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5.3 Collectivism and Inpidualism 16
Conclusion 18
Acknowledgements 20
References 21
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
There is an upsurge of match-making programs and dating advertisements are gaining popularity. Traditionally, a dating advertisement is posted by the single in newspaper and magazines to find an ideal partner in marriage. Nowadays many people prefer putting their dating advertisements online for more potential readers. Compared with printed ones online dating advertisements have no limit of word expression and can reveal more aspects of the advertiser.
As a social activity, dating advertising is bound to be influenced by the culture, social values, thinking patterns etc. in its own community. The process of mate-selection is concerned with comprehensive social factors and dating ads can be regarded as a barometer of social culture and value orientation.
Dating ads are usually composed of two parts: self-introduction and the requirements of partner. It covers the contents like physical attractiveness, personality, interest, economic conditions etc. thus can reflect modern youth’s values in marriage. People from different countries show their concern to different qualities in their dating ads and these ads in turn reflect their different views and values. What are people’s mate-selecting standards like nowadays and what do they value most? What are the differences between Chinese and American dating ads and the hidden culture? A research into modern dating ads can offer us a clue for the answers.
1.2 Research Significance
This paper aims at making a contrastive study between Chinese and American dating advertisements to show their differences and similarities. According to the data results the author will employ Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to find out the cultural contrast in China and America.
For many years, researches on dating ads focus on the lexical and syntactical level. The study on the hidden cultural values is seldom touched upon. In a world that changes happen with each passing day, people’s ideas are changing rapidly. So it’s necessary to keep pace with times and find out people’s preferences and value orientation in modern society.
Through this research we could understand more thoroughly about the cultural factors behind the dating ads so as to promote and encourage cross-cultural communication.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Previous studies at home
Domestic research on dating ads began in the 1980s. In her article, The Contemporary Criteria of Chinese Male-selection, Li (1989) did a quantitative investigation with 300 samples chosen randomly from newspapers and magazines. She analyzed the main factors which affect people’s male selection and to what extend these factors influence the process of male-selecting. The result shows that Chinese pay more attention to age, height and marital status than people from other cultures while people from other cultures pay more attention to religion, nationality and affection. Huang (2001) analyzed Chinese and English dating ads and made a comparison from the perspective of language itself. The discourse structure of Chinese dating ads and English dating ads are similar. As for discourse features, he came to the following conclusions: In dating ads, first person and third person are usually used. Most dating ads are composed by elliptical sentences with specific structure and format.
In recent years, other scholars have paid due attention to dating ads. Chen and Li (2007), taking the concept of “register” as the starting point, elaborated the characteristics of dating ads under its own register, mainly in its discourse structure and linguistic characteristics. She found that significant differences exist between Chinese and English dating ads in the aspect of their diction, syntax and rhetoric. Chinese dating ads, complex in syntax and flexible in rhetoric, were more substantial in words than English ones due to different register. Shi (2014) using appraisal theory founded by Martin, compared 60 pieces of Chinese and Britain dating ads from the perspective of attitudinal resources. Yue (2005) analyzed 404 dating ads collected from Tianjin’s local newspapers and 432 Boston’s ones from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. He found that men care more about the appearance and figure of their future spouse while women pay more attention to the potential partner’s resource and promise. Tianjin’s advertisers value promises while Boston’s advertisers value spiritual communication and enjoyment. Ji (2007) analyzed differences in cultural values manifested by the dating ads between China and America. She found that American value inpidualism and treat marriage as inpidual behavior. While Chinese value collectivism and treat marriage as social behavior. American tend to pay more attention to the future and show tolerance to their past relationships. ,源^自#751*文·论~文]网[www.751com.cn