On Communication Skills of Language in International Business Negotiation英语专业毕业论文.doc

ContentsAbstract1Introduction1Chapter 1 International Business Negotiation21.1 Definition of International Business Negotiation21.2 Features of International Business Negotiation2Chapter 2 Problems of the Communication in International Business Negotiation52.1 Pragma-Linguistic Failures in International Business Negotiation52.2 Socio-Pragmatic Failures in International Business Negotiation6Chapter 3 The Strategies of the Language Communication in International Business Negotiation93.1 The Strategies of Listening93.3.1 Passive Listening103.3.2 Acknowledgment103.3.3 Active Listening103.2 The Strategies of Asking Questions113.2.1 Manageable Questions123.2.2 Unmanageable Questions143.3 The Strategies of Answering163.3.1 Refusing to Answer163.3.2 Slipping Over the Questions17Conclusion19Notes20Bibliography21Acknowledgements22On Communication Skills of Language in International Business Negotiation Abstract: With the development of economic globalization, international trade has developed greatly. International trade negotiation is inevitable crossborder business. The content of business negotiations concerning the interests of both the results of the negotiations or both parties may have a greater business impact, therefore, the negotiations should take a good business negotiations, successfully reached the purpose of negotiation. This paper gives a definition about business negotiation and finds some problems in business negotiation, then, analyses the communication skills of language in business negotiation from three aspects, i.e., listening, asking and answering. Key words: business negotiation; communication skills; strategy摘要：随着经济全球化的发展，国际贸易也越来越发达。国际贸易中跨国的商务谈判在所难免。商务谈判的内容涉及到谈判双方的利益。谈判的结果对双方或各方的业务发展产生较大的影响。因此，在谈判中应尽可能的把握商务谈判的交际技巧，顺利达到谈判的目的。本文从商务谈判的定义及意义出发，分析商务谈判中存在的一些问题，并从听、问、答三个方面来陈述商务谈判的语言技巧。关键词：商务谈判；交际技巧；策略IIntroductionWith economic development, business negotiations become more and more frequent. Negotiation needs language as a tool to complete. Language serves as a bridge in the business negotiation, because business negotiation is substantially a process that both sides of negotiators express their views, exchange opinions in order to persuade their opponents with persuading words. This thesis, taking business discourse as a target for analysis, tends to describe the rules and conventions of business discourse, that is, to show general language strategies to achieve communicative purposes. This thesis is divided into three chapters.Chapter one introduces and clarifies the major definitions involved in International Business Negotiations and their features.Chapter two is devoted to the manifestations of failures in International Business Negotiation. Failures in International Business Negotiation are classified into Pragmatic Failures and Linguistic Failures. This paper also analysis the reasons leading to these Failures.Chapter three elaborates and proposes the language strategies which fall into different types of negotiations and are significant in facilitating communicative interaction.In short, communication skills are vital to successful negotiations. With the proper strategies of listening, asking questions and answering, people can achieve the goal of negotiations.Chapter 1 International Business NegotiationIn this chapter, two aspects of Business are discussed: first, the definitions of International Business Negotiation; second, the features of International Business Negotiation. 1.1 Definition of International Business NegotiationInternational Business Negotiation is an umbrella term that covers various types of business negotiations at the international level. More specifically, “International Business Negotiation includes such activities as importing and exporting and certainly all of the invisibles. Negotiations of this kind are never straightforward and simple.”1 Owing to the fact that the negotiators come from different culture backgrounds, International Business Negotiation is more complicated and the clash of cultures that occurs during the communication between the parties make negotiations more difficult. While compromise is necessary in all negotiations, it becomes complicated, even more compelling, when different cultural backgrounds are involved. 1.2 Features of International Business NegotiationThe unique character of International Business Negotiation, compared with domestic Business Negotiation, is that the former is influenced by a wide diversity of environments. Under the international setting, ones counterpart in the negotiation is very different in contrast to the domestic one. Therefore, the negotiator will encounter complicated situations. Some unimportant factors such as facial expressions in domestic Business Negotiation may be crucial in International Business Negotiation and sometimes could even become barriers to the success of negotiation. A number of theorists have discussed and summarized the special features of International Business Negotiation, and according to their research there should be at least four features as follows:Firstly, as International Business Negotiation is not only Business Negotiation, but also an international communication activity, it is highly policy-restricted. As a part of the whole economic relationship between two countries or regions, the business connection of the negotiating parties often involves their political and diplomatic relationship. Therefore, the national guidelines and foreign policy of country should be observed strictly in International Business Negotiation.Secondly, International Business Negotiation may result in international asset transportation and international monetary transfer, etc. Therefore, International Business Negotiation should follow International Law of Commerce and other international practices.Thirdly, International Business Negotiation is generally influenced by a wide variety of environments, including cultural and sub-cultural differences, foreign bureaucracy, political and economic instability and so on, which will increase the risk of failure and lengthen the time it takes to arrive at a deal because negotiators may pursue different paths of logic, have different ways of thinking, follow different criteria, or take different decision-making processes. Therefore, negotiators should be quipped with profound knowledge and excellent negotiation skills to guarantee the success of the negotiation.Fourthly, International Business Negotiation is not just cooperation or conflict, but the contracting unity of cooperation and conflict. It is not the process of pursuing the benefit of one side, but the one of adjusting the needs of both sides to reach a win-win outcome. It is not the unlimited exertion of one culture, but the balanced consideration of both cultures. There are not only the principles to be persisted in, but also the strategies to be adopted. Therefore, the negotiation is not only the matter of science, but also the combination of science and art.These features make International Business Negotiation distinctive from domestic negotiations. For the negotiators in International Business Negotiation, a win-win outcome is more desirable because any loss of one party means not only the loss of the profit, but also the loss of the competence in international market. In addition, culture differences play a more important role in International Business Negotiations, and sometimes may become a decisive factor in the negotiations.Chapter 2 Problems of the Communication in International Business NegotiationPeople are frequently influenced by their mother tongue or culture in the process of using the target language, which forms inter language between the mother tongue and the target language. It is inevitable that people generate pragmatic differences in distinct cultural background and pragmatic principle if they communicate with each other in different ways. These differences will affect communication，leading to message misguidance, message error and message obstacles, the study of which is called cross-cultural pragmatics which deals with how a learner should properly use language in different cultures. In communication, if one participant produces pragmatic failure, another participant will be led to misunderstanding, which will affect communication successfully.This chapter will discuss different manifested of pragmatic failure, that is to say, various forms of pragmatic failure are manifested in communication. It is accepted that people not only have different education but are in different cultural background and linguistic situation. Accordingly they will produce different pragmatic failure when they communicate with each other. In this section, pragmatic failures in International Business Negotiation are classified into two groups: pragma-linguistic failure and socio-pragmatic failure. The same explanation can also be applied to pragma-behavior failure.2.1 Pragma-Linguistic Failures in International Business NegotiationTomas defines pragma-linguistic transfer as “the inappropriate transfer of speech act strategies from one language to another, or the transferring from the mother tongue to target language of utterances which are semantically equivalent, but which, force in the target language.” In the context of International Business Negotiation, due to the variety of negotiators nationalities and different proficiency level of language use, pragma-linguistic failure is common. It can occur at different levels, such as grammar, semantics and cognition. Below is an example of prama-linguistic failure in International Business Negotiation context.In a business negotiation concerning the technology to be adopted in a certain project, the chief negotiator from the foreign company insisted that a second experiment be carried out, and said to the engineer of the Chinese company, “I can not bear to part with anything.” These sentence was translated as: “我不能容忍一知半解。”（The correct translation should be: “我不能容忍放弃。”） As a result, the Chinese engineers refused to take part in the experiment because they misunderstood the meaning of their scanty knowledge, which baffled the negotiators from the foreign company as well. (Wang Tao, 2002) In this example, the word “part” followed by “with” means “to give away” or “stop having” instead of meaning “separate into parts”. Such pragma-linguistic failure finds no way to be made up after negotiation because the mistranslation seriously affected the process of international communication.2.2 Socio-Pragmatic Failure in International Business NegotiationIntercultural communication involves individuals in contact negotiating meanings at the local level, but drawing on frames and norms derived from their own cultural habits and identities. Between negotiating parties, cross-cultural socio-pragmatic failures may occur not only because of different misinterpretation caused by the lack of related linguistic knowledge on lexical, grammatical and syntactical features, but also because of different understanding of cultural norms, namely, the different understanding of evaluations of behavior. Below is an example of socio-pragmatic failure in International Business Negotiation context.Mr. Liu is an executive officer of a branch of an international company in China, while Mr. John Stuart is president of Accounting Consulting Company in the America.Mr. Stuart: I am John Stuart. Its nice to meet you. This is my business card.Mr. Liu: Im Liu Chao. This is my business card.Mr. Stuart: (a little bit surprised by Liu for not reading his business card) Lets come to the point. In my opinion, the proposal put forward by the shareholders is fair and reasonable as far as the company is concerned.Mr. Liu: We admit that the explanation in agreement may be not as clear as it should be and is liable to cause mistakes. Perhaps you could explain it to the shareholders, and we find some time for further discussion.Mr. Stuart (a little cross) Well, it is a tough question. I dont think I could help you. (Du Kaiqun, 2005)For the native English speakers, the expression of “Perhaps you could” does not mean suggestion; instead, it sounds more like an order. In general, it is often used by the people of high social status to those of lower social status or by the teachers to the students.Chapter 3 the Strategies of the Language Communication in International Business NegotiationGiven the many ways that communication can be disrupted and distorted, we can only marvel at the extent to which negotiator can actually understand each other. Failures and distortions in perception, cognition, and communication are the most dominant contributors to breakdowns and failures in International Business Negotiation. Research cannot directly confirm this assertion because the processes of perception, cognition, and communication are so intertwined with other major factors, including commitment to ones own position and objectives, the nature of negotiating process, the use of power and the negotiators personalities. Nevertheless, as we discussed above, research consistently demonstrates that even thee parties whose actual goals are compatible or integrative may either fail to reach agreement or reach suboptimal agreement because of the misperceptions of the other party or because of breakdowns in the communication process.Three main techniques have been proposed for improving communication in International Business Negotiation: the use of listening, questioning and answering.3.1 The Strategies of ListeningCommercial negotiation is very important in the economical activities of enterprises. In the course of negotiation, listening is the basic and essential means to comprehend and master the opinion and intension of the opposite side and basis of working out negotiation strategy. So, we must be good at listening and know how to listen.Active listening and reflecting are terms that are commonly used in the helping professions such as counseling and therapy. Counselors recognize that communications are frequently loaded with multiple decades since Carl Rogers advocated this key communication dynamic, interest in listening skill, and active listening in particular, has continued to grow generally and in business and organizational setting. So there are three points we need pay attention, that is Passive listening, acknowledgment and active listening.3.3.1 Passive ListeningPassive listening involves receiving the message while providing no feedback to the sender about the accuracy or completeness of reception. Sometimes passive listening is itself enough to keep a communicator sending information. Negotiators whose counterpart is talkative may find that their best strategy is t