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Chapter 2: Intercultural Communication
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
Chapter 2
Intercultural Communication
Study Objectives
After studying the material in this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following
objectives.
1. Define culture.
2. Define communication.
3. Discuss the relationship between culture and communication.
4. Describe the role that context and power play in intercultural interactions.
5. Identify and define ethnocentrism.
6. Identify and describe stereotyping.
7. Identify and describe prejudice.
8. Identify and describe discrimination.
9. Explain the ways in which ethnocentrism, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination act
as barriers to effective intercultural communication.
Key Terms
• Color-blind approach
• Communication
• Context
• Culture
• Discrimination
• Embodied ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism
• Hate speech
• Individualism
• Indulgence versus restraint
• Intercultural communication
• Long-term versus short-term orientation
• Masculinity/femininity
• Perceptions
• Power
• Power distance
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• Prejudice
• Stereotypes
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Values
• Worldview
Detailed Chapter Outline
Introduction
• Intercultural communication occurs when people of different cultural backgrounds
interact, but this definition seems simplistic and redundant. To properly define intercultural
communication, it’s necessary to understand the two root words—culture and
communication—that represent the first two building blocks.
• In addition, communication always happens in a particular situation or context, the third
building block. The fourth building block concerns the element of power, something that is
part of every intercultural interaction.
I. Building Block 1: Culture
• Culture is often considered the core concept in intercultural communication. Often, people
cannot identify their own cultural backgrounds and assumptions until they encounter
people from other cultures, which gives them a frame of reference.
• Culture is defined as learned patterns of perception, values, and behaviors, shared by a
group of people, that are dynamic and heterogeneous.
A. Culture Is Learned
• First, culture is learned. While all human beings share some universal habits and
tendencies—people eat, sleep, seek shelter, and share some motivations to be loved and
to protect themselves—these are not aspects of culture. Rather, culture is the unique
way people have learned to eat, sleep, and seek shelter because they are American or
Japanese, male or female, and so on.
• People have to learn how to eat, walk, talk, and love like other members of their cultural
groups—and they usually do so slowly and subconsciously, through a process of
socialization.
B. Culture Involves Perception and Values
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• Members of cultural groups share perceptions, or a way of looking at the world.
• The process of perception is composed of three phases: selection, organization, and
interpretation.
o During the selection process, people are only able to give attention to a small
fraction of all the information available to their senses. In the organization phase
people categorize the information into recognizable groups. Last in the perception
process is interpretation, the ways in which people assign meaning to the
information they have organized.
• The perception process is laden with opportunities for people to compare themselves
and their culture to others.
C. Culture Involves Feelings
• Culture is experienced not only as perceptions and values but also as feelings. When
people are in their own cultural surroundings they feel a sense of familiarity and a
certain level of comfort in the space, behavior, and actions of others. They might
characterize this feeling as a kind of embodied ethnocentrism, which is normal.
D. Culture Is Shared
• The idea of a culture implies a group of people. These cultural patterns of perceptions
and beliefs are developed through interactions with different groups of individuals—at
home, in the neighborhood, at school, in youth groups, at college, and so on.
• Culture becomes a group experience because it is shared with people who live in and
experience the same social environments.
• People’s membership in cultural groups ranges from involuntary to voluntary. Many of
the cultural groups people belong to—specifically, those based on age, race, gender,
physical ability, sexual orientation, and family membership—are involuntary
associations over which they have little choice.
• People belong to other cultural groups—those based on professions, political
associations, and hobbies—that are voluntary associations. And some groups may be
involuntary at the beginning of people’s lives (those based on religion, nationality, or
socioeconomic status) but become voluntary associations later on.
E. Culture Is Expressed as Behavior
• People’s cultural lens or computer program influences not only their perceptions and
beliefs but also their behaviors.
• It is important to understand that people belong to many different cultural groups and
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that these groups collectively help determine their perceptions, beliefs, and behavior.
These patterns endure over time and are passed on from person to person.
F. Culture Is Dynamic and Heterogeneous
• A crucial feature of culture is that it is dynamic, or changing, and can often be a source
of conflict among different groups. It is important to recognize that cultural patterns are
not rigid and homogeneous but are dynamic and heterogeneous.
• Viewing culture as dynamic is particularly important for understanding the struggles of
various groups—Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, African
Americans, Latinos/as, women, gays and lesbians, working-class people, and so on—as
they try to negotiate their relationships and ensure their well-being within U.S. society.
• Seeing culture as dynamic and heterogeneous opens up new ways of thinking about
intercultural communication. After all, the people from a particular culture are not
identical, and any culture has many intercultural struggles.
• Cultures are not heterogeneous in the same way everywhere. How sexuality, race,
gender, and class function in other cultures is not necessarily the same as or even similar
to how they do in the United States.
o For example, there are poor people in most nations. The poor in the United States
are often viewed with disdain, as people to be avoided; in many European
countries, by contrast, the poor are seen as a part of society, to be helped by
government programs.
II. Building Block 2: Communication
• Communication is defined as a symbolic process whereby meaning is shared and
negotiated. In other words, communication occurs whenever someone attributes meaning
to another’s words or actions. In addition, communication is dynamic, may be
unintentional, and is receiver-oriented.
o First, communication is symbolic. That is, the words people speak and the gestures
they make have no meaning in themselves; rather, they achieve significance only
because people agree, at least to some extent, on their meaning.
o Second, communication is a process involving several components: people who are
communicating, a message that is being communicated (verbal or nonverbal), a
channel through which the communication takes place, and a context. People
communicating can be thought of as senders and receivers—they are sending and
receiving messages.
o Third, communication involves sharing and negotiating meaning. People have to
agree on the meaning of a particular message, but to make things more complicated,
each message often has more than one meaning.
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o Fourth, communication is dynamic. This means that communication is not a single
event but is ongoing, so that communicators are at once both senders and receivers.
o Fifth, communication does not have to be intentional. Some of the most important
(and sometimes disastrous) communication occurs without the sender knowing a
particular message has been sent.
o Finally, communication is receiver-oriented. Ultimately, it is the person who assigns
meaning who determines the outcome of the communication situation.
III. Culture and Communication
A. Communication, Cultural Worldviews, and Values
• All cultural groups influence the ways in which their members experience and perceive
the world. Members of a culture create a worldview, which, in turn, influences
communication.
• Values, have to do with what is judged to be good or bad, or right or wrong. They are
deeply felt beliefs that are shared by a cultural group and that reflect a perception of
what ought to be, not what is. Collectively, the values of a cultural group represent a
worldview, a particular way of looking at the world.
• To more fully explain the concept of values, two anthropologists, Fred Strodtbeck and
Florence Kluckhohn, studied how the cultural values of Hispanics, Native Americans,
and European Americans differ. They suggested that members of all cultural groups
must answer these important questions:
o What is human nature?
o What is the relationship between humans and nature?
o What is the relationship between humans?
o What is the preferred personality?
o What is the orientation toward time?
• The Nature of Human Nature: The solution to the issue of human nature is related to
dominant religious and legal practices. One solution is a belief in the basic goodness of
human nature. A second solution involves a combination of goodness and evil in human
nature. According to a third solution, humans are essentially evil. Societies holding to
this orientation would more likely punish criminals than rehabilitate them.
• The Relationship between Humans and Nature: In most of U.S. society, humans seem to
dominate nature. For example, clouds are seeded in an attempt to bring rain. Rivers are
rerouted and dammed to make way for human settlement, to form lakes for recreation,
and to provide power. Of course, not everyone in the United States agrees that humans
should dominate nature. Many Native American groups, and also the Japanese, believe
in the value of humans living in harmony with nature, rather than one dominating the
other.
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• The Relationship between Humans: Individualism, a key European American (and
Canadian and Australian) value, places importance on the individual rather than the
family or work team or other group. By contrast, people from more collectivist
societies—such as those of Central and South America, many Arab groups, and the
Amish and some Chicano and Native American communities in the United States—
place a great deal of importance on extended families. Values may also be related to
economic class or rural/urban distinctions. In the United States, for example, working-
class people may be more collectively oriented than members of the middle or upper
classes, given that working-class people reportedly give a higher percentage of their
time and money to helping others.
• The Preferred Personality: The most common form of activity in the United States
seems to involve a “doing” orientation. Thus, being productive and keeping busy are
highly valued in many contexts—for example, in the workplace, most employees have
to document what they “do”. The highest status is usually given to those who “do”
rather than those who mostly “think”. By contrast, a “growing” orientation places
importance on the spiritual aspects of life. This orientation seems to be less common
than the other two; the main practitioners are Zen Buddhists. A final orientation
revolves around “being.” In this process of self-actualization, “peak experiences,” in
which the individual is fused with the experience, are most important. This orientation
can be found in Central and South America, and in Greek and Spanish cultural groups.
• Most U.S. cultural communities—particularly European American and middle-class
ones—seem to emphasize the future. This is evident in practices such as depositing
money in retirement accounts that can be recovered only in the distant future and having
appointment books that can reach several years into the future. Other societies (Spain,
Greece, Mexico) seem to emphasize the importance of the present, recognizing the
value of living in the here and now, and the potential of the current moment. Many
European societies (France, Germany, Belgium) and Asian societies (Japan, Korea,
Indonesia) place a relatively strong emphasis on the past, believing that history has
something to contribute to an understanding of contemporary life.
• Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede and his associates have identified several
additional cultural values that help people understand cultural differences: (1) power
distance, (2) masculinity/femininity, (3) uncertainty avoidance, (4) long-term versus
short-term orientation to life, and (5) indulgence/restraint orientation.
o Power distance refers to the extent to which less powerful members of
institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is
distributed unequally.
▪ Societies that value low power distance (Denmark, Israel, New Zealand)
believe that less hierarchy is better and that power should be used only for
legitimate purposes.
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o Masculinity/femininity dimension refers to both the degree to which gender-
specific roles are valued and the degree to which a cultural group values
“masculine” (achievement, ambition, acquisition of material goods) or “feminine”
(quality of life, service to others, nurturance) values.
▪ People in Japan, Austria, and Mexico seem to prefer a masculine
orientation, expressing a general preference for gender-specific roles. People
in northern Europe (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands) seem to
prefer a feminine orientation, reflecting more gender equality and a stronger
belief in the importance of quality of life for all.
o Uncertainty avoidance describes the degree to which people feel threatened by
ambiguous situations and try to ensure certainty by establishing more structure.
Relatively weak uncertainty-avoidance societies (Great Britain, Sweden, Ireland,
Hong Kong, the United States) share a preference for a reduction of rules and an
acceptance of dissent, as well as an increased willingness to take risks. By
contrast, strong uncertainty-avoidance societies (Greece, Portugal, Japan) usually
prefer more extensive rules and regulations in organizational settings and more
consensus concerning goals.
o Hofstede acknowledged and adopted the long-term (Confucian) versus short-
term orientation to life, which originally was identified by a group of Asian
researchers. This value has to do with a society’s search for virtue versus truth.
Societies with a short-term orientation (the United States, Canada, Great Britain,
the Philippines, Nigeria) are concerned with “possessing” the truth (reflected in
Western religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Societies with a long-
term orientation (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and
India) are more concerned with virtue (reflected in Eastern religions like
Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism).
• Based on recent research by Michael Minkov, one of Hofstede’s associates, there is now
an additional value dimension, indulgence versus restraint. This dimension is related
to the subjective feelings of happiness. That is, people may not actually be happy or
healthy but they report that they feel happier and healthier.
• Intercultural conflicts often result from differences in value orientations.
• While identifying cultural values helps people understand broad cultural differences, it
is important to remember that not everyone in a given society holds the dominant value.
• One of the problems with cultural frameworks is that they tend to “essentialize” people.
In other words, people tend to assume that a particular group characteristic is the
essential characteristic of given group members at all times and in all contexts.
• Value heterogeneity may be particularly noticeable in a society that is undergoing rapid
change.
• Although people may differ with respect to specific value orientations, they may hold
other value orientations in common.
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• There are no easy lists of behaviors that are key to “successful” intercultural interaction.
• Value orientations discussed in the chapter are general guidelines, not rigid rules.
B. Communication and Cultural Rituals and Rules
• Even as culture influences communication, communication influences and reinforces
culture. This means that the way people communicate in cultural contexts often
strengthens their sense of cultural identity.
• Many White middle-class (mostly women) participate in a communication ritual that is
aimed at solving personal problems and affirming participants’ identities. The ultimate
cultural purpose is that it dramatizes common cultural problems, provides a preferred
social context for the venting of problems, and promotes a sense of community identity.
• Similarly, patterns of talk about drinking alcohol help shape and reinforce notions of
masculinity and gender identity among U.S. college students.
• A recent study compared Korean and American online personal profiles and found that
Koreans were less likely to reveal personal information and more likely to present
themselves rather indirectly, through visual means (e.g., graphics) and links to their
interests. Americans were more likely to present personal information about themselves,
directly through personal stories. These differences show how each cultural group
expressed and reinforced their cultural identity, the more individualistic, direct
Americans, and the more collectivistic, indirect Koreans.
C. Communication and Resistance to the Dominant Culture
• Another way to look at culture and communication is to think about how people may
use their own space to resist the dominant culture. Similarly, workers can find ways to
resist the authority structure of management in many ways, some subtle (e.g., work
slowdowns, posting negative information about their employer or organization on
Facebook or YouTube) and some more obvious (e.g., whistle-blowing, boycotting).
IV. Building Block 3: Context
• Context refers to the physical, social, or virtual situation in which communication occurs.
For example, communication may occur in a classroom, a bar, a church, or online and
people communicate differently depending on the context.
• Context may consist of the physical, social, political, and historical structures in which the
communication occurs. The political context in which communication occurs includes
those forces that attempt to change or retain existing social structures and relations.
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V. Building Block 4: Power
• Power is always present when people communicate with each other although it is not
always evident or obvious. In every society, a social hierarchy exists that gives some
groups more power and privilege than others. The groups with the most power determine,
to a great extent, the communication system of the entire society. This is certainly true in
intercultural communication.
• There are two types of group-related power. The first involves membership in involuntary
groups based on age, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, race, and sexual orientation and is
more permanent in nature. The second involves membership in more voluntary groups
based on educational background, geographic location, marital status, and socioeconomic
status and is more changeable. The key point is that the dominant communication systems
ultimately impede others who do not have the same ways of communicating.
• Power also comes from social institutions and the roles people occupy in those institutions.
Power is not a simple one-way proposition but is dynamic. Power should be thought of in
broad terms. Dominant cultural groups attempt to perpetuate their positions of privilege in
many ways. Groups can negotiate their various relations to culture through economic
boycotts, strikes, and sit-ins.
• Power is complex, especially in relation to institutions or the social structure. Some
inequities, such as those involving gender, class, or race, are more rigid than those
resulting from temporary roles like student or teacher. One cannot really understand
intercultural communication without considering the power dynamics in the interaction.
VI. Barriers to Intercultural Communication
A. Ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own cultural group—usually equated with
nationality—is superior to all other cultural groups.
• It can be very difficult for people to see their own ethnocentrism. Often, people see it
best when they spend extended time in another cultural group.
B. Stereotyping
• Stereotypes “are widely held beliefs about a group of people” and are a form of
generalization—a way of categorizing and processing information people receive about
others in their daily life.
• However, generalizations become potentially harmful stereotypes when they are held
rigidly.
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• Stereotypes also may be positive. For example, some people hold the stereotype that all
attractive people are also smart and socially skilled. Even positive stereotypes can cause
problems for those stereotyped.
o Attractive individuals may feel excessive pressure to fit the stereotype that they
are competent at something they’re not, or they may be hired on the basis of their
appearance and then find out they cannot do the job.
• Stereotypes can also develop out of negative experiences. If people have unpleasant
contact with certain group of people, they may generalize that unpleasantness to include
all members of that particular group, whatever group characteristic they focus on (race,
gender, and sexual orientation).
• Because stereotypes often operate at an unconscious level and are so persistent, people
have to work consciously at rejecting them. This process involves two steps: (1)
recognizing the negative stereotypes, and (2) obtaining individual information that can
counteract the stereotype.
C. Prejudice
• Prejudice is a negative attitude toward a cultural group based on little or no experience.
• Stereotypes tell people what a group is like, prejudice tells them how people are likely
to feel about that group.
• People want to be accepted and liked by their cultural groups, and if they need to reject
members of another group to do so, then prejudice serves a certain function.
• Another function is the ego-defensive function, whereby people may hold certain
prejudices because they don’t want to admit certain things about themselves.
• Finally, people hold some prejudices because they help reinforce certain beliefs or
values—the value-expressive function.
• It is also helpful to think about in different kinds of prejudice. The most blatant
prejudice is easy to see but is less common today. It is more difficult, however, to
pinpoint less obvious forms of prejudice. For example, “tokenism” is a kind of prejudice
shown by people who do not want to admit they are prejudiced. They go out of their
way to engage in unimportant but positive intergroup behaviors.
• “Arms-length” prejudice is when people engage in friendly, positive behavior toward
members of another group in public and semiformal situations (casual friendships at
work, interactions in large social gatherings or at lectures) but avoid closer contact
(dating, attending intimate social gatherings).
o These subtle yet real forms of prejudice often go hand-in-hand with a color-blind
approach to intercultural relations.
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• Like stereotypes, prejudice, once established, is very difficult to undo. Because it
operates at a subconscious level, there has to be a very explicit motivation to change
people’s ways of thinking.
D. Discrimination
• The behavior that results from stereotyping or prejudice—overt actions to exclude,
avoid, or distance oneself from other groups—is called discrimination.
• Discrimination may be based on racism or any of the other “isms” related to belonging
to a cultural group (sexism, ageism, elitism).
• Discrimination may range from very subtle nonverbal (lack of eye contact, exclusion of
someone from a conversation), to verbal insults and exclusion from job or other
economic opportunities, to physical violence.
• Hate speech is a particular form of verbal communication that can lead to (or reflect)
prejudice and discrimination.
• Discrimination may be interpersonal, collective, and/or institutional.
• In recent years, interpersonal racism seems to be much more subtle and indirect but still
persistent. Institutionalized or collective discrimination—whereby individuals are
systematically denied equal participation or rights in informal and formal ways—also
persists.
Discussion Questions
1. In your opinion, which of the building blocks of intercultural communication is/are the
most important? Why?
2. Why is power considered one of the four building blocks of intercultural communication?
What is the effect of power in intercultural communication?
3. What are some barriers to positive intercultural communication?
4. Can you think of similar communication rituals you and members of other cultures might
participate in?
5. Why do we hold stereotypes? Are they inherently bad?
6. What social function(s) does prejudice against Muslims fulfill for those who hold that
attitude?
7. What is the role of values in intercultural communication? Is it possible to reach agreement
even when core values differ?
8. What do we mean by the statement, “Trying to understand one’s own culture is like trying
to explain to a fish that it lives in water”?
9. How is culture learned?
10. What cultural patterns do you share with the members of your cultural group?