Intercultural Communication between Chinese and French

Lihua Zheng

Description

When two people from different cultures meet, they both act in accordance with what is self-evident, that is to say natural, to them, The only problem is that the what is self-evident to some may not coincide with what is self-evident to others. Also, as people have a tendency to consider their way as going without saying or as universal, when others do not act in the same way as they do and there is conflict, they get easily annoyed. As a French businessman in China once cried out « The Chinese ask me if I eat snake. I say to them: ‘I do not eat snake, but swallow insults every day’ ». In fact, in intercultural contacts, when people seem strange to others, often, it is perhaps not that they are strange, but because others judge their behaviour with their own cultural criteria. Every culture has its own behavioural logic. However, the logic of some does not correspond to that of others. Individuals often have the same objectives, but to reach them, they take different cultural paths.

Sujets

• Sciences sociales
• Sciences humaines
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Éditions Le Manuscrit
• Date de parution: 19 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782304047493
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ZHENG LIHUA
Intercultural Communication Between the Chinese and the French
Preface by Louis-Jean Calvet
Translated into English by David Read
ISBN 9782304047493
© Octobre 2019
Editions Le Manuscrit
Paris


By the same author
Les Chinois de Paris et leurs jeux de face, Paris, L’Harmattan, 300p., 1995
Langage et interactions sociales. La fonction stratégique du langage dans les jeux de face, Paris, L’Harmattan, 197p., 1998
Chine-France. Approches interculturelles en économie, littérature, pédagogie, philosophie et sciences humaines, Paris, L’Harmattan, 315p., 2000
Entreprise et communication, Hongkong, Maison d’éditions Quaille, 452p., 2001
Entreprises et vie quotidienne en Chine, Paris, L’Harmattan, 301p., 2002
Les stratégies de communication des Chinois pour la face, Lille, Septentrion, 662p., 2002
Langage et communication. Introduction à la sociolinguistique interactionniste, Beijing, Editions de l’Enseignement et des Recherches des Langues Etrangères, 324p., 2003
Comment les Chinois voient les Européens, Paris, PUF, 148p., 2003 ; How The Chinese See The Europeans, traduit en anglais par Read David, Paris, Le Manuscrit Recherche-université, 219p., 2016
Chine et mondialisation, Paris, L’Harmattan, 330p., 2004
France-Chine. Migrations de pensées et de technologies, Paris, L’Harmattan, 413p., 2006
La confiance et les relations sino-européennes, Paris, L’Harmattan, 340p., 2010
La communication et les jeux de face. Une approche sociolinguistique interactionniste, Shanghai, Editions de l’Enseignement des Langues Etrangères, 415p., 2012
La norme ISO 9000 en Chine. Une approche interculturelle, Paris, Le Manuscrit Recherche-université, 249p., 2012
L’écrit au travail. Une introduction à la linguistique de l’écriture, Beijing, Editions de l’Enseignement et des Recherches des Langues Etrangères, 150p., 2013
Ecriture et management. La norme ISO 9000 en Chine, Shanghai, Editions de l’Enseignement des Langues Etrangères, 174p., 2013
Culture et management, Paris, L’Harmattan, 323p., 2013
Chine-France. Connaître et reconnaître, Paris, Le Manuscrit Recherche-université, 545p., 2017


"China-Europe Intercultural Space" Collection
Political, economic and cultural exchanges between China and Europe have greatly developed since the opening-up of China in 1978, but the European presence in China does not correspond to the place that it should occupy. Cultural differences are some of the most difficult obstacles to overcome, all the more so as people are not conscious or do not want to be conscious that of their existence. A real intercultural dialogue is imperative if people want to gain a deeper understanding of the problems which arise when the two parties cooperate.
The objective of this collection is to supply a space where a dialogue can be created between cultures by bringing together research centred on the realities of intercultural contacts between the Chinese and Europeans, aiming particularly at the difficulties that European companies encounter in China and Chinese companies in Europe, how each sees the other, the migrations of thought and technologies, the mechanisms behind confidence building, etc.
Scientific Committee
ZHENG Lihua, Collection Editor, Professor and PhD Supervisor in Sociolinguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.
XU Zhenhua, Professor and PhD Supervisor in French Literature, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.
LUAN Dong, Professor and PhD Supervisor in Philosophy and Literature, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.
CAO Deming, Professor and PhD Supervisor in Linguistics, Shanghai University of International Studies.
Dominique DESJEUX, Professor and PhD Supervisor in Anthropology and Sociology, Université Paris Descartes.



Preface
Zheng Lihua has been ploughing his furrow with patience and determination for several years, no doubt ever since the moment he read Erving Goffman, when he was preparing, under my supervision, his thesis in sociolinguistics, in Paris. The subject of the thesis was the communication strategy of the Chinese and it was based on observations in a large Chinese restaurant. It resulted in his book, Les Chinois de Paris et leurs jeux de face (The Chinese in Paris and Their Face Games) . The link between Goffman and the subject of the thesis was evident, because Goffman had worked, in a field englobing linguistics and sociology, on the rituals of interaction. However, Zheng had perhaps also read Pierre Bourdieu for whom "communication is a characteristic case of misunderstandings". This is, I believe, what led him to take the intercultural approach. Since then, he has published more than ten books, some of which are collective works, devoted to Franco-Chinese intercultural questions and the way the Chinese view Europeans. And I have no hesitation in saying that, in this area, he has surpassed his laoshi , his "master", by far, that he himself has become a "master", and that I am delighted.
Moreover, he is not the only person to have made the move from sociolinguistics to the intercultural. Another of my students, Issa Asgarally, after defending, under my supervision, a thesis on the sociolinguistic situation in Mauritius, later published a book entitled L’interculturel ou la guerre (The Intercultural, or The War) (2005). Asgarally had always communicated in three languages (Mauritian Creole, English and French). When in his home country, Zheng communicated in his regional Chinese tongue, Teochew, and Mandarin, before communicating in French in the several years he lived in France. These two different experiences resulted in them both taking the same direction.
Xiao Zheng, as I often call him as a friendly joke, playing, precisely, on the different forms of address in our languages, set off in search of two cultures and the misunderstandings that coming into contact with them can generate. In his chapters, he covers forms of address, the oral and the written, time and space, non-verbal communication, and the place of the implicit in intercultural communication, using numerous examples taken from his own experience. I shall quote only one, which both Chinese and French readers will identify with.
It is the case of a French couple who worked in China for eight years. Their son was born there and went to a Chinese child-care centre, then pre-school in Shanghai, and then Guangzhou, talking to his schoolmates in Shanghainese, then Cantonese, as well as Mandarin. When the family returned to their country, he, of course, went to a French school, and the parents were one day asked to come in and see the schoolmistress. According to her, the child was having big problems, because he kept on telling on his schoolmates: "Miss, Pascal is not listening, he is playing with his pencil", or "Miss, Isabelle is not doing her work". When the schoolmistress said to him "mind your own business, don’t interfere in that of others", he would cry.
Here is how Zheng commented on the incident:
"When they hear this story, Chinese people smile, because Nicolas is behaving like a model Chinese pupil. A school, whether it is Chinese or French, is itself the product of a culture and is a cultural model whose role is to ensure the transmission of values. It is this model which is at the core of Chinese or French people’s behaviour. A Chinese school insists on the development of a collective spirit. Pupils are expected to help each other, both in their work and behaviour and make progress together. When he did this, Nicolas was expecting not a telling off from the mistress but praise, which is what he was used to receiving in China. Part of the organisation of a Chinese class lies in the way pupils interact with each other. A class is often divided into four or five groups, each group has a leader and the members of the group form a unit which is in competition with the other groups. There is often a notice board next to the blackboard showing the grades obtained in the work and behaviour of each group, with red flowers for good, and a black mark for bad, work or behaviour."
Thus, whereas French people may perhaps say that schools in China teach pupils to tell on each other and that this is scandalous, Zheng’s analysis and explanation allow us to modify our point of view, and not judge, but understand. The Latin etymology of the verb "understand" is enlightening: cumprehendere , "comprehend the same thing together", "bind". When two different cultures meet, when cultural solutions are brought to universal problems (Here, I am slightly distorting the title of two chapters of the book), the best path is thus that of understanding rather than that of criticism, laughter or aggression.
I mischievously entitled (pre)face my presentation of his first book, Les Chinois de Paris et leurs jeux de face,. The presentation of this book could be called (post)face . Indeed, some people often ask, when they see the results of research in the humanities: So what? What use does it serve? If people ask what purpose science serves, what it brings to social life, what comes out of research, Zheng Lihua gives us a clear answer for his field. Relationships between the Chinese and the French imply that this understanding of each other must be based on, or permit, better adaptation, which is a necessary condition for intercultural communication.