Communicating Effectively with the Chinese

Book excerpt: How can North Americans improve their communication with the Chinese? A useful and efficient approach to understand prevalent cultural assumptions underlying everyday Chinese communicative activities, Communicating Effectively with the Chinese identifies and conceptualizes some of the distinctive communication practices in Chinese culture. Utilizing the self-OTHER perspective as a conceptual foundation, authors Ge Gao and Ting-Toomey portray and interpret the dynamics of Chinese communication. They examine how self-conception, role and hierarchy, relational dynamics, and face affect ways of conducting everyday talk in Chinese culture. They explain why miscommunication between Chinese and North Americans take place and suggest ways to improve Chines/North American communication. By incorporating instances of everyday talk, Gao and Ting-Toomey offer a realistic and clear illustration of the specific characteristics and functions of Chinese communication, as well as problematic areas of Chinese-North American encounters. Adding to the sparse literature on communicating with others of different cultural backgrounds, Communicating Effectively with the Chinese is an insightful resource that will be widely used by professionals and academics in communication, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, Asian studies, and race and ethnic studies.