Why study intercultural communication.

THE THEORY OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND ITS BASIC TERMS

Statistical thinking involves applying rational thought to assess data and the inferences made from them critically.

Intercultural communication is not new. It has existed as long as people from different cultures have been encountering one another. However during the last thirty years, people have begun a systematic study of exactly what happens in intercultural contacts when the communication process involves culturally diverse people. That is to say, both in our country and abroad, people have accepted that cul­tural diversity is a fact of life. They now want to know how that diversity is reflected when people come together.

The topic of intercultural communication can be explored in a variety of ways. Scholars who look at it from a mass media point of view are concerned with such issues as inter­national broadcasting, worldwide freedom of expression, Western domination of information, and the use of modern electronic technologies for instantaneous worldwide transmission of information. Other groups investigate international communication with an emphasis on communication among nations and govern­ments. It is the communication of diplomacy and propaganda. Still others are interested in the communication inherent in international business, which includes such diverse concerns as negotiations and communication within multi­cultural organizations.

Human beings draw close to one another by their com­mon nature, but habits and customs keep them apart.

Confucius

For many people, the sheer joy of learning about other cultures is sufficient reason to study intercultural communication. They are curious about how different worldviews affect communication and human understanding. The ability to see the world from different points of view is fundamental to the process of becoming inter­cultural. Perhaps one of the most illuminating aspects of intercultural communica­tion is that it opens our minds to the interplay of varied influences. The cultural diversity of modern life is a strength of today's society, but it also poses a basic difficulty for many attempts at human communication. An understanding of the importance of communication between cultures is essential to promote the benefits of shared experience rather than the tragic consequences of imposed beliefs. Intercultural understanding and sensitivity cannot change the past, but they can offer hope for the future. We can build a better world if we understand the principles of intercultural communica­tion.

The reason for this new study is also pragmatic. Our mobility, increased con­tact among cultures, a global marketplace, and the emergence of multicultural organizations and workforces require that we develop communication skills and abilities that are appropriate to a multicultural society and to life in a global village.

New technology, in the form of transportation and communication systems, has accelerated intercultural contact. Trips once taking days, weeks, or even months are now measured in hours. Innovative communication systems have also encouraged and facilitated cultural interaction. Communication satellites, sophisticated television transmission equipment, and digital switching net­works now allow people throughout the world to share information and ideas at the same time. Whether it is via the Internet, or a CNN news broadcast, electronic devices have increased cultural contact.

Globalization of the economy has further brought people together. There are now more than 37,000 transnational corporations with 207,000 foreign affiliates. This expan­sion in globalization has resulted in multinational corporations participating in various international business arrangements such as joint ventures and licensing agreements. These, and countless other economic ties, mean that it would not be unusual for someone to work for an organization that does busi­ness in many countries.

Changes in immigration patterns have also con­tributed to the development of expanded intercul­tural contact. Thus, with or without our desire or consent, we are now thrust into contact with countless people who often appear exotic, and perhaps even alien. Whether you are negotiating a major contract with the Chinese, discussing a joint venture with a German company, being supervised by someone from Mexico, counseling a young student from Cambodia, or work­ing alongside someone whose language you don’t speak, you encounter people with cultural backgrounds that are often strikingly different from your own. Understand­ing these backgrounds is essential if you want to be successful in both your social and professional lives.

The ability, through increased aware­ness and understanding, to coexist peacefully with people who do not necessarily share our backgrounds, views, beliefs, values, customs, habits, or lifestyles can be a decisive factor in forestalling international conflicts.

Individuals are often surprised when, during a communication exchange, they realize that they had incorrectly assumed that a conversation partner shared the same cultural norm. If a cultural norm is violated, the individual is socially punished for not ful­filling the expectations of the system. An example of violating a cultural norm occurred when a French woman visiting Saudi Arabia used her left hand to eat out of a communal bowl of rice and lamb. Her Saudi friends sud­denly lost their appetites. The left hand is considered unclean in the Middle East and Asia, and cultural norms prohibit handing an object to someone with the left hand.

Another example. Thai people revere their king, so much so that they seldom talk about him and are culturally forbidden to touch him. A US. professor, during the first months that he taught at Bangkok University, accidentally dropped a Thai coin on the floor. In order to keep the coin from rolling under a door, he quickly stepped on it. His Thai students were shocked. Why? The king's pro­file is on every coin.

Norms are the established behavior patterns for members of a social system. The given examples prove that an individual violating a cultural norm can be punished: through gossip, joking even something worse.

What is more, intercultural studies can help if not eliminate but at least combat such negative aspects of social life as ethnocentrism, xenophobia, racial prejudices and discrimination.

Ethnocentrism is the degree to which individuals judge other cultures as inferior to their own culture. No one is born with ethnocentrism. It has to be taught. Everyone learns to be ethnocentric, at least to a certain degree. It is quite natural to feel that one's own group is the best, whether a country, a culture, or a sports team. The problems arise not from feeling pride in one's own culture but from drawing the unnecessary conclu­sion that other cultures are inferior. Ethnocentrism is a block to effective intercultural communication because it prevents understanding unalike others.

Ethnocentrism is not just an intellectual matter of making comparisons with another culture; emotions are involved. The symbols of one's ethnicity, religion, or national ingroup become objects of pride and admiration, while the symbols of an outgroup (a flag, for example) become objects of contempt and hatred.

An ingroup is a collectivity with which an individual identifies. An outgroup is a collectiv­ity with which an individual does not identify. Individuals in an ingroup may refer to persons in outgroups as "pig-eaters," and suchlike. Koreans refer to the Japanese as "dwarfs"; the Japanese call Koreans "garlic-eaters." An ingroup exalts itself by boasting about its own ways and looks with contempt on outsiders. Without thinking, an individual takes the values of the ingroup as an ideal and automatically uses them to judge other, less familiar values and behaviors.

Outgroup members are perceived as inferior and perhaps immoral. For example, European colonialists often per­ceived the native peoples that they conquered in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as subhuman. Extreme ethnocentrism may lead to con­flict and even to warfare with an outgroup. A threat from an outgroup leads to greater cohesion among the members of the ingroup.

Outcroppings of ethnocentrism can be observed in maps of the world. The way in which such projec­tions are made often displays the ethnocentrism of the mapmaker. For exam­ple, the commonly used Mercator projection has a Eurocentric perspective, with the prime meridian of longitude running through Green­wich, near London. This arbitrary arrangement of the map was understand­able in the 1500s. Europeans thought of themselves as located in the center of the civilized world. At that time, they were major seagoing and colonizing powers.

A Westerner is usually surprised by Japanese maps of the world, which are centered on the 180th meridian of longitude. Asia appears in the center of the map; the United States and Europe are on the edges.

The usual convention in mapmaking is to locate north at the top of a map. This too is an arbitrary matter and one that is resented by many Australians, who may not like being told that they live "down under." An Australian scholar named McArthur produced what he calls a universal corrective map of the world, in which south is up, and the map is centered on a meridian running through Wellington, New Zealand.

Chauvinism (an aggressive and unreasonable belief that your country is better than all others).

There are few countries in the world where people do not believe, at the bot­tom of their hearts, that they are the best, or the most intelligent, or at least nor­mal. Perhaps in Europe the Italians and the Finns are the most innocent in this regard, often being willing to criticize themselves before others, yet both still consider themselves normal.

Americans think America is the biggest and the best, the newest and the richest, and all others are a bit slow, old-fashioned, rather poor and somewhat on the small side. They can't call the British foreigners, so they call them limeys.

Spaniards think they are the bravest because they kill bulls, the French think they are intellectually superior to everybody else, the Japanese are quite sure they are superior to others, including the French. The Germans admit that they are not as big as the Americans, as clever as the Japanese, as eloquent as the French or as smooth as the British, but what really counts in life? Efficiency, punctuality, method, consistency and organization, and who can match Germans on these counts?

A few people are even xenophobic, fear­ing that which is foreign, strange, and different. Thus, xenophobia is the belief that people and things from other countries are dangerous and always have ulterior motives. Xenophobia is an irrational fear or hatred of anything foreign or unfamiliar.

Prejudice is an unfounded attitude toward an outgroup based on a compari­son with one's ingroup. Prejudice is prejudging, without knowledge or exam­ination of the available information. It often consists of judgments made about an individual based on assumptions about the outgroups that individ­ual is presumed to represent. Some prejudices consist of the irrational suspi­cion or hatred of a particular group or religion. For instance, a prejudiced individual might say, "African Americans aren't as smart as other Ameri­cans," Or, "Asian Americans study all of the time, and always get the highest grades in my classes." These are prejudices. They can create avoidance and interpersonal conflict—and prevent effective communication between cul­turally different individuals.

When a negative attitude toward an outgroup is translated into action, the resulting behavior is called discrimination, defined as the process of treating individuals unequally on the basis of their ethnicity, gender, age or other characteristics. Prejudice is an attitude, while discrimination is overt behavior. An admissions officer at a university may be prejudiced in favor of Asian students because she believes they work harder, but she will not act on the prejudice in granting admission because that type of discrimination is illegal. Civil rights legislation made many types of discrimination illegal in the United States, but by no means has discrimination been eliminated.

Racism categorizes individuals on the basis of their external physical traits, such as skin color, hair, facial structure, and eye shape, leading to prejudice and discrimination. Race is a social construction—an attempt to give social meaning to physical differences. Race is biologically meaningless because biological variations blend from one racial category to another. Assigning people to arbitrary categories based on subjective interpretation of physical characteristics is perhaps the most telling example of prejudice as a preconceived opinion.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11