肖焯峰
A little section of my Essay on Business English Negotiation

Hi, I have been working on my essay for quite several days and today I am working on a section that compare the differences between China and English-speaking countries. A very small section I post here. Let's see if you have some different opinions and talk about it!    


          3.2 Analysis of necessity in the reflection of business cultural awareness<o:p></o:p>

As is known to all, English culture and Chinese culture attach significance to courtesies and decencies. It is usually considered that they basically correspond to one another and have a greatly similar social communicative function. But by painstaking analysis it is found that there lie some enormous variances among the usages, which continually result in failures for negotiations. Take “谢谢” in Chinese courtesy expression for example, which corresponds to “Thanks” in English. <o:p></o:p>

First of all, in English-speaking countries, “Thanks” prevails in every conversation, be it daily, business or casual. People live with “Thanks” and they are consistently ready to say it, no matter what. While in Chinese culture, “” sometimes could be really formal and it is barely used among relatives, especially between parents and children, husbands and wives. Therefore, Chinese could be honestly impolite by contrast. Secondly, the replies to “Thanks” and “谢谢” not only varies among the spaces but also the range of application. In English-speaking countries, one commonly responds to the receipt of “Thanks” by saying “You are welcome” or “I am glad to be of help”. While in China, people tend to say “Never mind(不用谢)” or “It is my duty(这是我应该做的)”.  “It is my duty” means “This is what I have to do” in English. Such kind of replies toward “Thanks” could bring unpleasantness to the people who are unfamiliar with Chinese culture and most of the time it generates awkwardness in negotiating places.<o:p></o:p>

Hence, reflecting the cultural consciousness during the English business negotiation is a necessity for the success of the negotiation.<o:p></o:p>

Mar 6, 2017 3:43 AM