Chapter 8,9,10,12 Intercultural
Living on the Border
1) Liminality: the experience of being between two or more cultural positions 2) Transnationalism: The activity of migrating across the borders of one or more nation-states 3) Multicultural identity: People who move back and forth between cultural worlds. A sense of in-betweenness that develops as a result of frequent or multiple cultural border crossings
Challenges in Intercultural Communication
1) Motivation: Increased exposure to other cultures through the internet and in schools creates new relationship opportunities 2) Differences in Communication Styles, Values, and Perception: noticeable in early stages, when comminality is established and relationship developed -> cultural differences have less impact; 3) Negative Stereotypes: It takes effort to get info that can counteract the stereotype 4) Anxiety: Fear about the possible negative consequences of our actions or uncertainty about how to act -if a person has a negative expectations based on a previous interaction or on stereotypes, the level of anxiety may be higher than if they had no history of negative contact 5) Affirming another person's Cultural Identity: recognizing that the other person might have different beliefs, perceptions and attitudes 6) The need for explanaions: Intercultural relationships can be more work than in-group relationships. Some of this work deals with explaining - We explain to ourselves (consicoulsy or unconsciously) the meaning of being friends with someone which is different - We explain to each other as we learn to see from the other's perspecitve - a process of ongoing mutual clarification - We explain to our respective communities
Social Science-Individual Components
1) Motivation: Motivation is perhaps the most important dimension of communication competence (desire to make a commitment in relationships, to learn about self and others and to remain flexible) 2) Knowledge: The knowledge component comprises what we know about ours - selves, others, and various aspects of communication - Self-Knowledge - Knowledge about Others (helps avoid stereotyping) - Linguistic Knowledge: knowledge of other languages 3) Attitudes: Many attitudes contributed to intercultural communication competence - Tolerance for Ambiguity - Empathy (can you see the humanity in another person) - D.I.E. exercise: way to think about something that happens; way to identify your attitude towards something - Description, Interpretation, 4) Behaviors and Skills: can you put it into practice?
Types of Unvertainty
1) Predictive Uncertainty 2) Explanatory Uncertainty
4 Characteristics of Pop Culture
1) Produced by culture industries - Fiske points out that popular culture is always produced within a capitalist system that sees the products of popular culture as commodities that can be economically profitable - culture industries: industries that produce and sell popular culture as commodities (ex. disney) 2) differs from folk culture - folk is a more authentic culture that is not mass-produced or mass-marketed; traditional and nonmainstream cultural activities that are not financially driven and maintain cultural identity 3) it is everywhere 4) it fills a social function
Outcomes of Adaptation: 3 Aspects
1) Psychological health: emotionally comfortable in a cultural context 2) Functional fitness: ability to function in daily life in many different contexts 3) Intercultural identity: Identity based on two or more cultural frames of reference
Differences-Similarities Dialectic
1) Similarity Principle 2) Cognitive Consistency
3 Approaches
1) Social Science Approach: emphasizes role of personal characteristics of the migrant, theories of culture shock, and outcomes of adaptation 2) Interpretive: analysis of migrant experience in the adaptation context 3) Critical: Role of larger contexts that influence cultural adaptation: social institutions, history, politics, economic structures
Four styles of interaction: for Permanent Relationships
1) Submission 2) Compromise 3) Obliteration 4) Consensus
How individual migrants develop multicultural identities
1) The extent migrants want to maintain their own identity, language, and way of life compared to how much they want to become part of the larger new society 2) The extent to which they have day-to-day interactions with others in the new society 3) How migrants relate to their new society involves the ownership of political power
3 Models
1) U-Curve Theory 2) W-curve Theory 3) Phenomenological
Types of Migrants
1) Voluntary -Sojourners -immigrants 2) Involuntary -long term refugees -short term refugees
John Tominson identifies 5 ways of thinking about cultural imperialism
1) as cultural domination 2) as media imperialism 3) as nationalist discourse 4) as a critique of global capitalism 5) as a critique of modernity issues of ethnicity, cultural domination, and nationalism in the context of economics, technology, and capitalism
Characteristics of Most Effective Communicators
1) have a solid self-concept and self-esteem 2) have flexible attitudes (tolerance for ambiguity, empathy) and behaviors 3) complex and flexible in their categorization of others (able to avoid stereotypes)
3 Migration Waves in History
1) military conquest (God, Glory, Gold) 2) European migration from rich countries to poor/empty territories into new world -> Colonization of Africa, America, Asia 3) Reversal of European colonization from poor countries to rich ones
3 issues that characterize intercultural alliance (collier)
1) power and privilege: intercultural friends recognize and try to understand how ethnic, gender, and class differences lead to power and try to manage these power issues 2) impact of history: interctulrual friends recognize that people from historically powerful groups view history differently than do those who belong to less powerful group 3) Orientations of affirmation: intercultural friends value and appreciate differences and are committed to the relationship even when they encounter difficulties and misunderstandings
William Howell identified 4 levels of intercultural communication competence
1) unconscious incompetence: when one communicates without adapting their communication style and not thinking about why it may not be effective 2) conscious incompetence: when one is aware that interaction is not going well but doesn't understand why 3) conscious competence: when one is aware that interaction is going well and understand why 4) unconscious competence: when interaction is going well but one doesn't have to think about why, as the e various aspects of intercultural comm are being used unconsciously
Benefits to Intercultural Relationships
1. Acquiring knowledge about the world 2. Breaking stereotypes 3. Acquiring new skills
Migrant-Host Relationships
1. Assimilation 2. Separation 3. Integration 4. Marginalization 5. Cultural Hybridity
3) Attitudes
Attitudes: Many attitudes contributed to intercultural communication competence - Tolerance for Ambiguity - Empathy (can you see the humanity in another person) - D.I.E. exercise: way to think about something that happens; way to identify your attitude towards something - Description, Interpretation,a device that helps us determine if we are communicating at a descriptive, interpretive, or evaluative level (how we feel about something). Only descriptive statements are nonjudgmental
4) Behaviors and Skills
Brent Ruben devised a list of universal behaviors that include some attitudes: respect, interaction management, ambiguity tolerance, empathy, relational rather than task behavior and interaction posture
Forgiveness
By building up rpeserves of new postivei experieneces, leader can use them as a sort op sychologicl buffer to help them undo vicious igroup-outgroup revent -- option for promoting intercultural understanding and reconciliation
Interpretive Approach: Communication in Intercultural Relationships
Competence, similarity, involvement, intimacy and turning points = characteristics of intercultural relationships
Critical Approach: Contextual Influences
Contextual Influences: family and neighborhood, educational, and religious institutions, and historical and political contexts
Applying knowledge of intercultural comm
Dialectical approach recognizes the important role of individual skills and contextual constraints in improving intercultural relations -dialogue is important - Entering Into Dialogue - To recognize the embrace our connectedness to people who are different, we have to engage in true dialogue - A central notion of dialogeue is sharing and reciprociy 1) Mutual listening 2) Sharing of narratives 3) Expanding the repertoire
Cultural Imperialism
Domination through the spread of cultural products
2) INTERPRETIVE APPROACH
Emphasizes complex and continuous nature of cultural adaptation -Use qualitative research methods - interviewing and focus groups
Social Science Approach: Cross-Cultural Differences
Friendships - Stage model Romantic Relationships
3) CRITICAL APPROACH
Institutional, Political, and Class Influences relative status and power
C) The Integrative Model
Kim (1977, 2001) suggests the adaptation is a process of stress, adaptation, and growth Communication has double edge: migrants who communicate frequently in their new culture adapt better but also experience more culture shock
Flight Approach
MIGRANT TENDS TO HANG BACK AND OBSERVE BEFORE BECOMING INVOLVED
1) Motviation
Motivation: Motivation is perhaps the most important dimension of communication competence (desire to make a commitment in relationships, to learn about self and others and to remain flexible)
Challenges to Intercultural Relationships
1. Dissimilarities (Differences) 2. Stereotypes 3. Anxiety
Popular Culture Characteristics
1. It is produced by culture industries 2. It differs from folk culture (Traditional and non-mainstream cultural activities that are not financially driven) 3. It is everywhere 4. It fills a social function.
What is popular culture
High Culture Low Culture
Multidimensional View On Adaptations
1. Psychological Health - Concentrates on the emotional state of the individual migrant. Obviously, the newcomer's psychological well being will depend somewhat on members of the host society 2. Functional Fitness - Which involves being able to function in daily life in many different contexts; outcome of becoming functionally fit takes much longer and also depends on the cooperation of the host society. 3. Intercultural Identity - Identity based on two or more cultural frames of reference.
Romano's Four Styles of Interaction Employed by International Couples
1. Submission - *MOST COMMON* The partner submits to the culture of the other partner, abandoning or denying his or her own 2. Compromise - Each partner gives up some of his or her culturally bound habits and beliefs to accommodate the other person. Although this may seem fair, it really means that both people sacrifi ce things that are important to them 3. Obliteration - Both partners deal with differences by attempting to erase their individual cultures. They may form a new culture, with new beliefs and habits, especially if they live in a country that is home to neither of them. 4. Consensus - It is related to compromise in that both partners give and take, but it is not a trade-off; rather, it is a win-win proposition. Consensus may incorporate elements of the other models.
I. MIGRANT GROUPS
I. MIGRANT GROUPS
II. MIGRANT HOST RELATIONSHIPS
II. MIGRANT HOST RELATIONSHIP
Cultural Hybridity
Includes integrating, assimilating separation
Intercultural Relationships: Interpretive Approach
*
Popular Culture
*"Systems or artifacts that most people share" (Brummett, 1994) *Low culture
Phenomenological approach
*A research approach that seeks indepth explanations of human experiences. *Chen (2000) interviewed Chinese international students and described in depth how they experienced and made sense of the adaptation process. She describes three phases: taking things for granted, making sense of new patterns, and coming to understand new information.
Culture Shock - Characteristics
*A short-term feeling of disorientation due to the unfamiliarity of surroundings *Happens to almost everyone in intercultural transitions.
W-Curve
*A theory of cultural adaptation that suggests that soujourners experience another U curve upon returning home. *Another U curve: the anticipation of returning home, culture shock in finding that it's not exactly as expected, and then gradual adaptation
Anxiety and Uncertainty Management Model
*Communication theorist William Gudykunst (1995, 1998, 2005) stresses that the primary characteristic of relationships in intercultural adaptation is ambiguity. *Uncertainty reduction: The goal of effective intercultural communication can be reached by reducing anxiety and seeking information *Predictive uncertainty: The inability to predict what someone will say or do. *Explanatory uncertainty: The inability to explain why people behave as they do.
Differences in Relational Development
*Cultural differences often come into play in the very beginning stages of relational development, in initial interactions. *Different cultural rules govern how to regard strangers. In some cultural communities, all strangers are viewed as sources of potential relationships; in others, relationships can develop only after long and careful scrutiny.
Transition Model
*Culture shock and adaptation have been viewed as a normal part of human experience, as a subcategory of transition shock *Flight Approach: A strategy to cope with a new situation, being hesitant or withdrawn from the new environment; tend to hang back, get the lay of the land, and see how things work before taking the plunge and joining in *Fight Approach: A trial-and-error approach to coping with a new situation. *"Flex" approach: Migrants use a combination of productive "fight" or "flight" behaviors. The idea is to "go with the flow" while keeping in mind the contextual elements.
Media Imperialism
*Domination or control through media.
Electronic Colonialism
*Domination or exploitation utilizing technological forms.
Cultural Imperialism
*Domination through the spread of cultural products
Sexualities and Intimate Relationships
*Few studies on gay and lesbian relationships *Friendships are more important *Many of these in heterosexual relationships apply to gay/lesbian couple *But some (e.g. permanence and relational dissolution) are unique to gay partners
How Can We Overcome These Challenges
*Finding similarities *Respecting the Differences *Dialogue
Cultural Adaptations: Interpretive Approach
*Focuses on in-depth descriptions of the adaptation process, often employing a phenomenological approach
Cultural Adaptations: Social Science Approach
*Focuses on the individual in the adaptation process, individual characteristics and background of the migrant, and the individual outcomes of adaptation *Individual Influences on Adaptation: Age, socioeconomic class, preparation level, expectations, etc.
Intercultural Work Relationships
*For many people, work is the place where they encounter the most diversity—working with people from different religions, generations, language backgrounds, ethnicity, races, and nationality. These encounters may be face-to-face or mediated—through telephone or computer. *Understanding this diversity is especially important as organizations move from an assimilationist perspective to a more integrative perspective. *Power, of course, often comes into play because most work relationships are within a hierarchy. There are subordinate-superior relationships and peer relationships, and the nature of the relationship constrains the interaction.
Differences in Notions of Friendships
*Friendships are seen in very different ways around the world. For example, in most Western cultures, these relationships are seen as mostly voluntary and spontaneous, in contrast to family or work relationships *Friendship in China cannot be understood without attention to an important related concept, guanxi —"relationships of social connection built on shared identities such as native place, kinship or attending the same school." It is through guanxi that things get done.
Cultural Adaptation: Critical Approach
*Institutional, Political, and Class Influences - Local institutions, like schools, religious institutions, and social service agencies, can facilitate or hinder immigrants' adaptation *Liminality: Liminal people are "threshold people"; they are neither "here nor there," they are "betwixt and between various cultural positions *Transnationalism: The activity of migrating across the borders of one or more nation-states. *Multicultural identity - (Fluid) A sense of in-betweenness that develops as a result of frequent or multiple cultural border crossings.
Intercultural Relationship: Critical Approach
*It is important to consider intercultural relationships in the contexts in which they emerge—whether the contexts are supportive or whether they discourage intercultural relationships *Family and neighborhood - The first place we learn about communication adaptability and receptivity *Religious and Educational Contexts Institutions - Like schools and churches/ synagogues can play a huge part in promoting or discouraging intercultural friendships. *Historical and Politcal
Resisting Popular Culture
*JACL - Japanese American Citizens League: The Japanese American Citizens League is a national organization whose mission is to secure and safeguard the civil and human rights of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and all communities who are affected by injustice and bigotry. The leaders and members of the JACL also work to promote and preserve the heritage and legacy of the Japanese American Community.
Cultural Hybridity
*Migrants and their family often combine these four different modes of relating to the host society—at times assimilating, other times integrating, and still other times separating, or marginalizing, forming a cultural hybridity relationship with the host culture. *Not the "melting pot" society where everyone was supposed to try to become the same, but rather a "salad" society, where each group retains a distinctive flavor but blends together to make up one great society
Global Circulation of Images and Commodities
*Much of the internationally circulated popular culture is U.S. popular culture. *Many other U.S. media are widely available outside the United States, including television and newspapers. For example, MTV and CNN are broadcast internationally. *U.S.-made films, for example, are widely distributed by an industry that is backed by considerable fi nancial resources *Much popular culture that is expressed in non-English languages has a difficult time on the global scene.
Representing Cultural Groups
*Popular culture and stereotyping of minority groups *Non-Americans' perceptions of U.S. popular culture *Katz and Liebes found that the U.S. Americans in Los Angeles were much less likely to perceive Dallas as portraying life in the United States. In contrast, the Israelis, Arabs, and immigrants were much more inclined to believe that this television show was indeed all about life in the United States
Consuming Popular Culture
*Popular culture texts do not have to win over the majority of people to be "popular." People often seek out or avoid specific forms of popular culture. *Encoding: the construction of textual meaning by popular culture institutions—within specific social contexts *Decoding: the interpretation of the text's meaning by receivers—is performed by various audiences in different social contexts, whose members have different interests at stake *Readers can negotiate their cultural identities by reading and participating in cultural newspapers and magazines
Four Sources of Attraction
*Proximity Principle - closer people are to us, the more we are attracted to them *Physical attractiveness - culture bound *Similarly Principle - we tend to be attracted to people who we perceive to be similar to ourselves *Cognitive consistency - if we like ourselves, we'll probably like others who share our views *Complementary principles
Involuntary (Forced) Migrants
*Short-term and Long Term *War, political and religious persecution, famine, etc.
Voluntary Migrants
*Sojourners = those travelers who move into new cultural contexts for a limited time and a specific purpose (short term) *Immigrants (long term)
Integrative Model
*Stress, adjustment, and growth *Through their communication with individuals in the host culture *Adaptation occurs through communication. That is, the migrant communicates with individuals in the new environment and gradually develops new ways of thinking and behaving.
Intercultural Relationship Online
*The Internet presents us with enormous opportunities to form relationships across cultures and leads us to speculate how online relationships differ from RL (real-life) relationships and whether it is easier or more difficult to communicate across cultures online. *Language differences can make online communication and relationship development difficult *In addition to possible misunderstandings of specific words and phrases, language conventions such as humor can often be misunderstood.
Assimilation
*The individual does not want to maintain an isolated cultural identity but wants to maintain relationships with other groups in the new culture. *The migrant is more or less welcomed by the new cultural hosts.
Intercultural Relationships - Social Science Approach
*The social science approach identifies various cross-cultural differences in relationships—including notions of friendships and the initiation and development of relationships.
U-Curve
*Theory of cultural adaptation positing that migrants go through fairly predictable phases—excitement/ anticipation, shock/disorientation, adjustment—in adapting to a new cultural situation. *Anticipation: When a migrant first enters a new cultural context, he or she may be excited to be in the new situation and only a little apprehensive *Culture Shock: Is a relatively short-term feeling of disorientation, of discomfort due to the unfamiliarity of surroundings and the lack of familiar cues in the environment. *Adjustment: Which migrants learn the rules and customs of the new cultural context *U curve seems to represent the experiences of many short-term sojourners, it may be too simplistic for other types of migrants
Separation
*There are two forms 1. When migrants choose to retain their original culture and avoid interaction with other groups. They maintain their own way of life and identity and avoid prolonged contact with other groups. 2. Segregation - When separation is initiated and enforced by the dominant society
Marginalization
*When individuals or groups express little interest in maintaining cultural ties with either the dominant culture or the migrant culture *This situation of being out of touch with both cultures may be the result of actions by the dominant society
Integration
*When migrants have an interest both in maintaining their original culture and language and in having daily interactions with other groups *This differs from assimilation in that it involves a greater interest in maintaining one's own cultural identity; Immigrants can resist assimilation in many ways—for example, by insisting on speaking their own language in their home.
Intercultural Dating and Permanent Relationships
*Why do people date others from different cultural backgrounds? Probably for the same reasons we form any intercultural relationship. We are attracted to them, and the relationship offers benefi ts—increased knowledge about the world and the breaking of stereotypes *We also found that the social context and past experiences were a strong influence on whether young people dated intercultural
BECHDEL Test
- Alison Bechdel 1985: - 2 Named Woman - Talk to each other - Talk to each other about something other than a man
3 Models
- Anxiety and Uncertainty management (AUM) - Transition Model - Integrative Model
2 Types of Migrant Labor
- Cheap manual labor - Highly skilled intellectual labor (An increasing number of migrants are women)
2 Stages
- Exploratory stage = people exchange some info - Stability stage = disclose more intimate info
personal/private self can be modeled as 3 concentric circles
- First circle: outer boundary that includes superficial info about ourselves and our lives - Middle circle: more personal info - perhaps family background, life story - Inner core: personal and private info some of which we share with no one
Types of Migrant Groups
1. Voluntary Migrants 2.Involuntary Migrants
Popular Culture
A new name for low culture, referring to those cultural products that most people share and know about
B) W-Curve Model
A theory of cultural adaptation that suggests that sojourners experience another U curve upon returning home
Difference-Marriage
- Interctulral Marriage seemse to be more accpeted across ethnic lines than acorrss religious boundaries, but resistance exists in relation to interracial marraiges - Pressure from the fam amd society and issues involved in raising children are major concerns for spouses in intercultural marriges, more so than for other marries couples - Most couples face similar problems related to friends politica, finances, sex, i-laws, illness, and suffering, and child raising but certian issues can more serious in interculturlal marriges, including values, eating, and drinking habits, etc. - In every couple, partners have to devlope their own way of relating to each other but intercultural marriages pose consistence challenges. 4 common styles of interaction in intercultrual marriages - Submission (most common style) occurs when one partner sbubmites to the culture of the other, abandoning or denying his or her own - It may occur in public, with the relationship more balanced in private life - This styel rarely works in long run, people cant erace core cultural background - Compromise occurs when each partner gives up some parts of his or her culturally bound habits and beliefs to accommodate the other - seems fair but both people give up impoartn aspects - One of both may resent the sacrifis - Obliteration requiers that both partners deal with difference by attemping to erase their indivual cultures and form a new cultrue wtih enw belifes and habits - Consneusr style (the most desriabel) based on agreement adn negotionat - win-win proposition
Society and Intercultural Relationship
- It is important to consider how society influences interpersonal relationships - The cnesus indidicates that many people are marrying outside their cultural group - African American womand and Asian American men are least likely to marry outside their cultural groups - Hollywod reinforces thie pattern - Color blind attraction is a race privielege - We must consider the kinds of persecution that intercultural relationships encounter and think about the social institutions that might discouarge such relationshis - Contact hypothesis: the notion that specific conditions are needed to successful intercultural relationships to develop,. When interactants: - meet and interact in a cooperative (not a competitive) environment - enjoy equal status - share common goals
Migrants + Host
- Migrants = want to retain own culture; value it more than host country - Host = accept or reject new migrants
Obstacles to Boundary Cross Friendships
- One of th ebiggest obstacles to boundary crossing frienships ceoms from majority communication - those in majority have most to gain - Minority has more to gain, it can help them survive
III. INTERCULTURAL RELATIONSHIPS
- Social Science: identifies cross-cultural differences in how relationships are defined, initiated, and developed - Interpretive: in-depth the nature of these relationships and the role communication plays - Critical: emphasizes influence of various contexts-institutional, political, and historical- in facilitating and/or discouraging the development and maintenance of intercultural relationships
Relationships Across different Dating
- The reasons people give for dating within and outside their own ethnic group are similar, that they are attracted to the other person, pysicall and/or sexually - The reasons people give for not dating someone within or outside of their own ethnic groupd are often different - a) The reason for not dating someone within ethnic groupd is lack of attraction - b) The reasons for not dating outside the ethnic group are lack of opportunity and not having thought about it - c) These different responses reflect the social and politcial structure of American soceity - d)People have been taught that it is better to date within their own ehtnic and racial groupd and may have little opporutnity to date inter=ehtnically - Young people who date interculturally tend to ahve - Family always plays a factor
Johnson gives concrete suggestions for working toward social justice
- acknowledge trouble that exists - Pay attention - Do something
Community engagement:
- active engagement with communities to improve the lives of those in that particular group by working together
Historical and Political Contexts
- effect of power on hierarchical relations of communication - power does not determine communication patterns but it does have an impact on the direction communication takes within intecultural relations
Populist
- forms of contemporary culture that are made popular by and for the people - mixing and borrowing from other cultures
Resisting Popular Culture
- historical context is important - resistance to pop culture can come from how identities are constructed and labeled in undesirable ways - can be related to social roles - resistance is also targeted at the profits of pop culture corporations (ex. Mexicans buy pirated DVDs of U.S. films)
Critical Perspective: Competence for Whom?
- individuals' competence may be constrained by the political, economic, and historical contexts - have to take into account issues of power differentials in understanding competence - Early research on communication competence conducted by white researchers using white respondents failed to consider issues of power differentals in udnerstanding competence - Later research cinluded issues such as stereotyping, powerlessness, and authenticity
Intercultural Relationships Online
- low context communicator = comfortable being direct - high -context communicator = constrained by online comm
Why are people not motivated?
- members of large powerful groups think they don't need to know about other cultures - in contrast people from less powerful groups often have a strong inventive to interact with powerful groups - intercultural communication can be uncomfortable - historical events or political circumstances have resulted in communication breakdowns (arabs and israelis)
Social Justice and Transformation
- starosta and Chen point out that intercultural listening should be followed by application - Dilogue sohuld set things right that have been wrong - includes good listening
Submission
- style of interaction for an intercultural couple in which one partner yields to the other partner's cultural patterns, abandoning or denying his or her own culture - does not work in the long run
Obliteration
- style of interaction for intercultural couple in which both partners attempt to erase their individuals cultures in dealing with cultural differences - may form a new culture, not long term solution
Intercultural Relationships Online
- trust/suspicion - Language differences: helpful for nonnative English speakers but can also caused misunderstanding in general - humor can be misunderstood - low context communicator = comfortable being direct - high -context communicator = constrained by online comm - Lack of identity and contextual cues may cause individuals to be reluctant to engage in online comm
Mainstream Culture influences Migrants Perception
- use of popular culture to learn about other cultures or to relate to their own culture -Migrants both resist and consume U.S. popular culture
Interpretive Perspective: Competence in Contexts
-Different cultures value identity expression -Mediated contexts can actually facilitate communication between persons not sharing a native language -> more time to interpret and understand - interculture competence in mediated contexts involving issues of identity and language expression and lack nonverbal cues -> poses challenges - another aspect of context is the communicator's social position within a speech community
Popular Culture Texts
-Do not have to win over the majority of the people to be considered "popular" -help affirm and negotiate their relationships with their cultural identities
Global Circulation of Images/Commodities
-Economic power of Hollywood
2 Strategies used for people coping with change
-Flight Approach -Fight Approach
A) Anxiety and Uncertainty Management
-Gudykunst (1995) stresses that ambiguity is the primary characteristic of relationships in intercultural adaptation -Model assumes that to communicate effectively we will gather info to help us reduce uncertainty and anxiety
Encoding/decoding model (stuart hall)
-Our social identities also help guide our interpretations as decoders -Encoders rely on larger identity formations to help them fashion their texts to sell to particular markets
Dialectical Approach
-Privilege-disadvantage -Personal-contextual
Intercultural Relationships Approach
-Social Science: emphasizes cross-cultural comparisons of relational notions -Interpretive: contributed in-depth info about various types of intercultural relationships
"Flex" approach
-migrants use combo of fight and flight approach (go with the flow) - - hostile contexts (racism or prejudice) = extreme responses - - supportive environment (tolerance) = productive responses
REPRESENTING CULTURAL GROUPS
-reinforces stereotypes which tells us how "we" value and judge these groups
Building Coalitions
-shifting identities allow you to build coalitions among seemingly different peoples -Coalitions build of multiple identities are never easy and in the process people may find that some of their own identities feel neglected or injured. To achieve success, they have to work through emotional injuries -arise from multiple identities
Dialogue
-should strive for a "harmonic discourse" aka resist the loud/obvious voices -2 options for people who feel left out - exit or expression
Benefits of Intercultural Relationships
1) Acquiring knowledge about the world -gain specific info and general info about cultures 2) breaking stereotypes - Relational learning 3) acquiring new skills 4) and more The key to these relationships is the balance of differences and similarities
Migrant-Host Relationship Exists in Multiple Tensions
1) Assimilate: when migrants value host culture more than their own 2) Separate: when migrants value their own culture than the host country 3) Integrate: when migrants value both host and their own culture
Relationships Across Difference
1) Competence 2) Similarity 3) Involvement 4) Turning Point: significant events that related to perceived changes in the relationship. They may move the relationship forward or backward.
Short-Term Refugees
People who are forced to move for short or indefinite periods of time within a country
Long-Term Refugees
People who are permanently forced to relocate because of war, famine, and oppression
Immigrant
People who come to a new country, region, or environment to settle more or less permanently
Reader Profiles
Portrayals of readership demographics prepared by magazines -Each magazine targets a particular readership and sells this readership to advertisers
Reasons for Migration
Push-Pull Factor - economic: Pull: Host-employer recruiter; Push: Lack of jobs in home country - noneconomic: Push: escaping persecution; Pull: Family unificiation
C) Phenomenological Model
Research approach that seeks in depth explanations of human experiences - 1) Taking things for granted - 2) Making sense of new patterns - 3) Coming to understand new info
2) Knowledge
The knowledge component comprises what we know about ours - selves, others, and various aspects of communication - Self-Knowledge - Knowledge about Others (helps avoid stereotyping) - Linguistic Knowledge: knowledge of other languages
Cultural Adaptations
The long-term process of adjusting to and finally feeling comfortable in a new environment
The model predicts...
The theory also predicts cultural variability
Others
There are also cases of domestic refugees who are forced to move within a country often due to natural disaster
Gay Relationship
There is less info available about gay or same-sex relationships than about heterosexual romantic relationships -- Close friendships may be more important for gay people than for straight people due to discimination and hositility from the straight world - social support from friends in the gay community plays a spcial role, and sometimes friends act as family - Some gay relationships may terminate earlier than straigh marriages due to lack of fam and social pressures, religious beliefs, etc
Separation
Type of cultural adaptation in which an individual retains his or her original culture while interacting minimally with other groups. Separation may be initiated and enforced by the dominant society, in which case it becomes segregation 1) Migrants choose to retain culture and resist influence of dominant society - Residential segregation: Both groups choose separation 2) Segregation: policy of practice of compelling groups to live apart from each other - migrants are forced by the dominant society to separate themselves - ex. native americans, Jewish ghettos, apartheid in South Africa
Integration
Type of cultural adaptation in which individuals maintain both their original culture and their daily interactions with other groups -Integration depends on the openness and willingness of the dominant society to accept of others' culture
Compromise
a style of interaction for an intercultural couple in which both partners give up some part of their own cultural habits and beliefs to minimize cross-cultural differences
Competence
a) Unconscious incompetence is the "be yourself" approach, in which the person is not conscious of difference and does not feel the need to act in any particular way. This works in interactions with people who are similar but isn't very effective in intercultural interactions b) Conscious incompetence is the level at which we realize things may not be going very well in the intercultural interaction, but comm may still be awkward c) Unconscious competence is the level at which comm goes smoothly, but it is not a conscious process, it requires being well prepared cognitive and attitudinally but knowing when to "let go" and rely on holistic cognitive processing d) Conscious Competence:
Individual Influences/Characteristics on Adapation
age, gender, preparation, and expectation - Younger people: easier adapting b/c they are less fixed on beliefs and identities -> also have more trouble returning home - Older people: difficult adapting b/c more fixed on beliefs and identities and less flexible -> easier returning home
intercultural alliances
bonds between individuals or groups across cultures characterized by a shared recognition of power and the impact of history and by an orientation of affirmation
Power of Popular Culture
complexity of it is overlooked
Transpection
cross cultural empathy
High Culture
cultural activities that deals with traditional "cultural" events often are the domain of the elite (ex. ballet, symphony, opera, fine arts)
Cultural texts
cultural artifacts/messages that convey norms, values, and beliefs -flow of cultural texts is uneven (U.S. is rarely exposed to popular culture outside of the U.S, we rely on our own popular culture)
Media Imperialism
domination or control through media
Electronic Colonialism
domination or exploitation utilizing technological forms
nonjudgmentalism
free from evaluating according to one's own cultural frame of reference
Cognitive Consistency
having a logical connection between existing knowledge and a new stimulus
Explanatory Uncertainty
in the process of cultural adaptation, uncertainty that stems from the inability to explain why people behave as they do
Predictive Uncertainty
inability to predict what someone will say or do
Migrant
individual who leaves the primary cultural context in which he or she was raised and moves to a new cultural context for an extended time
Line of Sight
info about other people's identity based upon visible physical characteristics
Romantic Relationships
intimate relationships that compromise love, involvement, sharing, openness, connectedness, and so on
Components of Competence
knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and motivation are building blocks of intercultural communication competence
Relational learning
learning that comes from a particular relationships bet generalizes to other context - gaining outside knowledge historically besides learning from textbooks
B) The Transition Model
like an adaptation process that is viewed as normal, a subcateogry of culture shock
III. CULTURAL ADAPTATION
long term process by which individuals learn the rules and customs of new cultural contexts
Becoming Interpersonal Allies
multiculturalism recognize complexity and communicating across cultures and that addresses power issues
Consensus
partners deal with cross-cultural differences by negotiating their relationships
The model requires....
people to be open to new info and recognize alternative ways to interpret info
Sojourners
people who move into new cultural contexts for a limited period of time and for a specific purpose such as for study or business (ex. missionaries, study abroad,)
Low Culture
popular culture, nonelite (video games..)
Similarity Principle
principle of relational attraction suggesting that individuals tend to be attracted to people they perceive to be similar to themselves -- When people think they're similar they have higher expectaton about future - Self-reinforcing similarity is based not on whether people actually are similar but on the recognition or discovery of a similar trait - Finding people who agree with our beliefs confirms our own beliefs
Complimentary Principle
results from the fact that we are attracted to persons who are somehwat idifferent from ourselves
Self-disclosure
revealing info about oneself
Intimacy
the extend of emotional closeness
Uncertainty reduction
the goal of effective intercultural comm can be reached by reducing anxiety and seeking info
Assimilation
the migrant does not want to maintain an isolated cultural identity but wants relationships with other groups AKA type of cultural adaptation in which an individual gives up his or her own cultural heritage and adopts the mainstream cultural identity -Conflicts may arise if this type of relationship is forced on migrants by the dominant culture -Melting pot
A) U-Curve Model
theory of cultural adaptation positing that migrants go through fairly predictable phases - excitement/anticipation, shock/disorientation, adjustment - in adapting to a new cultural situation -3 Phases: - First phase: Anticipation - Second Phase: Culture Shock (short term feeling of disorientation and discomfort due to lack of familiar cues in the environment) - Third Phase: Adjustment
Social support
ties with other people that play a significant part in mediating psychological health over time
Fight Approach
trial-and-error approach to coping with new situation -In the productive mode, the migrant tries the language and does not mind making mistakes. Staying in the fight mode might be unproductive
Stage Model
view that relationships develop in predictable phases over time