Гребенник А.Ю.

Национальный Технический Университет

«Харьковский Политехнический Институт»

Language and Culture

Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate among themselves and how they try to communicate across cultures. Its purpose is to establish and understand how people from different cultures communicate with each other.

Edward T. Hall is considered a founding father of intercultural communication as an academic area of study. During the 1950s he worked for the United States State Department, at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), teaching inter-cultural communications skills to foreign service personnel. He developed the concept of “high context culture” and “low context culture”, and wrote several popular practical books on dealing with cross-cultural issues.

Cross-cultural communication is always interpersonal communication in a special context. Differences between cultures may result in some communication difficulties. These problems arise because traditions, customs, behavior patterns are not the same in different cultures. And this is more significant when people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate. This can lead to misunderstanding and tension and even can make communication impossible. The task of cross-cultural communication is to also produce some guidelines with which people from different cultures can better communicate with each other.

The study of languages other than one’s own can not only serve to help us understand what we as human beings have in common, but also assist us in understanding the diversity which underlies not only our languages, but also our ways of constructing and organizing knowledge, and the many different realities in which we all live and interact. Understanding social relationships and the way other cultures work is the basis of successful globalization business efforts.

When communicating we use verbal and non-verbal means. Verbal means are means of language communication, and they include human speech. It is essential that the speaker understands the grammar of a language, as well as how elements of language are socially situated in order to reach communicative competence.

Globalization processes which are currently taking place in the world don’t lead to the formation of a single world culture. Modern culture is made up of a number of original interacting cultures. Human experience is culturally relevant, so elements of language are also culturally relevant. A language can’t exist without culture, it is one of the most essential culture components. That’s why we can’t separate language and culture. For example, some peoples view snow as a natural phenomenon, but for the Eskimos whose language numbers more than twenty words describing snow in its various states it (snow) is the most important part of nature, which is the basis of their culture.

Effective communication with people of different cultures is especially challenging. Cultures provide people with ways of thinking--ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world. Thus the same words can mean different things to people from different cultures, even when they talk the "same" language. When the languages are different, and translation has to be used to communicate, the potential for misunderstandings increases. The problems arise when there is no exact equivalent for a given notion and moreover sometimes we can lack the notion itself. This occurs because the objects or notions are unique for a given culture and can’t be found in other cultures. Therefore there are no words defining these objects or notions. In this case we can use loanwords.

We should also speak of the concept of “high context culture” and “low context culture”. High -context and low- context communication refers to the degree to which speakers rely on factors other than explicit speech to convey their messages. This tool suggests that communication varies according to its degree of field dependence, and that it can be classified into two general categories – high-context and low- context. Field dependence refers to the degree to which things outside the communication itself affect the meaning. All of us are engaged in both high context and low context communication. There are times when we “say what we mean, and mean what we say”, leaving little to be “read between the lines” to the explicit message. This is low context communication. At other times, we may infer, imply, insinuate, or deliver with non-verbal cues messages that we want to have conveyed but do not speak. This is high context communication. Most of the time we are somewhere nearer the middle of the continuum, relying to some extent on context, but also on the literal meaning of words.

The study of cross-cultural communication is fast becoming a global research area. Cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural competence are interconnected. The problem of forming cross-cultural competence is urgent as the globalization process spreads all over the world extremely quickly penetrating into all spheres of life from business to tourism.

So, cross-cultural competence refers to the knowledge, skills, emotion that enable individuals to adapt effectively in cross-cultural environments. A person who is interculturally competent captures and understands, in interaction with people from foreign cultures, their specific concepts in perception, thinking, feeling and acting. And here we can speak of training cross-cultural competence which should be carried out by educational systems in different countries.

References:

1. Садохин А.П. Введение в теорию межкультурной коммуникации. М.: Высшая школа, 2005.

2. Грушевицкая Т.Г., Попков В.Д., Садохин А.П. Основы межкультурной коммуникации. М., 2002.

3. Hall E. The Silent Language. N.Y., L., 1990.