1. Intercultural Communication
Lecture_2

2. Dispute Over Defining Culture
Genetic evidence suggests that all people alive today share ancestry from one group in Africa
Evidence suggests that the world’s languages can be traced to Africa
Migrations out of Africa have resulted in geographical and political separations changing cultures to an us versus them worldview
Today, we live in an interconnected global economy
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3. Culture is a regulator of human life and identity.
In the 19th century, the term culture was commonly used as a synonym for Western civilization.
Today, a culture refers to the following:

4. - A community or population sufficiently large enough to be self-sustaining.
- The totality of that group’s thought, experiences, and patterns of behavior and its concepts, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and how those evolve with contact with other cultures.

5. Hofstede (1994) classified the elements of culture into four categories: symbols, rituals, values, and heroes.
Symbols refer to verbal and nonverbal language.
Rituals are the socially essential collective activities within a culture.
Values are the feelings not open for discussion within a culture about what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly, normal or abnormal.
Heroes are the real or imaginary people who serve as behavior models within a culture.

6. We can have no direct knowledge of a culture other than our own.
To understand a culture, you need to understand all the experiences that guide its individual members through life.
Culture is not a genetic trait.

7. There are cultures within cultures.
Complex societies such as the United States are made up of a large number of groups with which people identify and from which are derived distinctive values and norms and rules for behavior.
The terms subculture, ethnicity, and co-culture as attempts to identify groups that are cultures but that exist within another culture.

8. A subculture resembles a culture in that it usually encompasses a relatively large number of people and represents the accumulation of generations of human striving.
Subcultures exist within dominant cultures and are often based on economic or social class, ethnicity, or geographic region.

9. Fanzine: Fan Magazine

10. Socioeconomic status or social class can be the basis for a subculture (Brislin, 1988).
Social class has traditionally been defined as a position in a society’s hierarchy based on income, education, occupation, and neighborhood.
Kohn (1977) has shown that middle-class and working-class parents emphasize different values when raising children.
Although the United States does have social classes, many people in the United States believe that these barriers of social class are easier to transcend in the United States than in other countries.

11. Some define subculture as meaning “a part of the whole.”
The word co-culture is suggested to convey the idea that no one culture is inherently superior to other coexisting cultures (Orbe, 1998).
Some define subculture as meaning “a part of the whole.”
Other scholars reject the use of the prefix sub as applied to the term culture because it seems to imply being under or beneath and being inferior or secondary.

12. Race is defined as a biological concept and as a socio-historical concept.
It was popularly believed that differences between peoples were biological or racial.
The biologically based definition is said to derive from Carolus Linnaeus, who said in 1735 that humans are classified into four types: Africanus, Americanus, Asiaticus, and Europeaeus.

13. Race became seen as biologically natural and based on visible physical characteristics such as skin color and other facial and bodily features.
Another way to define race is as a socio-historical concept, which explains how racial categories have varied over time and between cultures.
Twentieth-century scientists studying genetics found no single race-defining gene.
The meaning of race has been debated in societies, and as a consequence, new categories have been formed and others transformed.

14. Globalization Reactions
Growing strength of ethnic identity throughout the world
Growth of interethnic hatred
Suicide bombings
Attacks on World Trade Center
Increasing concerns about inequality, threats to culture, threats to the environment
Environmental sustainability meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future
Income-dependent problems with climate change already affecting the poorest communities
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15. Migration in the 21st Century
Immigration is a concern in poor and rich countries
Large majorities believe there should be a greater restriction on immigration
Europe and the United States record population growth through immigration
Studies show the greater the diversity in the community, the less civic engagement it shows
Challenge is to create broader definitions of “we” in immigrant societies
India example of pluralism: All groups, faiths, and ideologies are to participate in the new system
Ongoing struggle in negotiating identity
© 2012, SAGE Publications, Inc

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Culture Defined
A community or population sufficiently large enough to be self-sustaining
Totality of that group’s thoughts, experiences, and patterns of behavior, concepts, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior
The transmission of these thoughts and behaviors from birth over the course of generations
Group membership identification
© 2012, SAGE Publications, Inc

17. Categories of Elements of Culture (Hofstede, 1994)
Symbols: verbal and nonverbal language
Rituals: socially essential collective activities within a culture
Values: feelings not open for discussion within a culture about what is good or bad
Heroes: real or imaginary people who serve as behavior models within a culture
Expressed in myths which can be subject of novels and literature
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18. Improving Intercultural Communication
Your effectiveness as an intercultural communicator is in part a function of your knowledge of other people and their cultures
You learn more about yourself when you study other cultures, which results in increased tolerance for diversity
© 2012, SAGE Publications, Inc

19. Cultures Within Cultures
Subculture: resembles a culture in that it usually encompasses a relatively large number of people; exists within dominant culture and is often a subdivision based on economic or social class, ethnicity, race, or geographic region
Co-culture: suggests that no one culture is inherently superior to the other coexisting culture; mutuality may not be easily established
© 2012, SAGE Publications, Inc

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Ethnicity
Another basis of subcultures
Can refer to a group of people of the same descent and heritage who share a common and distinctive culture passed on through generations
Distinguishing characteristics can be language, accent, physical features, family names, customs, and religion
© 2012, SAGE Publications, Inc

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Subgroup
Membership groups
Like cultures, subgroups provide members with relatively complete sets of values and patterns of behavior and in many ways pose similar communication problems as cultures
Exists within a dominant culture and dependent on that culture
Occupation is one important subgroup
Membership can be temporary
Reference group is the group someone wants to belong to creating “wanna be” behavior
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Race and Skin Color
Race refers to a large body of people characterized by similarity of descent; may include some physical characteristics or characteristics of heredity
A sociohistorical concept, which is why categories have varied over time
Skin color alone does not define race
Racial categorization is prevalent even in multiracial societies
White Privilege: how a dominant culture empowers some, while denying others
© 2012, SAGE Publications, Inc

23. Intercultural Communication
focuses on differences in language and behavior patterns
the theory of intercultural communication encourages the understanding of the differences between two speakers from unique national cultures
M. Kovyazina Comparative Culturology Lectures, Tyumen State University,

24. Iben Jensen’s model for intercultural communication (1998)
self-perception
Cultural
self-perception
Cultural
presuppositions
Cultural
presuppositions
Fix-points
M. Kovyazina Comparative Culturology Lectures, Tyumen State University,
Positions of
experiences
Positions of
experiences

25. Positions of experiences
The concept of ‘Positions of experiences’ refers to the fact that all interpretations are bounded in individual experiences, but although the experiences are subjective, they are related to the social position of a person.

26. Cultural presuppositions
‘Cultural presuppositions’ refers to knowledge, experience, feelings and opinions we have towards categories of people that we do not regard as members of the cultural communities that we identify ourselves with.

27. The intention of the concept of ‘Cultural presuppositions’ is to create awareness about the ordinary process that people outside our own social community often are characterised (negatively) on the basis of our own values.
This explains why ‘they’ (very often) are described as ‘the inadequate others’ while our own culture is idealised.

28. Cultural self-perception
‘Cultural self-perception’ is the ways in which an actor expresses a cultural community as the one he or she identifies with.
Cultural self-perception is strongly connected with cultural presuppositions, as it is through the construction of ‘the others’ we construct narratives about ourselves.

29. Cultural fix points
‘Cultural fix points’ are the focal points that arise in the communication between two actors who both feel they represent a certain topic.
For a topic to be seen as a ‘Cultural fix point’ it requires that both actors identify with this topic, and that they position themselves in a discussion. Cultural fix points are not entirely arbitrary, but they relate to societal structures.

30. Intercultural Verbal Communication Advice
Speak slowly
Repeat as necessary
Be sincere and empathetic
Keep it simple and short
Show and demonstrate by using examples /illustrations
M. Kovyazina Comparative Culturology Lectures, Tyumen State University,

31. Intercultural Verbal Communication Advice
Check the other person's understanding by asking, “What do you understand?” not “Do you understand?”
Be patient, use encouragement and praise sincerely
Watch for body language cues to understand real meaning in communication
M. Kovyazina Comparative Culturology Lectures, Tyumen State University,

32. (gestures, glances, changes in the tone of voice, etc. )
Communication
Non-verbal
(gestures, glances, changes in the tone of voice, etc. )
Verbal
(words)
M. Kovyazina Comparative Culturology Lectures, Tyumen State University,
(= paralanguage)