Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research background
With the development of economy, technology, culture, media and modern communication medium, our world has turned into a “global village.” People contact and communicate with others of different social and cultural background as their global awareness strengthens unprecedentedly (Xu Jie, 2005:40). There are great differences in social system, lifestyle, family structure, value conception and religious beliefs in western countries and China. These cultural differences can be reflected through language inevitably. Culture is an indispensable part of people’s daily life. Even if we don’t discuss political, social, economic or other issues with foreigners directly, we watch foreign television programs, films, etc. in our usual life. Those international exchanges mostly belong to cross-cultural communication. Among them, cultural aspect is a focal point; and it is considered to be the most challenging aspect. The reform has resulted in tremendous change in our country. More and more Chinese people have moved to the United States. When Chinese people communicate with westerners, they will encounter cultural differences and cultural conflicts inevitably, which will bring various problems to some mixed family if they couldn’t handle cross-cultural problems well. Schema plays an important role in communication understanding as a background knowledge which people obtain from their previous experience. Cultural schema research has become a hotspot of western cognitive study; it is first applied to reading, and then extended to the vocabulary learning, listening comprehension, translation and cross-cultural communication. As an important subject of cognitive science research, cultural schema theory(CST) has a broad prospect of development and application. More and more experts and scholars are involved in this theory’s significance and application to cross-cultural communication for the development and increasingly prominent practicality of CST.
..........
1.2 Research objects
From the perspective of CST, the writer will try to elaborate cultural schema conflicts and cultural schema vacancy in the texts and dialogues of the film Pushing Hands, because cultural schema coincidence between western countries and China is quite common and simple. Characters and stories in the films and literature are distilled from the present social life and they can reflect the reality in some way. Furthermore, the plots of the film chosen by the author are around cultural schema conflict and cultural schema vacancy. Therefore, cultural schema conflicts and vacancies reflected in the film have certain representatives of the differences between China and American cultural schema. This film, Pushing Hands, is directed by Ang Lee (Li’an). It is the most classic representation of cross-cultural communication. Chu Xiaosheng is a computer doctor in America who comes from Beijing.
