Abstract Nowadays, cross-cultural communication becomes more and more frequent and important. People establish deep friendship in this process while someone may cause misunderstanding and disputes because people from different countries have different understanding of friendship. This thesis which is based on cross-cultural communication theory mainly analyzes the differences of friendship values between Chinese and American culture. It analyzes the differences of friendship values in five aspects: different types, different definitions, different ways, different definitions and different liabilities, states some reasons for such differences, in order that people can better understand the differences of Chinese and American friendship values, reduce misunderstanding and actively participate in cross-cultural communication. Then it is easier for people from different cultural backgrounds to establish friendship and the quality of cross-cultural communication will be improved.54648

Keywords: cross-cultural communication; friendship values; differences; reasons

摘要当今社会，跨文化交际变得越来越频繁和重要。人们在跨文化交际的过程中建立了深厚的友谊，然而有些人却因为来自不同的国家，对友谊有着不同的理解, 在其交流过程中引发误解和争端。本文基于跨文化交际理论，主要是从中美友谊的类型、定义、方式、目的、责任五个方面的不同分析中美友谊观差异，同时分析产生差异的原因，从而使人们对友谊观有更好的理解，减少误解，更加积极地参与跨文化交际的过程, 旨在为文化背景不同的人们之间的跨文化交际有所启示。

毕业论文关键词：跨文化交际；友谊观；差异；原因

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. An Introduction to Cross-cultural Communication 3

4. Differences between Chinese and American Friendship Values 4

4.1 Different types of friendship 4

4.2 Different definitions of friendship 5

4.3 Different ways of establishing and maintaining friendship 6

4.4 Different purposes of making friends 8

4.5 Different liabilities of friends 8

5. Reasons for the Differences between Chinese and American Friendship Values 9

5.1 Different economic bases 9

5.2 Different traditional cultures 10

5.3 Different ways of thinking and different mentalities 11

5.4 Other reasons 11

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13 

1. Introduction 

     Because of many factors, such as economy, politics or geography, different countries have different cultures. With the rapid development of globalization, communication between different countries becomes more and more frequent. When people from different countries exchange their ideas, conflicts may inevitably emerge. That is to say, when people make friends with foreigners, there may be many problems that people cannot predict and understand. For example, there is a short story, a story about different friendship values, going like this. Mr Zhao and Mr Qian were good friends. Mr Zhao was born in China while Mr Qian was born in America. Mr Zhao once lent money to Mr Qian and saw him through. Later, Mr Qian paid off all the debts and interests. Mr Qian helped arrange for Mr Zhao’s daughter transferring to a good school. A year later, Mr Zhao asked Mr Qian to help him find a job for his nephew. One of Mr Qian’s Friends in America got to know this and he could not understand it. He thought that Mr Qian had already paid off the debts so that Mr Qian was not responsible for helping Mr Zhao to do other things.（Xu Lisheng, 2009: 76）