1. Chapter 4
Cultural Patterns

2. Introduction Importance of History
Intercultural interactions involve a dialectical interplay between past and present.
Many current situations cannot be understood without knowing their historical background.
How we think about the past influences how we think about ourselves and others.

3. From History to Histories
Histories that shape our identities:
Political Histories
Intellectual Histories
Social Histories
Absent History

4. From History to Histories
Histories that shape our identities, cont.:
5. Family Histories
6. National History
7. Cultural-Group Histories

5. History, Power, and Intercultural Communication
The Power of Texts
Narrative form of history
Lack of access to production of texts
Importance of language

6. History, Power, and Intercultural Communication
The Power of Texts, cont.
History as a particular way of viewing the world
Availability of documents as a function of power
Modernist identity and the linear nature of history

7. History, Power, and Intercultural Communication
The Power of Other Histories
The “grand narrative” has lost credibility.
Histories that have been suppressed, hidden, or erased are being rewritten.
This enables us to examine what cultural identities mean and to rethink the dominant cultural identity.

8. History, Power, and Intercultural Communication
Power in Intercultural Interactions
We are never "equal" in intercultural encounters, because history has left us in unbalanced positions that still influence our interactions and identities.

9. History and Identity Histories as Stories
Histories are stories we use to help us make sense of ourselves and others.
U.S. cultural attitudes encourage us to forget history.
This masks history’s influence on us and leads to wrong conclusions about others.

10. History and Identity Nonmainstream Histories
Mainstream U.S. history does not include all ethnic histories and racial histories.
Some people feel these histories undermine national history, but
they act as markers in the maintenance of cultural identity for many groups of people.

11. History and Identity Hidden Histories
Awareness of hidden histories helps others understand how groups have negotiated cultural attitudes in the past that are relevant today.
Gender histories
Sexual orientation histories
Racial and ethnic histories
Socioeconomic class histories

12. History and Identity Hidden Histories, cont.
Diasporic histories chronicle the migrations and dispersal of cultural groups.
Colonial histories influence the languages we speak.
Postcolonialism calls for independence of states and colonialist ways of thinking.

13. Intercultural Communication and History
Antecendents of Contact
Childhood experiences concerning other cultures
Historical myths about other cultures
The language we speak
The tendency to be affected by recent, vivid events

14. Intercultural Communication and History
The Contact Hypothesis: the idea that better communication between groups of people will occur if they are put together allowed to interact

15. Intercultural Communication and History
Contact hypothesis conditions:
Equal status
Institutional support
Voluntary
Potential to extend beyond the immediate situation
Maximizing cooperation
Equal numbers
Similar beliefs and values
Individuation of group members

16. BELIEFS, NORMS, & VALUES THE AMERICAN CULTURE
With your group establish “The American Culture”. Brainstorm your ideas and in one paragraph share with the class a detailed summary of your American culture.
What values (shared standards of judgment about what is right or wrong, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, beautiful or ugly), beliefs (what people know or believe to be true -i.e. believing in God, science, freedom, democracy), and norms (shared rules and expectations that are used to guide behavior –i.e. we don't pick our noses in public) are considered important to the American culture?
300 WORD SUMMARY