Abstract

In recent years, the marriage patterns have changed a lot in various countries. However, the functions of family and marriage do not change. They still reflect their cultures, religions, economic, political and other related social issues to different degrees. A research into the marriage patterns in different countries discovers the different values of families and their different cultural backgrounds.
Chinese and American social institutions, history and cultural backgrounds are different, but it is impossible to make a comparison of marriage patterns of the two countries. This paper intends to study the traditional Chinese and American adults' marriage patterns from the perspective of cross-cultural communication. The study may help people to gain a better and deeper understanding of traditional Chinese and American marriage patterns. This research will also help us to rethink and rediscover Chinese and American cultures, update the knowledge between the two cultures, arouse people’s cross-cultural communication awareness and promote their communication skills and ability.

Keywords: Chinese and American marriage patterns; cross-cultural communication; cultural similarities and differences

摘要

最近几年很多国家的婚姻模式发生的巨大的变化。然而,家庭和婚姻的功能没有改变。他们仍然能在某种程度上反映出他们的文化、宗教、经济、政治和其他相关的社会问题。在不同国家的婚姻模式的研究中，可以发现不同的家庭价值观,和不同的文化背景。
尽管中国和美国在社会制度，历史和文化背景有很大的不同,这并不意味着两国婚姻模式是不能比较的。本文试图从跨文化交际视角下研究传统中国和美国的婚姻模式。研究会帮助人们更好、更深入地了解中国和美国的婚姻模式的现状。本研究还将帮助我们重新思考，挖掘中国和美国的文化和更新两种文化。并同时唤起人们的跨文化交际意识,提高他们的沟通的能力。

关键词：中国婚姻模式；跨文化交际；文化异同