Chapter 3

Intercultural communication

COMMUNICATING ACROSS SOCIAL BOUNDARIES

Stereotype

 A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people based upon their group

membership
 ‘To stereotype is to assign identical characteristics to any person in a group, regardless
of the actual variation among members of that group’.
 stereotypical beliefs are rigid, unresponsive to reality, and generally resistant to change

The link to communication

Jandt suggests four ways in which stereotypes can damage communication:
■ Make us assume that a widely held belief is true when it is not.
■ We may believe that every individual in that group conforms to the stereotype.
■ Stereotypes can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
■ We can interpret others’ behaviour according to the stereotype.

ANALYSING CULTURES: BASIC CONCEPTS

Culture is defined as a historically transmitted system of symbols, meaning and

norms.
Culture is the ‘system of knowledge’ that is shared by a large group of people.
Culture is an ensemble of social experiences, thought structures, expectations, and
practices of action, which has the quality of a mental apparatus.

Cultural relativism (relativity)

 The concept of cultural relativity derives mainly from the field of anthropology. In
its extreme form it holds that cultures can be evaluated only in terms of their own
values and institutions.

Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the view that uncritically presupposes that one’s own culture is the
criterion against which all other cultures must be judged. It is almost always used in
a negative sense to describe attitudes that refuse to recognize the validity of values
that differ from their own.

ANALYSING AND COMPARING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

1. Norms and Values
A norm is a rule, standard or pattern for action.
Beliefs shaped by life experiences such as our upbringing, culture, gender,
education, socioeconomic status, etc.
Values influence our judgments, preferences and choices in life
They shape our decisions
Values are stable beliefs

Types
a. Personal values- core personal principles of everyday life informed by our
experience, socialization, etc.
b. Work values- standards of work, outcome or job satisfaction.
c. Social values- norms, cultures, customs of groups, organizations,
communities.
d. Life values- ultimate aspirations.

2. Attitudes and beliefs

Your attitudes predispose you to respond in some preferential manner. Beliefs within
attitudes are usually considered to have three components:
A state of mind, feelings or beliefs directed at a specific person, institution,
object, issues or policy.
Evaluative in nature
Attitudes influence behaviours
Positive and negative attitudes
 They are not stable

Types
a. Cognitive – how an individual perceives facts
b. Affective- feelings and emotions
c. Evaluative- positive or negative
d. Behavioral- intentions and desires regarding the performance of a task

Dimensions of culture
1. individualism–collectivism
Individual culture is low context and collectivist is high context

2. power distance
The second dimension, power distance, is about how people use and respond to
power differences.

English-speaking and northern European cultures tend to show low power

distance and low uncertainty avoidance. Japanese culture has high power distance
and high uncertainty avoidance

3. uncertainty avoidance
Hofstede defines uncertainty avoidance as ‘the extent to which the members
of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations’.

4. masculinity–femininity
German-speaking, Caribbean and Latin American cultures show high masculinity,
with English-speaking cultures in the middle, and northern European cultures low
on this dimension.
Men and women are expected to behave very differently in different cultures.
Cultures high on the masculinity index will typically value aggressive, ambitious and
competitive behaviour. A low-masculinity culture will have friendly and
compassionate behaviour where conflict is resolved by compromise and
negotiation.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

1. Countries where English has a very different status:

as the dominant language for all purposes, as in United States, Australia, New
Zealand, etc.;
as one of many languages but with some official status, as in India, Singapore,
Malaysia or Nigeria;
as the typical language used for international communication, as in Japan, Korea or
Taiwan.

2. Differences in punctuation
 Once you recognize these differences, then they are not a major barrier to
understanding.

3. Code-switching
 People can switch languages in systematic ways to reflect what they want to talk about.
4. Different norms for turn-taking
 Turn-taking is the way conversation moves from one person to another.
 For example, I can pause as a way of inviting you to speak or I can ask you a
question or use a gesture to offer you the turn.
 There are cultural differences in how this is done. For example, there are very
different norms for interruptions. Japanese speakers use interruptions more to
show agreement than disagreement, whereas British speakers will interrupt for
both.
 If people bring their native norms to a cross-cultural conversation in English, there is
the strong possibility of misunderstanding.
5. Different norms for format
 There are also differences in written communication, such as the different format to
Japanese business letters where date, sender and receiver are at the bottom of the
page.
6. Grammatical differences
 Grammatical differences may create both misunderstanding and possible tension
if the speaker or writer does not use the expected word or phrase.
 For example, it is polite in Indian English to say ‘we hope that you could join us’
whereas a native speaker would say ‘can’.
7. Style differences

 The ‘most problematic of the differences’ are those where the speaker or writer
fails to recognize the contextual rules of the situation and uses an inappropriate
tone or content.

a. Dialect and accent

b. Language functions

c. Written and spoken language differences

d. Phonological aspects
e. Paralinguistics

 Different cultures use different patterns of what linguisticians call ‘back-channelling’.

f. Other non-verbal codes

Solutions to the problems lie in five main areas:

awareness of the problem;
realistic evaluation of the problem;
developing positive and constructive attitudes;
developing a corporate culture;
managing cultural diversity in an organization.

MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITY FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

company policy and working conditions
training
industrial relations and the work of the personnel or human resources
department
the house journal and other publications
Customer relations
Corporate culture
Corporate entertainment
Welfare capitalism
Team work and team spirit
Business ethics
Employee participation
Matrix management
Cultural relativism
Avoiding ethnocentrism
Avoiding stereotyping
Cultural assimilation