Joy Luck Club Cultural Analysis
Analysis of Culture Conflicts between the East and the West in The Joy Luck Club
1 Introduction
Difference between Chinese and Western cultures has always been a main source of conflict between local people and citizens of Chinese origin. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan describes the conflicts between the mothers and daughters to show us different culture traditions, perceptions of life, etc. between American and Chinese culture. In the end, the two different cultures merge together. Nowadays, with the development of globalization, more contacts require an effective way of communication to narrow the gap between different cultures. Thus, in this thesis, through systematic study of The Joy Luck Club by analyzing what are the conflicts, and why they have conflicts, to dissect the main reasons of …show more content…
High context culture and the contrasting low context culture are terms presented by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his 1976 book Beyond Culture. It refers to a culture 's tendency to use high context messages over low context messages in routine communication. In a high context culture, many things are left unsaid, letting the culture explain. Word choices become very important in higher context communication, since a few words can mean a complex message very effectively, while in a lower context culture, the communicator needs to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important.
The communication problems that arise when one speaker is from a high-context culture and the other is from a low-context culture can be seen in the conversations of Suyuan and June, "My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other 's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more", said
1 Introduction
Difference between Chinese and Western cultures has always been a main source of conflict between local people and citizens of Chinese origin. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan describes the conflicts between the mothers and daughters to show us different culture traditions, perceptions of life, etc. between American and Chinese culture. In the end, the two different cultures merge together. Nowadays, with the development of globalization, more contacts require an effective way of communication to narrow the gap between different cultures. Thus, in this thesis, through systematic study of The Joy Luck Club by analyzing what are the conflicts, and why they have conflicts, to dissect the main reasons of …show more content…
High context culture and the contrasting low context culture are terms presented by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his 1976 book Beyond Culture. It refers to a culture 's tendency to use high context messages over low context messages in routine communication. In a high context culture, many things are left unsaid, letting the culture explain. Word choices become very important in higher context communication, since a few words can mean a complex message very effectively, while in a lower context culture, the communicator needs to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important.
The communication problems that arise when one speaker is from a high-context culture and the other is from a low-context culture can be seen in the conversations of Suyuan and June, "My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other 's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more", said