Intercultural Communication The Cultural Context

Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj Napoca

Facultatea de Litere

Departamentul de Limbi Moderne Aplicate

Proiect de cercetare și documentare

Intercultural Communication: The Cultural Context

Student:

Croitoru Evelina-Ioana

Coordonator:

CONF.DR. ADRIANA NEAGU

CLUJ NAPOCA MAI 2016

ABSTRACT

Keywords: competence, cultural barriers, high context, low context, verbal communication, nonverbal communication, individualism, collectivism, value orientation, uncertainty avoidance, power distance.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the intercultural communication from a contextual approach. We shall only look into the concept of cultural context disregarding the other contexts that emerge when in an intercultural situation. One of the greatest barriers in reaching intercultural competence is not being alert to the importance of the communicational contexts in different cultures. Ignoring such barriers may provoke difficulties and impediments when communicating interculturally. This is why one must analyze these differences and hold them into account when found in an intercultural situation. The concept of context has a great number of nuances and can be divided in several categories. I shall start by explaining the cultural context and then move to the other ones that can be found at a smaller scale and are much more particular for every given situation. In order to achieve a certain level of intercultural competence, one must understand that a culture is more than it may seem at a first glance, and this ability of fully understanding the cultural milieu, with all its implications is what leads to the anticipation of conflicts. One that is not able to understand a certain habit or value held by people in a certain culture in all its complexity is doomed to give rise to arguments or even worse. Culture is a complex and often not completely understood concept, as Hall (1959: 39) himself once said that “culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides more effectively from its own participants”.

Cultural Context

Culture supplies the general structure within which humans can learn how to think, feel and behave, all in relation to the environment they are raised and educated in. But according to Neuliep (2006: 48) “although people are born into a culture, it is not innate. Culture is leaned. Culture teaches one how to think, conditions one how to feel, and instructions one how to act, especially how to inter-act with others; in other words, communicate”. One of the greatest barriers in reaching intercultural competence is not being alert to the importance of the communicational contexts in different cultures. Ignoring such barriers may provoke difficulties and impediments when communicating interculturally. This is why one must analyze these differences and hold them into account when found in an intercultural situation. The concept of context has a great number of nuances and can be divided in several categories. I shall start by explaining the cultural context and then move to the other ones that can be found at a smaller scale and are much more particular for every given situation.

In order to achieve a certain level of intercultural competence, one must understand that a culture is more than it may seem at a first glance, and this ability of fully understanding the cultural milieu, with all its implications is what leads to the anticipation of conflicts. One that is not able to understand a certain habit or value held by people in a certain culture in all its complexity is doomed to give rise to arguments or even worse. Culture is a complex and often not completely understood concept, as Hall (1959: 39) himself once said that “culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides more effectively from its own participants”. Culture supplies the general structure within which humans can learn how to think, feel and behave, all in relation to the environment they are raised and educated in. But according to Neuliep (2006: 48) “although people are born into a culture, it is not innate. Culture is leaned. Culture teaches one how to think, conditions one how to feel, and instructions one how to act, especially how to inter-act with others; in other words, communicate”.

There are various dimensions of the variability between cultures that once assessed might lead us to a better understanding of the intercultural milieu of a culture. Since it has been already decided that culture cannot be defined, as any definition is too restrictive, many researchers suggested that a dialectal approach might be the most suitable one.

Continuing the work already started by Bas, Sapir, Kroeber, Benedict and. Linton, Hall had a true intercultural perspective when developing a series of concepts that differentiated the cultures according to the importance of the context in the communication act, creating the concepts of high context cultures and low context cultures; he also takes into account the way in which people regard time, namely monochronic and polychronic cultures and the nuances of nonverbal communication.

1.1 HIGH AND LOW CONTEXT COMMUNICATION

Human communication, as we have already seen is very much dependent on the context in which it occurs; to be more precise, the cultural, physical, socio-relational and perceptual environment. According to the contextual features, some people tend to focus more on the verbal codes than on the nonverbal factors, while other people will be more alert to the nonverbal elements. As Hall (1957: 110) asserts that:

A high-context (HC) communication or message is one in which most of the information iseither in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message. A low-context (LC) communication is just the opposite; i.e., the, mass of information is vested in the explicit code.

People of high-context cultures know and understand each other better, as well as they know their proper roles, and therefore words are not necessary for delivering the message. In this way, sentences might be shortened, and the communication becomes fast, skillful and pleasing. The rules for communication are implicit and the interactants are expected to apprehend and figure out unspoken messages. On the other hand, according to Hall (1959), in a low-context culture, the verbal code is the primary source of information (quoted in Neuliep, 2006: 59). Even though the interactants understand nonverbal communication, they choose to focus on the verbal content. In this manner, the roles and expectations are being explained explicitly. People from low-context cultures are expected to communicate according to their feelings, and therefore the messages are being rendered in a direct way.

The differences between the two types of cultures are so great that in some situation they may create difficulties when people meet and communicate. One particular component that might be very problematic is the way in which silence is being used. As Charles Braithwaite (1990: 321) argues that, “one of the fundamental components of cultural and linguistic competence is knowing how and when to use silence as a communicative tactic”.

I myself have been an observer of such differences in my brief stay in the United States. When working with young girls between 16-18 years old, I could have noticed the differences between the degree of respect we payed to the elders and more successful ones. This is very much linked to the use of silence because, especially when talking to a person higher in rank than us, we are tough to speak only when necessary, and sometimes, even only when asked. On the contrary, my American friends disregarded this principle that they most certainly weren’t even aware of. They were long-winded while I and the others that came from Romania, Montenegro, Turkey and Russia tended to be more moderate and alert not to offend the other person. To put this in few words, low-context cultures have a direct style of communicating while people from high-context cultures like better indirectness for they appreciate politeness and discretion more than low-context cultures.

1.2 INDIVIDUALISM-COLLECTIVISM

As Neuliep (2006: 45) expressed it, “perhaps the single most studied dimension of cultural variability that is used to compare and contrast cultures and micro cultures is individualism-collectivism”. Harry Triandis (1981), well known for his work on individualism and collectivism writes that “in individualistic cultures, emphasis is placed on individual’s goals over group goals. In individualistic cultures social behavior is guided by personal goals, perhaps at the expense of other types of goals” (Neuliep, 2006: 45). Giving the fact that the center of the beliefs in an individualistic culture is seeing each person as uniquely endowed and possessing typical talent and potential, in cases, people are taught to be creative, assertive, competitive and independent.

On the other side, in collectivistic cultures people are being thought that group goals are much more important than individual goals, as Neuliep (2006: 46) states, “people are not seen as isolated human beings, and they tend to stress values that serve the in-group by subordinating personal goals for the sake of preserving the in-group”. Unlike the individualists, the collectivists are being thought to being emotionally connected to the in-group. In addition, Triandis (1995) states that “collectivism is based on the tenet that collaboration and cooperation ultimately lead to survival” (Neuliep, 2006: 47). The major difference between individualists and collectivists may lay in the fact that where the former is taught to compete, the latter is taught to cooperate. While in America, even though only later have I come to understand the core of these differences, I could notice some significant differences between the way in which they tend to motivate their workers and the values that I held from my home country, Romania.

After doing some research on the theme, I came to understand that the Romanian culture is ranked as a collectivistic culture according to Hofstede, even though this was said back in the days, during communism, and ever since then much has changed in the Romanian society. However, despite of the fact that Romania became a more individualistic culture in the meantime, I strongly believe that my generation still holds similar values of collectivism passed by our grandparents and maybe at a smaller level by our parents. Therefore one might reach the conclusion that no culture is strictly and entirely individualistic or collectivistic.

1.3 VALUE ORIENTATIONS

One of the elements that affect intercultural communication the most are values, as Milton Rokeach (1973: 3) states “the value concept, more than any other, should occupy a central position across all social sciences…It is an intervening variable that shows promise of being able to unify the apparently diverse interests of all sciences concerned with human behavior”. As well as culture and communication, values are not innate but are learned. They dictate what is preferred and what is forbidden, in other words they guide how one thinks about things in terms of good/bad and acceptable/unacceptable.

Many value orientations have been developed during the years, and we will only take into account those most relevant for reaching a better understanding of the differences that occur among the values of various cultures. One of them, has been developed in the early 1960s by Fred Strodbeck and Florence Kluckhohn who argued that every culture has universal problems and conditions that must be addressed. They distinguished seven dimensions of culture, as following:

Human nature: how people feel about the nature itself and other people as well. This has great meaning because how people feel about each other might influence the way they engage in a conversation.

The relationship with nature: we will further discuss this in the following chapter and see how there are various cultures that differentiate by the way people perceive nature as there are some cultures that believe they should live in harmony with nature and others that think they can turn nature into their supplier or their servant meanwhile others think their fates are being completely determined by natural causes.

Relationship with people: the way in which one perceives the social structure

Human activities: the way in which one sees accomplishments, more precisely:

Being: Belief that People should concentrate on living for the moment

Becoming: belief that individuals should strive to develop themselves into an integrated whole.

Doing: belief on striving for goals and accomplishments’ (Hills, 2002: 5).

1.4 POWER DISTANCE

Power distance is a very important cultural concept as it describes how people from different cultures regard the superior/subordinate relationships between people and also looks at the degree to which people that do not hold power accept the way in which power is being shared. According to Hofstede (1980), “while many cultures declare and even legislate equality for their members, all cultures must deal with the issue of human inequality” (quoted in Neuliep, 2006: 76). Let us take for example the document upon which the United States has been created that emphasizes how “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” or the Declaration of Human Rights that states that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. Regardless of these legal actions, equality is rarely the case, as communication scholar Mark Orbe (1998: 8) explains “In every society a social hierarchy exists that privileges some groups over others. Those groups that function at the top of the social hierarchy determine to a great extent the communication system of the entire society.”

Inequality can occur in all types of areas, such as human rights, wealth, power, technology just to name a few.

Matters of inequality fall within what Hofstede (1980) defined as power distance: “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally”(quoted in Neuliep, 2006: 76) .

Neuliep also argues how cultures either possess large or small power distance. “Cultures with a smaller power distance tend to accentuate the fact that the inequalities that arise among people should be lessened and that there should be an interdependence between the less and more powerful people”.(2006: 76) From an academic point of view, the overall educational process is student-oriented as students are allowed to ask questions as they please and even challenge the teacher. On the other hand, as Hofstede (1980: 7) sustains, in cultures with a larger power distance, people are not only acknowledging inequalities among people but these are also being expected and desired. For example, children are expected to be obedient, and those that do not behave are ought to be punished severely.

But the differences between cultures that have less or more power distance do not stop here as power distance affects both the verbal and the nonverbal behavior of people. Researchers such as Tyler, Lind and Huo show us how power distance can influence the way in which people may react to a legal third-party involved in a conflictual situation. Moreover, as we’ve already said the behavioral component is also affected as in many large power distance cultures people of lower status are expected to avoid direct contact to a person of higher status.

1.5 UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE

Another cultural dimension tackled by many communication specialists is the degree to which a certain culture can be comfortable when communicating to someone from a different culture. According to Hofstede (1980), “tolerance for uncertainty is learned through cultural socialization”. He also notes that “a culture’s technology, system of laws, and religion are markers for how that culture addresses and attempts to avoid or reduce uncertainty”(quoted in Neuliep , 2006: 83). Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which people from a particular culture feel anxious or uncomfortable by situations that might seem uncertain or unknown to them. Therefore, in cultures with a weak uncertainty avoidance orientation, people are not threatened by uncertainty but they accept it as part of their daily lives. On the contrary, in cultures with a strong uncertainty avoidance orientation, people perceive uncertainty as an unceasing threat that must be fought back.

Taking everything said into consideration, we may once again reach the conclusion that culture is the largest context in the contextual model of intercultural communication. By understanding culture in all its complexity one might grow to be more aware of the influence culture has on our everyday lives, because as James Neuliep (2006: 92) states, culture is: “On one hand, amorphous; it is shapeless, vague and nebulous.[…] On the other hand, culture is arguably the strongest influence on an individual’s cognitive, affective and behavioral choices”.

The dimensions that we have seen in this paper, namely high/low context, individualism/collectivism, value orientations, power distance and uncertainty avoidance can turn into the starting point for a further analysis of intercultural communication.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Braithwaite, C.A. “Communicative Silence: A Cross-Cultural Study of Basso’s Hypothesis” in D. Carbaugh. Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1990.

Hall, E. T. The Silent Language. Connecticut: Fawcette PublicationsInc., 1959.

Hall, E.T. Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books, 1989.

Hofstede, G. Cultures and organizations: Software of the Mind. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980.

Hsu, F.L.K. American and Chinese. Passage to Differences. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1981.

Neuliep, James. Intercultural Communication. A Contextual Approach. California: Sage, 2006 .

Orbe, M. Constructing Co-Cultural Theory: An explication of Culture, Power and Communication. California: Sage, 1998.

Rokeach, M. The Nature of Human Values. New York: The Free Press, 1973.

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