intercultural communication. intercultural communication – cross cultural communication “it´s...

Intercultural communication

Intercultural communication – cross cultural communication

“It´s no cultures that meet, but human individuals who are influenced by a complicated interplay of personal, situational and, of course, cultural factors. Therefore a particular difficulty with cultural overlap situations resides in precisely the structural uncertainty as to what the factor “culture” actually means.“Leenen (2005:91 92)‐

In general, the term ”cross-cultural” is probably best used for comparisons between cultures (”crosscultural comparison”).

Intercultural/Cross cultural communication sharing of information on different levels of awareness and control between people with different cultural backgrounds, where different cultural backgrounds include both national cultural differences and differences which are connected with participation in the different activities that exist within a national unit.

What is culture?

Culture - analyzed in several different ways by different researchers.

See Kroeber and Kluckholm (1952) for an account of about 200 ways to define the concept of culture.

Culture• All the characteristics common to a particular group of people that are

learned and not given by nature. • Example: - mouth: not a cultural characteristic but a natural one, while

a special but common way of talking/not talking about specific subjects will probably be cultural.

Primary cultural dimension

Analytically, we can differentiate between the following four primary culturaldimensions:

(i) Patterns of thought – common ways of thinking, where thinking includes factual beliefs, values, norms, and emotional attitudes.(ii) Patterns of behavior – common ways of behaving, from ways of speaking toways of conducting commerce and industry, where the behavior can beintentional/unintentional, aware/unaware or individual/interactive.(iii) Patterns of artifacts – common ways of manufacturing and using material things, from pens to houses (artifact = artifical object), where artifacts include dwellings, tools, machines or media. The artifactual dimension of culture is usually given special attention in museums.(iv) Imprints in nature – the longlasting imprints left by a group in the naturalsurroundings, where such imprints include agriculture, trash, roads or intact/ruined human habitations.

Possible differences between communication patterns

When people of different cultural backgrounds meet, all differences between them can potentially lead to misunderstanding.

As for communicative behavior, a distinction can be made between behavior that is produced by a single individual and behavior that requires the interaction and/or cooperation of several individuals.

IndividualOn the individual level it may be convenient to view communication from thefollowing four aspects:

1. Body Movements2. Sound and Writing3. Vocabulary and Phraseology4. Grammar

Body movements

When we speak, our speech is continuously accompanied by gestures, facial expressions and other body movements that add to what we are saying in different ways. There are great differences in how people from different cultures communicate with their bodies.

The largest differences are probably concern the use of hands to covey different meanings. Gestures for such things as money, great, come here vary considerably between Sweden and the Mediterranean countries. Other differences are found for when and where a person is permitted to express something, perhaps particularly certain emotions. There can also be variations from culture to culture in how intensely people show different emotions. In certain cultures such as Mediterranean cultures, it is permitted to show strong feelings such as happiness, anger and grief in public. In others, such as Sweden or Japan, there are restrictions against this. (See Barnlund 1975).

Sound and writing

Each language has its store of least meaning differentiating sound units orphonemes. These vary in the languages of the world between 16 in the Polynesian languages, and about 80 in Caucasian languages.

Case of Coca-ColaWhen Coca-Cola was first sold in China in 1927, it was obvious to the Coke employees in China that the Coca-Cola trademark must be transliterated into Chinese characters. To find the nearest phonetic equivalent to “Coca-Cola" required a separate Chinese character for each of the four syllables. Out of the 40,000 or so characters, there were only about 200 that were pronounced with the sounds the Company needed, and many of these had to be avoided because of their meaning.

Sound and writing

While doing the research for four suitable characters, the employees found that a number of shopkeepers had also been looking for Chinese equivalents for Coca-Cola, but with strange results. Some had made signs that were absurd, adopting any group of characters that sounded remotely like "Coca-Cola" -- without giving a thought to the meaning of the characters used. One of these homemade signs sounded like “Coca-Cola” when pronounced, but the meaning of the characters came out something like “female horse fastened with wax” and another meant “bite the wax tadpole.”

Although the Company was primarily concerned with the phonetic equivalent of Coca-Cola, the employees could not ignore the meaning of the characters, individually and collectively – even if the shopkeepers had done so. They chose Mandarin because this dialect was spoken by the great majority of Chinese. The closest Mandarin equivalent to Coca-Cola was “K'o K'ou K'o Lê.” The aspirates (designated by ‘) were necessary to approximate the English sounds.

All Chinese characters had more than one meaning, but K'o K'ou K'o Lê (depending on context) commonly meant what is seen here:

Sound and writing

This combination for the Chinese trademark meant “to permit mouth to be able to rejoice” – showing the pleasure that could come from drinking Coke. That definition was a stroke of luck!

Sound and writing

When this trademark was registered in 1928, most Chinese writing was vertical and was read down from right to left. The two characters at the right mean drink, then the Chinese trademark, and then Delicious and Refreshing

Vocabulary and phraseology

The difference between different languages, which people who learn several differentlanguages become aware of, is the difference between the vocabulary of differentlanguages in terms of words and phrases.In every culture, the words and phrases of everyday language mirror the needs, values and attitudes that have been common and strong and have thus been necessary to communicate about.

People who live in a desert have in their everyday language a vocabulary that allows a differentiation between many different types of sand, while people who live in areas with a great deal of snow instead develop a vocabulary that allows a differentiation between many types of snow.

A difference in vocabulary that has been investigated the most has to do with differences between the words for color in different languages. The figure below shows the great differences that can exist in this area (Source: Berlin & Key 1969)


Another important area in uncovering differences that can be significant in intercultural communication is different types of standardized phrases and metaphors. Among such expressions are what are usually called proverbs, that is, standardizedphrases that directly or metaphorically express what, at least by certain people in theculture, is seen as wisdom about life.

Swedish has for example the following phrases that can all begin with one should (man skall):

Opice – monkey

Grammar

A fourth dimension that can be used to differentiate languages is grammar, e.g. The inflection, derivation, and syntactic patterns that exist in the language. Languages also exhibit great differences in basic word order patterns. A very well known way to classify language introduced by Joseph Greenberg, a California linguist (see Greenberg, 1966), is based on the basic word order in statements between subject (S), verb (V), and object (O).

99 % - belong to the first three categories, SVO, SOV or VSO. The subject comes before the object in all three types..

Sender and receiver

The four aspects of linguistic behavior on the individual level mentioned above can be viewed from two main perspectives: the perspective of the sender and the perspective of the receiver.

The sender or speaker must produce a message that the receiver or listener can perceive and understand.

Receiver

Control and integration of several different dimensions at the same time, too. The following must be included among the receiver’s activities and reactions:

A. Influence - processing of information without a high degree of awareness and control. In a series of experiments, Marcel (Marcel, 1979) showed that we can be influenced by a text without having consciously perceived it. Other studies show that we can be influenced by the size of pupils of other people without being aware that this is that which is influencing us (Argyle, 1975).

B. Perception (Apprehension) - information is also consciously registered by the receiver through his/her five senses. This type of reaction is necessary for such specialized activities as reading.

C. Understanding - to be able to put the information we perceive into a meaningful context, i.e. a context that is based on understood logical relations or understanding about cause and effect. The difference between perception and understanding can be illustrated by considering a person not well versed in mathematics who attends a lecture on topology. He/she probably perceives in some sense what is being said but probably does not understand.

Receiver

To be able to put perceived information into a meaningful context, a person must have already stored a certain amount of information. One must already understand. This relationship is often formulated as “understanding requires pre-understanding”. If you already understand a great deal, then not so much needs to be said to make you to understand more.

This relationship is continuously used in everyday conversations in which we normally succeed in sharing more information than we literally express. By building upon the information that we assume we share with other people, we can take a great deal for granted and be satisfied with hints. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that half of the information we are sharing in ordinary conversations is implicitly understood and is based on the receiver, through his/her process of interpretation and understanding, successfully reconstructing the message the sender intends.

The consequences of these considerations that have to do with linguistic communication in general are relatively important if we wish to understand the difficulties that can exist in intercultural communication. In some cases of intercultural communication, the persons who communicate lack a relevant common cultural background, that is, they lack common beliefs, values and norms. They have no shared pre-understandings on which to build.

The strategy is to try to clarify, through the use of language, what is normally taken for granted, by making explicit as many requirements as possible for what is said.

Other reactions

Factual understanding is concurrently combined with emotional and attitudinal reactions. We become interested, bored, upset, sad, angry, happy or irritated over what we hear and we direct these reactions toward the contents of what we are hearing and toward the person who is speaking.

Reactions of this type exist among all people in all communication situations and can only, by training and analytical abstraction, be differentiated from the more factual understanding.

For example, most people have a very difficult time differentiating between a topic and a person (If I do not respect X, then what X is saying can not be true, or the reverse, if I respect X then what X is saying must be true).

Factual understanding and emotional reactions always function in an interplay with one another.

Communication behavior on an interactive level

1) Interaction sequences – how I greet people, sequence of meeting , use of body language

2) Turntaking - Since the middle of the 20TH century, the concept of “turn taking” has been used more and more to characterize a basic set of principles for conversational interaction, seeSacks, Schegloff & Jefferson (1974). The principles have to do with how the right to speak is distributed - who speaks with whom, for how long, about what, when and in which way (Western Europe x Mediterranean, question of power)

3) Feedback -information from the listener about the way in which the listener has perceived, understood and reacted to what the speaker has said

4) Spatial configurations - closeness and physical contact between persons in a conversation. In

cultures in northwestern Europe adult men generally avoid touching one another during conversations and maintain a greater distance from one another than do e.g. adult men from Mediterranean cultures. The latter also show a greater frequency of physical contact during neutral conversations.

Understanding, values and attitudes

To be able to efficiently participate in intercultural communication we need to take into consideration the differences in understanding, values and attitudes that people with different cultural backgrounds can have.

Types of pre-understanding

On general level the following areas can be mentioned:1. Realia: geography, history, religion, political and economic systems, industrialand commercial branches, food, clothes and housing traditions.2. Esthetic culture: music, art and fiction.3. Expert knowledge: activities with special subject areas, roles and tools.4. Attitudes and values: a particularly important part of a person’s preunderstandingis his/her attitudes and values. These unite his/her factual understanding with his/her emotions, desires and actions. Although attitudes and values can differ among a group of people, to a certain extent they are also given by their common cultural environment.

4.1. Phenomena that play an important part in most people’s lives + investigation whether there is any pattern in the attitudes of a particular group towards these phenomena. Phenomena may include: family, child rearing, the opposite sex, socializing with friends, work -money, authorities (e.g. the state, teachers), aging, goals of life - career, death, time andSpace…

Understanding, values and attitudes

To be able to efficiently participate in intercultural communication we need to take into consideration the differences in understanding, values and attitudes that people with different cultural backgrounds can have.

Types of pre-understanding

On general level the following areas can be mentioned:1. Realia: geography, history, religion, political and economic systems, industrialand commercial branches, food, clothes and housing traditions.2. Esthetic culture: music, art and fiction.3. Expert knowledge: activities with special subject areas, roles and tools.4. Attitudes and values: a particularly important part of a person’s preunderstandingis his/her attitudes and values. These unite his/her factual understanding with his/her emotions, desires and actions. Although attitudes and values can differ among a group of people, to a certain extent they are also given by their common cultural environment.

4.1. Phenomena that play an important part in most people’s lives + investigation whether there is any pattern in the attitudes of a particular group towards these phenomena. Phenomena may include: family, child rearing, the opposite sex, socializing with friends, work -money, authorities (e.g. the state) aging, goals of life - career, death, time and space…religion etc.

Intercultural communication and thought patterns

Being a good communicator has different meanings in different cultures. In order to communicate effectively across cultures, you need to understand the cultural thought patterns behind the language of communication. These thought patterns influence the way native speakers of a language will express themselves. It will also influence how they expect to hear information presented. When the speaker and the listener have different cultural thought patterns, there is an increased likelihood for miscommunication and cross cultural conflict. However, by mimicking the communication style of your listener, you are affirming their values in this area.


English - (includes Germanic languages such as German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish) Communication is direct, linear and doesn’t digress or go off topic.

Semitic – (for example, Arabic or Hebrew) Thoughts are express in a series of parallel ideas, both positive and negative. Coordination is valued over subordination.

Oriental – (Languages of Asia) Communication is indirect. A topic is not addressed head on, but is viewed from various perspectives, working around and around the point.

Roman – (Latin-based languages such as French, Italian, Romanian and Spanish) Communication often digresses. It is fine to introduce extraneous material, which adds to the richness of the communication.

Russian – Like Roman languages, Russian communication is often digressive. The digression may include a series of parallel ideas.

Hoefstede

Power distance

This dimension deals with the fact that all individuals in societies are not equal – it expresses the attitude of the culture towards these inequalities amongst us. Power distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.

Power distance

Power distance

The Czech Republic has a relatively high score on this dimension (57). This means it is a hierarchical society. This means that people accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification. Hierarchy in an organisation is seen as reflecting inherent inequalities, centralisation is popular, subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat.

With a score of 50, Italy tends to prefer equality and a decentralisation of power and decision-making. Control and formal supervision is generally disliked among the younger generation, who demonstrate a preference for teamwork and an open management style.

Turkey scores high on this dimension (score of 66) which means that the following characterises the Turkish style: Dependent, hierarchical, superiors often inaccessible and the ideal boss is a father figure. Power is centralized and managers rely on their bosses and on rules. Employees expect to be told what to do. Control is expected and attitude towards managers is formal. Communication is indirect and the information flow is selective. The same structure can be observed in the family unit, where the father is a kind of patriarch to whom others submit.

Power distance

Russia, scoring 93, is a nation where power is very distant in society. This is underlined by the fact that the largest country in the world is extremely centralized: 2/3 of all foreign investments go into Moscow where also 80% of all financial potential is concentrated. The huge discrepancy between the less and the more powerful people leads to a great importance of status symbols. Behaviour has to reflect and represent the status roles in all areas of business interactions: be it visits, negotiations or cooperation; the approach should be top-down and provide clear mandates for any task

Individualism vs. collectivism

The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. It has to do with whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”. In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies people belong to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for loyalty.

The Czech Republic, with a score of 58 is an Individualistic society. This means there is a high preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only. In individualistic societies offence causes guilt and a loss of self-esteem, the employer/employee relationship is a contract based on mutual advantage, hiring and promotion decisions are supposed to be based on merit only, management is the management of individuals


At a score of 76 Italy is an Individualistic culture, “me” centered, especially in the big and rich cities of the North where people can feel alone even in the middle of a big and busy crowd. So family and friends becomes an important antidote to this feeling; but the word “friend” should not be misinterpreted because in business it has a slightly different meaning: someone that you know and can be useful for introducing you to the important or powerful people.

For Italians having their own personal ideas and objectives in life is very motivating and the route to happiness is through personal fulfillment. This dimension does vary in Southern Italy where less individualistic behavior can be observed: the family network and the group one belongs to are important social aspects, and rituals such as weddings or Sunday lunches with the family are occasions that one can’t miss. People going from Southern Italy to the North say that they feel cold not only for the different climate but for the less “warm” approach in relationships


If Russians plan to go out with their friends they would literally say “We with friends” instead of “I and my friends”, if they talk about brothers and sisters it may well be cousins, so a lower score of 39 even finds its manifestations in the language. Family, friends and not seldom the neighborhood are extremely important to get along with everyday life’s challenges. Relationships are crucial in obtaining information, getting introduced or successful negotiations. They need to be personal, authentic and trustful before one can focus on tasks and build on a careful to the recipient, rather implicit communication style.

Turkey, with a score of 37 is a collectivistic society. This means that the “We” is important, people belong to in-groups (families, clans or organisations) who look after each other in exchange for loyalty. Communication is indirect and the harmony of the group has to be maintained, open conflicts are avoided. The relationship has a moral base and this always has priority over task fulfillment. Time must be invested initially to establish a relationship of trust. Nepotism may be found more often. Feedback is always indirect, also in the business environment.

Masculinity or feminity

A high score (masculine) on this dimension indicates that the society will be driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner / best in field – a value system that starts in school and continues throughout organisational behaviour.


At 70 Italy is a masculine society – highly success oriented and driven. Children are taught from an early age that competition is good and to be a winner is important in one’s life. Italians show their success by acquiring status symbols such as a beautiful car, a big house, a yacht and travels to exotic countries. As the working environment is the place where every Italian can reach his/her success, competition among colleagues for making a career can be very strong.

Turkey scores 45 and is on the feminine side of the scale. This means that the softer aspects of culture such as leveling with others, consensus, sympathy for the underdog are valued and encouraged. Conflicts are avoided in private and work life and consensus at the end is important. Leisure time is important for Turks, it is the time when the whole family, clan and friends come together to enjoy life. Status is shown, but this comes more out of the high PDI.


The Czech Republic scores 57 on this dimension and is thus a masculine society. In masculine countries people “live in order to work”, managers are expected to be decisive and assertive, the emphasis is on equity, competition and performance and conflicts are resolved by fighting them out.

Russia’s relatively low score of 36 may surprise with regard to its preference for status symbols, but these are in Russia related to the high Power Distance. At second glance one can see, that Russians at workplace as well as when meeting a stranger rather understate their personal achievements, contributions or capacities. They talk modestly about themselves and scientists, researchers or doctors are most often expected to live on a very modest standard of living. Dominant behaviour might be accepted when it comes from the boss, but is not appreciated among peers.

Uncertainty avoidance

The dimension Uncertainty Avoidance has to do with the way that a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen? This ambiguity brings with it anxiety and different cultures have learnt to deal with this anxiety in different ways. The extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these is reflected in the UAI score.

Pragmatism

This dimension describes how people in the past as well as today relate to the fact that so much that happens around us cannot be explained. In societies with a normative orientation, most people have a strong desire to explain as much as possible. In societies with a pragmatic orientation most people don’t have a need to explain everything, as they believe that it is impossible to understand fully the complexity of life. The challenge is not to know the truth but to live a virtuous life.

With a high score of 70, Czech culture is shown to be pragmatic. In societies with a pragmatic orientation, people believe that truth depends very much on situation, context and time. They show an ability to adapt traditions easily to changed conditions, a strong propensity to save and invest, thriftiness, and perseverance in achieving results.

Indulgence

This dimension is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised. Relatively weak control is called “indulgence” and relatively strong control is called “restraint”. Cultures can, therefore, be described as indulgent or restrained.

Societies with a low score in this dimension have a tendency to cynicism and pessimism. Also, in contrast to indulgent societies, restrained societies do not put much emphasis on leisure time and control the gratification of their desires. People with this orientation have the perception that their actions are restrained by social norms and feel that indulging themselves is somewhat wrong.

Indulgence

• Awareness and insight about differences between cultures and• communication patterns• Flexible attitudes toward differences in culture and communication patterns• Ability and skill• Develop cultural sensitivity• Anticipate the meaning the receiver will get.• Careful encoding• Use words, pictures, and gestures.• Avoid slang, idioms, regional sayings.• Selective transmission• Build relationships, face-to-face if possible.• Careful decoding of feedback• Get feedback from multiple parties.• Improve listening and observation skills.• Follow-up actions

intercultural communication. intercultural communication – cross cultural communication “it´s...

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