IV. Speaking

Imagine you are going to participate in a conference and present a report on the importance of intercultural communication in the modern world. What arguments will you pick out to support your topic? Present your report in the class.

V. Writing

Look at the fourteen separate types of cross-cultural contact suggested by Richard W. Bristlin. Choose any two types and describe them in detail.

Text 2 main concepts of intercultural communication*

(Intermediate – upper-intermediate)

I. Pre-reading task

Before reading try to formulate the definitions of the following concepts.

– culture

– subculture

– culture shock

– ethnocentric reactions

II. Read the text carefully and write down the definitions of the main concepts.

To understand the problems that are created from having contacts across cultural and national boundaries, it is important to understand the definition of a culture. Benjamin Wharf argued that culture and language are so closely tied together they are inseparable. The structure of the language determines both thinking and behavior.

Culture

When we use the term culture, there is no shortage of definitions. For example, the revised edition of The Random House College Dictionary defines culture as "the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another." [The Random House College Dictionary, rev. ed., New York, 1980, p.325] This definition is somewhat broad, but it does focus on two important concepts. First, it focuses on "ways of living." Second, it focuses on "transmission" of those ways of living.

The ways of living are patterns of behavior. These behavior patterns conform to a culture's norms. They are often unexpressed and invisible premises upon which reason is placed. In short, they are basic assumptions that "go without saying." Transmission of those norms, of course, is a communication function. A cross-cultural sojourner must learn the norms in order to have a satisfying cross-cultural experience.

Anthropologist Dorothy Lee took a symbolic interactionist position when she defined culture to mean ". . .a symbolic system which transforms the physical reality, what is there, into experienced reality." [Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture, 1959, p.2] This is very similar to Raymonde Carroll's definition. "My culture," she wrote, "is the logic by which I give order to the world. And I have been learning this logic little by little, since the moment I was born…" [Raymonde Carroll, Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience, Chicago Press, 1988, p.3] This, too, is a broad definition. It pinpoints human communication behavior as the focus of culture.

Notice, however, that it does more. It makes clear that how people use the language of their culture controls the way they experience the world. If we do not at least share the fundamental assumptions of a language, we do not (and can not) experience the world in the same way.

According to Richard W. Brislin, “ a culture can be explained as an identifiable group with shared beliefs and experiences, feelings of worth and value attached to those experiences, and a shared interest in a common historical background” [Richard W Brislin, Cross-cultural Encounters: Face-to-Face Interaction, New York, 1981, p. 2].

Again, the focus of the definition is helpful. W.Brislin points to an identifiable group, an "in group" if you will, that shares beliefs, experiences, and so forth. They operate on shared assumptions. Because they are fluent with those assumptions, they do not often consciously think of them. If they are not part of the "in group," people encounter ambiguity in our cross-cultural encounters.

Clifford Geertz understands culture to be "a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life." [Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, 1973, p. 89.] Carley H. Dodd wrote that "culture is the total accumulation of many beliefs, customs, activities, institutions and communication patterns of an identifiable group of people." [Carley H. Dodd, Dynamics of Intercultural Communication: 2d ed., 1987, p. 38.]

Thus, there are many ways to define the term culture. Each way emphasizes something special about the concept.

For the purposes of this chapter, a culture is an identifiable group whose members share beliefs, customs, communication patterns, and a common history through communication behavior.