【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 the broadest one is by E. Adamson Hoebel and Everett Frost, who see culture in nearly all human activities. They define culture as” an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance (Hoebel amp。 Frost, 1976: 6). For them, culture is not geically predetermined or instinctive but is transmitted and maintained solely through munication and learning. Some other researchers, like Harry Triandis, define the culture with distinct boundaries. He suggests that culture can be” distinguished as having both objective (. broads, tools) and subjective (. norms, laws, values) aspects 湖南涉外經(jīng)濟學院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計） 4 Geert Hofstede views culture from a psychological perspective, defining it as” the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category f people from another. This definition stresses the mental conditionings that cultural experiences impose. From the perspective of the crosscultural munication, the generally accepted definitions of culture are proposed by Daniel Batesamp。Fred Plog and Samovar, Porteramp。 Stefani respectively. Daniel Batesamp。Fred Plog (1990, cited in Samovar, Porteramp。 Stefani, 20xx:36) describe culture as: Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual, including religion and ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, houses, machines, works of art), and the culturally transmitted shills and techniques used to make the artifacts. And using this description as a starting point, Samovar, Porteramp。 Stefani (20xx:36) advance a definition of themselves. That is “We define culture as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving”. Regardless of how many definitions of culture we may have already known, each culture has shared characteristics. Culture is learned, integrated, ethnocentric, adaptive, based on symbols, and subject to change. In my thesis, culture refers to a set of learned beliefs, values and behaviors and the way of life shared by the members of a society. However, since there are many parts that are not relevant with the thesis, thus, it only deals with verbal and nonverbal system, material products, social anizations, norm, and cognitive system, which are the main areas of intercultural munication. Thought Pattern Thought patterns, also termed “ways of thinking”, make great impacts upon intercultural munication .Patterns of thinking are the bridge of culture and language. On one side, patterns of thinking are closely related to culture: it is a part of culture but restricts culture to some extent. On the other side, patterns of thinking 湖南涉外經(jīng)濟學院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計） 5 have a deep connection with language: it helps the development of language, and language contributes to the formation of patterns of thinking. Patterns of thinking, also known as thinking styles, have an enormous influence on crosscultural munication. The nieenthcentury British anthropologist, some researchers originally proposed the Modern technical definition of culture as socially patterned human thought and behavior. The definition itself tells the close relationship between culture and thinking. Technically, thinking styles are total manifestation of a particular culture. People from different cultures have different thinking patterns, this will in turn, impacts their munication. Since people39。s speech act and behaviors are all determined by patterns of thinking。 hence, patterns of thinking actually determine the success and failure of munication. Intercultural Communication Intercultural munication has been the interests of scholars in many different fields and various terms have been used in the research literature to refer to this discipline. The most monly used terms are intercultural munication, crosscultural munication and international munication. These seemingly confusing terms actually all concern the study of problems caused by the impact of culture and munication, but from a different standpoint. Intercultural munication involves munication between people from different cultural backgrounds. Crosscultural munication is usually concerned with the contrastive study of patterns of munication between speakers from two cultures. The typical approach of research is a parison of cultural behavior or municative patterns among people from the same culture with interactions between people from another culture. While intercultural munication involves interactions among people from different cultural backgrounds in more general terms, crosscultural munication involves a parison of interactions among people from two cultures on an aspect of specific interest. The term International munication refers to munication between people from different nations. Since nations are political entities, this term is most often used in discussing international problems in the political arena and not monly adopted in cultural studies. It is munication between nations and government rather than between individuals. A Description of Related Empirical Studies Many Chinese scholars contribute their efforts in the study area. Early as Lin 湖南涉外經(jīng)濟學院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計） 6 Yutang and Yan Fu, who gave much extraordinary ments on this thinking styles, professor Hu Wenzhong and Jia Yuxin has published many books on intercultural munication which involved patterns of thinking, beliefs and values: Professor Yuan Ying gave a parison of Chinese and American patterns of thinking in her article On the differences of the Eastern and Western Thinking Mode in Intercultural Communication. Chen Xinxia thinks that Patterns of thinking cover knowledge, concept, method, intelligence, emotion, will, language and habit. By interacting with each other, these elements form a dynamic and plex system. Thus, the nature, type, characteristic, and differences of thinking patterns are all regulated by the integrated elements. Western scholars, starting from Dr. Stanford University, first described Karl Pribram, professor of neuropsychology at patterns