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Intercultural Spr2006 Sess05

Index card assignment due Thursday

What research method or methods are most interesting to you. Why?

Agenda

• Collect questions
• Group Index Card discussions
• Return questions and cards
• Discuss generalized theory
• Give assignment for next time

Theoretical Approaches to Intercultural Communication

• Reading: IC In Context, c. 3
• As we approach theory, we find another dualism:

• The way we research things
  • Is limited by the kinds of research we can do
  • Reflects our theories of what is worth researching
  • Sets boundaries on the patterns we can observe
• The theories we construct
  • Are limited by our imagination
  • Structured by our cognitive processes
  • Shaped by the kinds of research we do
• Today's chapter offers four building blocks of Intercultural communication
  • It is no accident that
    • Two of the four belong as matter of definition
      • Culture
      • Communication
    • The remaining two are defined by families of research method
      • Context, which is a major focus of interpretive/Ethnographic methods
      • Power, which is a major focus of critical methodologies
• In multiple definitions of culture, another dialectic

• High Culture
  • Preferred or desirable
    • Unique Human Effort
    • Civilization
    • Refinement
    • Dominant or Hegemonic
• Low Culture
  • Vulgar or Common (by implication, undesirable)
  • Resistance to Hegemony
• Popular Culture
  • Ascendant low culture
  • Reflective of change in the balance of
    • Shared and unshared
    • Who is dominant or has hegemony
  • Culture as a contested zone
• Other views
  • Culture as invisible
    • A function of phenomenal experience
    • Something we only notice in contrast or absence
  • Culture as meaning
    • a "historically transmitted pattern of meaning embodied in symbols" (Geertz, 1973)
    • Shared language, beliefs, and values
    • Shared Patterns of perception and disbelief
  • Culture as norms, assumptions, rites, terms, manners
    • Shared patterns of behavior and decision making
    • Shared rituals
    • Shared preferences in material trappings
    • Shared patterns of attribution
  • Culture as programming
    • Learning and Socialization
    • Socially acquired preferences
    • Direct Definition
    • Reflected Appraisal
    • Education
    • Media exposure
• Communication is a common denominator in all of these definitions
  • The means of learning and socialization
  • The locus of meaning creation and consumption
  • A symbolic process by which meaning is produced, maintained, repaired or transformed" (Carey, 1989)
  • Our communication is a function of our culture
  • Our culture is a function of our communication
  • Another reciprocal dualism
• Communication and culture combine in a variety of theoretical approaches to culture:
  • A Value Orientation (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961)
    • For instance:

	Range of Values
Human Nature	Good	Good and Evil	Evil
Humans and Nature	Humans dominate	Harmony	Nature dominates
Human Relationships	Individualism	Collectivism	Historical Collectivism
Approach to living	Doing	Growing	Being
Time-Orientation	Future	Present	Past

• A contrast, in most essentials, to the Rokeach Values approach
• An oversimplification of more complex dynamics
• But often a useful approximation
• As with all values, these complement and compete with each other
• With different cultures having different preferences
• Another values approach, from Hofstede
  • Perception of inequity in power relations (Power distance)
  • Individualism/collectivism
  • Feminine/masculine
  • Uncertainty avoidance
  • Long term and short term orientation
• Culture as Discourse in Context (Hymes' SPEAKING framework)
  • Culture is expressed through discourse (or SPEAKING) within the context of
    • A Scene or setting: A where in time, space, and expectations.
    • Participants: The who of message creation and consumption
    • Ends: Purposes, goals, and outcomes
    • Act or assembly sequence: Narrative structures, including established rituals, role-based expectations, and the process of floor control.
    • Key: "Tone, manner, or spirit"
    • Instrumentalities: Choices of medium, language, and dialect.
    • Norms: Social rules and shared expectations about behavior.
    • Genre: Discourse structures that optimize messages for a particular set of purposes.
• Culture as Context, via situated practice
  • Culture as performance
  • Enactment of cultural forms and frames
  • Subculture as resistance
• A good place to pick up tomorrow.

Next

Think about a conflict between two cultures anywhere in the world. What is the conflict? Who is involved? What does each side believe about the other side that fuels the conflict?