1. Intercultural Communication
Cultural Identity
Zhao Xiuju

2. Who are you. What makes you who you are
Who are you? What makes you who you are? How has your culture helped to make you who you are?

3. 1. The Importance of Identity
Contents
1. The Importance of Identity
2. Types of Cultural Identity
3. Characteristics of Cultural Identity
4. Development of Cultural Identity
5. Cultural Identity in ICC

4. 1. The Importance of Identity
According to Pinney, a principal objective of one's adolescent years is the formation of an identity, and "those who fail to achieve a secure identity are faced with identity confusion, a lack of clarity about who they are and what their role is in life."
Identity development plays a
critical role in the individual's
psychological well-being.

5. Reading 1: Which definition do you prefer?
1. The Importance of Identity
Reading 1: Which definition do you prefer?
Identity is a person’s self definition as a separate and distinct individual, including behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes.
― Gardiner and Kosmitzki
Identity is the reflective self-conception or self-image that we each derive from our family, gender, cultural, ethnic, and individual socialization process.
―Ting-Toomey
Identity is our self-concept, who we think we are as a person.
― Martin and Nakayama
Identity is how the self conceives of itself, and labels itself.
― Mathews

6. 1. The Importance of Identity
Video Time & Post-task: Understand China within 10 minutes

7. 2. Types of Cultural Identity
1. Racial Identity 2. Ethnic Identity 3. Gender Identity 4. National Identity 5. Regional Identity 6. Organizational Identity 7. Personal Identity 8. Cyber and Fantasy Identity (Larry A. Samovar, 2015)

8. Racial Identity 2. Types of Cultural Identity
Is commonly associated with external physical traits such as skin color, hair texture, facial appearance, and eye shape.

9. Racial Identity 2. Types of Cultural Identity
"I am a member of the black middle class who has had it with being patted on the head by white hands and slapped in the face by black hands for my success.
My life abounds in incongruities. Fresh from a vacation in Paris, I may, a week later, be on the milk-run Trailways bus in Deep South back-country attending the funeral of an ancient uncle whose world stretched only 50 miles and who never learned to read.
I run a gauntlet between two worlds, and I am cursed and blessed by both. Whites won’t believe I remain culturally different; blacks won’t believe I remain culturally the same. "
The Middle-Class Black’s Burden
( Leanita McClain Newsweek, October 1980)

10. 2. Types of Cultural Identity
Ethnic Identity
Is derived from a sense of shared heritage, history, traditions, values, similar behaviors, area of origin, and in some instances, language.
Muslims conducting their annual hajj pilgrimage by circling around the Kaaba.
Chinatown in NY

11. 2. Types of Cultural Identity
Gender Identity
How a particular culture differentiates masculine and feminine social roles.
The meanings and interpretations we hold concerning our self-images and expected other images of 'femaleness'and 'maleness.'
skin color, language, weight, clothes, career

12. Personal Identity age (young, old)
2. Types of Cultural Identity
age (young, old)
Personal Identity
social class (income, occupation, education, manner of speaking)
worldview
(sense of self, relation to nature, universe)

13. Cultural Identity is central dynamic complex
3. Charicteristics of cultural identity
central
(basic, more influential)
(not static, fixed, and enduringsubject to change, )
dynamic
Cultural
Identity is
“National identity makes no difference for me. I feel completely international.”
complex
multifaceted

14. Cultural Identity is central dynamic complex
3. Charicteristics of cultural identity
central
dynamic
Cultural
Identity is
(globalization, intercultural marriage, and immigration)
complex
multifaceted
(a student, a friend, a man, a son, a Christian, a brother, etc.)

15. 3. Charicteristics of cultural identity
“I’m a black+white+I don’t know what else=both/neither/other, “half” transracially adopted, descendant of people I’ve never met. A freckled, brown-skinned, curly/straight/frizzy brown-haired (with some black, blond, an orange thrown in), German-American raised, Spanish-speaking gringa and multicolorful part-time expatriate. I’m mixed. What I am is ME”

16. 4. Development of Cultural Identity
Our identities are shaped by our family life and upbringing, by gender, by the social groups to which we belong.

17. 4. Development of Cultural Identity
Stage 1: unexamined cultural identity stage (No awareness of cultural differences and the distinguishing characteristics that differentiate different cultures)
Stage 2: cultural identity search (exploration and questioning about one's culture, growing awareness and reinterpretation of everyday experiences)
Stage 3: cultural identity achievement (A clear, confident acceptance of oneself and an internalization of one’s cultural identity)

18. Interaction only within one’s own culture:
5. Cultural Identity in ICC
Interaction only within one’s own culture:
predictable
appropriate
accurate
familiar
Interaction only within one’s own culture:
unpredicatbale
weird
ambiguous
unfamiliar

19. 5. Cultural Identity in ICC
It influences and guides expectations about your own and others' social roles, and provides guidelines for your communication interaction with others.

20. The dark side of identity in ICC
5. Cultural Identity in ICC
The dark side of identity in ICC
Ethnocentrism: the notion that the beliefs, values, norms, and practices of one’s own culture are superior to those of others.
Stereotyping: A form of generalization about some group of people.
Prejudice: negative attitudes toward other people that are based on faulty and inflexible stereotypes.
Discrimination: the behavioral manifestations of prejudice.

21. 5. Cultural Identity in ICC
Stereotyping

22. 5. Cultural Identity in ICC
Stereotyping

23. 5. Cultural Identity in ICC
Stereotyping

24. 5. Cultural Identity in ICC
Stereotyping

25. 5. Cultural Identity in ICC

26. Thank you!