Crosscult Lecture Notes (Lectures 1-5)

LECTURE ONE

Cross-cultural communication = The influence of cultural variability and diversity on interpersonally oriented communication outcomes.

International communication = Communication between governments or nations.

Intracultural communication = Communication between members of the same culture.

Intercultural business communication = Interpersonal communication within/between businesses that involve people from more than one culture.

Diffusion= Process by which the 2 cultures learn/adapt materials and adopt practices from each other.

Globalisation = The capability of a corporation to take a product and market it in the entire civilised world.

World culture = Concept where traditional barriers break down and there is a commonality of human needs.

Melting pot = Sociocultural assimilation of people of differing backgrounds/nationalities.

Salad bowl = Neighbourhoods of people with a common heritage who strive to retain their original culture and language.

PCD = Perceived Cultural Differences (Implication that we assess others internally according to a scale of similarity/dissimilarity, in a process called social categorisation.)

Why we study Crosscult

1.     Technological Imperative

-         Global village, communication technology

-         Increase in info and communication opportunities

2.     Demographic Imperative

-         Increasing diversity in populations

-         Changing demographics in the working world

3.     Economic Imperative

-         Globalisation and world markets

-         The need to remain competitive in the global market

4.     Peace Imperative

-         The need for harmony in the world

5.     Self-Awareness Imperative

-         Understanding our own cultural identity

6.     Ethical Imperative

-         Relativity (no cultural pattern that’s inherently right/wrong) vs Universality (most cultures would deem this right/wrong)

-         Cultural values and ethical judgements

Benefits from studying Crosscult

1.       Personal empowerment

2.      Freedom from ignorance

3.      Productive relationships

LECTURE TWO

PCDs

ü  Motivate us to adjust/accommodate our behaviour/thoughts to manage the uncertainty and anxiety in an intercultural encounter. (Intercultural communication is more effective)

û  Lead to reinforcement of stereotypes, bigotry, withdrawal and intolerance. (Negative effects of social categorisation)

Model of Intercultural Communication

-         PCDs between Persons A and B lead to uncertainty and anxiety in an intercultural encounter.

-         If PCDs motivate accommodation and adaptation, this leads to a new culture C.

-         Culture C provides a common ground for Persons A and B.

Note: For Culture C to be successful, positive responses to the ABC principles are important.

The ABC Principle:

Affective (positive feeling)

Behavioural (actions and skills, verbal/nonverbal communication)

Cognitive (beliefs and expectations)

Culture = The holistic interrelationship of a group’s identity, beliefs, values, activities, rules, customs, communication patterns and institutions.

Communication = The transfer of meaningful information.

Features of Communication

-         Symbolism (we assume that others share our symbol system when we use symbols)

-         Each message can have more than one meaning

-         Dynamism (ongoing process, relies on other communication events to make sense)

Culture teaches…

1.     Significant rules, rituals and procedures (socialisation)

2.     Values through communication (reinforcement)

3.     Relationships with others (dynamics of roles and expectations in interpersonal settings)

The Inner Core of Culture

1.   History

-         Transmitted from generation to generation

-         Guides members into the future

2.   Identity

-         Group personality

-         From a sense of social identity, one receives a sense of personal identity

3.   Cultural Beliefs

-         Interpretation of reality (perceptual window through which they see themselves and others)

Beliefs  = culture’s view of what is true/false

Values = determine how people ought to behave

World view = what a culture believes about nature and the workings of the cosmos

Cultural Activities

1.   Technology and Material Culture

-         Food/clothing/travel methods/tools etc.

-         Most visible to tourists

2.   Cultural Roles

-         Categories of people and their expected pattern of performance

3.   Artistic Expression

-         Music/sculpture/paintings/weaving as reflections of underlying themes of a culture at a given time in its history

4.   Language and Culture

-         Language and/or set of interactional rules for conversation

-         Also includes the use of codes/slang/jargon that are only understood by fellow members of the same culture

5.   Rules and Customs (and Rituals)

Rules = regulations and expectations guiding the conduct about how things are to be accomplished.

Customs  = procedures and operational habits within a culture.

Rituals = activities customarily followed in a culture conditioned by the standards and rules of that culture.

Institutions Within A Culture

1.   Economic Institutions

-         Various mechanisms of dealing with economics and work

-         Most dominant one is the monetary economy system

2.   Kinship Systems (Family As Institutions)

-         Polygamy/monogamy/nuclear vs extended family

3.   Political Institutions

-         Governing organisation functioning on both a formal and informal level

4.   Health Institutions

-         How a culture addresses the health of cultural members

5.   Educational Institutions

-         Recognising diversity in educational subsystems and how those differnces alter our perceptions and messages

6.   Religious Institutions

-         Involving beliefs/ceremonies/places of worship/norms of respect/linguistic concepts surrounding worship and spiritual issues

Histories

·         Political/Intellectual/Social

·         Family

·         National

·         Cultural-group

Individualism = valuing ourselves as separate individuals (self-interest)

Collectivism = emphasis on common interest, conformity, cooperation and interdependence

LECTURE THREE

Identity = Self-concept (a bridge between culture and communication)

Conflicts may arise when there are sharp differences between who we think we are and who others think we are.

1.   Social Science (identity related to groups)

2.   Interpretive (identity formed through communication with others)

3.   Critical (identity shaped through social and historical forces/concepts)

Minority Identity

1.   Unexamined Identity (lack of exploration of identity because of disinterest or acceptance)

2.   Conformity (internalisation of values and norms of dominant group + strong desire to assimilate)

3.   Resistance and Separation (growing awareness, distance, the need to assert identity)

4.   Integration (ideal outcome – strong sense of identity formed but with appreciation of other groups)

Majority Identity

1.   Unexamined Identity (lack of exploration of identity because of disinterest or acceptance)

2.   Acceptance (social hierarchy seen as “normal” for dominant group, minority tends to be viewed as unduly sensitive)

3.   Resistance (major paradigm shift – dominant group blames itself as source of problems for the minority, sense of shame for some in the dominant group)

4.   Redefinition (redefining identity to recognise privileges while working to eliminate inequalities)

5.   Integration (ideal outcome – increased consciousness and appreciation of other groups)

Social and Cultural Identities

1.   Gender

-         Not the same as biological sex

-         What it means to be a man/woman is heavily influenced by cultural notions

2.   Age

-         Cultural notions of how people of certain ages should look, act and behave

3.   Racial

-         Based to some extent on physical characteristics, but also constricted in fluid social contexts

4.   Ethnic

-         Set of ideas about one’s ethnic group membership

-         Self-identification, knowledge about the ethnic group, feelings about belonging to a particular group

-         Shared sense of history and origin

5.   Religious

-         Sense of belonging to a religious group

-         Often confused with racial/ethnic identity

-         Conflicts arise when the religious beliefs of one group are imposed on others who may not share the same beliefs

6.   Class

-         Sense of belonging to a group with a shared economic/occupational/social status

7.   National

-         One’s legal status in relation to a nation

-         For some, they feel their ethnic identity more strongly than national identity

8.   Regional

-         Many regions have separate but vital and important cultural identities

9.   Personal

-         We are who we think we are, and contextual and outside forces constrain and influence our self-perception too

Microculture = groups we choose to associate with/collective identities we prefer to maintain/demographics we may represent/ethnic and family origins we may experience based on birth

Rural Culture = emphasise personal know-how, practicality and simplicity over complexity in approaching decisions

Poverty Culture = lack of financial and material resources

Countercultural Microcultures = groups that stand in opposition or perform resistantly towards the larger culture

Organisational Culture = microcultures of social identification (also includes work cultures)

LECTURE FOUR

Sociolinguistics = effects of social and cultural differences upon a language

Semantics = the study of meaning

Syntactic = the study of the structure (grammar) of a language

Pragmatics = the study of how meaning is constructed in relation to receivers (how language is used in particular contexts)

Phonetics = the study of the sound system of language

High-Context Communication

-         1 word can mean 10 words

-         Most of the information is either in the physical context or internalised in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit part of the message

-         Emphasis is on understanding messages without direct verbal communication

-         Members are EXPECTED to know how to perform, so information and cultural rules remain implicit

Low-Context Communication

-         10 words can mean 1 word

-         Majority of meaning and information in verbal code

-         Emphasis on explicit verbal messages

-         Procedures are explained and expectations are discussed

Low-Context Cultures

-         Encourage communicators to separate the issue from the person

-         People do not like things they do not understand

-         Very direct style of communication

-         Seek interpersonal data emphasising personal, individual aspects, not social or group aspects

Translation = the process of producing a written text that refers to something said/written in another language

Interpretation = the process of verbally expressing what is said/written in another language

Translation Problems

-         Equivalency and accuracy (some languages have tremendous flexibility in expression, whereas others have a limited range of words)

-         For linguists, the focus is on comparing the translated meaning to the original meaning

-         For intercultural communication process, the focus is on the bridges that people construct to cross from one language to another

-         Vocabulary equivalence

-         Parable and proverbs

-         Conversation taboos

Code-switching = the phenomenon of changing languages, dialects or even accents

Nonverbal Communication = what is not spoken (facial expression, eye contact, body language)

Functions of Nonverbal Communication

1.     Complement a message

2.     Contradict other messages

3.     Repeat verbal ones

4.     Regulate communication

5.     Substitute for verbal ones in certain settings

Expressions of Nonverbal Behaviour

1.   Paralanguage

-         Rate, pitch, volume

-         Nuances in speech that affect verbal messages

2.   Chronemics

-         Attitudes towards time

Monochromic Culture:

-         People do one thing at a time; prefer to see things finished before moving on to something else

-         People tend to articulate solutions during uncertainty and think in terms of linear (sequential, time-ordered) patterns

-         Time is more tangible

Polychromic Culture:

-         People think about and attempt to do a number of things simultaneously

-         May experience high degree of information overload

-         Time is less tangible (so feelings of wasted time are not as prevalent as they would be in a monochromic culture)

3.   Proxemics

-         Personal space (Edward Hall)

-         4 zones (Intimate/Personal/Social/Public)

-         Contact vs noncontact cultures

4.   Oculesics

-         Eye contact

-         Communicates meanings of respect and status

-         Regulates turn-taking and interpersonal distance

5.   Olfactics

-         Smell (can positively or negatively affect the oral message)

6.   Haptics

-         Touch (communicating through the use of body contact)

-         Can communicate social hierarchy

7.   Kinesics

-         Body movements (Facial  expressions/Gestures/Posture and stance)

Facial Expressions:

-         Conveys emotions and attitudes

-         7 universal emotions in facial expressions (Sadness/Happiness/Disgust/Anger/Surprise/Fear/Contempt)

Gestures:

-         Varies from culture to culture (one gesture may mean something else in another culture)

-         Accessible to conscious awareness, can be explained and taught to outsiders

Posture and Stance:

-         The way someone sits, stands or walks can convey positive/negative nonverbal messages

8.   Chromatics

-         Colours have cultural connotations

9.   Silence

-         Degree of emphasis and meaning placed on silence differs across cultures

LECTURE FIVE

Folk Culture

-         Not the national culture of a nation

-         Traditional expressive culture shared within cultural groups

-         Particular customs, creative arts, rituals and cultural products

-         Not produced for financial gains (no relationship to profit)

-         Not controlled by any particular industry (advertising/media)

-         Expresses and confirms cultural identities/groups

-         Not meant to be packaged or exported around the world

-         Cannot always be practiced by anyone

Note: cultural differences are often highlighted to serve the needs of travel advertisements, product endorsements and international businesses (the line between folk and pop culture is becoming increasingly blurred)

Pop Culture

-         Systems or artefacts that most people share and know about

-         Populist (made popular by and for the people)

-         Produced by culture industries (products of popular culture seen as commodities that can be economically profitable)

-         Driven for financial gains

-         Found EVERYWHERE

-         Fills a social function (acts as a platform for dealing with social issues and relationship building

Note: pop culture does not have to win over the majority of people to be “popular” – people often seek out or avoid specific forms of pop culture

Encoding = the construction of textual meaning by popular culture institutions within specific social contexts

Decoding = the interpretation of the text’s meaning by receivers (performed by various audiences in different social contexts – members have different interests at stake)

Encoders = media people (content creators) who rely on the audience’s social identities to fashion their texts to sell to particular markets

Decoders = consumers (audience) who decode based on social context (social identities)

·         Media responds to the different social and political needs of groups with different cultural identities (they cater to different cultural identities)

·         Readers consume only those cultural texts that fulfil important cultural needs and resist those that do not. (Basically, the readers just consume what interests them and resist what does not)

CULTURAL TEXTS DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT CULTURAL IDENTITIES.

Resisting Popular Culture

-         People resist forms of popular culture by refusing to engage in them

-         Resistance could be due to the way that cultural identity is being constructed, or the way these groups are represented (if there was a form of pop culture that deeply offended you or your religion, nationality, ethnicity etc, odds are you wouldn’t willingly accept said form of pop culture)

-         Not all members of any cultural group have the same reaction to various popular images though

·         People’s knowledge of places is largely influenced by pop culture

·         Pop culture images are more influential in constructing particular ways of understanding other cultural groups than our own (we believe what pop culture says about other cultural groups but not our own)

Pop Culture and Stereotyping

-         Stereotypes are connected to social values and judgements about other groups of people

-         Pop culture creates and reinforces stereotypes, especially for people who do not travel and interact in a relatively homogenous social circle

-         Stereotypes of ethnic groups are represented in the media

-         Positive portrayals do not always equate to positive stereotypes

-         Negative stereotypes have negative consequences for members of that social group and breed self-fulfilling prophecy

-         Preconception from media may yield more positive intercultural interaction

U.S. Pop Culture and Power

-         Uneven flow of cultural texts between the U.S. and the rest of the world

-         U.S. pop culture internationally well-known but Americans are not exposed much to pop culture from outside the U.S.

-         Most pop culture that is expressed in non-English languages has a hard time on the global scene

-         Many cultural groups around the world worry about imbalance between exchange of U.S. pop culture and other popular culture texts and impact of cultural imperialism