Intercultural Communication

Specific Objectives:

1. Define intercultural communication with regards to culture and language.

2. Discuss the nature and meaning of culture.

Intercultural CommunicationSub Topics:2.1. Communications and language 2.1.1 Relationship between language and culture

2.2. The Nature and Meaning of Culture 2.2.1 Concept of culture 2.2.2. Characteristics of culture 2.2.3. Components of culture 2.2.4. Cultural Change 2.2.5. Transfer of culture 2.2.6. Importance and functions of culture 2.2.7. Cultural relativism

2.3. Cultural Change 2.3.1 The Growth of Feminism 2.3.2. Multiculturalism 2.3.3. The growth of youth sub-culture

2.4. Cultural dimensions of learning, teaching and educational processes

Language• the communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.

• involves listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is a system of signs, symbols, gestures, or rules used in communicating

2.1. Communications and Language

2.1. Communications and Language 2.1.1 Relationship between language and culture

Communication- is the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, by speech, signals, writing or behavior

• the process of transferring and sharing information and experiences.

• it may take the form of interpersonal communications (body language, nonverbal communication, rumors), and mass media (TV, film, radio, newspapers and computers)

Components of Language

Langue

• Phonics

•Signs

•Symbols

•Grammar

Parole

• Actual speech

•Way of speaking

2.2. The Nature and Meaning of Culture

Concept of Culture:

Edward B. Taylor: Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society.

It is the accumulated ways of doing things which is the product of human experience; it is the totality of what individuals have learned about living together.

•Socially-transmitted beliefs, language, values and behavior, practices and norms, and sanctions, together with other products (material or non-material) of interaction form part of one’s culture.

Characteristics of Culture:

1. Culture is Learned

2. Culture is diverse

3. Culture is a group product

4. Culture is transmitted from generation to generation.

5. Culture is adaptive and maladaptive

6. Culture is Shared

7 Culture is patterned and integrated

8 Culture is compulsory

9 Culture is cumulative

10. Culture is dynamic

CULTURE

Language

Symbols The Arts

Customs and Traditions

Governance

Social Organization

Technology or material culture

Values BeliefsNorms Mores

Sanctions Folkways

Religion

Characteristics of innovations:• Relative Advantage• Compatibility• Complexity• Trialability• Observability

Five Categories of Adopters:• Innovators – 2.5%• Early adopters – 13.5 %• Early majority – 34%• Late Majority – 34%• Laggards – 16%

• Venturesome• Cosmopolite social relationships• Communications among a click• Control of substantial financial

resources• Ability to understand the apply

complex technical knowledge

Innovators

• Cope with high degree of uncertainty• Willing to accept setback from

unsuccessful idea• Imports innovations from outside the

system boundaries• Gatekeeper in the flow of new ideas

Innovators .....

• Integrated into local social system; localites

• Greatest degree of opinion leadership• Give advice and information about

innovations• Role model for other members of a

social system• Respected by peers

Early Adopters

• Embodies successful discrete use of new ideas

• Seeks to make judicious innovation decisions

• Decreases uncertainty about a new idea by adopting it

• Conveys a subjective evaluation of technology to near-peers

Early Adopters ....

• Adopt just before the average member of the system

• Interact frequently with peers• Seldom hold positions of leadership• May deliberate for some time before

adopting• Show deliberate willingness in adopting

innovations

Early Majority

• Adopt after the average member of the system

• Adoption may be economic necessity or result of peer pressure

• Skeptical and cautious toward innovations

• System norms must favor adoption• Scarce resources• Most of the uncertainty must be

removed before an innovation is adopted

Late Majority

Laggard• Last to adopt• No opinion leadership• Most localite• Nearly isolated in social system• Refer to the past• Suspicious of inventions and change• Adoption and use lag far behind

awareness• Limited resources• Risk averse

Cultural Change:

Can come about due to: environmental change inventions Contact with other people Diffusion – something moves from culture to

another

Stimulus diffusion – refers to an element of one culture leading to an invention in another

Innovation – is an idea perceived as new by an individual

CULTURAL CHANGE

PATTERNS

Integration

Subcultures

Acculturation

Assimilation Dominant cultures

Counter-culturesTransculturation

Enculturation

PATTERNS OF CULTURAL CHANGES

1. Enculturation – It is the process of learning culture one’s own group. Ex. Learning the folkways, mores, social traditions, values and beliefs of one group

PATTERNS OF CULTURAL CHANGES

1. Enculturation – It is the process of learning culture one’s own group. Ex. Learning the folkways, mores, social traditions, values and beliefs of one group

Assimilation – is the process of adopting a different often a dominant culture by an individual

Transculturation - is a phenomenon of merging and converging cultures.

Acculturation – refers to replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another

PATTERNS OF CULTURAL CHANGES……

Dominant culture – customs and traditions practiced mostly by people

Subculture - represents the variations as practiced by smaller groups

Counter- culture – (or contra-culture) is the rejection of existing social norms, results from the opposition and conflict between a larger society and a group

Cultural Integration – refers to the process of combining various elements of culture

Transfer of Culture:

Unidirectional

2 General Models of “Culture Transfer”

Bidirectional

Unidirectional Culture Transfer Model

Parents Teachers ChildrenEnvironmentPeers

Children

KNOWLEDGE

Unidirectional

• Desired Goal : To have exact copy-like nature of transmission of the given message.

• This transfer is given directly. And viewed as something given.

Ex.: Knowledge

Youngerperson

Younger person

Younger person

Older generation

Analyze and reconstruct

EnvironmentChanges in the environment

ANOTHER MESSAGE

Bi-cameral transfer

UNIDIRECTIONAL

Bi- Directional Transfer Model

• The participants of this culture transfer of knowledge are actively transforming the cultural message.

• They change or reconstruct the message unlike unidirectional in which there are no changes made.

Bi- Directional Transfer Model

IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE

• Develops Quality of Life• Boost of Local and National Economy• Provides links between the

PAST,PRESENT and FUTURE to develop a sense of “commonness”

IMPORTANCE AND FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE

• Culture shapes behavior.

• Culture provides a standard by which we evaluate other’s behavior.

• Culture provides boundary maintenance.

The Growth of Feminism

Multiculturalism

The Growth of Youth subculture

Cultural Relativism

CULTURAL ISSUES:

• The principle that an individual human’s belief activities make sense in terms of his or her own culture.

• Culture is responsible or related to how people behave or think.

Cultural Relativism

The Growth of Feminism

Feminism – is a movement organized around the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes, largely motivated by experiences of women

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism – is a public policy approach for managing cultural diversity in a multiethnic society, officially stressing mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences within a country’s borders.

Emphasis: Unique characteristics of different cultures.

Multiculturalism

The Growth of Youth subculture

Subcultures - is a set of people with distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part.

Distinctive because of: Age of its members Race or ethnicity Class gender

The Growth of Youth subculture .........

Qualities that determine a subculture:1. Aesthetic2. Religious3. Occupational4. Political5. Sexual6. Combination

The Growth of Youth subculture .........

Youth subculture – refer to the ways young people (adolescents and teenagers) differentiates themselves from the mainstream culture

- React to the economic, political, and educational changes.

- Easily adopt changes

Relevant Culture Terms:

Culture Shock – refers to the unpleasant or disoriented feeling one experiences when he goes to a new environment.

Initial reactions: anxiety, stress, frustrations, dismay

Symptoms: fear of being alone, loneliness, feeling of being laugh at or cheated

Relevant Culture Terms:

Ethnocentrism – When members of a society or group consider as superior, normal and right above other cultures.

Xenocentrism – the opposite of ethnocentrism which is the belief that one’s own lifestyle, ideas or products are inferior and what is foreign is superior.

Relevant Culture Terms:

Temporocentrism – the belief that one’s own time is more important than the past time or future. The belief is prevalent among people who lack historical perspective.

Culture Universals – are practices found in every culture. Ex. Athletic sports, folklore giftgiving, religion, sexual restrictions, etc...

Relevant Culture Terms:

Culture Relativism – the exact opposite of ethnocentrism, views that a cultural practice is neither good nor bad in itself and that its desirability depends upon their meaning, value and function in the culture which they are part of.

All cultures have customs, practices and traits which maybe viewed as offensive and eccentric by other culture

References:

Omas-as, Roberta L. (2003). General Sociology: society, culture, Population Dynamics and Gender Development