Text Analysis of The Farewell from a Cultural Linguistic Perspective

Abstract

With the development of science and technology, the world has entered the era of globalization. The distance between countries, cultures and languages is shrinking, and countries in the world are interdependent and closely connected. However, at the same time, due to the existence of cultural differences such as history, geography and society, the interconnection between countries, cultures and languages is faced with great cultural obstacles. In this context, it is urgent to understand and communicate with each other about culture, and intercultural communication has become another urgent development demand in addition to cross-language communication.This paper examines the text of the film The Farewell by Chinese American director Lulu Wang. The Farewell opens in theaters in the United States on July 12, 2019, and in mainland China on January 10, 2020. The story of The Farewell is about a Chinese family in which a grandmother living in Changchun, China, has cancer, and the relatives in Japan and the United States return to reunite and give the grandmother final farewell. Billi, a granddaughter who grew up in the United States, wants to tell her grandmother the truth, but she is advised by her family not to do so. The cultural conflict of "to tell or not to tell" leads to a discussion of the cultural differences between China and the United States and the dichotomy between concealing and telling is portrayed through the conversations between the characters. This paper will explore the textual characteristics of The Farewell from the perspective of cultural linguistics, using linguistic comparison, visual images, and textual analysis, and then discuss the possibility and key factors of "dialogue" between Chinese and Western cultures, and appeal to the importance of intercultural communication for cultural exchange and cultural understanding.