Abstract:

This paper aims to discuss the cultural factors which have great influence on interpersonal distance. The author pays much attention to the collectivism in eastern culture and individualism in western culture. The examples show that in different cultural backgrounds and different occasions, the spatial distance has different connotation. The people in individualist need larger distance than people in collectivist culture. It also tries to study the mutual effects between interpersonal distances and interpersonal behaviors. So people need to know better of the spatial distance and keep the optimal distance with others in order to avoid the embarrassment and conflict.

Key words: interpersonal distance; interpersonal behavior; culture; individualism; collectivism 

摘要：

每个人都生活在一个空间范围内，这个空间范围圈就是某人感到必须与他人保持的间隔距离。我们也称这种伴随个人的空间范围圈为“个人空间”。本文主要讨论中西方文化，尤其是集体主义和个人主义对人际距离的影响。文中例子验证空间距离的变化可以传达出各种信息，且在不同的文化及不同场合下所诠释的意义又不尽相同。个人主义的交际距离比集体主义大。同时本文也探讨了交际距离与交际行为的相互影响。所以我们要充分认识空间距离，避免文化上的冲突和言语以及肢体的尴尬，从而达到一种平衡状态，即最适距离，获得良好的交际效应。

关键词：交际距离；交际行为；文化；集体主义；个人主义
 
1. Introduction 
  Intercultural communication refers to the communication between the native speaker and non-native speaker. It also refers to the communication between people with different cultural background. In intercultural communication we can express our intention with tone of voice and we can also communicate with our body. Nina (2010) said  “Proxemics is a subcategory of the study of nonverbal communication along with haptics (touch), kinesics (body movement), vocalics (paralanguage), and chronemics (structure of time)”. In other words, proxemics is a comprehensive concept. No doubt body distance belongs to proxemics.  People should know that there are few misunderstandings between communicators who share the same cultural background. If we treat people from another culture with our own way, misunderstandings or conflicts will occur, which cause unnecessary loss in the communication. Sometimes we can not understand another kind of language, but we should observe behaviors of foreigners. Sometimes we can differentiate the meaning from their body language such as the body distance.