1. Understanding Global Cultures
Cultural Metaphors

3. Cultural Metaphors Unit of analysis = the nation or national culture
“national character studies”
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword – Ruth Benedict

4. Cultural Metaphors Other “units of analysis” may include:
one person (e.g., Paul Buffalo)
“life histories”

5. Paul Buffalo Meditating Medicine

6. Nan: The Life of an Irish Traveling Woman, Revised Edition.
Sharon Gmelch
Nan: The Life of an Irish Traveling Woman, Revised Edition.
Long Grove: IL: Waveland Press, 1991.
(ISBN: )

7. Cultural Metaphors Other “units of analysis” may include:
one person (e.g., Paul Buffalo)
the family (e.g., Strodtbeck, see later)
the community
a region (“culture area”)
Mesoamerica
The Northwest Coast (of North America)
The Upper Midwest
The Mideast
“Sub-Saharan Africa”
Aran Islands

8. Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland.
John C. Messenger
Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland.
Long Grove: IL: Waveland Press, 1983.
(ISBN: )

9. Cultural Metaphors Other “units of analysis” may include:
one person (e.g., Paul Buffalo)
the family (e.g., Strodtbeck, see later)
the community
a region (“culture area”)
a culture
“Irish”
“Chinese”
“Mexicans”
“Bedouins”

10. Cultural Metaphors
but cultural metaphors can be derived for ethnic groups within and across nations
e.g., Anishinabe (Chippewa; Ojibwa)
e.g., Rom (Gypsies)
e.g., Irish “Travellers”
sometimes incorrectly called “Gypsies”
e.g., Kurds
e.g., Basques

11. The Basque History of the World.
Mark Kurlansky
The Basque History of the World.
NY: Penguin Books, 1999.
(ISBN: )

12. Cultural Metaphors Unit of analysis = the nation or national culture
applies to a group, but not to every individual within it

13. Cultural Metaphors Unit of analysis = the nation or national culture
because a good amount of evidence suggests that there are commonalities across regional, racial, and ethnic groups within each of them that can be captured effectively by cultural metaphors

14. Cultural Metaphors Unit of analysis = the nation or national culture
Understanding Global Cultures contains 28 metaphors
there are approximately 200 nations in the world
193 according to The Times World Atlas (2004)

15. (Following the terrorist attack of July 2005)
Communication
Ken Livingston, mayor of London England, indicated that there were over 300 languages spoken in London.
(Following the terrorist attack of July 2005)

16. How many languages are spoken in St. Paul Minnesota ?
Communication
How many languages
are spoken in
St. Paul Minnesota ?

17. Culture Counts
and it counts quit a bit

18. Constructing Cultural Metaphors
Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
Edward T. Hall
Geert Hofstede
Cultural Metaphors include, in addition, the items on p

19. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
religion
early socialization and family structure
small group behavior
public behavior
leisure pursuits and interests

20. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
total Lifestyle
work / leisure / home and time allocations to each of them
aural space
the degree to which members of a society react negatively to high noise levels
roles and status of different members of a society

21. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
holidays and ceremonies
greeting behavior
humor

22. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
language
oral and written communication

23. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
nonoral communication
body language
kinesics (motion)
proxemics (space)

24. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
sports
as a reflection of cultural values
political structure of a society
the educational system of a society

25. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
traditions and the degree to which the established order is emphasized
history of a society
but only as it reflects cultural mind-sets, or the manner in which its members think, feel, and act
not a detailed history

26. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
food and eating behavior

27. Cultural Metaphors include . . .
social class structure
rate of technological and cultural change
organization of and perspective on work
such as a society’s commitment to the work ethic, superior-subordinate relationships, and so on
any other categories that are appropriate

28. A Four-Stage Model of Cross-Cultural Understanding
four-cell typology of process / goal orientation
more specificity
inclusion of other “etic” of culture-general dimensions along which specific cultures have been shown to vary
cultural metaphors are employed for understanding a culture
they build on the “etic” understanding provided by the approaches used in the first three stages

29. More on the “emics” and “etics” later
Emics / Etics
emics
from “phonemics”
viewing a culture from the inside
etics
from “phonetics”
viewing a culture from the outside
More on the “emics” and “etics” later

30. “Four-Stage Model” One variable of the
“Four-Stage Model” is the degree to which process such as effective communication and getting to know one another in depth should precede discussion of specific goals

31. “Four-Stage Model” Another variable of the
“Four-Stage Model” is the degree to which a culture fosters and encourages open emotional expression

32. Fig. 1.1. Process, Goals, and Expression of Emotions (p. 12)
Open Expression of Emotions and Feelings
Degree to Which Process Must Be Emphasized Before Goals Can Be discussed
Lower
Higher
England, Ireland, and Scotland
United States and Germany
China, Japan, and India
Mexico, Spain, and Italy
More on the “Four-Stage Model” later

33. Cultural Metaphors Why? are not stereotypes” “Metaphors
– Martin J. Gannon
Why?

34. Geert Hofstede (1991)
IBM study demonstrated that national culture explained 50% of the differences in attitudes in IBM’s 53 countries

35. “Given such studies, it seems that culture influences between 25% and 50% of our attitudes, whereas other aspects of workforce diversity, such as social class, ethnicity, race, sex, and age, account for the remainder of these attitudinal differences.”

36. “Frequently, when a foreigner violates a key cultural value, he or she is not even aware of the violation, and no one brings the matter to his or her attention.”
once a visitor makes a major mistake it is frequently impossible to rectify it
and it may well take several months to realize that polite rejections really signify isolation and banishment

37. “Even genuinely small cultural mistakes can have enormous consequences

38. “. . . Knowing a country’s language, although clearly helpful, is no guarantee of understanding its cultural mindset, and some of the most difficult problems have been created by individuals who have a high level of fluency but a low level of cultural understanding.”

39. “Moreover, members of a culture tend to assume that highly fluent visitors know the customs and rules of behavior, and these visitors are judged severely when violations occur.”

40. Cultural Metaphors
Understanding Global Cultures describes a method for understanding easily and quickly the cultural mind-set of a nation and comparing it to other nations

41. Cultural Metaphors
In essence the cultural metaphor involves identifying some phenomenon, activity, or institution of a nation’s culture that all or most of its members consider to be very important and with which they identify closely
the characteristics of the metaphor then become the basis for describing and understanding the essential features of the society

42. Cultural Metaphors
each metaphor is a guide or map that helps the foreigner understand quickly what members of a society consider very important
but it is only a starting point against which we can compare our own experiences and through which we can start to understand the seeming contradictions pervasive in most, if not all, societies

43. Cultural Metaphors
book describes a dominant, and perhaps the dominant, metaphor for each society
but other metaphors may also be suitable

44. Constructing Cultural Metaphors
Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
Edward T. Hall
Geert Hofstede
Plus items on p

45. Constructing Cultural Metaphors
Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
note that each society has a dominant cultural orientation that can be described in terms of six dimensions

46. Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
“What do members of a society assume about the nature of people, that is, are people good, bad, or a mixture?”
These kinds of beliefs are sometimes called “existential postulates”

47. Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
“What do members of a society assume about the relationship between a person and nature, that is, should we live in harmony with it or subjugate it?”
These kinds of beliefs are sometimes called “normative postulates”

48. Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
“What do members of a society assume about the relationship between people, that is, should a person act in an individual manner or consider the group before taking action?”
individualism vs. collectivism (groupism) in terms of such issues as making decisions, conformity, and so forth

49. Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
“What is the primary mode of activity in a given society, that is, being, or accepting the status quo, enjoying the current situation, and going with the flow of things;
or doing, that is, changing things to make them better, setting specific goals and accomplishing them within specific schedules, and so forth?”

50. Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
“What is the conception of space in a given society,
that is, is it considered private, in that meetings are held in private, people do not get too close to one another physically, and so on;
or public, that is, having everyone participate in meetings and decision making, allowing emotions to be expressed publicly, and having people stand in close proximity to one another?”

51. Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
“What is the society’s dominant temporal orientation”
past
present
and / or future?

52. Constructing Cultural Metaphors
Kluckholn and Strodtbeck note that each society has a dominant cultural orientation that can be described in terms of these six dimensions
but that other, weaker orientations may also exist simultaneously in its different geographical regions and racial and ethnic groups

53. Constructing Cultural Metaphors
Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
Edward T. Hall
made many discoveries in how people learn language
analyzed the levels of learning

54. Edward T. Hall
“Context,
or the amount of information that must be explicitly stated if a message or communication is to be successful”

55. Edward T. Hall
“Space,
or the ways of communicating through specific handling of personal space”
e.g., North Americans tend to keep more space between them while communicating than do South Americans

56. monochronic or polychronic
Edward T. Hall
Time, which is either
monochronic
(scheduling and completing one activity at a time)
or polychronic
(not distinguishing between activities and completing them simultaneously – “multitasking”)

57. Edward T. Hall
“Information flow,
which is the structure and speed of messages between individuals and / or organizations”

58. Constructing Cultural Metaphors
Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
Edward T. Hall
Geert Hofstede

59. Geert Hofstede
prominent organizational psychologist
research is based on a large questionnaire survey of IBM employees and managers working in 53 different countries
especially significant because the type of organization is held constant

60. Power distance Geert Hofstede
or the degree to which members of a society automatically accept a hierarchical or unequal distribution of power in organizations and the society

61. Uncertainty avoidance
Geert Hofstede
Uncertainty avoidance
or the degree to which members of a given society deal with the uncertainty and risk of everyday life and prefer to work with long-term acquaintances and friends rather than with strangers

62. Individualism Geert Hofstede
or the degree to which an individual perceives him- or her-self to be separate from a group and free from group pressure to conform

63. Masculinity Geert Hofstede
or the degree to which a society looks favorably on aggressive and materialistic behavior

64. Time horizon Geert Hofstede (short term to long term)
or the degree to which members of a culture are willing to defer present gratification in order to achieve long-term goals

65. The “three-dimensional approaches” developed by Kluckholn and Strodtbeck, Hall, and Hofstende
leave out many features of the cultural mind-sets that are activated in daily cultural activities
neglect the institutions molding these mind-sets
are instructive, but are “somewhat lifeless and narrow”
leave out many facets of behavior

66. Constructing Cultural Metaphors
Florence Kluckholn and Fred Strodtbeck
Edward T. Hall
Geert Hofstede
Cultural Metaphors include, in addition, the items on p

67. Text: