Bekkaoui Mohammed

Introducing Intercultural Communication

- Global Cultures and Contexts

Summary

Chapter 1
Introduction
Communicating in a Culturaly Diverse Society

All humans belong to the same nature, but not to the same culture. It is well known that there
are borders which separate people from people; such as natural boundaries or political
borderlines. Yet, culture does not recognize these limits. To give an illustration, we can conclude
the morals of the Aesop's Fables because they were translated from their original language,
Greek, to many languages; and they share universal values regardless any given culture. The
same can be said about food, clothing, music, and what have you. Culture should cover all
aspects of life, and the word itself originates from the verb 'to cultivate'. Hence, the way we are,
we think and do became our norms, beliefs, values, and customs as a result of a long cultivation
process. Cultural practices vary from a group to another. For instance, the concept of a wedding is
the same across all the universe, but its customs vary from a culture to a culture. Generally, a
group is defined by its culture which makes its members feel a similarity between them passing
from one generation to another. One major factor in this huge process is communication that
originates from the Latin verb 'to make common'. This is leading us to conclude that
communication and culture are always put together. The early mode of communication was based
on face-to-face, but with the development of technology comes an expanded field of
communication. We are now able to communicate with different people from different cultural
backgrounds, which forces us to be part of intercultural communication that is rather learned than
innate.

-The Study of Intercultural Communication

The emergence of intercultural communication knew several phases throughout history. It all
started with the German sociologist Georg Simmel who came up with the concept of 'stranger' in
1950. A stranger is someone that is not very attached to the system nor accepted by its members.
This term implies that the individual does not have a high degree of cohesion with the larger
system. The sub-concepts of this term had a major role in the field of intercultural
communication. Later, the Chicago School adopted Simmel's theories and examinations on the
individual level that are crucial in the study of intercultural communication.

Robert E. Park was the pioneer in translating and applying Simmel's concept of the 'stranger'.
After that, he developed the concept of social distance that is the degree of intimacy between an
individual and different others. Following, Park's student; Emory S. Bogardus, promoted a scale
to measure the social distance using questions such as 'Would you marry a Chinese?' to quantify
the perceived intimacy between an individual and another. Intercultural communication as a field
was directly affected by 'social distance'. For example, calling your lecturer by their first name
may sound normal in Australia, but it is considered rude in Korea.

Later, Park came up with another concept which is the 'marginal man', referring to someone
that lives in two different worlds, under two different cultures, but still stranger in both of them.
Park studied the case of children of European immigrant parents in the U.S, who refused both the
European culture and the American one. As they were free from norms, they had a high crime rate
within their society. After that, Park developed the notion 'the sojourner'; the one that visits
another culture retaining his original one. This concept became scholars' favorite topic in the field
of intercultural communication.

Even though those concepts were strongly linked with intercultural communication, the latter
knew existence only after WWII. Many UNs programs that give assistance to developing nations
failed because of not sharing sufficient information about a given culture; such as the hand-pump
wells in Thailand. This leads to understanding that the study of intercultural communication is
very important. The same issue arose among US diplomats as they were poorly culturally trained,
which made the Congress passes an act to give them enough training in the Foreign Service
Institue (FSI). Edward T. Hall, a leading teacher at FSI, successfully taught the participants the
language and anthropological concepts of the target nation. Subsequently, the participants
requested to learn how to communicate across all cultures rather than only one. As a result, Hall
and his colleagues marked the birth to intercultural communication by publishing Hall's famous
book; The Silent Language (1959).

The definition of intercultural communication moved from communication between

individuals of different national cultures to communication between individuals of different
cultures or even subcultures; like age or gender. One of the key figures in broadening intercultural
communication is professor William B. Gudykunst who published an article applying Simmel's
concept of the stranger. Working with Young Yun Kim, Gudykunst developed his ideas in the
textbook; Communicating with Strangers: An Approach to Intercultural Communication (1984).
For Gudykunst and Kim, Cultural differences may involve national or other cultures, like
organizational culture. Finally, the focus on intercultural communication was associated with the
study of means of communication.

Chapter 1: Chalenges of Living in a Global Society

Introduction

With the development of transportation, telecommunication, business, and politics, our

information sharing system went from the face-to-face communication in the villages of our early
ancestors to a whole different phase. Now, we can easily communicate with strangers from
different cultural backgrounds; and media can deliver information to any place in the world.
Thanks to this, the media culture analyst Marshall McLuhan came up with the term 'global
village' that is now a true fact rather than an abstract idea. We can do what our ancestors could
not, such as forming societies across the world, eating Chinese food, driving a German car,
wearing Egyptian clothes and working on an American computer. Since globalization, culture,
and cultural practices are strongly related, our 'village' is now highly diverse which may allow
several challenges to exist, but intercultural communication is the solution to deal with them.

Contributors to Cultural Diversity

-Advanced Technology and Transport System

 Globalization is when you know about something that is happening in Australia while you are
in Morocco at the same time it is happening. Tools like emails, Facebook, VOIP, and Skype made
us watch, hear, and read about any event regardless time and space. The global village, according
to Anura Goonasekera, is a double-edged sword as it can be seen as a boundary breaker used to
deepen the worldwide interconnectedness, or as a source of fear toward being dominated by
technologically powerful nations. Therefore, the process of globalization can be a threat to
cultural identities by damaging small nations' culture. A good example of this theory is localized
globalism at tourist sites in China, where Gao made his study about the West Street touristic site
in Yangshuo County. He was able to illustrate how an ordinary neighborhood has been changed
into a 'global village' with many foreign businesses and languages.

Now, our relationships with others are affected by advanced communication technology, as
shown in the famous movie You've Got Mail. Due to the internet (Facebook, emails, chatrooms),
our relationships have been expanded and have reached online sexual and romantic partnerships.
For instance, the Sweden web community; Lunarstorm, is largely visited by young people to find
love partners. Also, Facebook and new media technologies are steadily replacing the face-to-face
communication, and playing a role in the escalation of romantic relationships.

This cultural leap was not only based on advanced technology, but also on the modern
transport system. Distances that took months in the past are now a few hours away! Individuals
can easily move from one place to another for different reasons such as work, travel or lifestyle,
which makes our global village smaller and more divers. Moreover, even if these changes have
facilitated our exchange with others, they have increased chances of misunderstandings, which
made no nation safe by only building a wall around its territories. One can clearly tell that there
are many challenges we face trying to understand other cultures when noticing that even people
from the same cultural background face many struggles to communicate with each other.

There are three perspectives concerning the theory of globalization. Firstly, the globalist
perspective suggests that globalization is certain and cannot be fought nor influenced by any
human interference. Secondly, the traditionalist perspective argues that people are exaggerating
when it comes to globalization. Traditionalists believe that most activities are still based on a
regional level rather than on a global one. Thirdly, the transformationalist perspective views
globalization as a shift, but they doubt its impacts' inevitability. Transformationalists still think
that agencies, like local and national ones, still have a significance.

To put this theory into practice, Olausson anylysed climate reporting in Indian, Swedish, and
US newspaper, trying to end the debate between globalists and sceptics. Results showed that
some discourses linked the local with the global news, while other discourses lacked
nationalizing elements to around climate change issues. Olausson discovered that the national and
global are two sides of the same coin rather than being exclusive and limited.

-Global Economy and Business Transactions

One of the main reasons for being multiculturalized every day is the global transformation in
the field of economy, technology and business. For example, anyone can buy an iPhone, Levi
jeans or Reebok shoes everywhere! Business transactions have become like trades between two
people centuries ago. Alongside with the cultural diversity in the economy come challenges, one
of which is to override barriers to accept this cultural diversity, and since the latter shapes market
demands, business is now a part of the wider process of globalization. India can work as an
example when it opened its economy on a global level in 1991, and the US was there to invest
millions of dollars.

Ethnic diversity is changing the overall composition of organizations around the globe by the
increasing numbers of emigrants from and to many places. To give few examples, Indian and
Southeast Asians in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia) because of the need for workers, Indians and
Chinese in Malaysia, North Africans in Europe because of the need for workers after the damage
done by the war. The creation of these cross-cultural teams allowed people from different cultural
backgrounds to work together in many places of the world. And many people may engage to the
host country's culture as what happens with North Africans in France. Yet, there are always some
problems faced by multi-ethnic workers, such as different expectations, lack of intercultural
communication skills and mistrust. To sum up, understanding cultural dimensions created by the
global transformation is a challenge within intercultural communication.

To elaborate more, there is a theory about conceptualizing ethnicity. According to Hutchinson,

ethnicity refers to people from common history, with shared elements from a common culture and
a sense of solidarity amongst themselves. Two very important aspects of a cultural ethnicity are
myths and memories as Anthony D. Smith believes that every ethnic group has a golden past and
some heroic events which are often evoked to make people recall their common identity, for
example, the celebration of the French Independence Day. On the basis of this theory, ethnicity
can work both as a management issue and a management resource. It is an issue due to diverse
businesses and environments which cause constraints in multi-ethnic location. Whilst it works as
a resource when used for organizations at external and internal levels. In this field, Bhopal and
Rowley argue that the creation of ethnic boundaries helps to create ethnic solidarity in the
Malaysian context by reducing cultural distance rather than highlighting differences.

-Mass Migration and International Exchange

According to the statistics done by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the
United Nations (DESA), the flow of international migration knows an increase over the years
with America being the favorite destination, and Asians with the largest diaspora. This
phenomenon is increasing the cultural diversity amongst countries, this is forcing us to benefit
from it and reducing its negative side. One major component of migrant population is
international students, mainly in English-speaking countries as the US and the UK. On the one
hand, The US is still the favorite destination for students with more than half a million students
each year, which plays a role in the increasing number of the US economy. On the other hand,
Asian countries are the largest regions of origin of international students. Similarly, education is
now one of the basics of the Australian economy by surpassing even the touristic field. Other
major contributors to multicultural societies and to the migrant population are migrants for the
purpose of making a living. Due to that, there are over 200 languages spoken in Australia for
example, and the growth rate of Asian migrants is always rising. Few of the many reasons for
migration are better living, good education, exploring opportunities or seeking political
protection. Anyhow, all migrants share the dream of having own businesses. Consequently, it
would not be a surprise to find an Indian, a Chinese, an Italian or a Japanese restaurant on the
same street in Sydney or London.

Necessity and Benefits of Intercultural Communication

-Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism can be used both to describe a society of diverse cultures or to refer to the
attitude by which a society deals with its diversity. Alongside with multiculturalism, comes few
issues. One of those is that the host country feels that its cultural mainstream may be affected by
the new ethnic cultures. Countries facing this dilemma have found some solutions. Some nation,
like Australia, tried to make the entry requirements more tight by making the migrants sit for a
cultural-based exam. While other countries, like the US and China, have banned the dual
citizenship. In Germany, an immigrant must renounce his original citizenship and prove loyalty.
France, on the other hand, built its legacy on the basis of eliminating all cultural differences. Yet,
linguistics from a cultural approach has been seen as a sign of obstacle to achieve national unity.
From a different angle, migrants gather and form associations to keep their culture and language
alive. A crucial question in this matter is whether migrants' preservation of their culture can be a
threat to the host country's identity. In a nutshell, multiculturalism is on a fragile ground, and an
effective intercultural communication is a key to make something good of it.

-Building Intercultural Understanding

Since the beginning of time, people have been collecting cultural values. We, as a cultural
group, will not be able to sense our own culture until we encounter other's culture to feel the
differences. Actually, what might be normal in your culture might be seen as rude or illegal in
another culture. On this basis, you might end up in jail if you don't share enough information
about the customs and laws of a given country. In Egypt, for instance, it is illegal to take pictures
of bridges and canals. As it is illegal to kill a cow in India or insult the monarchy in Thailand.
Culturally speaking, wearing shorts or kissing in public are considered offensive in Saudi Arabia.

One of the barriers to intercultural communication is ethnocentrism, which is thinking that

your culture is above every other one. This belief may cause stereotypes, prejudices, or
discrimination. By contrast, cultural relativism is the degree to which a person judges another
culture by its context. Cultural relativists try to analyze culture from the view of its own people.
Communicating with a given culture's people is necessary to enhance our sense of cultural
relativism, thus our understanding of intercultural communication.

Human's imagination and products are treasures that we must explore. The key to do so is to
gain intercultural knowledge and skills. Only then, we will learn many ways of experiencing,
feeling, knowing, widening our vision, and questioning our stance on matters that we once took
for granted. Also, it will reveal the motivations of some actions of others who belong to a
different culture. As a result, cultural differences will enrich us rather than prevent us from
communication. Thus, engaging in intercultural communication will lead to a greater intercultural
understanding.
 -Promoting International Business Exchange

Intercultural communication skills are highly essential in the global workplace. people who
work together coming from different ethnic backgrounds may face several challenges like facing
difficulties in communication. For example, Malays employees emphasize the family values,
while North Americans believe in personal achievements. According to the research conducted by
Cox, Lobel, and McLeod, Asian, black and Hispanic workers tend to do tasks jointly more than
Anglos do.

Communication within different cultures does not mean only translating languages but also
analyzing what is behind words. To understand someone means to understand their perception
and values in their view of the world, and most importantly to know what to expect from their
particular behaviors. To give an illustration, China has developed a special type of relationship
based on trust, favor, dependence, and adaption, and it is called Guanxi. In China, they emphasize
on the human relationship with their business partners prior to transactions, which explains the
long duration of negotiations. To sum up, the deals and the way we make them are also parts of
culture and can be promoted by the good understanding of differences.

-Facilitating Cross-Cultural Adaption

Advances in technology, transport systems, interconnectedness, and migration have

participated in the existence of globalization. The manifestation of broader social trends is a part
of the cross-cultural adaption which should be understood by both migrants and host countries.
Migrants prefer the acculturation strategy; integrating into the host culture and maintaining their
own culture. Yet, will the host nation provide migrants with an appropriate environment to
integrate? In many countries with high migration rate, natives feel threatened by ethnically
different others, which can cause inter-ethnic distinctions.

Intercultural communication is the key to inter-ethnic understanding. The latter itself is the key
to cultural adaption that allows immigrants to maintain their culture and partake in the local
culture. The learning of intercultural knowledge and skills will make the communication process
between immigrants and host nationals smoother, more successful, and anxiety-free.