Cross-cultural or Intercultural Studies?

Cross-cultural and intercultural studies should not be seen as contradictory but complementary ways of trying to investigate intercultural communication. In order to understand the complexities of the interplay of culture and communication, various approaches and multisource data is needed.

Intercultural Communication is an interdisciplinary field of study. This involves dialogue between practitioners from different cultures and different research traditions.

 

Theme 3 Assignments

Please choose one of the following options. Write altogether about 2 pages.

1) How do values manifest in everyday life? Focus on some values (e.g., power distance, individualism/collectivism, time orientation) and give examples from your own culture AND from your encounters with other cultures. What kind of differences have you noticed?

OR

2) Look at Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions and make a comparison of values with your home country and another country that you know quite well.

· Do you agree / disagree with the results?

· Justify your answer and illustrate with practical examples

OR

3) Values are important means of advertising. Choose an advertisement in printed or electronic media (TV, internet, radio, newspaper, magazines…) which, in your opinion, is problematic considering cultural values in an intercultural context. Describe the advertisement briefly and discuss its content and message from an intercultural point of view.

 

Theme 4: INTERCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS AND ADAPTATION

Meeting people from different cultural backgrounds has become more and more common in the globalizing world. However, we are often not aware of our own culture until something surprising or shocking happens. Our own habits, values and beliefs feel just natural to us. It is only when we meet someone from a different culture that we notice the basic assumptions are not the same everywhere. Our reactions in such a situation can be very different -- rejection, acceptance and adaptation are some examples of how people can take cultural differences.

In this chapter we will discuss intercultural encounters and adaptation to a new culture. The contents are

· Encounters and emotions

· Culture Shock

· Intercultural adaptation

o U-curve model

o W-curve model

o Stress-Adaptation-Growth

· Expatriate assignment cycle

Culture shock

People move from one country to another for different reasons. Studying or working opportunities abroad, intercultural marriages, as well as unstable political situations can make people leave their own country. These different situations can be viewed in terms of short-term or long-term, and voluntary or involuntary migration. Someone who is just attending a three-week language course in a foreign country will probably have different experiences than someone who is going to work abroad for three years. The situation is different as well between those who actively choose a foreign country to work or study there, and those who go there as refugees.

In the beginning there are many practical matters that require attention. Moving to a new apartment, taking care of administrative matters, and even buying food at a grocery store can be very challenging issues in a new environment. At the same time finding new social contacts and facing situations where your own behavioural patterns don't seem to work at all may create a feeling of confusion. The term culture shock is often used to cover all these different dimensions of encountering a new cultural environment.

When talking about culture shock, it is good to be aware of the different layers of culture. The iceberg metaphor is often used to show how many things are actually invisible in a culture. Traditions and food habits are something we can learn by observing the culture long enough, but it is much more difficult to understand the beliefs and values that lie beneath the behaviour, "under the surface". This is what also happens in adaptation to a new culture - it is easier to start with some visible features of the culture, and slowly go deeper in the adaptation process.

The symptoms of a culture shock can be very different in different people. Some experience only a little discomfort for a few weeks, while others may be struggling for several months or even years. Previous international experience, personality, expectations, motivation, and cultural distance (i.e., how different the home culture and the host culture are) all play an important role in the process. Symptoms can be both physical and mental, since people react differently to changes. Eating and sleeping problems are an example of physical symptoms, while mental symptoms have more to do with feelings of anxiety and personal loss. Even if culture shock in itself may sound like a very negative experience, it is an important element in the adaptation process.

 

Intercultural Adaptation

There are different models for the intercultural adaptation process. For instance, a traditional viewpoint has been to see the process as a U-curve (Lysgaard, 1955; also Chang, 1973; Oberg, 1960), where a migrant moves from initial excitement about the new place into a crisis, and then to adjustment. Later on some scholars expanded the U-curve into a W-curve, where they also took into account the re-entry shock and readjustment of a migrant who returns to her/his home country. Adaptation can be also seen as an ongoing process, where a migrant gradually adapts to the new environment. This is called a Stress-Adaptation-Growth model (Kim, 2001).

It is useful to know something about culture shock and intercultural adaptation before moving to live in a new country. Awareness of what one can expect always helps in the process, but it is also important to remember that there is no one right formula, since every experience is unique.

(original text by Maria El Said, 2006)

U-curve

The U-curve model for adjustment was first introduced by a Norwegian sociologist Sverre Lysgaard in 1955, and it has been developed by other scholars during the following decades (e.g. Oberg, 1960; Chang, 1973). According to this model, the adaptation process goes through four stages:

· honeymoon period

· crisis period

· adjustment period

· biculturalism period.

 

W-curve

When migrants return to their home countries, they often have to go through a similar kind of adaptation process. Scholars refer to this with a W-curve model, where the second curve is meant to describe the re-entry shock and readjustment. This process is sometimes even more difficult, since people don't expect any culture shock when returning home. The re-entry shock can be described as a set of unmet expectations from both the migrant and the environment, which used to be familiar to him/her.

While one has been staying abroad, there may have been changes in the home country's political situation, technology, or popular culture, for instance. Friends and family are maybe not the same any more, and also the migrant is probably a different person after having spent some years in a different environment - even if people would expect him/her to be the same. After adapting to a new culture, it is actually natural to feel disintegration with home culture. It is all part of the process.

Theme 4 Assignments

Please select one of the two options below and write altogether about 2 pages.

1) Describe your own experiences about culture shock, re-entry and/or adaptation. Please reflect your experiences based on the theories of intercultural adaptation. You can use the following questions.

· Where did you go, for how long, and for what purposes?

· What were your first impressions in the foreign country?

· How would you describe the culture shock for yourself? (Maybe you didn't have any visible symptoms of culture shock? Why?)

· How would you describe the adaptation process for yourself?

· What emotions were attached to culture shock and adaptation?

· What was the most difficult in the new culture? And what was easy?

· What did you learn about the experience? Would it be easier for you now to live in a foreign country again?

Remember to link your writing to the theories presented in theme 4.

2) Using the theory and information from the entire course, discuss how the adaptation process might be different for an individual who has relocated to a country with a significantly different culture than his/her own for a short-term versus long-term versus permanent stay, and voluntarily versus involuntarily move. Discuss both the visible and invisible issues that the person might confront, as well as the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adaptations required.

 

Theme 5: INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

Intercultural competence is today one of the most central themes of research in Intercultural Communication and other related fields, such as Linguistics, Psychology and Education. Intercultural competence is not, however, only a current topic for researchers. It is topical for practitioners (e.g., employees, employers, trainers) in various fields (e.g., business, diplomacy, development work, social work, health care).

In the globalizing world, research-based knowledge and information on intercultural competence is expected both in academia and one's professional life. Among others, the following questions are being asked:

· What is intercultural competence?

· What does it consist of?

· What qualities should people have in order to be interculturally apt?

· Is intercultural competence something one can learn?

· Or to be trained in?

· How can it be measured and evaluated?

During the last 25 years researchers from various fields - particularly psychology and communication - have tried to answer these questions. We shall be looking at these issues more closely in the following sections.