Nowadays,more and more people in the business community realize an urgent need to use English to cope with increasing economic globalization.Some people claim that they cannot communicate well because they do not learn English vocabulary and grammar well.However,we should understand that linguistic capability and communicative competency are two different things.Communicative competency is in fact largely affected by the culture that a language represents.This paper will focus on differences between the ways in which Chinese English speakers and native English speakers communicate in business situations,and furthermore,analyze their cultural roots.The purpose of this paper is to make people be more aware of the difficulties or problems that may occur when using English in business activities,and therefore,improve the ability to reduce or avoid misunderstandings,embarrassment and even conflicts in cross-cultural communication.
