Building Intercultural Skills

1. List some of the stereotypes that foreigners have about Russians/Kazakhs and Americans. Where do these stereotypes come from? How do they develop? How do these stereotypes influence communication between Americans/Russians/Kazakhs and people from other countries?

2. Notice how different cultural groups are portrayed in the media. If there are people of colour or other minority groups represented. What roles do they play?

3. What stereotypes do you believe in? 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.

 

Lecture 6

Verbal Communication

       Plan

1. Code-Switching

2. Turn-Taking

3. Self-Disclosure

4. Content Versus Relationship

5. Listening

6. Cultural Variations in Language

 

Language influences thought, and thus influences the meanings that are conveyed by words. Becoming fluent in a foreign language is a difficult and time-consuming task, but it is essential to gaining intercultural understanding of the society in which that language is spoken.

An individual’s perceptions are more important than objective reality in determining the individual’s behavior. These perceptions differ from one culture to another. One of the main propositions of intercultural communication is that culture shapes an individual’s perceptions, and thus behavior.

One of the important intellectual contributions of the Chicago School is a theoretical perspective (концепция) called symbolic interaction, defined as the theory that individuals act toward objects on the basis of meanings and perceptions that are formed through communication with others. The founder of symbolic interactionism was George Herbert Mead. Mead argued that no one is born with a self (a personality), nor does it develop instinctively. Instead, an individual’s self-conception evolves through talking with others (parents, teachers) during childhood. Mead suggested that human behavior could be understood by learning how individuals give meaning to the symbolic information that they exchange with others. Through such conversations, an individual forms perceptions which then determine actions.

Code- Switching (переключение с одного языка на другой)

Code-switching is the process by which individuals change from speaking one language to another during a conversation. Participants must be equally fluent in at least two languages. Intercultural communication scholars have investigated under what conditions code-switching takes place and its consequences. They have learned that code-switching has complex rules, although it usually happens naturally without the code-switchers being fully aware of why they switch when they do.

The language spoken may affect the meanings derived by the conversation partners. For example, two people fluent in both English and Spanish are having a conversation in Spanish. A third person joins them who can only speak English. The conversation rather naturally switches to English. No one states: “Okay, now let’s talk in English”. The change happens naturally. Now let’s assume the speakers do not know the third person who joins them, but they know his name is Jesus Martinez. They could continue speaking Spanish, assuming that Jesus knows the language, until they perceive that he does not comprehend what they are saying. This example illustrates code-switching as a desire to accommodate another participant.

Code-switching occurs more frequently in countries where many people are bilingual. Code-switching can be used in the opposite direction of the examples above. If the goal was to send a very different message, code-switching could be used to distance oneself from others. Refusing to communicate in a shared code sends a clear message that the conversation is closed to “strangers”.

 

Turn- Taking (взятие коммуникативного хода, смена ролей)

One important and necessary behavior in every face-to-face interpersonal exchange is turn-taking, defined as the process through which the participants in a conversation decide who will talk first, next, and so forth. Have you noticed how individuals in a conversation decide who will talk next? Nonverbal clues may be important, such as when an individual looks at the person who is expected to talk next in a conversation.

When two people who are talking do not share a common culture, they may misunderstand each other’s subtle clues as to when each should speak. As a result, both individuals may try to talk at the same time, or their discourse may be interrupted by awkward silences. As a consequence of these difficulties with turn-taking, both conversation partners may feel uncomfortable. For instance, when a Japanese and a North American talk in English, a pause of a few seconds’ duration may frequently occur before the Japanese speaker responds.

Self-Disclosure (процесс самораскрытия)

Self-Disclosure is the degree to which an individual reveals personal information to another person. An individual may not want to disclose such details as feelings toward another person who is a mutual friend, or some item of taboo information. Such topics are generally not considered acceptable in casual conversation because of social taboos and sanctions (запрещение, запретительное предписание). However, individuals may consciously break their silence on these subjects as a political act in order to change these taboos.

Research has been conducted on self-disclosure. Scholars have investigated whether or not women are more likely to disclose personal information about themselves than are men. Generally, personal and social characteristics are not related to the degree of an individual’s disclosure. The personal relationship between two or more individuals, however, does affect self-disclosure, with same- culture intimates (близкий друг).

Cultural factors strongly determine the degree to which self-disclosure is appropriate. Collectivistic cultures are not very disclosing, while individualistic are more self-disclosing. Europeans and Americans disclose more personal details about their health, thoughts than do the Japanese or Chinese. This distinction implies that an individual may often not disclose inner feelings to others. Asians believe that self-centered talk is boastful, pretentious, and should be avoided. So when an American discloses some personal information to an Asian, the latter feels uncomfortable and does not self-disclose in return.

Content Versus Relationship

Communication scholars distinguish between two dimensions (аспект, характеристика) of a message:

1) the message content, or what is said;

2) the relationship, or how it is said.

This distinction was originally formulated by Gregory Bateson while observing monkeys playing in the San Francisco zoo. He noticed that one monkey would nip another in a way that looked like real combat, but both monkeys understood that the nip was just in play. Bateson concluded that the bite message must have been preceded by another signal that established a playful relationship between the two monkeys. He called the relationship message metacommunication, that is communication about communication. Humans as well as monkeys, frequently engage in metacommunication. For example, one person is laughing while he makes a very offensive statement to a close friend, who thus understands from the smile that the remark is in jest.

The content versus relationship dimensions of communication are different in different cultures. Collectivistic cultures put greater emphasis upon the relationship aspect of a message. For example, individuals in a collectivistic culture form messages in a way so as not to offend or make another person lose face. Less important is the clarity of the message content because relationships are considered more important. In comparison, individualistic cultures stress message content over the relationship dimension of a message. If someone’s feelings get hurt by a communication message, too bad. Individuals generally feel that effective communication depends on being clear and avoiding ambiguity.

One of the important functions of interpersonal communication is to form and maintain interpersonal relationships (intimate or distant, etc). Culture defines the nature of these relationships between people and their intercultural interpersonal communication. Thus one of the most important dimension of interpersonal relationships, especially in most Asian cultures, is face, defined as the public self-image that an individual wants to present in a particular social context. Face is particularly important for the Japanese, Chinese, and other Asians and Asian Americans who share a collectivistic culture. These individuals are extremely concerned with how they will appear to others around them. They wish to avoid looking foolish or making a social error that could lead to guilt or shame. Much attention is given to maintaining positive interpersonal relationships with peers. In order to help another person maintain face, one should pay compliments, and offer frequent apologies for oneself. One should not criticize Asian persons in public situations, as this act might harm the individual’s face. For example, a North American teaching English as a foreign language in Japan playfully said in class to a favorite student: “You are a lazy student”. The student did not talk to the teacher for the next several weeks and was very hurt by the teacher’s joking comment. The student had lost face.

A distinction can be made between maintaining someone else’s face versus your own. In collectivistic cultures like Asia, the maintenance of other-face predominates. In individualistic cultures, attention to self-face is more important.

 

Listening

Communication is a two-way process, for every person speaking there is usually someone who is listening. The receiving role in the communication process is just as important as the sending role, although it has received much less attention from communication scholars.

Most of us are not very effective listeners, because we are passive instead of active listeners. One reason for our inattentiveness while listening is because humans typically speak at about 125 to 150 words per minute, while individuals can listen at a rate of 400 words per minute. During our spare time as a listener, we often let our mind wander to other topics. Such inattentive listening often occurs during lecture classes. Twenty minutes after a lecture, listeners can remember only about half of the message content. One hour after the lecture, remembering drops to 40 percent; one day later this figure is 35 percent, and after two days it is 30 percent. One week after the lecture, listeners can remember 27 percent, and after two weeks, 25 percent. These data reflect the abilities of average individuals.

One principle of listening is to listen through the words in order to detect central themes. A good listener demonstrates attentiveness, does not interrupt, and is cautious in asking questions of the speaker. A listener should control his/her emotions and avoid being distracted. Listening demonstrates caring for the speaker and the topic.

Active listening consists of two steps:

1) hearing, or exposure to the message;

2) understanding, when we connect the message to what we already know;

3) remembering, so that we do not lose the message content;

4) evaluating, thinking about the message and deciding whether or not it is valid;

5) responding, when we encode a return message based on what we have heard and what we think of it.

Cultural factors affect each of these five components of active listening. In many cultures that consider it impolite to ask a speaker a question responding may not be valued, and to disagree would be unthinkable. Many of the difficulties in communication between culturally unalike individuals may be due to cultural factors in listening behavior. It is often problematic as to whether one’s conversation partner is tuned in or not.