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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Relevant Studies Abroad
Edward T. Hall first put forward the term “intercultural communication” in The SilentLanguage (Hall, 1959), the appearance of which prompted the study of interculturalcommunication and set up a concrete base for the further researches. Then Edward T. Hallpublished his another work The Hidden Dimension (Hall, 1969). The work was based onhis own experience working in the foreign service. High-context and low-context cultureswere thereby put forward in his two books to deal with the fact that how communicationinformation is transmitted.In the 1960s, the number of literature on intercultural communication has beenincreasing. For example, books like Culture and Communication (Oliver, 1962) and ThePsychology of Human Communication (Parry, 1967) were published. These works helpedresearchers to testify how the pervious ideas developed in the study of interculturalcommunication.In 1975, the first textbook on intercultural communication An Introduction toIntercultural Communication by Conden and Yousef (1975) was published and thensubsequent books were followed. The research on intercultural communication hasdeveloped quickly.By the time of early 1980s, many scholars, for example Gudykunst has started to studyconcepts and theories on intercultural communication quickly with great pains (Gudykunst,1993). In 1988, Witkin classified patterns of thinking into field-dependence style whichwas characterized by integrated thinking pattern and represented by the people in theeastern world, and field-independence style which was characterized by analytical thinkingpattern and represented by people from the western world.
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2.2 Relevant Studies in China
Intercultural communication research was introduced into China in the 1980s by someEnglish teachers. Then rapid development was achieved years by years.Hu Wenzhong and Du Xuezeng, in 1998, conducted a study on the cultural differencesbetween China and English speaking countries. They put their emphasis on the differentcultural customs and indicated that awareness of the cultural differences existing in Chineseand western customs is necessary for intercultural communication.Gao Yihong (2000) mentioned that successful intercultural communication processmainly relied on the similarities and differences of the two different cultures. Similaritiesare essential background for successful intercultural communication between peoples andcultures. On the contrary, differences in cultures would bring obstacles to interculturalcommunication. All in all, she studied the differences between linguistics and cultures byemploying lots of examples on a macro level.Then in 2004, Zhang Congyi also conducted a research on Chinese and westerncultures. In his research, he contrasted and studied the subject-object system, physical-psychological system and temporal-spatial system of these two cultures. Besides, he stillconducted researches on the Chinese and western cultures and arts and studied the historicaldevelopment, present state, styles and features of different cultures (Zhang Congyi, 2004).
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Chapter Three Theoretical Foundations ...... 7
3.1 Intercultural Communication... 7
3.2 Intercultural Outbound Tourism ... 9
3.2.1 Definition ...... 9
3.2.2 Cultural Conflicts in Intercultural Outbound T
