LECTURE ONE Intercultural Communication

Basics Me Course Webpage y/intercultural_communication/inde x.html Attendance Policy Textbook

Project 30% Ethnographic research project Choose a site of investigation in which you can observe communication between members of different groups (e.g. workplace, residence hall, online community) Instructions on gathering and analyzing data can be found in each chapter of the textbook under the heading ‘Researching Interdiscourse Communication’

Two Minute Talk 10% ‘My Intercultural Experience’ Talk about an intercultural encounter which you had Relate it to at least one concept we have talked about in this course No notes/PowerPoint etc. permitted Approx. 2 minutes (no more than 3 minutes) Q and A Talks will begin at 9:30 every Thursday Speakers will be chosen at random Points will be deducted for students who are not present to give their talk

Final Examination 40% of final grade  Multiple choice Short answer Essay (analysis of inter-cultural situations)

What is Culture? The problem with culture Is it a thing that you have? Is it a group that you belong to? Is it something that you live inside of? Is it something that you do? ‘Lumping’ ‘Binarism’ Stereotyping

Task In small groups consider the various definitions of culture and rank them according to the ones you like best.

Which of these belongs to ‘culture’ ? Facial expressions Religious beliefs Religious rituals Importance of time Paintings Values Literature Child-raising beliefs Ideas about leadership Gestures Ideas about fairness Ideas about friendship Ideas about modesty Eating habits Understanding of the natural world Concept of self The importance of work Concept of beauty General world view Concept of personal space Rules of social etiquette Housing

What are cultures based on? What features do we use to divide people into different cultures? Race/Ethnicity National Origin (political boundaries) Behavior Beliefs/Values Religion Age/Gender/Sexuality Occupation Interests

What is a Discourse Approach? A way of solving the problem of ‘culture’ Divides ‘culture’ into 4 components Ideology (beliefs, values, assumptions) Patterns of Relationships Ways of Communicating Ways of Learning Replaces the word ‘culture’ with the term” ‘Discourse Systems’

Ideology Face Systems Forms of Discourse Socialization

Different Kinds of Discourse Systems Regional/National/ Global Corporate Professional Gender Generational Interest Groups

The Discourse System of Yoga Ideology (Health, Hinduism) Relationships (Teacher, Students) Forms of Discourse Sanskrit words (Sirasana, padmasana) Directions (exhale, place right foot on the left thigh…) Comparisons with animals, plants, objects) ‘Let’s do a dog.’/‘She does a great cow’ Learning: Formal/Informal

Task: How many cultures (‘discourse systems) do you belong to? List the different discourse systems you belong to and some features of these discourse systems

Multiple Overlapping Discourse Systems Chinese City U Student Hong Konger Youth Christian Female

Inter-discourse Communication Inter-discourse (inter-cultural) communication occurs… Between people WITHIN people In any given situation multiple discourse systems are involved

Focus of analysis NOT on people Eg. ‘Chinese are like this’ and ‘Americans’ are like that’ But, on actions and situations Each situation is a ‘nexus of practice’ in which elements from different discourse systems mix Finding areas of conflict and overlap

The Ambiguity of Language People don’t mean what they say People don’t say what they mean  Can you tell me what time it is?  What do you want for your birthday? Word level ambiguity Sentence level ambiguity Discourse level ambiguity Ambiguity in paralinguistic and non-verbal communication

Ambiguity Why don’t you get lost! Gao tsou!!!!!!!!!!! I love you A: We’ll have to get together for lunch sometime. B: Yes, we must! Ni chi fan le ma? (sik zhou fan mei?) Hai meiyou (zhong mei)

So...how do we understand each other? WE JUST GUESS! We make inferences based on.. Context (situation, relationship) World Knowledge Previous Learning and Experience OUR set of rules about communication (eg. conversational style)

Inferences We must draw inferences about meaning Our inferences tend to be fixed, not tentative Our inferences are drawn very quickly

Why don’t we say what we mean? To protect ourselves To protect others To ‘mean’ more than we say To joke Because a certain amount of ambiguity in life is pleasurable Rapport (showing closeness) Because ambiguity is the nature of language and other symbol systems (we have no choice)

Intercultural Miscommunication Usually we do not know that miscommunication has occurred Conflicting Expectations Conflicting Interpretations What is the source of the conflict?  Sometimes it is not ‘culture’ Understanding what discourse systems are involved and how they affect one another Differences don’t always result in miscommunication Similarities don’t always result in smooth communication

What is the source of the problem?

Trying NOT to miscommunicate

Task Watch the videovideo What are some of the reasons for the miscommunication?

Avoiding Problems Expecting things to go wrong Increasing shared knowledge Dealing with miscommunication

FIRST STEPS WHAT IS ETHNOGRAPHY Researching Interdiscourse Communication

Ethnographic Research Fieldwork (observing ‘people in action’) Participant observation ‘Strange-making’ Contrastive observation

Ethnographic Data Four kinds of data Members generalizations  ‘We do this…’ Individual Experience  ‘I do this…’ Observation  From your interactions Comparison with researcher  ‘I do this, but you do that’/ similarities and differences

Choosing a ‘Site of Investigation’ All situations are potential sites of intercultural (‘interdiscourse’) communication Choose a site that you visit regularly Preliminary investigation  What’s going on here?  What are the activities and social practices that are taking place at this site?  How might these activities and practices be affected by the different discourse systems (‘cultures’) that people participate in?  What is the potential for miscommunication in these different activities or practices?

Keeping ‘field notes’ Maintain a notebook dedicated to this project Write in it on a regular basis Record observations as soon as possible Work through procedures suggested in the textbook Bring your notebook to class