INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION (IC)
Chapter 1. Approaching Intercultural Communication
Intercultural communication
Cross-cultural communication: assumption of distinct cultural groups and
investigate aspects of their communicative practices comparatively; culture as
different entities
Intercultural communication: assumption of cultural differences between
distinct cultural groups, but study their communicative practices in interaction
with each other
Inter-discourse communication: avoid any a priori notions of cultural identity,
asks how culture is made relevant in a text or interaction and how cultural
identity is brought into existence through text and talk
,Culture:
- Exclusionary character
- Use: who makes culture relevant to whom, in which context, for which
purposes?
- Content: what is it that culture comprises/consists of?
› Culture as national asset: high culture: history, arts, festivals & popular
culture: cuisine, folklore
e.g. tourism marketing, museums, stroopwafels
› Culture as challenge: about interpersonal relationships and how they are
communicated verbally and non-verbally
e.g. business advice: culture must be overcome to do good business; ways
to not offend other cultural groups
› Culture as cultural citizenship: culture consisting of practices that are seen
as signifying a particular identity, shows the culture
e.g. clothing, religion
- Scope: what is considered as the basic unit of culture? E.g. the nation,
ethnicity, family, IBCoM, religion
- Status: culture as presupposed entity (remains constant under negation) or
culture as process that is made relevant and gains meaning in and through
practices including communication (doing culture)
- Essentialist/entity approach: culture is something one has and one belongs to
- Culture Communication: culture influences communication
- Culture as fixed entity that shapes and precedes communication styles of all
members that are seen as part of that one culture
x Reality is more complex than that (e.g. people may identify with different
cultures)
x Culture is not fixed, but changes over time
- Process/social constructionist approach: communication is a social practice
that socially constructs culture; people do/perform/compete over culture
- Communication Culture: communication constructs culture and cultural
difference
- Culture is not just an entity; it is being constructed in and through
communication, it is abstract
- Inter-discourse communication
,Chapter 2. The Genealogy of Intercultural Communication
History of the word ‘culture’:
- Till 15th century: agricultural meaning: husbandry and tending to natural growth
- 16th century: human growth, specifically aesthetic, spiritual and intellectual
development
- Late 19th century: works and practices of intellectual and artistic activity
› German Kultur: historical self-development of humanity
› Romantic movement: Kulturen; specific and variable cultures of different
nations and periods, but also the specific and variable cultures of social
and economic groups within a nation
› Colonialism and globalization: culture as particular way of life, whether of a
people, a period, a group, or humanity in general
global culture hierarchy: different peoples having different cultures and
these cultures being hierarchically ordered, with European culture the most
superior
Multiculturalism: cultural difference is seen as a form of diversity that is enriching
and that is a cause for celebration, does not consider cultures as inferior or superior
to each other; celebration of cultural diversity
- Human groups and cultures are clearly delineated as identifiable entities that
coexist, while maintaining firm boundaries
- Identity politics/politics of recognition: concerned with the liberation of a
marginalized constituency whose members do not rally around a particular
ideology or party affiliation but around demands for the recognition of their
cultural distinctiveness
- Culture meets and mingles in a specific historical, social and economic context
- Culture does not precede context but is created by various socio-economic
contexts
, Chapter 4. Nation and Culture
Banal nationalism: nationalism as enacted and re-enacted daily in many mundane,
almost unnoticeable, ‘banal’ ways
- Culture is often made relevant in terms of national culture; nation as main unit of
culture
- Everyday instances of banal nationalism socialize people into seeing themselves
as members of a particular nation (national subjects) who live in a wider world of
nation states; it becomes part of who we are to such a degree that they enter our
emotional make-up
- National identity is a discursive construction that is made relevant in specific
context for specific purposes
– Stereotypes in jokes and communication advice: sustain the nation as key
category, present national belonging as overriding any other aspects of
identity and they render all other aspects of identity invisible
– In state institutions like schooling (national anthem, flag raising, national
history books), in weather forecasts, in sports, consumer advertising
– Intercultural communication advice & scholarly work: creates the impressing
that communication style is nation based
x Peddles national ways of seeing the world and stereotypes about essentialist
and homogeneous national identity
x Theoretically: does not acknowledge the multiplicity of identities
x Practically: Nationality has lost some of the sway it once held in an age
characterized by globalization and transnationalism
Nation as imagined community: members of a nation imagine themselves and are
imagined by others as group members; the groups themselves are too large, so no
group member will ever know all the other group members
Passport identity: coercions of bureaucratic practices; argues that national identity is
real and has powerful effects (e.g. security concerns)
Small culture: relating to cohesive behavior in activities within any social grouping
– Company culture or family culture
Globalization and transnationalism
- Culture is a constant state of flux and cross-fertilization; people cross in and out
of cultural styles, engage in cultural fusions, are part of third cultures, and
hybridity carries enormous identificatory and analytic purchase conceived as
challenges to dominant accounts of a uniform national culture
› All communication is intercultural; each of us belongs to many cultures, and all
these combinations are slightly different
› The concept of intercultural communication has become completely
meaningless; just as the global flows of images, discourses, ideas and
lifestyles (globalization) call static views of intercultural communication as
communication between people from different cultural backgrounds into
question, so do actual people flows (transnationalism, migration)
