1. Intercultural Communication
Chapter 3:
How Can We Learn about Our Own and Others’ Cultures?

2. The Learning Process Need What is your motivation for learning?
How can you learn in ways that are effective and appropriate?
Precedent
What has gone before you (i.e., direct and indirect experiences) that can provide a model for your learning and for what to expect or do in the future?
How do/will need and precedence influence what and how you learn about culture?

3. How can we access culture?
SPEAKING (Hymes, 1974)
An etic framework for extracting an emic framework
Communicative competence: Hymes, 1972, p. 277
Knowing when to speak and when not to speak, what to talk about and with whom, and when, where, and in what manner to interact

4. Etic/Emic
Etic: Things that are meaningful across cultures or are universal
Emic: Things that are meaningful within a particular community
The human need for respect may be universal, but how it is expressed across societies may be very different.

5. How do we look for culture?
SPEAKING
Scene and setting
Physical situation
Psychological situation
Participants
Who was there? Who was not there? What are the relationships among those present?
End
Purpose for the interaction
Why are people there? What are the goals of the interaction?

6. Act topic: Content of the interaction
What is being talked about? What is said?
Act Sequence: Order of the interaction
Who speaks first? Who follows?
Key
What is the tone or mood of the interaction?
Instrumentalities
What are the channels for communicating?
Face-to-face? Facebook? Twitter? Cell phone?
What accents are used?

7. Norms of interaction and norms of interpretation
Rules for accepted and acceptable behavior that are meaningful (intelligible) to participants
Genre: Type or form of talk
Prayers, gossip, jokes, shop talk, baby talk, radio talk, sports talk, TED talks…

8. Where can we look for culture?
In any given community, we can observe and listen for
silences, terms of address, metaphors, narratives, rituals, social dramas, and key terms.
People shape and are shaped by culture fundamentally via the things they say and don’t say.

9. Narratives: Teaching Functions
The way the world works
Our place in the world
How to act in the world
How to evaluate what goes on in the world
As you were growing up, what narratives or stories were you told to teach you life lessons?

10. Rituals: (Mis)impressions About the Nature of Rituals
Just the same thing over and over again
Outdated, hypocritical, and meaningless
Reserved for specialized settings
Engaged in by those less sophisticated than I
What family rituals—daily and/or special event—are/were practiced in your family?

11. Social Dramas
“A process through which potential violations of community-accepted social norms are publicly recognized and managed.”
What do you think about the concept of “social drama”? Does the public stage idea work for you?

12. Four Components of Social Dramas
Breach or violation of social norm or value
Attempts to remedy or redress the challenge
Assessment of the efforts to remedy or redress the problem
Resolution via reintegration (or not) of the violator(s)
What social dramas have you observed in your community?

13. Key Terms
Words or phrases that have particular importance or significance with a community.
Examples:
“Respeto” and “confianza” in societies
“Communication” for the Nacirema
“Wall” in Internet culture
“Global warming” for environmentalists