Monochronic and polychronic time orientation

Edward T. Hall distinguished two basic time orientations: monochronic and polychronic. The monochronic orientation involves focusing on one task or one issue at a time, and bringing that to completion before starting a new one. Plans how to carry out the task have, in general, been made in advance. In the polychronic orientation, several tasks and issues can be dealt with simultaneously. No exact plans have been made in advance, changes and surprises can be accommodated at a short notice. Completion of the task takes preference over the personal relationships in monochronic time orientation. In polychronic systems, involvement of people and completion of transactions are preferred to adherence to preset schedules.

Finns, as a cultural group, have been classified by Hall, together with, e.g., with the Swiss, Germans, other Scandinavians, British and Americans, as having tendency toward the monochronic time orientation. It should be remembered, however, that people in all cultures behave differently in different situations and there are no "typical" individuals.

- Proxemics, kinesics, and artifacts

Contact/low contact nonverbal communication

Proxemics can be one criteria for the classification of nonverbal communication: We talk about contact and low-contact communication. Proximity is communicated, for instance, through the use of space, distance, touching, and body position. The use of space, the physical distance between people, and the options for touch are closely related and culture specific. Hall distinguishes four types of informal distances: public, social-consultative, personal and intimate distance. Personal distance is common in communication between friends. Social-consultative distance is used in professional and unofficial social occasions. People from different cultural backgrounds can for example value personal space differently.

Gestures, facial expressions, body language, eye contact (kinesics)

Certain nonverbal means of communication indicate immediacy, expressiveness, warmth and willingness to contact. In addition to touching and physical proximity, such signals are, for instance, eye contact, smiling, and body position.

Eye contact is a powerful means of nonverbal communication. Its use is culturally regulated but in general people are not aware of the rules or their own eye contact behaviour. Eye contact can be a source of interpretations and attributions. Based on eye contact, someone can be perceived as aggressive, disrespectful, or flirtatious, depending on the culture.

Clothing, artifacts, living environments

The "material culture," that is, how we live, what we carry with us, and how we dress have been traditional focuses of anthropology and ethnology. Increasingly, however, attention has been paid to these issues also in intercultural communication, and related areas such as intercultural marketing. Cultural meaning of colours, and the change of meanings within a culture, for instance, have been studied from marketing point of view. Red has been traditionally one of the favourite colours in Chinese culture because the color represents happiness and wealth. While black in earlier years had not enjoyed popularity among Chinese, today that color, particularly glossy and brilliant black, has turned out to be a colour of luxury. White used to be the colour of sorrow in China; today, brides dress in white for their weddings. Yet the traditional red might still be present in various shades in decorations, or even as an additional wedding dress to be changed into later during the festivities.

Theme 2 Assignments

Answer both tasks (Reflection and Observation)

Reflection (1-2 pages)

1) Choose from the Identity texts three dimensions of identity to which you feel a strong sense of belonging. Describe briefly why they are important to you. Discuss how these identities affect your communication (verbal, nonverbal, communication style, etc.).

OR

2) Think of some stereotypes you have on certain groups (national, regional, spiritual, etc.). Write down some of them and answer to the following questions:

· Where do these stereotypes come from?

· Are they accurate, based your experiences in real life?

Now think of a concrete situation where you met someone from a group to which you have attached strong stereotypes. Analyze the situation according to the five perceptual biases from Greenberg & Baron (cited in Jaakko Lehtonen's article).

 

Observation (1 page)

4) Observe one (1) of the phenomena of nonverbal communication when being, for instance, among friends or in another environment/situation.

Describe the phenomenon you observe.
What are the different factors that describe the phenomenon of this particular nonverbal behaviour?

Now make an experiment with your friends or with strangers, and try to break the rules of this nonverbal behaviour in a certain situation. (For instance, if you describe proxemics, stand "too close" or "too far" from someone, see how the others react.) How do you feel in that situation? On a more general level, how can you connect this to nonverbal communication theories?

(Note! After you checked the reactions of the people you observed, it might be good to explain to your friends that this was just a scientific experiment!)

Theme 3: CULTURAL VALUES AND COMMUNICATION

In this section we will discuss values in various cultures. First you will read a text from Professor Liisa Salo-Lee that introduces different approaches to cultural values in cross-cultural and intercultural studies. After this you will follow five lecture videos from Professor Galina Elizarova. She gives some examples, mostly from the Russian culture, of how cultural values manifest in everyday life and in communication. The topics are

· Relationship to nature

· Time orientation

· Personal space

· Different patterns of communication

· Attitudes to arguments

· 3.1 Why Studies of Values?

· None

· The authors of one of the first academic textbooks of Intercultural Communication, J. Condon and T. Yousef (1975), in saying "something about values," state,

· "The student of values seeks underlying principles as categories both for distinguishing cultures and for finding commonplaces among cultures" (1975:48).

· And they continue: "Values have to do with what is judged good or bad, right or wrong. Statements based on values describe the ideal, the standards by which behaviour is evaluated; they do not necessarily describe the actual behaviour" (1975:51).

· Values influence, however, behaviour. We evaluate others' behaviour according to our own cultural values. Values, and different value systems, manifest themselves in various ways in everyday life and communication. Also, some of the most recent international and intercultural conflicts have been motivated by value differences.

3.2 Cross-cultural Studies

None

Value studies are mostly cross-cultural studies, comparing cultures. The research approach is often quantitative and the data base large. Cross-cultural studies look at groups, for instance national groups such as Finns or Chinese, and describe general tendencies in value orientations within a culture and between cultures.

In studies comparing cultural groups various indicators of value differences and values orientations have been found. The relation to time varies along cultural lines. Cultures have also been found to differ, for instance, in dimensions of power distance, individualism and collectivism, femininity and masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and in the relation of human beings to self, society and nature.

Some of the best known cross-cultural value studies are

· Parsons & Shils (1951): pattern variables

· Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck (1961): value orientations

· E.T. Hall (1966): high contact & low contact; (1976) monochronic & polychronic time concept; (1976) low & high context

· Hofstede (1980; 1983; 1991; 2001): work-related values

· Chinese culture connection (1987): "Confucian work dynamism/long term orientation"

· Schwartz (1987/1992; 1994; 2002): Schwartz Value Inventory

· Trompenaars (1993: 1997): cultural dimensions

In the following sections, some of these frameworks and their classifications will be presented, and the basic indicators and dimensions of cultural differences will be discussed. For further discussion, please see the "Toward's the different layers of culture" section in Stephan Dahl's "Intercultural Research: The Current State of Knowledge" article.

3.2.1 Parsons & Shils + Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck

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The two "classical" value orientations, by Parsons and Shils, and by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, have influenced, among others, Hofstede and Trompenaars in their value studies and classifications.

Parsons and Shils state that value orientations explain behaviour and that people learn the values in the socialization process and make their behavioural choices unconsciously. Some of their value dimensions as well as the terminology, for instance, universalism and particularism, were later incorporated into the framework of Trompenaars.

According to Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck value orientations result from challenges that all people have to solve and influence concrete decisions in everyday life. These kinds of problems are, for instance,

· What is the relation of man to nature?

· What is the character of innate human nature?

· What is the temporal focus of human life?

There are for all societies a limited number of possible solutions to which people in different cultures give different preferences.

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck propose the following value orientations:

· relation to nature (mastery, harmony, submission)

· basic human nature (good, bad, neutral)

· time orientation (past, present, future)

· activity orientation (being, doing, becoming)

· relationship among people (group, individual)

Also these orientations are to be seen in the work of later scholars studying values, such as Hofstede.

From the following video lectures by professor Galina Elizarova (Dr in English Linguistics from the Hertzen State Pedagogical University; St Petersburg, Russia) you will learn more about value orientations of relation to nature and time orientation. In addition, professor Elizarova discusses these verbal and nonverbal communication issues: personal space, different patterns of communication and attitudes to arguments.

 

3.2.2 Hofstede + Trompenaars + Schwartz

None

Geert Hofstede studied work-related values. His extensive original data (1967-1973) comes from 40 countries and involved 116,000 people working at IBM. Based on these, and later data, Hofstede has developed theory of cultural variation which features four dimensions along which cultures differ. These dimensions are

· individualism/collectivism

· power distance

· uncertainty avoidance

· masculinity/femininity

Later on, based on the findings of the so-called "Chinese culture connection," a fifth dimension "Confucian dynamism/long-term orientation" was added to the dimensions.

 

Fons Trompenaars ' seven dimensions of culture are

· relationships between people

o universalism/particularism

o individualism/collectivism

o neutral/affective

o specific/diffuse

o achievement/ascription

· time orientation

o past, present, future

o sequential/synchronous

· relationship to nature

o internal/external

A well-known case from Trompenaars' research material referring to the dimension of universalism/particularism is "The car and the pedestrian" (Trompenaars 1993:34):

"You are driving in a car driven by a close friend. He hits a pedestrian. You know he was going at least 35 miles per hour in an area of the city where the maximum allowed speed is 20 miles per hour. There are no witnesses. His lawyer says that if you testify under oath that he was only driving 20 miles per hour it may save him from serious consequences. What right has your friend to expect you to protect him? (a definite right, some right, no right)."

What would you do in that kind of a situation?

 

For Shalom Schwartz, culture is a "rich complex of meanings, beliefs, practices, symbols, norms, and values prevalent among people in a society" (2003). His Theory of Value Orientations comprises the following cultural dimensions:

· embeddedness/autonomy

· hierarchy/egalitarianism

· mastery/harmony

 

In all cross cultural value studies, individualism and collectivism as well as power distance have been identified as dimensions along which cultures differ. In the pages we will be discussing these cultural dimensions.

- Individualism and collectivism

None

In individualistic value orientation, people are primarily concerned about themselves and their immediate family. In collectivistic value orientation, people's major concern is their ingroup or community. The ingroup is expected to look after an individual in exchange for loyalty. The distinction between the ingroups and outgroups in collectivistic cultures in reflected in communication, for example, in different norms of politeness. The ingroup is vital for a person's success -- even survival -- and therefore good relationships have to be maintained.

Belonging to an ingroup is verbalized in such daily communicative practices as greetings. In some cultures the greetings include not the person talked to but also inquiries after the well-being of his/her family members. In Mozambique, for instance, a common question in local languages is "How are you (in plural)?" (in Portuguese: como estão?). In general, the concept of the human being in collectivistic societies such as Mozambique is collective also in the sense that it comprises the dead, the living and the yet to be born.

Collectivism, and collective thinking is defined by Ethiopians as follows:

"Thinking that originates from the influence of a traditional society, where more or less everything is collectively owned, where neighbourhoods live in unison sharing the pleasures and toils of life, and where interests seem to converge and overlap. As a result of this, the whole community is so rigidly tied together with socio-economic and cultural cohesion, that sharing the same idea and images, shelter and neighbourhood, images and feelings, stories, myths, values and traditional cults, becomes the norm" (Vasko, Kjisik, Salo-Lee 1998:84).

Individualism is a characteristic tendency of industrialized societies. Modernization induces changes which are often assumed to be unidirectional, i.e., all societies are developing the same characteristic traits in the modernization process. The traits attributed to modern societies include (Bond 1995)

· the sense of personal efficacy (anti-fatalism)

· low social integration with relatives

· egalitarian attitude towards others

· openness to innovation and change

· belief in sexual equality

· high achievement motivation

· independence or self-reliance

· active participation in social organizations

· tolerance of, and respect for, others

· cognitive and behavioural flexibility

· future organization

· empathetic capacity

· high need for information

· propensity to take risks in life

· secularization in religious belief

· preference for urban life

· high educational and occupational aspirations.

In spite of the assumption that the process of convergence towards a modern society is the same from culture to culture, a society can modernize and not lose valued elements of its tradition. The modern and the tradition are not necessarily incompatible.

Hierarchy and power distance

None

The term " power distance " is used to refer to human inequality and how it is accepted in the society. The term has gained popularity in various fields, including Intercultural Communication, due to the studies of Hofstede on work-related values.

Criteria for giving somebody a higher status in a society vary. Two basic orientations have been identified: ascription and achievement. In ascription-oriented societies status is based on factors such as age, position or gender. In achievement-oriented societies status is mainly based on personal achievements.

In cross-cultural value studies Finland, as well as other Nordic countries, has been identified as a low power distance, equalitarian culture.

3.3 Intercultural Studies

Intercultural studies refer here to studies where interaction is the focus. These studies are often linguistic or ethnographic, and research approach is qualitative. Culture-specificity is emphasized as well as contextual factors which may influence communication considerably.

Culture is manifested in communication, or as Bernd Müller-Jacquier puts it:

"... all cultural differences are "hidden" in linguistic manifestations. These expressions are found in all languages and they can be classified in different grammatical and lexical categories or even expressed nonverbally. They are presented in culture-specific explicit or implicit forms by both speakers and listeners" (2003:53).

Müller-Jacquier (2003) talks about "Linguistic Awareness of Cultures" and has elaborated the following "check-list" for looking at cultural differences:

· lexicon/social meaning

· speech acts/speech act sequences

· organization of conversation/conventions of discourse

· choice of topic

· directness/indirectness

· register

· paraverbal factors

· nonverbal means of expression

· culture-specific values/attitudes

· culture-specific behaviour (including rituals) and behaviour sequences

 

Ethnographers look at communication practices in specific cultural communities. According to Donal Carbaugh (1996),

· communication is patterned in culturally distinctive ways

· rules for producing sociable speech vary from cultural communicative system to cultural communicative system

· use of particular linguistic devices varies in culturally distinctive ways

· each of these differences can be the source of miscommunication and negative cultural stereotypes.

The exploration of cultural speaking patterns makes it possible to hear cultures in linguistic, and non-linguistic, action. It also develops understanding of people's cultural conduct and the dynamics that transpires when one cultural system of expression contacts another (Carbaugh 1996).

(original text by Liisa Salo-Lee, 2006)