Social and cultural dimensions in the intercultural communication A.Gohard-Radenkovic 2007

Social and cultural dimensions

in the intercultural communication

A.Gohard-Radenkovic2007

• Relation to otherness and to one's self is built on:


Relation to otherness and to one's self is built on:

• Representations / images / cliches / prejudices

• Implicite shared culture / hidden values and beliefs / «invisible evidences» / reproduction of unaware attitudes

• Cultural norms / social codes / rules / expected behaviours / rituals

• Unconscious social classifications / projection of hierarchies

• Social status / cultural practices


• ANTHROPOLOGICAL TOOLS FOR THE OBSERVATION OF THE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ANY INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL CONTEXT


ANTHROPOLOGICAL TOOLS FOR THE OBSERVATION OF THE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

• Relation to the authority and type of « contract »

• Organisation of the hierarchy (between services, employer - employees, employees)

• Socio-professional status and representation(s) of this status



• Expected abilities : criteria of recrutement

• Communication language(s) in formal and informal situations



• Everyday greeting rituals

• Giving - giving back presents / big events rituals

• Expected behaviours (dress, food practices, etc.)



• Transmission of informations (oral, written)

• Discursive practices (ways of speaking and writing)

• Meeting rituals and meeting organisation

• Working methods (or relation to work)• Space distribution• Time organisation, etc.


Dimensions in the intercultural communication

• Every individual is made of a « multiple identity and belonging »


Dimensions in the intercultural communication

• Collective / individual• Linguistic• Social / cultural• National / regional• Urban / rural / rurban• Familial / clanic• Sexual• Generational• Professional• Economical


Activities

• In Part I, we discuss the social and cultural representations, judgements and values that we all spontaneously reproduce on the “others”, their respective languages, societies and cultures through our own experiences of “otherness”.


Activities

• Aim of this part: a way to introduce one's self to others through the presentation of one's life history. To know one another a little bit better, to discover its individual and collective representations of others and of one's self through a reflexive practice, raising an awareness process on its own judgements, habits and values, and on its so called “familiar environment” that we have to revise, to visit again with a new look and a new perception.


Activities

• Activity (1) (individual): draw the “mapping” on a big sheet of paper of your own trips and moves in Europe and in other foreign countries with words (nouns, adjectives) qualifying the representations and judgements, you had of the “others” and words qualifying how the “others” defined you, as a “Dutch person”.


Activities

• Activity (2) in smaller groups (4 to 5 people) : present and explain your “mapping of your history life” in a few minutes. After these different experiences, tell your comrades with full honesty if you changed or reinforced your representations and judgements of others and of one's self.

• Conclusion: our unconscious grid of values, norms.


Activities

• In Part II, we consider a few basic anthropological tools to identify the sociocultural dimensions embedded in communication : self-presentation, rituals of greetings, expected behaviours at the table, relation to authority, giving presents, sharing space and organising time, etc.


Activities

• Aims of this part: presentation of the socio-anthropological grid of values and norms, expected behaviours in different formal and informal situations that every individual or collectivity may reproduce or project in communication, although each social group and each individual may interprete according to its own context and history life. In many situations of intercultural communication in a foreign language, each social or national group share “invisible evidences” (because “obvious” to everybody) or what we call “a shared implicit or hidden social culture” that can change from one generation to the other, from one social group to the other, from one sexual culture to the other, from one professional context to the other.


Activities

• These implicit rules can interfere in the daily professional communication and generate “misunderstandings” and even “conflicts”. It is a normal process in every situation of communication, in every entreprise, in every institution, more widely in every society.

• Attention: we must care about any abusive generalization of these social and cultural rules !!


Activities

• Activity (3) : we try to understand the social and cultural hidden rules and to identify the misunderstandings that may appear in the daily life and the daily professional communication through examples :


Activity (3)

• First example. Expected mimics and behaviours in greetings situations (Text: French and Chinese students in an academic environment)

• Tell your own experiences in smaller groups


Activity (3)

• - Second example: hospitality rules in different countries (Grid: results of an enquiry made by a research-group in different European countries)

• Tell your own experiences in smaller groups.


Activity (3)

• - Third example: expected behaviours and expected ways of speaking in a meeting (Text : English and French employees working in the same entreprise)

• Have you any experience of meetings in a multinational context? in smaller ou bigger groups?


Activity (3)

• - Fourth example: expected behaviours at the table and relation to authority (distance hiérarchique) in a professional situation (Video-film: a Japenese staff of a firm in a French restaurant in Tokyo)

• Tell our own experiences in smaller groups


Activities

• Activity (4), we work on the intercultural dimension in bi-multinational professional contexts by studying the expectations of the different actors, and making hypothesis on the possible reasons of misunderstandings and conflicts through two different case studies : in smaller groups (4 to 5): one study case by group ; then exchange of the results in the whole group.


Activity (4)

• First case study : conflict with the staff in a joint-venture “Kirkit” in a beach-resort, close to a small village, near Marmaris in the Southern Turkey

• A Turkish-French joint-venture, receiving mainly French-speaking tourists (individuals and groups), that has been working together very successfully for a few years, experienced one day a strong conflict.


Activity (4)

• First case study • The context: There are two managers with specific

responsibilities: the French one is in charge of the sportive and cultural activities ; the Turkish one is in charge of the restaurant fields. Both speak quite well the language of the other. The Turkish boss got a Bachelor's degree in ethnology in France; the French manager got a specialised diploma in his field (BTS) in a French professional school.

• One day arose a big conflict: the Turkish staff refused to cook a boar (a wild pork killed on the road by the hotel bus) for the costumers and started to strike, complaining about the French direction and the contempt of the boss ? Why ? What did happen ?


Activity (4)

• Second case-study : unsatisfied Japanese groups are complaining by their Japanese travel agency about their stay in a big international four stars hotel “Le Méridien Montparnasse” in Paris

• The Japenese costumers represent 25 % of the yearly turn-over of the hotel. That is the reason the direction wanted to improve the facilities and services. But it doesn't understand why the costumers, mostly groups, were complaining and about what they may complain, after their return in their country.


Activity (4)

• Context: a four stars hotel in Paris belonging to an international chain “Le Méridien” with more than 200 hundred rooms and 90 staff-members having different roles in different offices at the hotel: at the reception desk; at the luggage office, at the restaurant, with the room service, etc.


Activity (4)

• A few hints:• - The Japanese costumers have precise

expectations in their country regarding the welcoming and the different services and facilities in hotels ;

• - Most of the time, they have an intensive program of visits and shopping in Paris: they can't be late.

• - Most of the Japanese people have their own habits in hotels: they are used to have a long and regenerating bath around 6 o'clock every evening and they may use (wearing “kimonos”) the corridors as a private space.


Documents

Social and cultural dimensions in the intercultural communication A.Gohard-Radenkovic 2007