Interpretation of Cultural Conflict in The Joy Luck Club from Perspective of High-context and Low-context Cultures

Jinan University

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Abstract

The Joy Luck Club, a masterpiece by Amy Tan, tells the story of the mother-daughter conflicts, focusing on the differences between Chinese culture and American culture. According to the theory of high-context and low-context cultures put forward by Eward T. Hall, Chinese culture can be classified as a high-context culture, while American culture is classified as a low-context culture. In light of high-context and low-context cultures theory, this paper deeply analyzes mother-daughter conflicts in The Joy Luck Club, aiming to provide reference for exploring the right way to resolve cultural conflict. In this paper, the author introduces the main differences of high and low-context cultures, on the basis of which the cultural conflict between Chinese and American reflected in The Joy Luck Club were summarized and analyzed. The conflicts can be divided into three aspects: different ways of language expression, different understandings of the relationship between parents and children and different ways of emotional expression.