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Cultural Differences and Cross Cultural Communication (I) INTRODUCTION
In this presentation, the author poses a hypothesis that ethnocentrism is the major invisible barrier that prevents people of different cultural back-grounds from interacting with each other in a normal way, thus making it difficult for them to communicate perfectly before they have a full understanding of each other's culture. This barrier is due to the unawareness of cultural differences and is also the major reason people of different background experience cultural conflicts or cultural shocks. The cultural varieties are the independent variables which are most likely to be the major reasons of misunderstanding or misconceptions during intercultural communication. Cultural differences play an important role in interpretation of different cultural phenomena, or different societies. Cultural differences are reflected not only in daily life, in business circles, in law practice, but also in diplomatic circumstances.
In this paper, emphasis was focused on three areas: 1. Cultural differences in verbal communication; 2. Cultural differences in nonverbal communication (body languages); 3. Differences in cultural taboo. The results of cultural conflicts or cultural differences are most likely to have negative impacts on intercultural communication and are likely to be very undesirable to the people during interacting. A large number of detailed examples based on the author's own observations and experiences are quoted and elaborated to support the hypothesis. The author concluded at the end of the paper that: as long as people of different backgrounds distinguish the cultural differences and make efforts to avoid the tendency of ethnocentrism, it is possible to break through the cultural barrier and successfully reach the goal of communication.
IN his discussion on human being's basis activities and behaviors, American Sociologist Luhmann stressed that "all social systems are based upon communication among actors as they align their respective modes of conducts" (Turner, 1991). Communication is the basis for all social interaction and is the fundamental to most social behaviors. People in the same society behave according to the shared codes and values and regulation which help them to reach the common expectation and agreement during communication (Henslin, 1993). However, when People with different cultural backgrounds meet for the first time, it is not easy for them to interact with each other smoothly before they have a full understanding of each other's culture. Sometimes, the normal behavior in one culture may be regarded as abnormal in another culture.
About 20 days after I arrived in the United States of America, I was introduced to an American friend who would guide me through the Holy Bible. Following the Chinese tradition of showing respect to teacher, I presented him with a beautiful picture when we met the first time. To my great surprise, my teacher felt very embarrassed and declined my picture though he really appreciated my good-will behavior. He started the first lesson by explaining why he could not accept my picture. According to Western tradition, people usually do not give gifts to each other when they meet for the first time. Besides the difference in tradition, the religious significance conveyed by the picture was another reason he could not accept my gift. There was a gigantic statue of Buddha in the picture which was more than welcome in Japan, Thailand, China and other Buddhist countries in Southeast Asia. But in America, most people believe in Christianity. My friend turned out to be a very devoted Christian. He said he would offend his god if he accepted my picture of Buddha. Although we talked in the same language-English, each of us had something quite different in the way of religious convictions because we came from different cultural backgrounds.
This anecdote is only an example of many mistakes, or rather, non-linguistic faults, which people of one culture are likely to commit during their communication with people of other cultures, even though they possess very good foreign language ability. "When viewed from afar, cultural differences among human groups may be only a matter of interest. But when there is culture contact, that is, when people come into contact with people from different cultures, those differences can lead to problems in communication." (Henslin, 1993). These problems can not be solved by languages; rather, they should be considered as special aspects of communication. Otherwise, people of different cultures may not interact with each other smoothly because of these special problems. It is difficult to get over this barrier by linguistic competence alone. How does this barrier come into being? Why there are cultural differences? Is there any way to solve this problem?
A brief discussion of "culture" is necessary before we can proceed with further study of the barriers. The English word "CULTURE" comes from Roman word "cultura" which had securely survived in Latin, the learned language of Europe, almost unchanged for roughly two thousand years. Around 1800, this word suddenly acquired new and important meaning with which it came to pass into common use in the several European languages such as "la cultura", "die kultur", "la culture", "the culture", "de cultuua". However, it has been difficult for sociologists and anthropologists to give a clear, definitive, and comprehensive definition of this word. American Anthropologist A.L. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn had analyzed one hundred and sixty definition by other sociologists, anthropologists, psychologist and psychiatrists and other social scientists (Long, 1966). Yet the word culture in any language is still regarded too simple and insignificant to describe the complex and diverse human social phenomena in a satisfactory way. In some societies, the word culture is used to mean "society" or "civilization". The prominent modern German cultural sociologist Friedreich H. Tenbruck stated that: "In any languages or country, a volume on culture is likely to trend on uncertain ground, due to the ambiguity of the concept, because the word 'culture' carries different meaning in various languages, occupies a different places in their culture, and plays a different role in their histories" (Tendbruck, 1989).
"Although it is difficult to define culture comprehensively and satisfactorily, the different definitions of culture by some noted sociologist from different perspectives certainly help to shed some lights on this term and help human being better understand themselves and the surrounding and realize their pride of being different from other species". According to Marx and Durkheim, culture is analyzed as a faction of social structure, as a reflection of particular social interests, or as a necessary prerequisite of social integration. Structuralists defined that "culture was a set of interconnected rules from which people derive particular behaviors to fit particular situation" (J.B.Bruner, 1986). Symbolic anthropologists stated that "culture is implicit and only semiconnected knowledge of the world from which, through negotiation, people arrive at satisfactory ways of acting in given contexts (Geetz, 1973). While Symbolic interactionists concentrated on the analysis of patterns of behavior and social organization, theorists of "rational choice" view culture as "resulting from the aggregation of individual choices, reflecting differences of power or of rational choices" (Eisenstadt, 1989).
As Tendbruck stressed that "sociology has been shunning this issue for so long that we cannot hold on the firm ground of common knowledge" and "the professional training of our attention tempts us to overlook the fact that society actually is as messy a proposition as is 'culture''' (Tendbruck). Furthermore, recent cultural sociologists such as Robert Wuthnow and Pierre Bourdieu criticized that in recent revival of cultural analysis, "the nature of 'culture' is vaguely conceptualized in social theory, with the result that just about anything--physical objects, ideas, world views, subjective states, behaviors, ritual, thoughts, emotions, and so on --can be considered 'culture'" (Robert Wuthnow and Pierre Bourdieu, 1991).
Other sociologists emphasized the relationships between culture and human behaviors. American Sociologist Robert Peterson stated that "while it was once seen as a map of behavior, it is now seen as a map for behavior. In this view, people use culture the way scientists use paradigms...to organize and normalize their activities." (Peterson, 1979). "Unlike the social behaviors of animal species, all human societies are cultural phenomenon, too. To express itself, man's sociability has to wait for meaningful understanding which alone can explain the manifest variations and historical character of human societies" (Tenbruck, 1989).
According to other sociologists, "while man is the creator of all culture, he is also the creature of a specific culture which is handed down from generation to the next. Yet, if culture does not exist without a society, neither does a society exist without a culture. They refer to two different aspects of the same phenomena, rather than to two separate realms of different phenomena" (Tenbruck, 1989). This point of view stressed the close relationship between culture and society. Therefore, to analyze different culture phenomena is as important as to analyze different societies in comparative studies. Obviously, it is understandable why we can use the word culture as an alternative for society. "In this sense, the word draw attention to the fact that all societies possess an individual culture of their own" (Tenbruck, 1989).
In this paper, I accept the most recognized definition of culture as follows: In a broad sense, culture refers to the total amount of spiritual and material products created during the whole developing course of human history. In a narrow sense, culture includes social ideology, a constitution, and organized systems. To be more concrete, culture may be divided into two categories - high civilized culture and common culture. The high culture includes all aspects of human civilization such as art, music, history, politics, religion, literature, philosophy, architecture, science achievements, etc.. The common culture refers to all kinds of social organizations such as a people's way of life, patterns of thinking, customs and manners, moral senses, values and attitudes (Britannica, 1993, p.877).
As people of the same culture are guided by the same set of values, beliefs and morals. They take this culture for granted and think it normal when other people with the same cultural background behave in the same manner and follow the same patterns. "As people interact with one another, they are pulled together and, at the same time, separate from others." (Charon, 1992)
As the basic behavior of human beings, communication is a widely used term that has been applied to situation ranging from information processing within the individuals to large scale social cultural systems, such as mass media and computer networks. Although the forms of communication are varied, it has been truly said that we can not communicate without certain models. The current models stressed that communication is a shared social system, with both partners bring a set of expectation, and understanding to the interaction.
Both verbal and nonverbal communication are put of this shared systems. In this presentation, I will narrow down my study questions on interpersonal communication, the interaction that takes place between two people, with much emphasis on the characteristics of two parties of different cultural backgrounds.
In modern society, as human beings tend to expand activities into larger areas due to scientific and technological achievements, and due to the great improvement of modern transportation systems, it is highly possible for people to experience not only their own culture, but other cultures as well. Intercultural communication becomes a necessity for tourists, sportsmen, journalists, businessmen and diplomats. People of different cultural backgrounds have many chances to interact with each other. Nowadays, "the jet setters" are likely to experience several different cultures in one week since it takes a Boeing 747 around 12 hours to fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo or Hong Kong. According to Tenbruck, "human actions are informed by the actors' understanding of the respective objects or situation, as Weber stressed through out, too. Our actions are thus bounded by our understanding which rest on our interpretation of reality. However, because man does not live in a world of pure facts. The desire to understand and interpret (inner or outer) reality is not a whim or weakness that we can avoid. It is our essential constructs as cultural beings" (Tenbruck, 1989). Because people are generally unaware of the cultural differences when they interpret the reality, they are inclined to misunderstand other people in the light of cultural contact. Besides this, people in one group are inclined to believe that their own culture is the best and most natural, while the same time rejecting other culture. Misunderstanding and incorrectly interpreting other culture become a prominent problem in intercultural communication.
On the other hand, due to the human beings inclination of interpreting the reality out of their limited knowledge, they possess a tendency of explaining the phenomena based on their previous understanding of the similar phenomena. American Sociologist William Graham Sumner introduced the term of "ethnocentrism" in 1906. He defined it as the "tendency to view one's own group as the center of everything and all others are scaled and rated with references to it" (James, W. Vander Zander, 1992). Charles Wagley defined "Ethnocentrism" as the tendency to regard the beliefs, standards and code of behavior of one's own culture or subculture as superior to those found in other societies. Because human tend to take for granted the culture they are born and raised in, the tendency towards culture bias in favor of one's own group is universally present." (Charles Wagley, 1988).
Furthermore, "ethnocentrism" usually takes the form of wariness and distrust of outside groups and a belief in the unquestionable superiority of one's own people." (John. W. Eaton, 1994). "This tendency give people of a certain group sense of belonging and pride, and a willingness to sacrifice for the good of the group. On the other hand, when it is carried to extremes, it is harmful to people involved. It may cause prejudice, automatic rejection of ideas from other culture and even persecution of other groups. (James. W. Vander Zander, 1992)
If people just measure other culture by their own terms, they are likely to experience cultural conflict with the people they meet. This conflict will seem as the barrier that prevents them from interacting with each other normally. This results in the main obstacle to the common goal of communication. They will find it difficult to reach agreement and difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill the goal of communication. Therefore, ethnocentrism is the major barrier in intercultural communication.
Some may argue that "language is the major barrier in intercultural communication" (Zhou, 1990). People can not achieve the goal of communication without using a shared language. Partially, I agree to this argument. A foreign language is the essential tool for people of different cultures to communicate with, as long as the two parties of conversation know the language well (Zhou, 1991). It is a most recognized fact that a foreign language plays a great role in intercultural communication. However, this recognition is more or less misleading people to a conception that mastering a foreign language is adequate to communicate with foreigners (Zhou, 1990). In my opinion, it is also necessary to learn certain skills in order to solve cultural problems if one is going to communicate with people of another culture because language is closely related with culture.
As an aspect of culture, language is a system of words formed by the combination of sounds written as symbols used by the people of a particular country or by a group of people. A language always reflects the characteristics of a culture. It is generally employed as a main tool or a chief means to acquire a culture. People obtain their culture through learning and employment of their language. Besides language, people also interact with each other by reading others' minds through means such as facial expressions, body movements (body language), gestures, eye contacts and physical touches (South, 1995). As a result, cultural differences are reflected not only in language itself, but also in other aspects of communication. Therefore, in this paper, I will focus my discussions on three areas: 1. Cultural differences in verbal communication; 2. Cultural differences in nonverbal communication;(or body language); 3. The differences in cultural taboo.
1. Cultural Differences in Verbal Communication
Because of the close relationship between culture and language, cultural differences are always best represented by the language. First of all, let us make a comparative study on the differences between the Chinese and the English languages. It is a widely held assumption that Chinese people are inclined to be dependent on each other. Therefore, tendency of Nepotism still prevails in almost all aspects of the social life in this Asian country. This trait is best reflected in numerous Chinese sayings and expressions such as: "To rely on parents at home, and rely on the friends when away from home"; "When a person is promoted, so is his dog and cat". Unlike Chinese people, English speaking people advocate the quality of independence. They pay attention to personalities and self-reliance. This independent character is clearly illustrated by a host of English proverbs. "Dependence is a poor trade"; "Every man is the architect of his own fortune"; "Every tub must stand on its own bottom"; "God helps those who help themselves". These proverbs have become very popular among people in America, Canada and the United Kingdom. Through socialization, people acquire different ideas and notions from the institutions such as families, schools and their communities.
As a word has both a denotation and a connotation, the same word may be interpreted in a completely different way by people from different cultural backgrounds (Zhou, 1991) If people from these two kinds of cultural background meet and they are not aware of each other's culture, misunderstandings are sure to happen between them. One American friend of mine experienced an interesting event in China when he taught at Sanming University, where I also worked. During the interview, his wife offered to teach English for a couple of hours every week at the same university and was told by the authorities that "We appreciate your offer to teach a couple of hours a week as a DEPENDENT of the expert; but I 'm afraid we cannot pay you as much as your husband". The word DEPENDENT caused trouble. No sooner had the interpreter finished his words than the woman voiced her objection. "Sorry, I regret to point out that I am not a dependent on him. I am independent and independent in every sense of the word." If the Chinese interpreter had been aware of the cultural differences, he would have wisely chosen "spouse" instead of "dependent".
The role a Chinese woman plays is not the same as her counterpart plays in the United States of America. In China, in the "bad old days", women were usually confined in home and did nothing more than taking care of their children and husbands. In present days, even though a woman has a job, she is still considered inferior in social life while the male still dominates the family. On the contrary, in the United States of America, it is very unusual and unacceptable to regard a woman as a dependent of the family in the wake of the feminist movement.
Not infrequently, we may also notice that a complimentary term under one culture is a derogatory term in another culture. Let us compare Chinese culture with Western culture once again. In some European countries, it is common to cast an old shoe to bride and bridegroom at their wedding, which conveys a good will message: wishing the newly-married couples happiness and longevity. However, this kind of behavior is considered a humiliation upon people in China, because the Chinese equivalent of "worn-out old shoe" is an abusive term in the Chinese language which suggests a prostitute or an immoral woman. The major reason for this undesirable result is the differences in the connotation of the same word in different languages. I do believe that no one would be happy to accept this kind of treatment at his or her wedding in China, even if his bride or bridegroom were from a western country. If we do not have some ideas and knowledge about these characteristics, we will certainly experience troubles when we communicate with people in this particular culture. It is, therefore, equally important for people to study the cultural differences as well as linguistic differences when approaching a foreign culture. (1996)
(1997)
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