英雄崇拜相对应的英雄主义，代表了特殊的社会文化追求并在一定程度上影响着社会的发展。不同的文化对英雄主义的定义是不一样的，创造自己的英雄来保持其文化精髓是每一种文化的责任和目标之一,不同文化的分歧在于怎样的人能被视为英雄。中美两种不同的文化在对英雄主义的表现上就很好地体现了这一点，它们按照各自的价值系统塑造了各自的英雄。

随着社会和文化全球化的进程，不同文化之间交际壁垒已经逐步打开。在这样一个大背景下，本文以前人主要的跨文化交际理论为支持，以电影《2012》和《叶问》为具体实例，研究跨文化视角下的中美电影中的英雄主义。文章首先阐述了文化和跨文化交际的相关理论背景，其次分析中美电影《2012》和《叶问》中的英雄主义，然后对比异同点并得出存在差异的主要原因，从而得出中美两种文化主要方面的差异。本文不仅是跨文化交际文献的必要补充，也为理解中美文化及英雄主义提供参考依据。

关键词：跨文化交际，中美电影，英雄主义 

Abstract

Hero worship almost exists in every culture. All countries in the world have created their heroes on screen. Although there're some similarities in their understanding of heroes, the culture difference still exits. Heroism represents special social cultural pursuits and to a certain extent heroism influences the development of the society. However, the definition of heroism is not the same in different cultures, and creating their own hero to keep the essence of culture is one of the main targets of every culture.

With the development of society and the advancement of civilization, the limitation of communication is gradually being broken. In this background, this thesis employs cross-cultural communication theory as theoretical foundation and mainly focuses on the culture differences. This paper analyses heroism in American and Chinese films from a cross-culture perspective. It adopts content analysis and case study as research methods and takes 2012 and Yip Man for example. At first, it gives a brief introduction of the background of some previous theory of cross-cultural communication. Secondly, the paper analyses the two films and finds out the main differences and reasons for this phenomenon.

The result of this thesis will be a supplement to cross-cultural communication and it will be able to provide some reference for the understanding of Chinese and American culture.

Key words: cross-cultural communication, Chinese American film, heroism

Contents

摘要 II

Abstract III

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature review 2

2.1 Definition of Culture 2

2.2 Theories of cross-cultural communication 3

2.2.1 Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture 3

2.2.2 Porter and Samovar's cross-cultural communication 4

2.3 Relevant studies 5

3 Heroism in 2012 and Yip Man 7

3.1 Introduction to 2012 and Yip Man 7

3.2 Analysis on heroism 7

3.2.1 American heroism 7

3.2.2 Heroism in 2012 9

3.2.3 Chinese heroism 10

3.2.4 Heroism in Yip Man 11

4 Comparison of the heroism in two films from a cross-cultural perspective 13

4.1 Similarities  

4.2 Differences and reasons 13

4.2.1The origin of Chinese heroism 14

4.2.2 The origin of American heroism 14

5 Conclusion 16

5.1 Major findings of the study 16

5.2 Limitations and suggestions for further research 17

Works cited 18