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American psychologist Carl Rogers pointed out that empathy is the ability to experience the spiritual world of others, which seems to be one’s own, but one will clearly remains self-consciousness. Daniel Goleman, father of emotional intelligence thought that empathy not only refers to the ability to identify others’ emotions and feel the desires and needs of others through subtle social signals, but also refers to the capacity to give appropriate response. Switzerland philosophy professor Deonna thought that “Empathy is generally understood as the capacity to understand feelings or attitudes of another, or taking the latter’s perspective, while at the same time also feeling in tune with the other although not becoming the other.” (Deonna 2007: 99) In brief, empathy requires that one put himself or herself in others’ position in verbal communication. That is to say, one needs to resonate with others’ emotional feelings beyond oneself.
In the 1930s, empathy was firstly introduced as an academic concept to China, which was then widely used in studies of aesthetics, psychology, philosophy and pragmatics, etc. He Ziran was the first to introduce the concept of empathy into pragmatics. He thought that language learners should understand and feel the culture of the target language country and put themselves in learning and using language in each other's cultural background. In the field of cross-cultural communication, empathy also attracts a lot of attention. Jia Yuxin, Guan Shijie, Zhao Guihua, Gu Jiazu, Hu Wenzhong and other scholars have addressed the significance of empathy for its important role in cross-cultural communication. Gao Yongchen analyzed three kinds of empathy errors, including the hypocritical culture, cultural compassion and empathy culture hither, and he indicated that cultural empathy must adhere to the principle of equality and the principle of proportionality, oppose ethnic and cultural centrism, and overcome cultural prejudices and other negative mind-sets. Chen Erchun and Yuan Zhiming presented that the key to improving cultural empathy is to cultivate cross-cultural awareness as well as to adhere to the principles of practicality, progressivity, systematicness and times.
In line with communication studies in general, the role of cultural empathy in cross-cultural communication has been recognized early as an essential element of intercultural communication competence and a part of interpersonal sensitivity.(Jia Yuxin 2012: 78) As to the concept of cultural empathy, many scholars have their own unique perspective. Samovar and Porter advocated that cultural empathy involves two aspects: one is based on feelings, which means people need to affirm their own positive feelings in a positive way and learn to manage their feelings. What’s more, people should avoid taking the attitude of prejudice and stereotype towards others; the second is the cognitive dimension, which includes the logic to decipher and differentiate themselves with others’ intentions, ways of thinking, critical thinking, and rhetorical possibilities. The writer believes that cultural empathy is that communication subject converts cultural standpoint with conscious communication beyond local cultural stereotypes.
Therefore, cultural empathy requires communicators to get rid of the impact of local culture as much as possible, to understand and grasp the characteristics of the alien culture, and to think in the way of the alien culture so as to find common ground connection and to switch among different cultures. Communication is namely the cultural exchange while cross-cultural communication process is essentially a process of cultural empathy. In cross-cultural communication process, we must have a certain ability of cultural empathy and must be able to grasp the basic rules of cross-cultural communication.
2. Cultural Empathy in Cross-cultural Communication
Since the notions of empathy and cultural empathy have been elaborated above, we should also make clear some specific information about cultural empathy in cross-cultural communication. Only in this way can we give effective methods to cultivate cultural empathy. Therefore, the formation, manifestation and significance of cultural empathy in cross-cultural communication are analyzed in following passages.源'自:751`~论`文'网www.751com.cn