15 Topic 2: Theories of Cross-Cultural Communication

Activity 3: Reading – Theories of Cross-Cultural Communication

Please read the following text which introduces you to the theories of cross-cultural communication.

This activity contains text from 31. Cross-Cultural Communication by Olds College licensed under CC BY 4.0. Minor changes for readability and to add illustrations as cited from other sources.

Hofstede

Social psychologist Geert Hofstede (Hofstede, 1982, 2001, 2005) is one of the most well known researchers in cross-cultural communication and management. His website offers useful tools and explanations about a range of cultural dimensions that can be used to compare various dominant national cultures. Hofstede’s theory places cultural dimensions on a continuum that ranges from high to low and really only makes sense when the elements are compared to another culture. Hofstede’s dimensions include the following:

Power Distance: High-power distance means a culture accepts and expects a great deal of hierarchy; low-power distance means the president and janitor could be on the same level.

Individualism: High individualism means that a culture tends to put individual needs ahead of group or collective needs.

Uncertainty Avoidance: High uncertainty avoidance means a culture tends to go to some lengths to be able to predict and control the future. Low uncertainty avoidance means the culture is more relaxed about the future, which sometimes shows in being willing to take risks.

Masculinity: High masculinity relates to a society valuing traits that were traditionally considered masculine, such as competition, aggressiveness, and achievement. A low masculinity score demonstrates traits that were traditionally considered feminine, such as cooperation, caring, and quality of life.

Long-term orientation: High long-term orientation means a culture tends to take a long-term, sometimes multigenerational view when making decisions about the present and the future. Low long-term orientation is often demonstrated in cultures that want quick results and that tend to spend instead of save.

Indulgence: High indulgence means cultures that are OK with people indulging their desires and impulses. Low indulgence or restraint-based cultures value people who control or suppress desires and impulses.

As mentioned previously, these tools can provide insight into making sense of understanding differences and similarities across key below-the-surface cross-cultural elements. However, when you are working with people, they may or may not conform to what’s listed in the tools. For example, if you are Canadian but grew up in a tight-knit Amish community, your value system may be far more collective than individualist. Or if you are Indigenous, your long-term orientation may be far higher than that of mainstream Canada. It’s also important to be mindful that in a Canadian workplace, someone who is non-white or wears clothes or religious symbols based on their ethnicity may be far more “mainstream” under the surface. The only way you know for sure is to communicate interpersonally by using active listening, keeping an open mind, and avoiding jumping to conclusions.

Trompenaars

Fons Trompenaars is another researcher who came up with a different set of cross-cultural measures. A more detailed explanation of his seven dimensions of culture can be found at this website (Mindtools Content Team, n.d.), but we provide a brief overview below:

Universalism vs. Particularism: the extent that a culture is more prone to apply rules and laws as a way of ensuring fairness, in contrast to a culture that looks at the specifics of context and looks at who is involved, to ensure fairness. The former puts the task first; the latter puts the relationship first.

Individualism vs. Communitarianism: the extent that people prioritize individual interests versus the community’s interest.

Specific vs. Diffuse: the extent that a culture prioritizes a head-down, task-focused approach to doing work, versus an inclusive, overlapping relationship between life and work.

Neutral vs. Emotional: the extent that a culture works to avoid showing emotion versus a culture that values a display or expression of emotions.

Achievement vs. Ascription: the degree to which a culture values earned achievement in what you do versus ascribed qualities related to who you are based on elements like title, lineage, or position.

Sequential Time vs. Synchronous Time: the degree to which a culture prefers doing things one at time in an orderly fashion versus preferring a more flexible approach to time with the ability to do many things at once.

Internal Direction vs. Outer Direction: the degree to which members of a culture believe they have control over themselves and their environment versus being more conscious of how they need to conform to the external environment.

Like Hofstede’s work, Trompenaars’s dimensions help us understand some of those beneath-the-surface-of-the-iceberg elements of culture. It’s equally important to understand our own cultures as it is to look at others, always being mindful that our cultures, as well as others, are made up of individuals.

Ting-Toomey

Stella Ting-Toomey’s face negotiation theory builds on some of the cross-cultural concepts you’ve already learned, such as, for example, individual versus collective cultures. When discussing face negotiation theory, face means your identity, your image, how you look or come off to yourself and others (Communication Theory, n.d.). The theory says that this concern for “face” is something that is common across every culture, but various cultures—especially Eastern versus Western cultures—approach this concern in different ways. Individualist cultures, for example tend to be more concerned with preserving their own face, while collective cultures tend to focus more on preserving others’ faces. Loss of face leads to feelings of embarrassment or identity erosion, whereas gaining or maintaining face can mean improved status, relations, and general positivity. Actions to preserve or reduce face is called facework. Power distance is another concept you’ve already learned that is important to this theory. Most collective cultures tend to have more hierarchy or a higher power distance when compared to individualist cultures. This means that maintaining the face of others at a higher level than yours is an important part of life. This is contrasted with individualist cultures, where society expects you to express yourself, make your opinion known, and look out for number one. This distinction becomes really important in interpersonal communication between people whose cultural backgrounds have different approaches to facework; it usually leads to conflict. Based on this dynamic, the following conflict styles typically occur:

Domination: dominating or controlling the conflict (individualist approach)

Avoiding: dodging the conflict altogether (collectivist approach)

Obliging: yielding to the other person (collectivist approach)

Compromising: a give-and-take negotiated approach to solving the conflict (individualist approach)

Integrating: a collaborative negotiated approach to solving the conflict (individualist approach)

Group of Women Standing on a Step leah hetteberg on Unsplash

Another important facet of this theory involves high-context versus low-context cultures. High-context cultures are replete with implied meanings beyond the words on the surface and even body language that may not be obvious to people unfamiliar with the context. Low-context cultures are typically more direct and tend to use words to attempt to convey precise meaning. For example, an agreement in a high-context culture might be verbal because the parties know each other’s families, histories, and social positions. This knowledge is sufficient for the agreement to be enforced. No one actually has to say, “I know where you live. If you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, …” because the shared understanding is implied and highly contextual. A low-context culture usually requires highly detailed, written agreements that are signed by both parties, sometimes mediated through specialists like lawyers, as a way to enforce the agreement. This is low context because the written agreement spells out all the details so that not much is left to the imagination or “context.”

Activity 4: Personal Reflection Journal – Reflection Question 2

Please answer the following reflection in any format you like (such as in writing, a video, note form, or a drawing). Save your reflection responses in one large file so you can refer to them later in the course if needed. Continue reading the text after completing the reflection activity.

Reflection Question 2: Think about a situation where you observed someone else engaging in facework—either protecting their own face or attempting to preserve another person’s face. How did the dynamics of the situation change based on these actions, and what cultural factors might have influenced the choices made?

 

This activity contains text from 31. Cross-Cultural Communication by Olds College licensed under CC BY 4.0. Minor changes for readability.

Verbal and Non-Verbal Differences

Cultures have different ways of verbally expressing themselves. For example, consider the people of the United Kingdom. Though English is spoken throughout the UK, the accents can be vastly different from one city or county to the next. If you were in conversation with people from each of the four countries that make up the UK—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, you would find that each person pronounces words differently. Even though they all speak English, each has their own accent, slang terms, speaking volume, metaphors, and other differences. You would even find this within the countries themselves. A person who grew up in the south of England has a different accent than someone from the north, for example. This can mean that it is challenging for people to understand one another clearly, even when they are from the same country!

While we may not have such distinctive differences in verbal delivery within Canada, we do have two official languages, as well as many other languages in use within our borders. This inevitably means that you’ll communicate with people who have different accents than you do, or those who use words and phrases that you don’t recognize. For example, if you’re Canadian, you’re probably familiar with slang terms like toque (a knitted hat), double-double (as in, a coffee with two creams and two sugars—preferably from Tim Hortons), parkade (parking garage), and toonie (a two-dollar coin), but your friends from other countries might respond with quizzical looks when you use these words in conversation!

When communicating with someone who has a different language or accent than you do, avoid using slang terms and be conscious about speaking clearly. Slow down, and choose your words carefully. Ask questions to clarify anything that you don’t understand, and close the conversation by checking that everything is clear to the other person.

Happy Birthday Greeting Card Lot by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash

Cultures also have different non-verbal ways of delivering and interpreting information. For example, some cultures may treat personal space differently than do people in North America, where we generally tend to stay as far away from one another as possible. For example, if you get on an empty bus or subway car and the next person who comes on sits in the seat right next to you, you might feel discomfort, suspicion, or even fear. In a different part of the world this behaviour might be considered perfectly normal. Consequently, when people from cultures with different approaches to space spend time in North America, they can feel puzzled at why people aim for so much distance. They may tend to stand closer to other people or feel perfectly comfortable in crowds, for example.

This tendency can also come across in the level of acceptable physical contact. For example, kissing someone on the cheek as a greeting is typical in Europe. In North America, however, we typically use a handshake during a formal occasion and apologize if we accidentally touch a stranger’s shoulder as we brush past. In contrast, Japanese culture uses a non-contact form of greeting—the bow—to demonstrate respect and honour.

Meaning and Mistranslation

Culturally influenced differences in language and meaning can lead to some interesting encounters, ranging from awkward to informative to disastrous. In terms of awkwardness, you have likely heard stories of companies that failed to exhibit communication competence in their naming and/or advertising of products in another language. For example, in Taiwan, Pepsi used the slogan “Come Alive With Pepsi,” only to find out later that, when translated, it meant, “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead” (Mikkelson, 2000). Similarly, American Motors introduced a new car called the Matador to the Puerto Rican market, only to learn that Matador means “killer,” which wasn’t very comforting to potential buyers.

At a more informative level, the words we use to give positive reinforcement are culturally relative. In Canada and the United Kingdom, for example, parents commonly reinforce their child’s behaviour by saying, “Good girl” or “Good boy.” There isn’t an equivalent for such a phrase in other European languages, so the usage in only these two countries has been traced back to the puritan influence on beliefs about good and bad behaviour (Wierzbicka, 2004).

One of the most publicized and deadliest cross-cultural business mistakes occurred in India in 1984. Union Carbide, an American company, controlled a plant used to make pesticides. The company underestimated the amount of cross-cultural training that would be needed to allow the local workers, many of whom were not familiar with the technology or language/jargon used in the instructions for plant operations, to do their jobs. This lack of competent communication led to a gas leak that killed more than 2,000 people and, over time, led to more than 500,000 injuries (Varma, 2010).w

A Changing Worldview

One helpful way to develop your intercultural communication competence is to develop sensitivity to intercultural communication issues and best practices. From everything we have learned so far, it may feel complex and overwhelming. The Intercultural Development Continuum is a theory created by Mitchell Hammer (2009) that helps demystify the process of moving from monocultural approaches to intercultural approaches. There are five steps in this transition, and we will give a brief overview of each one below.

See if you can deduce the main points of the overview before expanding the selection.

Activity 5: H5P – Expanding Sections Activity

Please complete the H5P Activity below on intercultural communication, then continue reading the text.

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This is taken from: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/profcommsontario/chapter/cross-cultural-communication/

INSERT H5P:

This activity contains text from 31. Cross-Cultural Communication by Olds College licensed under CC BY 4.0. Minor changes for readability.

A Changing Worldview

There are five steps in moving from a monocultural to an intercultural approach: denial, polarization, minimization, acceptance, and adaptation.

The first two steps out of five reflect monocultural mindsets, which are ethnocentric. Ethnocentrism means evaluating other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one’s own culture (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d.).

People who belong to dominant cultural groups in a given society or people who have had very little exposure to other cultures may be more likely to have a worldview that is more monocultural according to Hammer (2009). But how does this cause problems in interpersonal communication? For one, being blind to the cultural differences of the person you want to communicate with (denial) increases the likelihood that you will encode a message that they won’t decode the way you anticipate, or vice versa.

For example, let’s say culture A considers the head a special and sacred part of the body that others should never touch, certainly not strangers or mere acquaintances. But let’s say in your culture people sometimes pat each other on the head as a sign of respect and caring. So you pat your culture A colleague on the head, and this act sets off a huge conflict.

It would take a great deal of careful communication to sort out such a misunderstanding, but if each party keeps judging the other by their own cultural standards, it’s likely that additional misunderstanding, conflict, and poor communication will transpire.

Using this example, polarization can come into play because now there’s a basis of experience for selective perception of the other culture. Culture A might say that your culture is disrespectful, lacks proper morals, and values, and it might support these claims with anecdotal evidence of people from your culture patting one another on the sacred head!

Meanwhile, your culture will say that culture A is bad-tempered, unintelligent, and angry by nature and that there would be no point in even trying to respect or explain things to them.

It’s a simple example, but over time and history, situations like this have mounted and thus led to violence, even war and genocide.

According to Hammer (2009) the majority of people who have taken the IDI inventory, a 50-question questionnaire to determine where they are on the monocultural–intercultural continuum, fall in the category of minimization, which is neither monocultural nor intercultural. It’s the middle-of-the-road category that on one hand recognizes cultural difference but on the other hand simultaneously downplays it. While not as extreme as the first two situations, interpersonal communication with someone of a different culture can also be difficult here because of the same encoding/decoding issues that can lead to inaccurate perceptions. On the positive side, the recognition of cultural differences provides a foundation on which to build and a point from which to move toward acceptance, which is an intercultural mindset.

There are fewer people in the acceptance category than there are in the minimization category, and only a small percentage of people fall into the adaptation category. This means most of us have our work cut out for us if we recognize the value—considering our increasingly global societies and economies—of developing an intercultural mindset as a way to improve our interpersonal communication skill.

Key Takeaways

The iceberg model helps to show us that a few easily visible elements of culture are above the surface but that below the surface lie the invisible and numerous elements that make up culture.

Ethnocentrism is an important word to know; it indicates a mindset that your own culture is superior while others are inferior.

Whether a culture values individualism or the collective community is a recurring dimension in many cross-cultural communication theories, including those developed by Hofstede, Trompenaars, and Ting-Toomey.

Language can tell you a great deal about a culture.

The intercultural development model helps demystify the change from monocultural mindsets to intercultural mindsets.

 

Media Attributions

Group of Women Standing on a Step leah hetteberg on Unsplash

Happy Birthday Greeting Card Lot by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash

A First Look at Communication Theory. (2014). Stella Ting-Toomey on face negotiation theory [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQJcMas_dnw

References

Allen, B. (2010). Difference matters: Communicating social identity. Waveland Press.

Communication Theory. (n.d.). Face-Negotiation Theory. http://communicationtheory.org/face-negotiation-theory/.

culture shock. (n.d.). In Oxford English Dictionary. https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=culture+shock

ethnocentric. (n.d.). In Oxford English Dictionary. https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=ethnocentric

Hammer, M.R. (2009). The Intercultural Development Inventory. In M. A. Moodian (Ed.). Contemporary leadership and intercultural competence. Sage.

Hofstede, G. (1982). Culture’s consequences (2nd ed.). Sage.

Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Sage.

Hofstede, G. (2005). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind (Revised and expanded 2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (n.d.). Geert and Gert Jan Hofstede’s site. https://geerthofstede.com/landing-page/

Mikkelson, B. (2000, June 12). Pepsi brings back ancestors. Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/come-alive/

Mindtools Content Team. (n.d.) The seven dimensions of culture: Understanding and managing cultural differences. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/seven-dimensions.htm.

Monash University. (n.d.). Student academic success: Why do students come to SAS? culture shock

Varma, S. (2010, June 20). Arbitrary? 92% of All Injuries Termed Minor. The Times of India. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-06-20/india/28309628_1_injuries-gases-cases.

Wierzbicka, A. (2004). The English expressions good boy and good girl and cultural models of child rearing. Culture & Psychology, 10(3), 251‒278.