Intercultural Communication

Chapter 8
AWARENESS OF THE WORLD

INTRODUCTION Modern technology has made world to become smaller and people will often come into contact with other cultures. Cultural differences are always doubtless and often quite obvious.

Theme PREsENTAtion
For personal benefits, out of an urge to acquire national awareness or because of whatever reason to approach different cultures, people undertaking the study of communication with respect to the culture shall have in mind differences in the perception of the world: attitude systems civilizations have formed along centuries, particular beliefs, values and world views.

8.1 Types of Awareness

Why study intercultural communication?

The modern society feels more and more acutely the need of cross-cultural contacts and interaction. Hence, the problems which develop from the inability to understand and get along with groups and societies differentiated by space, appearance, ideologies or behaviour, resulting in international misunderstanding: from minor quarrels or isolationism to even armed conflict.

The study of intercultural communication also enhances one’s view upon own status in the world, providing awareness of the person in the social, national and international context. [19]

8.1.1. Personal

Studying intercultural communication people may easily get aware of more things than before, enlarge their sphere of knowledge and become more open both to the social phenomena around and to the changes of a private character that they should undergo in order to fit better into a changing world.

As personal advantages of studying intercultural communication we may consider:

Enjoyment and satisfaction for discovery of something new, another person’s culture

1 e.g.: fascination of seeing a Buddhist religious ceremony

Aid in avoiding misunderstanding

1 e.g.: Gestures may differ (greetings, nodding head etc.)

Extended employment opportunities

1 Openness, tolerance, understanding diversity represent favourable points in finding a job within a multinational company, for instance, or in another country

Improving self–perception, psychological approach

1 Better understanding of own culture

2 Examining rationally prejudices and stereotypes

8.1.2. Domestic

Intercultural awareness provides at the same time a better understanding of the own culture’s particularities, an important apprehension of the national specificities being as relevant in the modern world as that of the mixture of cultures.

Cultural revolutions within the countries have led to the emergence of new groups and subcultures and a series of associations appeared demanding all sorts of rights.

Thus, there are more and more aggressive organizations seeking usually not more than recognition.

E.g.: Blacks, the poor, women, homosexuals, hippies…

The peculiarities that define them differ form superficial characteristics such as: language, dress, skin colour, length of hair etc., to complex differences like: lifestyle, values, way of perceiving the universe.

8.1.3. International

Since 1960s the world became smaller, we got to know other cultures through rapid transportation, mobility and modern communication technology. Other cultures seemed unfamiliar, strange and mysterious because of our lack of cultural understanding.

Some common concerns and worries appeared. The mutual dangers that began to jeopardize the modern society, the nuclear threat and the shortage of natural resources, made it clear that such matters cannot afford a poor communication because lack of understanding could cause disasters.

In what the International Business community was concerned, the import, export, investments, foreign markets, multinational companies, multilingual catalogues etc. led to a clear interdependence and the need of developing international awareness and cross-culture communicational skills.

8.2. Perception of world

Cultural differences basically consist in the fact that, for instance, we may see the same social object or event and agree upon what it is in objective terms, but what it represents, what it means to us individually may differ.

E.g.: a Saudi Arabian and a European will both agree in the objective sense that a particular person is a woman, though they will strongly disagree about her role and status in society.

Three socio-cultural elements have a direct influence on the meaning we develop for our concepts:

Belief, value, attitude systems

World view

Social organization

8.2.1. Belief, Value, Attitude Systems

The belief represents the subjective probability that some value, concept, attribute, object or event is related to some other. Beliefs may be of three big types as considering the way of acquiring them:

Experiential – or gained form experience

Informational – i.e. found from others

Inferential - alleged, supposed, understood from hints

The value comprises of the evaluative aspects, qualities as usefulness, goodness, aesthetics, need satisfaction ability, pleasure production. They are categorised according to either psychological reasons or to social ones into cultural and respectively normative.

The cultural values, those transmitted from a generation to another, and most often reached at through generations of national struggles are at their turn of different levels, from very relevant – to protect at the expense of even supreme sacrifice – to less important but still offering psychological comfort and welfare of those that adopt them.

Cultural values (worth fighting for) can, thus, be:

Primary (e.g. democracy Western culture – modesty Eastern culture);

Secondary (e.g. modern technology);

Tertiary (e.g. gratefulness).

The normative values are those already turned into a sort of regulations, which members of civilised society have to undertake and assume. They are prescribing behaviours expected to be performed. In this respect we may identify three types of normative values, according to the acceptability of their implementation on a general scale:

Negative (e.g. supporting communism)

Positive (e.g. education)

Neutral (e.g. sacredness of farm land)

The examples given above reflect the Western culture, in the Eastern one, the situation might be totally opposite.

The attitude systems refer to the complex of features defining the cultural personality taken as a whole and the general characteristics applicable to the members of a culture, a learned tendency to respond in a consistent manner with respect to a given object of orientation. The components that intermingle forming the attitude systems are: cognitive or belief, affective or evaluative, intensity or expectancy. E.g.: bullfighting is regarded as cruel, negative, in some cultures and courageous, positive, in others.

8.2.2. World View

The world view of a culture is the culture’s orientation towards such things as nature, man, God, the universe and other philosophical issues concerning the concept of being.

It helps locating our place and rank in the universe.

E.g.: A catholic has a different world view than a Moslem, Taoist, Jew, Hindu, or atheist.

A Native American Indian sees himself at one with nature, while a European has a human centred world view, humans being the supreme creatures mastering the universe.
If western cultures are stricter and more precise, direct, open and as accurate as possible, longing for things to be expressed and spoken up, explicit, clarified and specified, the eastern ones are more elusive and evasive, slippery and more profound, interpretative, letting things unsaid but instead judging, feeling and construing meanings unuttered, inexplicit, believed and thought while the uttered, explicit side is minimal. Thus, the eastern culture rely more on inferences and impressions, while the western one on facts and certainties.

8.2.3. Social Organization

The dominant social units are the most influential institutions within any culture: family, school and church. It is these that next build, in the new generations all the beliefs, attitudes, values, views upon world, of each particular culture.

There are two forms of societal composition, a traditional one, following the location on the map and also the political or social structures formed along civilisations, and a more recent one, given by the function in society, the role played and the ideas the members promote and share.

Accordingly, we can identify, two types of cultures:

Geographic culture: Nations, tribes, casts, religious sects, and others defined by geographical boundaries;

Role culture: memberships in social positions, from professional groups to organizations sharing specific ideologies.

[pic]Summary:
Our awareness of the world, our way of perceiving it, influences the way we communicate. Beliefs, values and attitudes are culturally formed, the view that we have upon the world is the result of the culture we belong to.
It is the knowledge, the experience and the tradition of the culture we are formed in that guide us, they are transmitted to us from the previous generations and we will act in accordance to this formation.
In intercultural contacts, our baggage will surface, we may have the chance to become aware of differences and it is important to know how to overcome them, to understand the other culture and react in apprehension.

[pic]Exercises:

Discuss and explain the differences between the following recipes for ‘Roasted goose’:

|for 8 people: |1 goose |
|1 goose (3,4 kg) |apples, salt, pepper, flour |
|salt, pepper, marjoram, 3 apples, 4 carrots, beer. | |
| |Salt and pepper the goose, fill it with|
|Please wash the goose in cold water, dry it with the paper towel. Remove the rest of |apples and put on a pan with some |
|feathers. Salt and pepper the goose inside and outside. Fill the goose with cut |water. Place in the oven and pour the |
|apples, carrots and marjoram. Sew the gap. Put it on a pan and to the oven at 2000 C |sauce over it now and again. After 1,5 |
|for the electric oven or at level 3 for the gas oven. |– 2 hours, when almost ready, pour some|
|Roasting time: 2,5 hour. After 20-30 minutes, put 100 ml water in the pan. Stick the |cold water so that the skin gets |
|goose on the side so that the fat can come out. Turn the goose after 45 minutes and |crispy. Put some flour into the sauce, |
|pour the sauce over it. If it seems to roast fast, cover it with aluminium foil. Ten |mix it and let it boil for a while. You|
|minute before it is ready, pour the beer over it so as the skin to get crispy. The |can serve the goose whole or in prices,|
|roasted goose can be served with potatoes and vegetables. We recommend white wine to |with the sauce. |
|serve with. | |

[pic] Self evaluation:

1. The satisfaction of discovering something new belongs to the …………….. awareness a) personal b) domestic c) international
2. Improving self–perception refers to …………….. . a) understanding own culture b) extending employment opportunities c) avoiding misunderstanding
3. Cultural revolutions within the countries have led to the ………… of the subcultures. a) reconciliation b) disappearance c) emergence
4. The new groups and the associations which appeared demand ……………. and all sorts of rights. a) recognition b) revolution c) restoration
5. The eastern culture is …………. a) explicit b) minimalist c) straightforward

[pic]Case study:

Family Counselling [14]

Mrs. Schmit has been working as a counsellor in a youth welfare department for some years now. One of her principles is to involve the whole family in the consultation so as to understand better the background of the young person that looks for help. She knows that only this way can she help the young people with their problems.
But this case is different.
A 17 year old Siberian girl sits with her parents in the consultation and, though not a child anymore, she does not say a word while her parents talk instead of her: she needs some paper in order to marry her 17 year old boyfriend. Mrs. Schmit is asked to help her get the papers but she finds it difficult even to stay polite seeing how the girl is treated as a mentally handicapped – albeit well developed both physically and psychically – and seems to be not allowed to say a word while her mother and father speak excited even at the same time. They explain their daughter loves her boyfriend very much and assumes to be pregnant so that the wedding should take place immediately. The girl just nods in agreement and answers in very few words when asked by the counsellor, seeming to not really agree on her own free will. The counsellor wants to talk with the girl alone but cannot ask her parents to leave the office so she fixes another appointment to gain time to think of a solution.

What happened? The counsellor deals with cultural difference:
Siberian parents look after their children even when they are of age and for the girl it is absolutely normal that her parents talk for her as she is convinced they know better and her opinions should correspond with theirs.
The parents don’t know and don’t think they should let their daughter talk and they don’t respect an open discussion and change of ideas.
Siberian girls have to get married as soon as possible and the parents try to sort out the problem while the girl agrees because she respects the traditions.
The whole family tries to put the counsellor under pressure to achieve their goals.