background, they will lead to the deviation of their
perceptions of foreign culture and communication
situations. Misunderstandings are inevitable (Kramer
and Callahan,2012).
2.7.2 Sub-study on the Basic Theory of
Cross-cultural Communication
Semiotic. The key to cross-culture studies lies in how
to realize effective communication. The
understanding of effective communication refers to
the communication through which meanings of dual
particles from different cultural backgrounds can be
completely understood (Tregaskes, Sheehan and
Poole,2004). However, misunderstanding is
unavoidable. The goal of effective communication
can be construed as “misunderstanding
minimization”. Mutual understanding and trust
between Chinese-Thailand people are realized
through dialogues and cooperation in the cultural
field so as to enhance their friendship. Cultural
studies should start from semiology.
Lotmanrepresented Moscow school deems that
culture is information production and circulating
collective symbol, and moreover, culture itself is a
symbol system. Culture and symbol can supplement
each other. Symbol concepts include signifiant
(signifier) and signifie: the former, which is a part
with material form in symbol, is used to express
meaning form; the latter refers to meaning, concept,
idea, culture, etc. Their combination product is
symbol (Huang,Shen and Zhou,2013).
Symbols in the cultural communication include:
verbal communication, such as spoken language and
characters; non-verbal communication including
space, color, apparel, etc. Language is a symbol
system expressing concepts. Generalized language
can even refer to human culture, so any cultural form
such as myth, religion and art can be a language
(Argyle,1979). One of academic pivots of
crossculture communication lies in interactive
relations between different communities of human
beings as well as between different members in the
same community by crossing cultural barriers. What
people discuss about is not only the identity problem
but also involves changes, appearance of new
identities, rerecognition of old identities and changes
of existing identities. Identity studies in sociological
sense generally start from recognition of ethic group
members for their own culture, religion, belief, myth
and customs and so on.
Myth. Myth is a kind of collective behavior,
“signification” and parole. Myth inverts social and
cultural things into products of natural matters. The
reason for formation of myth is that mythological
form (signifiant of implicit signifiaient) has been
formed by the symbol of direct significiaient. The
direct signifiaient has a process of transforming
signifiant (form) and signifier (meaning) into
signifiant (form) of implicit signifiaient. The set of all
kinds of implicit signifiaient is located in the field of
collective metaphors (Meyer and Rowan,1977). Myth
is usually embodied in image form, which is more
compulsive than characters with greater concrete
meaning. Once having meaning, image becomes a
kind of character, which also results in parole
(Ogden,2007). No matter language or parole or
picture, line or other character types are all
rulegoverned parole forms (Seuil,1970). In fact, myth
belongs to a general field of science, which has
already extended to linguistics, namely semiology.
Apparel. As previously mentioned, symbols
include language and parole and apparel is another
expression form of parole in semiology. Literally
speaking, apparel includes costume and ornament.
Costume refers to worn costume and ornament refers
to adorned ornament (Moss,1981). What if an object
is converted into language? Apparel and art use the
same skills with the aim of converting an object into
a linguistic form which can be told, and this is called
description. Description aims at providing a concept
in a way. Apparel is a type of speech. The second
function of parole is connaissance. Apparel can
convey some saviors through shell fabric and design.
Language assigns sur-code to a real apparel, and
apparel description by semiology is conceptual (Julia
Kristeva,1967). Apparel has the following
embodiment forms: technology, profile, color,
material and verbal. When apparel is used as shifter
of culture, apparel converts a structure into another
structure or shifts from a code to another code, from
reality to meaning, from reality to language and from
intention to language. It is a telling form of culture
and politics such as appearance language in apparel.
Research on Multilevel Symbol System in
Semiotics. Symbol meaning is usually of duality and
interpretability. According to the famous secondary
symbol significant system of Roland Barthes,
denotative meaning and connotative meaning can
divide symbols into primary symbol system and
secondary symbol system, where the latter is
established on basis of the primary symbol system,
but the secondary symbol system is never the final
symbol level, and there are even fourth and fifth
levels, etc. As the implied meaning is deepened,
symbol system may develop towards a higher level.
Eco’s contribution to semiology is famous
interpretant theory. He puts forward that