C o u r objective
Purpo of learning a foreign language ? ---Comm.
Foreign language---prerequisite to effective int’l comm., but not enough
Components of effective int’l comm.:
1) foreign language (5 skills) +
2) communication skills (receive message as it was intended) +
3) intercultural comm. competence(awareness, adaptiveness etc +
4) subject matter (business, law, medicine, etc)
Chapter 1 Language & Substantial Characteristics
---Definition: many from different perspectives
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--Most favored one (from functional perspective): language is an important communication tool. (Sapir, 1964)
---Characteristics: Plea refer to linguistics for tho who are interested.
Chapter 2 Culture & its Substantial Characteristics
---Definition: More difficult. Hundreds of definitions.
---Most favored: the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another. Or simply “software of the mind” (Hofstede, 1980)
Generally agreed: three forms of culture:
Form I: Physical culture(物质文化）: buildings (Italian, Japane, Chine, Anhui, Henan,etc), statues(雕塑), clothes(Korean, Japane)
Form II: Non-physical（非物质文化）: social conventions, customs, taboos, literature ，
art etc （sth external)
Form III: Non-physical(非物质文化）: values (attitude to life, death, work, living, etc; religious beliefs (Christianity,Buddism,Islamism) ，(sth internal
“Culture” and “文化”--- well-ud, but not well understood concepts
“西方文化”---not accurate, sometimes misleading，慎用
“欧洲文化”---慎用
“东方文化”---慎用
“欧美文化”---慎用
“中华文化”---OK，covering 两岸四地，海外华人社区
“英美文化”---OK
Characteristics of National Culture
1) National culture is cloly related to language,
English-speaking countries UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, S.Africa share similar culture
Chine-speaking regions the Mainland, TW, HK Macao share similar culture
They share mainstream culture (core value), such as “面子”，“人情”，“官本位” “孝道”，etc. The are shared by all Chine people wherever they are.
There are some minor differences in 面子、人情、官本位，etc, with people in each region or country.
Within the same region, such as the Mainland, there are 56 ethnic groups. Within each ethnic group, there are some differences.
In US, culture differences found in African, Asian, Spanish, etc Americans.
We call the minor differences “subculture”.
We focus on national mainstream culture only.
2) National culture is difficult to change. May change over a long period of time---usually every generation
Core values such as Chine 人情，面子,官本位 more difficult to change.
It takes hundreds of years to change.
3) National culture is influential upon human behaviors, such as decision-making, communication, etc.
For example, Germen, American and British people tend to ba their decision on quantitative data, whereas Chine…on intuition (直觉).
We will discuss national culture’s influence upon communication behaviors in details.
交际文化(pp23-26)：non-mainstream cultural concepts. Jump over.
Mainstream cultural concepts:
1) National culture
2) Organizational culture: corporate culture, NGO
3) Professional culture: legal, recreational, sports, etc
… …
We focus on national culture, for:
1) Established theories;
2) More relevant to communication.
Every person belongs to the different culture simultaneously.
Two Classic National Culture Models
Culture is vague, existing in both physical and non-physical forms.
How to measure and compare? By theoretical models.
1. High- & Low- Context Orientation (Edward Hall, Beyond Culture (1976)
Differences in the role of context in communication---how much message
is expresd in the context.
In high-context culture, much information is contained in the context, such as
言外之意，弦外之音, Japane Chine, Korean, Arab, etc
In low-context culture, information is mainly in the language, Germen, Swiss,
N. American, N. Europeans, etc
High Context | Low Context |
1.Emphasize meaning beyond words | 1.Emphasize meaning in words |
2.Beat around the bush (绕圈子） | 2.Get to the point directly(直奔主题） |
3.Mild in speaking/writing tone | 3.Sharp in tone (言辞犀利） |
4.Listener/reader responsible to decode meaning, etc logos at airports, subway | 4.Speaker/writer responsible to encode meaning |
5.Wording: fancy, glorious adjectives (辞藻华丽), but not carry much information | 5. Wording: simple , but informative, expressive, often supported by data, graphics (图表） |
6.Relationship & trust before business | 6. Business first |
7.Negotiation slow | 7. Negotiation efficient |
| |
See Hall’s Comparison of Contextually at Appendix II
