Cultural Adaptation in Science Communication: Comparing Meteorological Popular Science Narratives in China and Japan

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the global climate crisis, science popularization of meteorology serves as a core bridge connecting professional scientific research and public understanding of science, and its cross-cultural communication effectiveness directly impacts the efficiency of improving public climate literacy. This paper takes 3 representative best-selling meteorological popular science works from China and Japan respectively as research corpora, based on cross-cultural communication and frame analysis theories, compares the narrative framework differences of meteorological popular science texts between the two countries from three dimensions: professional concept translation, disaster narrative tendency, and expert role shaping, and verifies the impact of different narrative characteristics on public reception through public questionnaire surveys. The study finds that the narrative differences in meteorological popular science between China and Japan are essentially strategic choices in the local cultural context, and the conclusions can provide practical references for the cross-cultural adaptation of Chinese local meteorological popular science when expanding to overseas markets.