1. Introduction

cross-cultural communication was defines as the communication or interaction taking place among people from different cultural backgrounds (message sender and message receiver) by Jia Yuxin, a well-known intercultural communication scholar. According to Wikipedia, intercultural communication is a form of communication that aims to share information across different cultures and social groups. It is used to describe the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. All in all, cross-cultural communication involves people with disparate cultural backgrounds, problems and misunderstandings may occur during the communication process. Communication between people is realized by two channels, verbal language and non-verbal language. Nonverbal communication means all communicative behavior except verbal language. As to nonverbal behavior, many western scholars gave their definitions. Malandro et al defined that nonverbal communication is the communication without verbal language. Some definitions are very specific. For example, nonverbal communication is human attributes or actions universally acknowledged by the society without using verbal language. All these attributes and actions are purposefully sent by the sender and consciously received and responded by the receiver.(Burgoon and Saine, 1978). Samovar defined that in a particular communicative environment , nonverbal communication is involved with some factors with information value apart from the language factors. These factors can be created by the two communicative sides or by the environment. In today#8217;s society, the international science and technology cooperation, education, energy issues, economy, enterprise management, public service, commercial activities, environmental protection or even wars are involved with all countries in the world. Low-efficient communication, mutual misunderstandings and other communicative obstacles are likely to result in cultural conflicts, psychological barrier or more severe consequences. Therefore, the study of cross-cultural communication not only contributes to the existent theory, but also bears practical implications.

1.1 Research background

The twenty-first Century is the century of economic, political and cultural globalization. People from different countries with various educational, social and cultural backgrounds communicate with each other more frequently and closely, especially in international business activities and academic exchanges. Thus cross-cultural communication has become vital important in contemporary society which is the indispensable link as the result of social development and frequent connection among different countries.

cross-cultural communication was defines as the communication or interaction taking place among people from different cultural backgrounds (message sender and message receiver) by Jia Yuxin, a well-known intercultural communication scholar. According to Wikipedia, intercultural communication is a form of communication that aims to share information across different cultures and social groups. It is used to describe the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. All in all, cross-cultural communication involves people with disparate cultural backgrounds, problems and misunderstandings may occur during the communication process.

What affects intercultural communication mainly includes different thinking patterns, cultural values , manners and customs, languages and so on. All of these differences are manifested through verbal and non-verbal communication. David Abercrombie once indicated that while we speak with our vocal organs，we converse with our whole bodies. Birdwhistell once conducted a research to study verbal communication behavior and non-verbal behavior of people from the identical culture, it turned out that verbal communication only accounts at most for 30%. Ross research results indicated that the information contained in verbal communication only makes up 35% while non-verbal communication makes up 65%. D.Levine and M.Adelman thought that verbal language which can convey actual attitude only accounts for 7% while non-verbal communication is 93%. American well-known cross-cultural scholar samova and many other researchers think that information in social communication conveyed by verbal behavior is about 35% and all the left information is delivered by non-verbal behavior. That is to say non-linguistic factors play a quite important role in cross-cultural communication. Also, non-verbal behavior can express those complicated, subtle emotions and something beyond words. Because most non-verbal behaviors are done without much consciousness, individuals tend to rely on non-verbal clues as a mean to interpret the true meaning of a communication.

Although nonverbal communication is one of the important indispensable ways of people in the process of communication for it can express relatively more information and also plays an important supplement role in people#8217;s communication activities, people often only pay attention to verbal communication in the daily communication process and largely ignore the nonverbal behavior, let along to notice the distance difference in non-verbal communication. Due to the cultural difference and lack of knowledge about non-verbal communication, interlocutors from different cultural backgrounds may meet embarrassing situations and cause severe misunderstandings.

1.2 Need for the study

Since china#8217;s reform and opening up, Chinese communication with foreign people has increasingly strengthened. Due to the the development of the modern high-tech industry, especially the improvement of communication technology and the progress of the transportation technology, the birth of the multimedia, the popularization of global internet and the economic globalization, people from different societies, cultures or regions desire to interact with each other. In the circle of foreign language study, an increasing number of students and teachers strongly long for enhancing cross-cultural communication ability, which also propels the study in this field. With the social changes and the cultural fusion, the importance of cross-cultural communication is evident and noticeable. Non-verbal communication plays an important role in all communications. It is impossible to communicate without sending out non-verbal clues. These clues help others determine the attitudes and attributes that may not be expressed by the words spoken. Also, non-verbal communication regulates relationships and can support or even replace verbal communications on various occasions. It can be a barrier to communication or the lubricant to facilitate communication.

1.3 Organization of the thesis

The thesis could be divided into four parts. The first part served as the general introduction, in which research background, research purposes the organization of the research were stated. The second part was an overview of the literature, including the domestic and foreign previous studies on non-verbal communication in cross-cultural communication and the definitions of some concepts. In part three, the comparative study on non-verbal communication in cross-cultural context would be illustrated, including the similarity of the distance in non-verbal communication in different cultural backgrounds, the difference of the distance in various cultural context and the analysis of the causes underlying these phenomena. This thesis ended with the summary of the major findings, the theoretical and practical implications, and limitations and suggestions for the future research in the final part.

2. Literature review

2.1 Previous studies on non-verbal communication in cross-cultural communication

Proxemics, this concept was firstly put forward by the cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his masterpiece in the hidden dimension in 1963. He defined proxemics as ”the interrelated observations and theories of man's use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture” . He emphasized the impact of proxemic behavior (the use of space) on interpersonal communication. Hall believed that the value in studying proxemics comes from its applicability in evaluating not only the way people interact with others in daily life, but also "the organization of space in their houses and buildings, and ultimately the layout of their towns".

When speaking of distance, people often think of distance in mathematics or physics. As for human beings, distance can not only mean body distance, but also psychological distance, usually shown as intimacy or indifference in behavior or attitude. In different fields, distance has different extended definitions. This thesis concentrates on physical body distance and the usage of space(seating arrangement and furniture layout) to explore the cultural difference, psychological distance and social distance underlying these visible phenomena to make a contribution to cross-cultural communication.

Germany scholar Maletzke once mentioned that in Asian and some western cultures, personal space and interpersonal distance is associated with the corresponding social class and status. Society is comprised of all sorts of people, each one in a particular society has his own unique place , playing a indispensable role and forming different role relationship with others. American social psychologist R. Brown and A.Gilman divided interpersonal relationship into the most two basic types of relationship: power relationship and equal relationship. Qi Jiafu(2007) in his paper explained that power relationship means that one party has some kind of advantages and another one seems to be put in a inferior status in communication. Equal relationship means that both parties interact with each other in a relatively equal status because of their similar interests, occupations, experience, age and so on. Zhu Wanjin(1992) considered that power relationship is not mutually equal, because two communicative sides can not exert power to the other simultaneously in a certain action range. Sociolinguists think that power and equal relationship comparatively fully reflect each aspects in interpersonal interaction. All in all, when communicating with different people, people exert different level of power to the one they are interacting with.Scholar Deepika Phutela (2015) expounded the importance of non-verbal communication in her thesis. She considered that non-verbal communication can be best defined as a silent form of communicating with a person or a party without using any form of speech to grab the attention of audil ence or to exploit a message. Non-verbal communication is often used to express a thought or thoughts and make your message more appealing and interesting to the person you are speaking. After the brief introduction, She divided non-verbal communication into four categories: aesthetic, physical, signs,and symbols and put her emphasis on physical communication, pointing out the importance and barriers of non-verbal communication,especially physical communication at workplace. Finally,she concludes that learning the non-verbal communication is a very important step that guarantees success in business because not everyone can verbally communicate well, but people can learn how to interpret the non-verbal communication of others.

Researcher R#259;zvan C. Dinic#259; (2014)in her thesis---Non-verbal communication - indispensable complement of oral and written communication illustrates the relationship between animal communication and human non-verbal communication, explicitly explaining each branch of non-verbal communication (body language, tactile communication, personal presence, space language, color language, time language ). She points out that space language must simultaneously intercepted by five dimensions: size, degree of intimacy, height, proximity -distance, inside - out. She states that each of us is surrounded by personal space and has the desire to win personal territory--space distance from which we are prepared to interact with others. She recited Stanton#8217;s four types of distances (intimate distance, personal distance, social distance and public distance), which were combined with the five dimensions. The discussion of this part finally comes to the natural conclusion that small spaces are perceived as friendly, warm and intimate while the big ones are associated with power, status and importance. Therefore, we are often intimidated entering a large space, tall and heavy furniture.

Wei Ting(2009) and Yao Yuling(2010) employed American anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher Edward T. Hall#8217;s theory about proxemics. Wei elaborated five types of body space distance( intimate distance, personal distance, social distance, public distance, remote distance) and the situations under which each type of distance between people may take place. She also compared the body distance of people from different cultural backgrounds. Yao not only briefly introduced Hall#8217;s four types of body distance, but also applied Hall#8217;s three types of space(fixed -feature space, semi -fix ed-feature space, informal space) to explain space behaviors of people from various countries and mentioned that some tactile behaviors and space-using behaviors reflect different social or family status.

Su Wei and Zhao Yue(2005) in their co-editing thesis put their focus on space distance, seat arrangement and furniture layout to reveal various interpersonal and social relationship in different countries so that we can further understand the cultural values and attitudes underlying these phenomena. Also ,from their statements, it is natural to infer that the different body distance, special seating arrangement and furniture layout reveal different levels of power people possess or different social roles they play.

An Xuhong(2003) conducted cross-cultural comparative analysis from the aspects of territorialism, personal space and distance, attitude towards crowdedness and seating arrangement. In terms of territorialism, she traced back to Chinese and English-spoken countries family living traditions and different architecture styles to explain their attitude toward personal territory. When speaking of seating arrangement, she stated that seating arrangement is a important way which takes advantage of space to show people#8217;s different status and interpersonal relationship. She compared the discrepancies of people from all sorts of countries in these aspects and predicted the possible conflicts.

Niu Xilai(2009) emphasized psychological and spatial distance in relation to cultural customs. He probed into the reasons why spatial distance exists in intercultural communication and stated the cultural backgrounds of china and western countries from the perspective of the ideology, natural environment and economy. Finally, he came back to body distance and psychological distance in relation to intercultural communication.

In terms of the previous research on non-verbal communication , there is not much persuasive research and study in this area. However, generally speaking, non-verbal communication study in cross-cultural communication field today has been a major trend for scholars in this area. What#8217;s more, domestic and oversea research status in non-verbal communication of intercultural communication is still on the initial stage, studies on this branch should have been more comprehensive and systematic. Many researchers in this field employ the same research methods and get very similar conclusions, which is a situation that is very difficult to break. In addition, when talking of the obstacles concerning non-verbal behavior appearing in intercultural communication, quite a few researchers attribute them to a single factor-cultural difference, neglecting other relevant elements. From the literature the author reviewed, the author found that most researchers focus on the the big subject-the whole non-verbal communication process and factors, but discuss little on each part, which is not easy for the readers to completely understand any one of the them. This paper is a tentative endeavor to center on the relationship between distance and power in non-verbal communication in order to give a relatively comprehension on this branch to help facilitate intercultural communication.

4. Reference

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5. outline

I introduction

1.1 research background

1.2 need for the study

1.3 organization of the thesis

II literature review

2.1 definitions

2.2previous studies on non-verbal communication

2.3 problems in previous studies

III comparative study on non-verbal communication in cross-cultural context

3.1 similarities of the distance in non-verbal communication

3.2 differences of the distance in non-verbal communication

3.3 analysis of the causes

IV suggestions for improving cross-cultural communication ability

V conclusion