Intercultural Communication
Week 1 Overview
Prerecorded lecture 1
Conceptualization of Intercultural Communication
Two main approaches:
1. Culture as something that influences communication
- How does someone ‘s culture influence their communication style?
- Underlying assumption of this approach: culture is a fixed entity (from the
moment you are born) and shapes your communication style
- Entity understanding of culture: culture is something one has and belongs to
● Major drawback: reality is more complex than that (e.g., people may
identify with different cultures and cultures change over time)
2. Communication as a way to construct culture
- Communication constructs culture and cultural differences
- Underlying assumption of this approach: a process/social constructionist
understanding of culture where communication is a social practice that socially
constructs culture
- Inter-discourse communication avoids any a priori-notions of cultural identity,
and this approach asks how culture is made relevant in a text or interaction and
how cultural identity is brought into existence through text and talk
Prerecorded lecture 2
Who makes culture relevant to whom in which context for which purposes?
1. What is the use of culture?
- To know a certain region’s culture and heritage (e.g., when travelling to
somewhere new, we look up on the internet for the place’s culture)
- In the case of travelling, it’s made relevant for tourists by the people that live in
the area you want to travel to
- Example: Ghanaian government ban gay marriage because it’s against the
culture, morality, and heritage thus, culture is made relevant
● We can see from this example that Ghanaians are heterosexual
, 2. What is the content of culture?
- Culture as a national asset: high culture like museums, popular culture, cuisines,
etc.
- Culture as a challenge: focus on interpersonal relationships (e.g., getting
intercultural business advice)
- Culture as citizenship: culture consisting of practices that are seen as signifying a
particular identity (e.g., accent, etc.)
3. What is the scope of culture?
- People speak of ‘national’ cultures (e.g., “my name is … and I am from …”
- E.g., ethnicity, family, gender, etc.
4. What is the status of culture?
- Culture as an entity that influences communication
- Culture is something stable, fixed over time that affects how we talk and behave
- Culture as a process/social construct that is made relevant and gains meaning
through practices including communication
Prerecorded lecture 3
Nation as the scope of culture
Banal nationalism: nationalism as enacted and reenacted daily in mundane, almost
unnoticeable ‘banal’ ways
- Consequence: everyday instances of banal nationalism socialize us into ‘national
subjects’ who live in a world full of nation states
- Example: school (history class only focus on some region), weather forecast (only
shows weather of some region), sports (people support their national team)
- Criticism: banal nationalism is flawed because it sees nation as main unit (doesn’t
acknowledge multiplicity of identities), nationality has lost some of the sway it
once held in an age characterized by globalization
- Passport identity: national identity is a discursive construction, it has real and
powerful effects
, Week 2 Overview
Prerecorded audio 1
Assumption on difference and intercultural communication
- A lot of intercultural communication has nothing to do with prejudice or issues
with the Center-West, but with innocent unfamiliar cultural events, practices,
behaviors, and values (Holliday, 2011)
- Differences are communication styles, non-verbal communication, time
orientation
- Research agenda: language and gender scholars no longer ask how men and
women speak differently but rather how gender is produced in discourse (Piller,
2012)
● We are creating difference through language, how we produce culture in
a discourse
From difference to deviance
- Prejudice, discrimination, racism
- Stereotypes: from difference to deviance (how it deviates from the norm)
- Stereotypes according to Pickering (2001): occur in all sorts of discourse, can
draw on various ideological assumptions, stereotypes operate as a means of
evaluatively placing, and attempting to fix in place, other people, or cultures from
a particular and privileged perspective
Dimensions of difference
- Dimensions used to differentiate among (groups of) people who are seen as
having different cultures
● Some cultures are seen as normal, and others seen as deviant
- Involves race, ethnicity, national identity, religion, gender, social class, nationality,
disability, age
Power of stereotypes
- Set by a group in power
- Belong to a moment in time (located in time and place)
Week 1 Overview
Prerecorded lecture 1
Conceptualization of Intercultural Communication
Two main approaches:
1. Culture as something that influences communication
- How does someone ‘s culture influence their communication style?
- Underlying assumption of this approach: culture is a fixed entity (from the
moment you are born) and shapes your communication style
- Entity understanding of culture: culture is something one has and belongs to
● Major drawback: reality is more complex than that (e.g., people may
identify with different cultures and cultures change over time)
2. Communication as a way to construct culture
- Communication constructs culture and cultural differences
- Underlying assumption of this approach: a process/social constructionist
understanding of culture where communication is a social practice that socially
constructs culture
- Inter-discourse communication avoids any a priori-notions of cultural identity,
and this approach asks how culture is made relevant in a text or interaction and
how cultural identity is brought into existence through text and talk
Prerecorded lecture 2
Who makes culture relevant to whom in which context for which purposes?
1. What is the use of culture?
- To know a certain region’s culture and heritage (e.g., when travelling to
somewhere new, we look up on the internet for the place’s culture)
- In the case of travelling, it’s made relevant for tourists by the people that live in
the area you want to travel to
- Example: Ghanaian government ban gay marriage because it’s against the
culture, morality, and heritage thus, culture is made relevant
● We can see from this example that Ghanaians are heterosexual
, 2. What is the content of culture?
- Culture as a national asset: high culture like museums, popular culture, cuisines,
etc.
- Culture as a challenge: focus on interpersonal relationships (e.g., getting
intercultural business advice)
- Culture as citizenship: culture consisting of practices that are seen as signifying a
particular identity (e.g., accent, etc.)
3. What is the scope of culture?
- People speak of ‘national’ cultures (e.g., “my name is … and I am from …”
- E.g., ethnicity, family, gender, etc.
4. What is the status of culture?
- Culture as an entity that influences communication
- Culture is something stable, fixed over time that affects how we talk and behave
- Culture as a process/social construct that is made relevant and gains meaning
through practices including communication
Prerecorded lecture 3
Nation as the scope of culture
Banal nationalism: nationalism as enacted and reenacted daily in mundane, almost
unnoticeable ‘banal’ ways
- Consequence: everyday instances of banal nationalism socialize us into ‘national
subjects’ who live in a world full of nation states
- Example: school (history class only focus on some region), weather forecast (only
shows weather of some region), sports (people support their national team)
- Criticism: banal nationalism is flawed because it sees nation as main unit (doesn’t
acknowledge multiplicity of identities), nationality has lost some of the sway it
once held in an age characterized by globalization
- Passport identity: national identity is a discursive construction, it has real and
powerful effects
, Week 2 Overview
Prerecorded audio 1
Assumption on difference and intercultural communication
- A lot of intercultural communication has nothing to do with prejudice or issues
with the Center-West, but with innocent unfamiliar cultural events, practices,
behaviors, and values (Holliday, 2011)
- Differences are communication styles, non-verbal communication, time
orientation
- Research agenda: language and gender scholars no longer ask how men and
women speak differently but rather how gender is produced in discourse (Piller,
2012)
● We are creating difference through language, how we produce culture in
a discourse
From difference to deviance
- Prejudice, discrimination, racism
- Stereotypes: from difference to deviance (how it deviates from the norm)
- Stereotypes according to Pickering (2001): occur in all sorts of discourse, can
draw on various ideological assumptions, stereotypes operate as a means of
evaluatively placing, and attempting to fix in place, other people, or cultures from
a particular and privileged perspective
Dimensions of difference
- Dimensions used to differentiate among (groups of) people who are seen as
having different cultures
● Some cultures are seen as normal, and others seen as deviant
- Involves race, ethnicity, national identity, religion, gender, social class, nationality,
disability, age
Power of stereotypes
- Set by a group in power
- Belong to a moment in time (located in time and place)
