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The study aims to explore the interactions between parents and their children in Taiwan and China today. Drawing on the data from “Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese” and “Center for Chinese Linguistics PKU, various types of speech tones, emotion and behavior occurred during interaction were found. In addition, the study provides certain suggestions for teaching Chinese as foreign language due to the outcome. The study shows that both Taiwan’s and China’s families attempt to reach harmony while interacting with each other, which can be classified to apparent harmony and real harmony. Apparent harmony means one person shows obedience or concession in interaction, but real harmony means people are true to reach harmony. Additionally, same gender (e.g. father and son, mother and daughter) and different gender (e.g. father and daughter, mother and son) do not have similar interaction in each domestic dyad. For instance, when parents conflict with sons, usually express extreme resistance. To differentiating different types of interaction, the study offers certain teaching suggestions and designs one sample lesson for Chinese language learners. The lesson applies culture-contrast approach and different ways of discussion to help learners grasp situations of interaction, as well as improves their competence of cross-cultural communication. Overall, the interactions in Taiwan’s and China’s families still follow the major Confucian concept, harmony is essential to everything. However, the interactions in Taiwan’s families constantly show respect to individuals’ development, while the ones in China’s families always mention the honor of serving the nation. |