ArticleMulti-perspective Studies of Foreign Languages Learning http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.10.025
Comparative Analysis of Sino-Western Cultural Differences through the Films The Wandering Earth II and Interstellar: Based on High-context vs. Low-context Cultures and the Cooperative Principle
Yaxu Li
School of Foreign Languages, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot 010000, Inner Mongolia, China.
*Corresponding author: Yaxu Li
Published: October 31, 2025
Abstract
This paper conducts a comparative analysis of Sino-Western cultural differences through the films The Wandering Earth II and Interstellar, employing the theoretical lenses of high-context/low-context cultures and Grice’s Cooperative Principle. The analysis of plot and dialogue reveals that The Wandering Earth II ex-emplifies high-context cultural traits such as implicit communication, indirect information transmission, and collectivism. In contrast, Interstellar demonstrates low-context characteristics like directness, explicit information, and individualism. Further, violations of the Cooperative Principle in The Wandering Earth II often serve to maintain social harmony and convey implicit meaning, whereas in Interstellar, adherence to the maxims reflects a preference for clarity and logical consistency. This study seeks to provide a nuanced perspective for enhancing cross-cultural communication and mutual appreciation between Chinese and Western cultures.
Keyword
The Wandering Earth II; Interstellar; Sino-Western cultural differences; high-context culture; low-context culture; Cooperative Principle; film case analysis
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Copyright
© 2025 by the author(s).
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
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How to cite this paper
Comparative Analysis of Sino-Western Cultural Differences through the Films The Wandering Earth II and Interstellar: Based on High-context vs. Low-context Cultures and the Cooperative Principle
How to cite this paper: Yaxu Li. (2025). Comparative Analysis of Sino-Western Cultural Differences through the Films The Wandering Earth II and Interstellar: Based on High-context vs. Low-context Cultures and the Cooperative Principle. Translation and Foreign Language Learning, 1(3), 542-547.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.10.025