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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Previous research on schema and cultural schema
Cultural schema theory was a relatively new theory. It developed from the schema theory and experienced more than 230 years’ development.The concept of “schema” is first proposed by the philosopher Kant, I. (1781). In his Critique of Pure Reason, he described the schema as “a new concept with the only knowledge which people get to build harmonious relationships, and it will be meaningful under certain circumstances”. Schema is the link of concept and perceived target. The British psychologist Bartlett, F.C. (1932) applied the concept of schema to psychology research in his book Remembering in 1932 and he defined the schema as “an active organization of past reactions or experiences which must always be supposed to be operating in any well-adapted organic response”. According to Cook, G. (1994), “schema is a pre-existent knowledge or background knowledge in the brain, a mental representation of typical instances.” Jean Piaget (1926) used the word “schema” in 1926. In his development theory, children use a series of schema to understand the world. In Piaget’s cognition development theory, schema modification can be adopted in two ways: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the course of events that it brings the external information into the existing schema, which is used to expand the schema continually; accommodation is to create new schema to explain new conditions or modify existing schema to conform to the new situation. In the process of learning and understanding, a person will undergo a series of schema events in his brain, which include activation, assimilation and accommodation.
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2.2 Previous research on the film Pushing Hands
Film is a splendid representative of integration of cultural schema. The film, Pushing Hands, is directed by Ang Lee. It is the most classic representation of cultural difference of cross-cultural communication. There are many cultural schemata conflicts and vacancies in this film. Most of the study on the film Pushing Hands focused on conflicts of cross-cultural communication aspects. For example, Cheng Mengting (2015:246) analyzed four cultural conflicts’ aspects of cross-cultural communication in the film Pushing Hands; Mo Xiaoqing (2004) did research on the cultural identity of this film; Fan Yao (2014:169) studied cultural value concept conflicts
