Abstract: Cultural factors play a very important role in international business activities. Whether we can overcome cultural barriers and avoid cultural conflicts is the key to the smooth development of international business activities. This paper analyzes the obvious business culture conflicts in international business activities, expounds the importance of strengthening the cultivation of business culture awareness in business English teaching, and puts forward some suggestions on strengthening business culture awareness.
Keywords: business English teaching; Business culture conflict; Cultivation of cultural awareness
1. Introduction
In business English teaching, some English teachers only pay attention to language knowledge and skills, but ignore the involvement of business culture, which makes language and culture out of touch. However, all aspects of business English involve cultural differences between China and the West. If this issue is ignored in trade practice, many differences will arise, which is not conducive to the smooth conclusion of the transaction. Li Taizhi clearly pointed out that cultivating healthy business culture awareness is beneficial to business English learning, and put forward suggestions to strengthen business culture awareness. Chen Bangguo and Ke also emphasized the need to strengthen business culture infiltration in business English teaching. In today's economic globalization, the ultimate goal of business English teaching is to cultivate compound talents who not only understand international business rules but also master the cultural characteristics of all nationalities in the world. Whether we can cross cultural barriers and avoid cultural conflicts is the key to the smooth development of international business activities. Therefore, it is more and more important to strengthen the cultivation of business culture awareness in business English teaching.
1. 1 Business culture in business English
Culture is deeply rooted in language, which contains rich cultural factors. There are differences in business traditions and customs, business etiquette and habits among different nationalities and countries. In English and Chinese languages and cultures, some business English words and expressions seem to be the same as Chinese words and expressions, but their meanings are different. This is the difference between language and culture.
1.2 Cultural Phenomenon of Business English
Different nationalities have different orientations to different values. In business culture, different countries have different customs and habits. For example, the business people in our China company usually hand over a cigarette when they meet foreign businessmen. In China, it is polite and friendly to offer a cigarette to guests, while in foreign countries, especially in Europe and America, many people are against smoking. It is impolite to pass cigarettes to guests. For another example, different countries and different nationalities have different gift-giving rules. In Britain, it is unnecessary for customers to invite you to dinner and bring gifts. If you want to bring wine, ask the host what kind of wine he likes in advance, as long as it is suitable. On the contrary, in Japan, when you are invited to eat at home, it is impolite to go without a gift, and it will be considered reckless. If you ask in advance what gift you need to give, you will be considered rude. This cultural phenomenon can be seen everywhere in business English.
2. Common business culture conflicts in business activities and their analysis.
At present, business English teaching in China is basically carried out in accordance with the "English+business" model. This single teaching mode makes students mistakenly think that they can speak English and understand business knowledge to carry out business activities smoothly, which leads to students' lack of awareness of cross-cultural communication, let alone cultivating cross-cultural communication ability. In fact, many students with excellent grades find it difficult to communicate when they enter the workplace after graduation. Of course, there are few factors of language ability, mainly the lack of cultural ability. Because in the concrete communication practice, they will unconsciously express their thoughts with the help of mother tongue language rules, communication habits, cultural background and way of thinking, and cross and collide with different cultural factors, which will lead to misunderstandings and conflicts, and sometimes even directly affect the success of business negotiations.
The following is an example of communication failure at a reception hosted by a scholar's foreign friend. At the banquet, China scholar (C) saw an American professor (A) take out a napkin from his wallet and hand it to him, so he had the following conversation.
C: They are beautiful, aren't they?
A: That's true. I bought it in new york.
C: Mm-hmm. We don't have to use them. You can leave them with your important guests.
What do you mean? Don't you think you are my important guest?
In the concept of China people, once the other person is accepted by himself, the way of friendship is often to treat the other person as "one of our own", so it is unnecessary to be too polite in communication. C wanted to express his modesty when accepting hospitality in the conversation. The implication is "since we are very good friends, you don't need to give me a good napkin, you might as well keep it for other purposes." The important guests mentioned in C refer to guests who are alienated and need to pay attention to etiquette. C indirect politeness is to strengthen friendship, but the result is the opposite. In the eyes of American friends, C doesn't seem to be an important guest. As a result, the faces of both sides were improperly hurt, which C never expected.
For another example, when you meet a foreign businessman at the airport, you shake hands warmly. "You must have had a difficult journey. Please let me help you with your luggage. " (You have worked hard all the way, please let me help you with your luggage.) Usually, the other party will be surprised or even unhappy, "No, no, my trip is ok, I can manage my luggage well." For another example, a newly graduated college student accompanied a British client in his sixties to a hotel reservation, and when he left, he said with concern, "Sir, you must be very tired. You are old, you'd better have a good rest ... "Unexpectedly, the old man replied angrily," No, I'm not old, I'm not tired at all. " The confusion and embarrassment of young people can be imagined.
The above two simple examples fully illustrate the seriousness of ignoring cultural differences. The warm and thoughtful hospitality in our eyes is ungrateful to foreigners, even angry and disgusting. As we all know, in the western society that generally advocates the spirit of "independence", everyone is accustomed to individualism, so it is a shame to accept too much advice and help from others, and even more unwilling to rely on the old to sell the old, because "old" is synonymous with uselessness. The proper expression of these two occasions can be as follows: How was your trip? How are you, sir? A little rest will do you good, won't it?
To sum up, in the increasingly frequent business communication activities, different cultural factors will cross and collide in communication. If you don't have the knowledge of cross-cultural differences and different communication methods, you may have misunderstandings and conflicts, and even directly lead to the success or failure of business activities. The ultimate goal of business English teaching is to cultivate compound talents who can skillfully use English to conduct foreign-related business, so as to adapt to the increasingly international development trend of business environment after China's entry into WTO. Therefore, it is urgent to strengthen the cultivation of business culture awareness in business English teaching.
3. The cultivation of business culture awareness in business English teaching
The teaching task and present situation of business English require strengthening business culture teaching and improving students' awareness of business culture.
3. 1 Clarify the guiding ideology of teaching and improve the quality of educators.
Business English teachers in colleges and universities must update their teaching concepts. In terms of teaching guiding ideology, it is clear that the task of business English teaching is to cultivate foreign-related business talents who communicate in different business environments and cultural backgrounds. Emphasize the important role of cultural factors in foreign-related business activities, and take cultivating the cultural awareness of the target language as one of the goals of teaching and learning.
Teachers must constantly learn and improve their cultural literacy, so that they have a strong awareness of the business culture of the target language and have a comprehensive understanding of the political system, legal system, business environment, management concepts, business methods and business concepts of English-speaking countries. Only in this way can students better understand the business culture of English-speaking countries and be familiar with the differences between mother tongue culture and target language culture.
3.2 specific teaching process to strengthen the cultivation of corporate culture awareness
In the specific teaching process, business English teachers must consider the teaching content and teaching methods from the cultural level, infiltrate business culture knowledge into language knowledge and skills learning, strive to cultivate students' business culture awareness or literacy, and combine business culture intervention and business culture awareness training with business English language learning, which complement each other and promote each other.
3.2. 1 Introduce cross-cultural awareness in classroom teaching and pay attention to cultural teaching.
Teachers should not only impart necessary language and professional knowledge, but also cultivate students' social and cultural abilities, so that they can deeply understand the differences between Chinese and western cultural traditions. Combined with real materials, the classroom content explains the cultural factors of social communication in western countries, such as address, introduction, visit, banquet, farewell and so on. It helps students to improve the correctness of language forms, pay attention to the appropriateness of language application, and gradually gain cross-cultural sensitivity.
3.2.2 The teaching mode is student-centered and cultivates communicative competence.
Business English teaching must break the boring situation of teachers' "word for word" and show the communicative characteristics of business English. The teaching methods are flexible, interesting and diverse. For example, situational method, task-based approach, cognitive approach and other communicative teaching methods are adopted alternately to stimulate students' interest in learning, develop creative thinking and cultivate students' ability to think and solve problems independently.
3.2.3 Cross-cultural training through multimedia and other means.
This is a special training to improve students' cross-cultural awareness, which can usually be used in the following three ways: (1) Case analysis: by analyzing and explaining typical cases reflecting business cultural conflicts, organize students to discuss and understand the differences between foreign cultures and their own cultures. (2) Personal experience: through role-playing or field work, create a cultural atmosphere, in which students learn the ability to deal with various problems, understand the characteristics of foreign cultures, and improve their sensitivity to culture. (3) Information introduction: introducing foreign business culture through speeches, reading materials, movies, videos, etc. You can also invite foreign experts to give special lectures or exchanges to learn from each other's cultural customs and various communication skills.
To sum up, business culture factors permeate international business activities and often cause cultural barriers and cultural conflicts. Therefore, foreign-related business personnel should not only have solid professional knowledge and excellent ability to use foreign languages, but also understand and be familiar with foreign political systems, economic environment, legal systems, business habits and business values, so as to improve business culture awareness. In business English teaching, only by recognizing cultural characteristics, strengthening cultural awareness and organically combining language and cultural teaching can we improve the accuracy of students' language learning and application and achieve results in international business activities. Business English teachers should fully realize the importance of cross-cultural communicative competence and cultivate compound foreign language talents with strong cross-cultural communicative competence to meet the market demand.