Communicating with strangers



Ethnocentrism


Ø  The view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are
scaled and rated with reference to it.” (Sumner 1940; quoted in Samovar, Porter: 11)

Ø   “cultural filters” that influence the ways in which we see the world around us;

Ø  “a bias leading people to judge another culture’s habits and practices as right or wrong, good
or bad according to their own cultural attitudes, beliefs, values.” (Begley:  407)

Ø  It is mostly learned at the unconscious level.

Ø  View that the United States is the center of the world, as well as learning to judge that world
by North American standards (Samovar, Porter: 11).

Ø  Traditional Eurocentric racism: America defined as predominantly northern and western European
in its culture and institutions, with a dominant Anglo-Saxon and Protestant foundation (Janzen:
36).



Attributions of strangers’ behavior


  * Making wrong attributions: when the actor thinks that a behavior is due to one cause and the
observer thinks that the behavior is due to a different cause, they each give a different meaning
to the behavior.
  * Example: two groups, A and B, in conflict; if a member of group B does something ‘nice’,
members of group A attribute the behavior to external factors (e.g. he was forced to do it by
circumstances); when a member of group B does something ‘nasty,’ members of group A attributed it
to internal factors (e.g., they are nasty ‘by nature’)
  * People all over the world have a tendency to make attributions incorrectly (Triandis: 23)



Perception of strangers


Ø  we first encounter the behavior and the language of another culture behind which lie the
differing beliefs, values and thought patterns;

Ø  we focus on differences in turn-taking, patterns of presentation; differences in verbal and
non-verbal communication (eye-contact, tolerance of silence, gestures, volume of sound).

Ø  but we should also focus on differences and similarities in situations, beliefs, value systems
and thought patterns;

Ø  concentrating too much on behavioral differences is a key factor in cross-cultural
misunderstanding (Morgan: 238).

Ø  See the ‘Iceberg analogy of culture’:









Literature:

Begley, Polly A. “Sojourner Adaptation.” In Samovar, Larry A., Porter, Richard, E. (eds.)
Intercultural Communication. Belmont, USA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003, pp. 406-411).


Janzen, Rod. “Five Paradigms of Ethnic Relations.” In Samovar, Larry A., Porter, Richard, E. (eds.)
Intercultural Communication. Belmont, USA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003, pp. 36-42.


Morgan, Carol. “Cross-cultural encounters” In. Byram, Michael and Fleming, Michael (eds.). Language
Learning in Intercultural Perspective: Approaches through drama and ethnography. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 224-241


Samovar, Larry A., Porter, Richard E. “Understanding Intercultural Communication: An Introduction
and Overview.” In Samovar, Larry A., Porter, Richard, E. (eds.) Intercultural Communication.
Belmont, USA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003, pp. 6-17)


Triandis, C. Harry. “Culture and Conflict.” In Samovar, Larry A., Porter, Richard, E. (eds.)
Intercultural Communication. Belmont, USA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003, pp. 18-27).