【正文】 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(jì)學(xué)院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 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 of thinking as something that vary according to different culture situation. People from different culture background tend to have different patterns of thinking. Different thinking styles in turn make people municate quite differently with each other。 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(jì)學(xué)院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 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。Fred Plog (1990, cited in Samovar, Porteramp。Fred Plog and Samovar, Porteramp。 therefore, the author attempt to write this essay about patterns of thinking and intercultural munication, which may provide some inspiration for municators and researchers. 湖南涉外經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 3 Chapter 1 Literature Review With the world globalization, intercultural munication has been being more and more often in many fields. in order to have good intercultural munication, many scholars made many efforts in research on relevant knowledge about it. Successful study of intercultural munication demands a good Understanding of some terms concerned .In this chapter, these terms such as culture, intercultural munication, thought patterns and so on will be defined so as to set a foundation for the further exploration of the different thought patterns between Chinese and Americans and their influences on munication. The Definition of Culture What is culture? How can this broad concept be defined? Although we carry it with us wherever we go, and it influences how we respond to the people we meet, it is still the one of the two or three most plicated words in the English language(Williams, 1983: 45). As many researchers note, it is a vague notion, lacking any unanimous definition. While despite the lack of clarity, the vast arrays of anthropological definitions have been pu