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Cultural Awareness and
Inter-cultural Communication
Definitions of Culture
The explicit and implicit patterns of behaviors,
symbols, and ideas that constitute the
distinctive achievements of human groups.
Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952
That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities
acquired by humans as members of society.
Tylor in person, 1974
The sum total of a way of life of a people; patterns
experienced by individuals as normal ways of acting,
feeling, and being.
Hall 1959
How Cultural Values are Formed
 Environmental adaptations
 Historical factors
 Social and economic evolution
 Contact with other cultural groups
How Personal Values are Formed
 Family and childhood messages
 Folklore of the culture
 Societal pressures: rewards and punishment
 Religious education
 Formal education
 Formal schooling
 Peer groups
Misleading Assumptions in Multicultural World
 Homogeneity: The Melting Pot Myth
 Parochialism: The Only-One-Way Myth
 Ethnocentrism: The One-Best-Way Myth
The Melting Pot Myth
We are all the same.
Truth
We are not all the same; there are many culturally
different groups in society.
The Only-One-Way Myth
Our way is the only way. We do not recognize any
other way of living, working, or doing things.
Truth
There are many culturally distinct ways of reaching the
same goal or living one’s life.
The One-Best-Way Myth
Our way is the best way. All other ways are inferior
versions of our way.
Truth
There are many other different and equally good ways
to reach the same goal. The best way is contingent on
the culture of the people involved.
The Good Life—different cultural views on the
good life
Moral of the story
…learn how to play the guitar today and enjoy
yourself…
Cross-Cultural Communication
All communication is cultural—it draws on ways we
have learned to speak and give nonverbal messages.
Miscommunication is likely to happen, especially when
there are significant cultural differences between
communicators.
Ideas, attitudes, and behaviors involving the
following four variables:
 Time and Space
 Fate and Personal Responsibility
 Face and Face-Saving
 Nonverbal Communication
Time and Space
Time is one of the most central differences that
separate cultures and cultural ways of doing things.
In the West, time tends to be seen as quantitative,
measured in units that reflect the march of progress.
This approach to time is called monochromic—it is an
approach that favors linear structure and focus on
one event or interaction at a time.
In the East, time feels like it has unlimited continuity,
an unraveling rather than a strict boundary.
People may attend to many things happening at once
in this approach to time, called polychromous.
Fate and Personal Responsibility
This refers to the degree to which we feel ourselves the
masters of our lives, versus the degree to which we
see ourselves as subject to things outside our control.
Face and Face-Saving
Face is important across cultures, yet the dynamics of
face and face-saving play out differently.
In many cultures, maintaining face is of great
importance, though ideas of how to do this vary.
In an individualistic culture such as the US, face has to
do with preserving one’s image with others and
themselves.
In a communitarian culture, individuals identify
themselves as a member of a group. Thus, face
relates to the group.
Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication is hugely important in any
interaction with others; its importance is multiplied
across cultures.
We tend to look for nonverbal cues when verbal
messages are unclear or ambiguous, as they are more
likely to be across cultures.
Low-context cultures like the United States and
Canada tend to give relatively less emphasis to
nonverbal communication.
In high-context settings such as Japan or Colombia,
understanding the nonverbal components of
communication is relatively more important to
receiving the intended meaning of the
communication as a whole.
Some elements of nonverbal communication are
consistent across cultures.
Differences surface with respect to which emotions are
acceptable to display in various cultural settings, and
by whom.
Another variable across cultures has to do with
proximity, or ways of relating to space.
The difficulty with space preferences is not that they
exist, but the judgments that get attached to them.
Each of the variables discussed—time and space,
personal responsibility and fate, face and facesaving, and nonverbal communication influences the
course of communications, and can be responsible
for conflict or the escalation of conflict when it leads
to miscommunication or misinterpretation.