Abstract

Social etiquette is known as a special carrier of culture. The importance of etiquette in the cross-cultural communication also can’t be ignored. China with a high rate of development becomes closer with western countries in many aspects. But there still exist a lot of differences in social etiquette between Chinese and Western cultures. In this thesis, the author briefly introduces the differences on greeting, gift-giving and table manners, which aims to make a better understanding of Chinese and Western social etiquette for the successful implementation of cross-cultural communication.

Key words:   social etiquette, cultural difference

摘 要

礼仪可视为一种特殊的文化载体，同时，礼仪在跨文化交际中发挥的作用更不容小觑。随着中国社会的飞速发展，中国与西方国家在很多方面的联系变得越来越紧密，但是，中西方之间的社交礼仪却有着很大的差异。本文作者就见面和问候礼仪的差异，赴宴和馈赠礼仪的差异，以及餐桌礼仪的差异等作了详细的介绍,旨在更深的了解中西社交礼仪,以便实现跨文化交际的顺利进行。

关键字：社交礼仪；文化差异

1. Introduction
Social etiquette plays an important role in cross-cultural communication. The etiquette is said to be a huge carrier of different cultures. As we know, etiquette always comes into the sights of the public with its abundant cultural elements. At the same time, if we want to find out the culture of a country, it will be a right way to interpret the information from the social etiquette.  Every nation has its own culture, which greatly differs from others. Nowadays, with globalization, people of different nationalities communicate more frequently and with more dimensions.  It is more necessary than important to understand differences of etiquette between different nations.
Social etiquette is also the precondition and guarantee of a successful cross-cultural communication. With the rapid development of human society, the interpersonal communication has become more and more complex with the complicated contents and various types. It is not difficult to discover that the production of social etiquette is also a type of culture communication. So the understanding of different etiquette between Chinese culture and Western culture are absolutely necessary.
2. Demonstration
2.1. Etiquette in meeting and greeting
2.1.1. Different ways of starting a conversation
Greeting is a kind of common thing in people’s daily life, and it also reflects big differences of cultures between Chinese and western countries. When Chinese people meet acquaintances, they often start a conversation with questions, such as “Have you had dinner yet?” “Where are you going?”For Chinese people, they are so familiar with these sentences, and they frequently use them to greet others. But if they greet the western people with the same terms, the person you are talking to will feel confused because he doesn’t know the exact meaning of these phrases，and he will treat them as real questions.