A Contrastive Analysis of Chinese and American Views about Silence and Debate

As representatives of western and eastern cultures, China and America stand at the two extremes of the cultural continuum. People from these two cultures hold almost opposite views toward talk. Chinese people always criticize Americans being talkative and boastful, while Americans blame the Chinese for their indifference to others ’ words and their lack of viewpoints. This paper attempts to show different beliefs about public speaking and debate between Chinese and American, and to analyze the reasons that lead to their differences. An analysis of the results of a survey of cultural members indicated four dimensions of contrastive cultural values between Americans and Chinese. Cultural values (e.g., the value of talk) and philosophical factors (e.g., Confucianism and Taoism versus the classical rhetoric of Ancient Greece and Rome) lead to differences in the views about silence and debate