Barriers to Sino-Hispanic Information Exchange Through the Lens of International Education: Spanish-speaking Latin America and China
Abstract
Nowadays, with the background of globalization, not only does international communication bloom in English-speaking regions, but also the integration in various fields between Spanish-speaking Latin America and China has occurred naturally. International education is just one of those areas. However, although the relationship between them ushers in unprecedented development opportunities, China and Spanish-speaking Latin America still face numerous obstacles, especially those barriers to Sino-Hispanic information exchange. Information exchange is an unskippable step for two sides that hope to cooperate well with considerable differences. The barriers involve many aspects, and even though some of them have received widespread attention, more problems are still underexplored. In order to address the above issues and investigate how international education between both sides could develop better, this article analyzes barriers to Sino-Hispanic information exchange, searches for causes, and countermeasures. This study concludes that the barriers are about diverse areas, including not only the language differences themselves, but also the corresponding cultural divides, educational policies differences, cognitive defenses against each other, as well as many other crucial factors behind languages. The radical reasons are respectively the asymmetry, deviations, and the decline in the willingness to exchange information. Based on such phenomena, this paper puts forward the following suggestions: A possible underlying solution to break down prejudices is actively implementing more educational programs, including language teaching and culture outreach. More communication channels should also be transparent.
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