intercultural communication - an overview

Intercultural Communication: : 

Intercultural Communication: An Overview Source: The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (2001) Ronald Carter and David Nunan eds. Cambridge University Press. 1 June 9, 2011

Slide 2: 

Background: pre, and post world war II view of culture Early Days of ICC Aspects of human interaction ICC has helped to define IC organizations Major Journals 2

Slide 3: 

Linguistic and psychological studies Studies relating to ICC, Politics and power Research Practice TESOL 3

Slide 4: 

Current and future trends and directions Human rights philosophy and language teaching New directions and questions for English teachers 4

Introduction : 

Introduction Definition: Intercultural Communication An interdisciplinary field of research that studies how people understand each other across group boundaries of various sorts: national, geographic, ethnic, occupational, class or gender. (Kramsch, 2001) Two traditional approaches: 1. U.S.: Associated with behavioral sciences, psychology and professional business training 2. Europe: Associated with anthropology and the language sciences 5

Background : 

Background Pre-World War II view of culture: ‘Culture’ as great works of literature, social institutions and historical events, acquired via translation of written text Post-World War II view of culture: As a result of the rise of linguistics and the social sciences, coupled with the demands of market economies, emphasis shifted to spoken language, and to communication across cultures in situations of everyday life. 6

Early days of ICC : 

Early days of ICC ICC traced to the work of: Georgetown University linguist Robert Lado [Linguistics Across Cultures (1957)] Anthropologist & US Foreign Service Institute (FSI) officer Edward T. Hall [The Silent Language (1959)] ICC came into TESOL in the 1980s as a natural corollary to Communicative language teaching, which had emerged in In the early 1970s in Europe. 7

Facets of Human Interaction ICC has helped to define : 

Facets of Human Interaction ICC has helped to define Communication: e.g. the socially conventionalized roles adopted by participants, their expected norms of interaction, the way they construct a shared sense of reality; the stereotypes they (participants) entertain of each other, as individuals and as members of a social group; their non-verbal and paraverbal behavior; face saving; 8

Slide 9: 

The way discourse is structured to meet communicative goals; The shared attitudes, values and beliefs they belong to; The way members of different groups realize various speech acts (making compliments, requests, apologies, etc.) 9

IC Organizations and Institutions : 

IC Organizations and Institutions East-West center (Honolulu, Hawaii) Intercultural Communication Institute (Portland, Oregon) Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR) International Association of Intercultural Education & International Communication Association (Europe) 10

Major Journals : 

Major Journals International Journal of Intercultural Relations Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Language, Culture and Curriculum Cross-Cultural Research 11

Linguistic Studies : 

Linguistic Studies Kaplan (1966): Contrastive study of the various rhetorical patterns in ESL writers Scollon & Scollon [Narrative, Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication (1981)] (sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology) Scollon & Scollon [Intercultural Communication (1995)] Focus on professional discourse between Americans and East Asians. 12

Psychological Studies : 

Psychological Studies Hofstede (1983) and Triandis (1995) – ‘individualistic’ vs. ‘collectivist’ cultures (Cross-cultural psychology) Condon & Yousef (1975); Gudykunst (1983) (Inter-disciplinary based Intercultural communication theory) 13

Studies relating ICC, politics, power & control : 

Studies relating ICC, politics, power & control Gee (1990) Western view of literacy in academic essay writing contrasted with community-based uses of written language Phillipson (1992) The spread of English as the result of a complex mixture of historical situations (e.g. the colonial legacy of the British Commonwealth, the allied victory in the Second World War) Pennycook (1994) Questions whether the spread of English around the world is a natural, culturally neutral and beneficial phenomenon 14

Research : 

Research Hall [The Silent Language (1959)]: Focus on the ‘out-of-awareness’ aspects of communication i.e., the paralanguage of pitch, rhythm and intonation, kinesics, and chronemics. Hall [The Hidden Dimension (1966)]: Focus on proxemics. Anglo-Americans establish a greater distance between face to face interlocutors, than for example, Japanese or Arabs. Hall [Beyond Culture (1981)]: Focus on ‘’high-context’ and ‘low-context’ communication. 15

Slide 16: 

Results of Hall’s work: 1. Showed how culture is communication and how communication is culture 2. Principles used by the Peace Corps 3. Comparative studies between Asian and American cultures and ‘critical incidents’ studies. 16

Practice : 

Practice Developments in ICC have made English teachers more aware of the cultural aspect of language as social interaction. Emphasis on competence and pragmatic strategies in business negotiations and diplomacy Significant increase in cross-cultural resources in the 1970s & 80s: cross-cultural simulation games, case studies of miscommunication, culture capsules and CC handbooks. 17

TESOL : 

TESOL TESOL texts in the 1980s and 90s focused on pragmatic strategies (strategic competence) and language as culture: [Valdes 1986; Harrison 1990; Kramsch 1993; Heusinkveld 1996; Fantini 1997] Intercultural Communication Special Interest Group in TESOL 18

Current and Future Trends and Directions : 

Current and Future Trends and Directions Shift in ICC pedagogy from accurate facts and culturally appropriate behaviors to social and historical contexts of current cultural phenomena European and American research efforts converging to include anthropological, sociololgical and symbolic dimensions of language and culture 19

Slide 20: 

Increase in cultural studies and critical pedagogy has brought issues of conflict, power and control within ICC as a field of research (Kramsch, 1998) Ex: The spread of English as the world’s lingua franca often being viewed as displacing other national or regional languages and cultures 20

The Integration of Human Rights’ Philosophy into Language Teaching : 

The Integration of Human Rights’ Philosophy into Language Teaching Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights ‘Intercultural rights’ ‘Intercultural linguistics’ 21

New Directions and Questions for English Teachers : 

New Directions and Questions for English Teachers How does the teaching of English change the balance of the haves and the have-nots in local cultures around the world? What kinds of identities does the teaching of English create and promote in an international playing field that will never be level? 22

Questions to consider: : 

Questions to consider: How does our enabling individuals to speak English and pass TOEFL tests enhance world peace and harmony? How can we train those who move back and forth over cross-cultural borders – i.e. diplomats, lawyers and English teachers, to foster intercultural rights and responsibilities? 23

Slide 24: 

How and in what ways can a Kingdom perspective (worldview) foster intercultural communication (and competence), intercultural and linguistic rights, racial, ethnic and gender reconciliation in our (fallen) post-modern world? 24