Onthe afternoon of April 19th, Prof. Baotong Gu and Prof. George Pullman fromGeorgia State University were invited to our college to give a lecture entitled“East vs. West: Convergences or Divergences” in the lecture hall on the seventhfloor of the teaching building. The seminar was held by Assoc. Dean forStudents Affairs Cao Xinyu with English major graduate students, undergraduatesand some teachers of our hospital attending the lecture.
Prof. GeorgePullman introduced the theme of speech “Technical Communication” by showing avideo at the beginning of the lecture and then gave a brief description ofdifferences between Chinese and Western Cultures with examples. Prof. GeorgePullman also recommended us a book from Hofstede named Culture andOrganization.
Furthermore, Professor Baotong Guexplained the theory of culture dimensions in the book from five aspectsincluding power distance, individualism and collectivism, masculinity andfeminization, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation and short-termorientation. In addition, Professor Baotong Gu instructed students how to dealwith problems concerning cultural exchanges in high context and low context.
ProfessorBaotong Gu took the writing section of the GRE as an example to discussdifferent writing characteristics among Chinese and Western students. ProfessorBaotong Gu also provided a golden rule in academic writing for teachers andstudents present. He ended the lecture by emphasizing the importance of “readerfactors” in writing and the necessity to take all relevant factors into accountin cross-cultural communication.
Professor George Pullman interacted actively withteachers and students during the whole lecture and they gave instructions forteachers and students as well. Teachers and students asked some questions aboutoral English, teaching writing, sci-tech Writing, interpretation ofcross-cultural communication and so on. Prof. Baotong Gu and ProfessorGeorge Pullman gave professional and valuable answers to each question. Theirprofessional knowledge and humorous style made all teachers and studentsimpressed and inspired. The lecture deepened the students’ understanding of thecultural differences between East and West, and it certainly providedsignificant guidance to the participants about academic writing, which improvedteachers’ teaching methods and brought motivation to all the members of the FoerignLanguage College to persist in doing scientific research.
