Intercultural Communication

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Intercultural Communication
Specific Objectives
1. Define intercultural communication with
regards to culture and language.
2. Discuss the nature and meaning of culture.
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Intercultural Communication
Sub Topics
2.1. Communications and language 2.1.1
Relationship between language and culture
2.2. The Nature and Meaning of Culture 2.2.1
Concept of culture 2.2.2. Characteristics of
culture 2.2.3. Components of culture
2.2.4. Cultural Change 2.2.5. Transfer of
culture 2.2.6. Importance and functions of
culture 2.2.7. Cultural relativism
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2.3. Cultural Change 2.3.1 The Growth of
Feminism 2.3.2. Multiculturalism
2.3.3. The growth of youth sub-culture
2.4. Cultural dimensions of learning,
teaching and educational processes
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• Language
• the communication of thoughts and feelings
  through a system of arbitrary signals, such as
  voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.
• involves listening, speaking, reading and
  writing. It is a system of signs, symbols,
  gestures, or rules used in communicating

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2.1. Communications and Language
2.1. Communications and Language 2.1.1
Relationship between language and culture

• Communication- is the exchange of thoughts,
  messages, or information, by speech, signals,
  writing or behavior
• the process of transferring and sharing
  information and experiences.
• it may take the form of interpersonal
  communications (body language, nonverbal
  communication, rumors), and mass media (TV, film,
  radio, newspapers and computers)

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2.2. The Nature and Meaning of Culture
Concept of Culture
Edward B. Taylor Culture is that complex whole
which includes knowledge, belief, art, law,
morals, customs and other capabilities and habits
acquired by a man as a member of society.
It is the accumulated ways of doing things
which is the product of human experience it is
the totality of what individuals have learned
about living together.

• Socially-transmitted beliefs, language, values
  and behavior, practices and norms, and sanctions,
  together with other products (material or
  non-material) of interaction form part of ones
  culture.

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Characteristics of Culture
1. Culture is Learned 2. Culture is diverse 3.
Culture is a group product 4. Culture is
transmitted from generation to generation. 5.
Culture is adaptive and maladaptive 6. Culture is
Shared 7 Culture is patterned and integrated 8
Culture is compulsory 9 Culture is
cumulative 10. Culture is dynamic
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Components of Culture
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The Arts
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• Characteristics of innovations
• Relative Advantage
• Compatibility
• Complexity
• Trialability
• Observability

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• Five Categories of Adopters
• Innovators 2.5
• Early adopters 13.5
• Early majority 34
• Late Majority 34
• Laggards 16

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Innovators

• Venturesome
• Cosmopolite social relationships
• Communications among a click
• Control of substantial financial resources
• Ability to understand the apply complex technical
  knowledge

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Innovators .....

• Cope with high degree of uncertainty
• Willing to accept setback from unsuccessful idea
• Imports innovations from outside the system
  boundaries
• Gatekeeper in the flow of new ideas

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Early Adopters

• Integrated into local social system localites
• Greatest degree of opinion leadership
• Give advice and information about innovations
• Role model for other members of a social system
• Respected by peers

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Early Adopters ....

• Embodies successful discrete use of new ideas
• Seeks to make judicious innovation decisions
• Decreases uncertainty about a new idea by
  adopting it
• Conveys a subjective evaluation of technology to
  near-peers

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Early Majority

• Adopt just before the average member of the
  system
• Interact frequently with peers
• Seldom hold positions of leadership
• May deliberate for some time before adopting
• Show deliberate willingness in adopting
  innovations

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Late Majority

• Adopt after the average member of the system
• Adoption may be economic necessity or result of
  peer pressure
• Skeptical and cautious toward innovations
• System norms must favor adoption
• Scarce resources
• Most of the uncertainty must be removed before an
  innovation is adopted

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Laggard

• Last to adopt
• No opinion leadership
• Most localite
• Nearly isolated in social system
• Refer to the past
• Suspicious of inventions and change
• Adoption and use lag far behind awareness
• Limited resources
• Risk averse

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Cultural Change

• Can come about due to
• environmental change
• inventions
• Contact with other people
• Diffusion something moves from culture to
  another
• Stimulus diffusion refers to an element of
  one culture leading to an invention in another
• Innovation is an idea perceived as new by an
  individual

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Cultural Change
Enculturation
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PATTERNS OF CULTURAL CHANGES 1. Enculturation
It is the process of learning culture ones own
group. Ex. Learning the folkways, mores, social
traditions, values and beliefs of one group
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PATTERNS OF CULTURAL CHANGES 1. Enculturation
It is the process of learning culture ones own
group. Ex. Learning the folkways, mores, social
traditions, values and beliefs of one
group Assimilation is the process of adopting a
different often a dominant culture by an
individual Transculturation - is a phenomenon of
merging and converging cultures. Acculturation
refers to replacement of the traits of one
culture with those of another
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PATTERNS OF CULTURAL CHANGES Dominant
culture customs and traditions practiced mostly
by people Subculture - represents the variations
as practiced by smaller groups Counter- culture
(or contra-culture) is the rejection of
existing social norms, results from the
opposition and conflict between a larger society
and a group Cultural Integration refers to the
process of combining various elements of culture
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Transfer of Culture
Unidirectional
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Unidirectional Culture Transfer Model
Parents Teachers
Children Environment Peers

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Unidirectional

• Desired Goal To have exact copy-like nature of
  transmission of the given message.
• This transfer is given directly. And viewed as
  something given.
• Ex. Knowledge

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Bi- Directional Transfer Model

• The participants of this culture transfer of
  knowledge are actively transforming the cultural
  message.
• They change or reconstruct the message unlike
  unidirectional in which there are no changes made.

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IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE

• Develops Quality of Life
• Boost of Local and National Economy
• Provides links between the PAST,PRESENT and
  FUTURE to develop a sense of commonness

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IMPORTANCE AND FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE

• Culture shapes behavior.
• Culture provides a standard by which we evaluate
  others behavior.
• Culture provides boundary maintenance.

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Cultural Relativism

• The principle that an individual humans belief
  activities make sense in terms of his or her own
  culture.
• Culture is responsible or related to how people
  behave or think.

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The Growth of Feminism
Feminism is a movement organized around the
belief in the social, political, and economic
equality of the sexes, largely motivated by
experiences of women
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Multiculturalism
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Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is a public policy approach
for managing cultural diversity in a multiethnic
society, officially stressing mutual respect and
tolerance for cultural differences within a
countrys borders. Emphasis Unique
characteristics of different cultures.
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The Growth of Youth subculture

• Subcultures - is a set of people with distinct
  sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate
  them from a larger culture of which they are a
  part.
• Distinctive because of
• Age of its members
• Race or ethnicity
• Class
• gender

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The Growth of Youth subculture .........

• Qualities that determine a subculture
• Aesthetic
• Religious
• Occupational
• Political
• Sexual
• Combination

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The Growth of Youth subculture .........

• Youth subculture refer to the ways young people
  (adolescents and teenagers) differentiates
  themselves from the mainstream culture
• React to the economic, political, and educational
  changes.
• Easily adopt changes

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Relevant Culture Terms
Culture Shock refers to the unpleasant or
disoriented feeling one experiences when he goes
to a new environment. Initial reactions anxiety,
stress, frustrations, dismay Symptoms fear of
being alone, loneliness, feeling of being laugh
at or cheated
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Relevant Culture Terms
Ethnocentrism When members of a society or
group consider as superior, normal and right
above other cultures.
Xenocentrism the opposite of ethnocentrism
which is the belief that ones own lifestyle,
ideas or products are inferior and what is
foreign is superior.
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Relevant Culture Terms
Temporocentrism the belief that ones own time
is more important than the past time or future.
The belief is prevalent among people who lack
historical perspective.
Culture Universals are practices found in every
culture. Ex. Athletic sports, folklore
giftgiving, religion, sexual restrictions, etc...
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Relevant Culture Terms
Culture Relativism the exact opposite of
ethnocentrism, views that a cultural practice is
neither good nor bad in itself and that its
desirability depends upon their meaning, value
and function in the culture which they are part
of. All cultures have customs, practices and
traits which maybe viewed as offensive and
eccentric by other culture
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References
Omas-as, Roberta L. (2003). General Sociology
society, culture, Population Dynamics and Gender
Development