#interculture

We as constant internet consumers often and very easily forget that culture is a mosaic. Not one person has one type of culture, and everyone you meet and talk to are walking kaleidoscopes of cultures.

Cultures derives from everything a person consumes, and every thought a person processes. When writing characters from cultures we are not familiar with we must research. 

However since so many types of cultures are never brought up people don’t realize it’s something that they may need to touch up on. Many people don’t even realize what cultures they aren’t apart of, and make mistakes in speaking up on situations that they know little about.

So here are some different types of culture

National

National is not the same racial/ethnic culture, even though the two go hand in hand. National or racial are often the cultural archetypes that come to mind when culture is mentioned.

National is culture that derives from the country we come from, and the experiences we hold with it. National culture can range from big things such as the average beliefs, to little things like what shape the toilet is supposed to be.

Racial/Ethnic

Racial is not the same as national culture. It derives from the ethnicity someone is, and how they were raised as that ethnicity. 

All the around the world there are culture wars going on over racial and ethnic cultures. Ethnic culture, like all types of cultures, can carry great historical burdens from all sides. People are very aggressive right now on how ethnic culture should be handled and viewed. And it is important to remember that culture reflects off of every individual differently.

Racial culture shows through in a multitude of ways, such as cooking style, celebrations and common beliefs, and even strings of dialects and languages that formed amongst the culture.

Socioeconomic

Socioeconomic culture derives off of people’s social/economic status, including class, position in society as a worker, and the privileges that come with money. There are many different socioeconomic statues, and unfortunately there is a lot of problems between how socioeconomic cultures treat each other. 

The bottom of the barrel lower classes are mistreated and exploited constantly. There is also confusion about whether or not people classify as either lower class or middle class. In some countries a lower middle class has aggressively formed, and many people in that class view themselves as just lower class.

Socioeconomic culture shows itself as behaviors and beliefs. People of wealthy culture approach many situations differently than those of lower class culture. Today is often shown in clothing style, and treatment of that clothing.

Identity Culture (Gender, Sexualities, Etc.)

Identity culture has always been a thing, however been aspects of it and how it is viewed has changed drastically over the years. It is important to note that many grew up with different values in identity culture, and many all around the world still are.

Identity culture derives from how we label and identify ourselves. Many people can be apart of labels but decide not to go by them. These cultures show themselves in different ways; pride parades, man caves, clothing style, etc.

other

I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase, and I'm sure we’ve all preached it at some point. But, let’s be honest, everyone is guilty of making judgements about a person, before they know anything about them- it's human nature. This is not always necessarily a bad thing; as you may have seen in our last post on ‘common ground’, this is a natural thing that occurs that helps to improve the success of our communication with a new person.  

However, these preconceptions may lead us to become unsure of how to interact with a person, or how they may respond to the things we say; especially if that person is from a different cultural background to yourself. 

Kecskés (2014) has a very technical name for this idea- the ‘not sure’ approach. 

Have you ever met someone from a different culture, whose first language wasn’t English, and you found yourself ‘letting go’ of any mistakes they may make in the language, or providing more information than necessary to ensure they understand you? This is a clear example of the ‘not sure’ approach; you made a preconception that this individual may not understand you as well if you spoke ‘normally’, but were not sure on the level of their understanding, so took extra steps to ensure they understood.  

This doesn’t only occur for ‘native’ speakers of a language, it can also occur from the ‘non-native’ speaker’s point of view. This speaker may have encountered interactions where communication went a little wrong and may anticipate these mistakes in new interactions by giving more information, using more gestures, and/or repeating themselves more.   

It’s important to be aware of these ideas during your year abroad, as these techniques to ensure understanding are likely to be used by others and yourself, whether that be consciously or unconsciously.  

If you feel very confident in the language of the country you are visiting, try not to be offended if you feel someone is ‘dumbing down’ the language for you when they realise you are ‘non-native’- they only want to ensure their communication is successful.  

Good luck! 

We’ve all been there; you’re meeting someone for the first time, you don’t know anything about them, and you’re desperately trying to find something (ANYTHING) that you have in common to fill the uncomfortable silence.  

I’m sure you’ve thought about all the new people you’re going to be meeting during your year abroad, and, unfortunately, you may have to go through that first awkward interaction process many times. Efforts to establish common ground will have to be made, and you may well find yourself asking a stranger about their mum’s potato salad recipe, or where their sister went to university in an effort to do this. 

Kecskés and Zhang (2009) suggest that there is some shared knowledge that exists prior to an interaction (they call this core common ground). For example, if you move into a student accommodation during your year abroad and meet your flatmates for the first time, you can quite easily assume that your flatmates are also fellow students, and you can assume this prior to your first interaction with them. In addition to core common ground, there is also the idea of emergent common ground. From the name, you can probably guess that this is shared knowledge that emerges as you interact with a person, and that you can use in future interactions. For example, as you chat, you may come to share the knowledge that you and the person you are interacting with met before in Spain in July 2010, and made a sandcastle together on the beach (this interaction actually happened to me). 

So, now that you know the importance of establishing common ground, you can put our new shared knowledge to good use when you arrive in your year abroad destination. The easiest way to approach this is by talking about what you already know you have in common- whether that be the accommodation you live in, or the matching jumper that you both happen to be wearing; more and more shared knowledge can only blossom from there. If not, well, maybe you guys just aren’t meant to be friends, and that’s ok! 

Everyone’s feeling awkward, you might as well just take the leap and ask about their favourite dance move- it might be the same as yours! 

Good luck! 

In previous posts, you may have heard about speech acts and theories related to (im)politeness. Sometimes interactions don’t always go to plan, and people become offended by something you may have intended to have the complete opposite effect. For example, you may have tried to compliment a girl for having beautiful eyes and she has aggressively responded with ‘are my looks the only thing you care about!!!’. Or you might have told a guy in the club that you were born in May, and he responded by saying he can’t talk to you anymore because you’re a Taurus and your horoscopes are incompatible. 

We’ve already touched on theories of politeness in previous posts- but not as much why politeness may occur. 

Brown & Levinson suggest that politeness comes from the idea of ‘face- based perspectives’- the proposition that everyone wants to present a certain way in society, and that most speech acts are an inherent threat to this self-image. Therefore, politeness is a way of combatting this threat. We have both a desire to be appreciated and approved of (Brown & Levinson call this positive face), and a desire to be autonomous and, frankly, unbothered by others (negative face). 

They also touch on the idea of ‘face-threatening acts’ (FTAs)- speech acts that pose a threat to our public self-image.

For example, a teacher’s criticism of your assignment may be inherently threatening to the desire to be perceived as intelligent, even if they only mean it as a way for you to improve. As such, the teacher will likely make efforts to combat this threat by utilising forms of politeness in their speech.  

Of course, how you strive for harmony in your social interactions is influenced by more factors than just saving face. While Brown and Levinson undoubtedly laid down strong foundations in the field of politeness research, some new, more detailed frameworks have been formulated since then. In another post- more theory-heavy post- we will introduce you to Spencer-Oatey's model if you would like to learn about the intricacies of rapport management. 

Good luck! 

These also relate to unspoken norms in conversation and how we handle certain speech routines, for example, we tend to be indirect when asking someone for something: ‘could you pass the salt?’. Although it’s framed as a question it would be very weird if they replied, ‘yes I can’ and didn’t follow through with the action. As you could probably guess at this point, this is not necessarily the case in other languages or cultures.

For example, whilst the British homo cynicus would ask for a menu with a timid hand raised up halfway and a millisecond of eye contact, ‘Could you possibly get me a menu if you have a second sorry?’, a study (Wierzbicka, 2010 - citing Larina, 2008) of restaurant culture in Russia found that customers are direct (god forbid) when asking for a menu, using commands rather than questions, actually pretty logical when you think about it, considering it is a waiter’s job! So, the next time you’re on a dinner date with a Russian person and they’re ordering the waiter around, don’t get the ick!

This links to the idea of pragmatic transfer – when we apply norms from one culture to another. This can work fine sometimes, but has potential to cause some misunderstandings. For example, we like to say thank you in many different situations, but this might seem odd to someone of another culture. It could come off as insincere if said too much or in a situation that they thought didn’t really call for it. Before you know it you’ll be feeling like a weird spin-off of a kid’s story, ‘The boy who cried… thank you’??

Disclaimer: although homo cynicus has a general aversion to being social in the first place, intercultural interaction is by no means inherently going to cause problems!

I hope you've found this post useful and had a few laughs along the way!

Newly found evidence shows British people split off from our human ancestors around a million years ago, evolving into homo cynicus. The brain of which is divided into two hemispheres: the left, which produces feelings of shame and self-loathing, and the right, which produces feelings of shame and self-loathing. /sarcasm

This had led to many unfortunate characteristics such as: a severe debilitating need to apologise (even for things clearly not our own fault), a lack of capability for direct communication, and a deep craving of orderly queues, to name a few. This could give the impression that we are a polite and well-mannered people, when really these are purely defence mechanisms for when we must venture out from the warm confines of our dwellings, leave our beloved cups of tea behind, and do the dreaded… social interaction. /s

^Excurb1a’s ‘England a beginner’s guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KySFp0w7-hE&t=28s

Above: Highly classified records of the evolutionary split, retrieved personally for use in this blog from maximum security compartment below the crown jewels in the Tower of London. /s

The rest of the world is unaware of this fact of human evolutionary history, and therefore may find what we see as ‘normal interaction’ slightly odd, or even rude, to the absolute dismay of us politeness fiends. /s This brings us to the purpose of this post; to spread some awareness of different conversational and politeness norms across cultures, to prepare you for your year abroad (aside from leaking highly classified government documents)!

‘Phatic communion’, such as the British ‘you alright?’, is an example of a conversational routine. In true homo cynicus fashion, a perfectly acceptable response is to seemingly completely ignore the ‘question’ with an ‘alright’ in return. Really, this example acts as a greeting, and not a question at all, and we would be pretty taken aback if someone responded with a long list of their day-to-day struggles. These phrases, or mini conversational routines, are very useful for interaction abroad and are rarely taught in language classes, so it’s a great idea to be aware of some from the place you’re off to. For example, in Mandarin, ’chī le ma?’ meaning, ‘have you eaten?’, is not an invitation to get lunch, but a greeting. Saved you some potential embarrassment there.

Small talk also comes under phatic communion and serves a more social than informational purpose. However, there are different small talk norms across cultures. For us, it’s usually pretty devoid of actual meaning and by the fifth ‘weather’s nice, isn’t it?’ of the day, we’re left wondering why we even bother at all. One study (Beal, 1992) looked at small talk between French and Australian employees. When asked ‘how was your weekend?’ the Australian employees responded very briefly, (quite like the small talk habits of the homo cynicus) whilst the French employees responded in much more detail. Both types of responses were evaluated as rude by co-workers of the opposite group: the Australians thought the longer answer to their question showed their French co-workers being ‘self-centred’ and ‘insensitive to other people’, while the French employees thought the brief answer showed ‘indifference’ and ‘lack of sincerity’.

What do you think language is used for?

The most common answer to this question might be ‘to convey information’. That is in fact one correct answer, but is that really all language is about?

What is the Speech Act theory?

John Searle's Speech Act theory (the concept first introduced by philosopher J.L. Austin) argues that besides describing the world around us, language can also be used to perform actions or to make other people perform certain actions.

To present every linguist’s first example: when you say ‘It is cold in this room.’ are you just describing the temperature you feel? Or are you maybe asking someone near the open window to close it?

Or when a judge reads out the jury’s decision, are they only relaying an opinion, or do their words dictate what will happen with the defendant? Isn’t it their words that make that sentence be?

Why do you need to know about speech acts on your year abroad?

As you might've guessed, speech acts can be used and realised differently depending on cultural norms and assumptions, and the bad news is, some features of British English are exceptions rather than the norm across cultures.

Picture taken from 202semantics's blog from WordPress (link embedded in picture)

We will share some more specific examples of these differences in following posts, but our aim now is to give you a broad idea of what speech acts are and why they are not just a matter of politeness. And so when someone from a different culture tells you something that you would usually phrase as a question, you don't immediately think they are being rude or trying to offend you and send them to superhell.

Searle's 5 types of Speech Acts:

(Useful to understand, but not something that is crucial to most, so feel free to scroll to the next section.)

So what types of speech acts do we differentiate according to the theory?

Assertives: We use assertives to assert ideas, opinions and the like. This is how we present facts and claims like 'I rewatched Good Omens yesterday'.

Directives: Directives are when a speaker is trying to direct someone else to do something. This can take multiple forms, like an order, a request or even offering advive. For example 'You should read some books by Terry Pratchett'.

Declarations: Think of how a priest can declare two people husband and wife. Declaratives are expressions that can bring about a change in the world.

Expressives: Here a speaker makes a statement about their own feelings and attitudes about something. For example, you can express an apology or gratitude. 'I appreciate that you warned me to bring tissues when watching the end of Good Omens season 2.'

Commissives: When you commit to doing something in speech, that is a commussive speech act. This could involve a vow, a promise, a bet, etc. Like when you promise to not make your blorbo suffer anymore (even if we all know it is not going to happen).

Don't panic! This might all sound too complicated and not seem like something that will be of actual use to you. What is the point of knowing the names of things we do effortlessly every day, right? But now comes the interesting part, and the one that is relevant to us:

How are these speech acts actually realised? And how are they different depending on culture?

Remember that all 5 types of speech acts refer to functions that we use langauge for. They serve a specific purpose. (Academically, we would refer to these as illocutionary acts, if you'd like to read more about them.) Now comes the question: how are we going to achieve these purposes?

There are certain types of sentences we might use for certain types of purposes. This is a concept you might be more familiar with. To elicit an answer, you would generally use an interrogative sentence, that is, you would ask a question (Did you read the book?). To issue an order in a directive you would generally use an imperative sentence (Give me all your books!).

But is there only one way to achieve a purpose in speech? What happens when the type of sentence we use does not match its function?

The difference is what we call an Direct and Indirect Speech Acts.

A good way to demonstrate this is in how you would make a request. When the function of a sentence matches the purpose of it, we have a direct speech act:

'Close the window.'

But as a British student, aren't you more likely to make make this request through an indirect speech act, by using an interrogative sentence?

'Could you close the window?'

Picture taken from Arnold Zwicky's blog from WordPress (link embedded in picture)

You might've noticed that in the last point I wrote 'as a British student'. Did you think after reading the example something along the lines of 'isn't this just being polite?'. You are absolutely right in that accoring to British cultural values this is the polite way to make a request.

However, what is considered polite and impolite can differ starkly depending on culture. What you consider polite in English, might come across as downright condesceding in other languages and cultures. Moreover, differences in language use and the use of speech acts in this case have been shown to be caused by aspects of culture that run way deeper than merely politness (e.g. intimacy, spontaneity, directness, etc.).

Some great examples of such differences can be found in Wierzbicka's work about Polish vs English speech acts and she explains how English tends to place heavy restrictions on the use of imperative sentences, while using interrogative forms extensively. I sincerely recommend skimming through the article to help reflect on what a native British English speaker would find 'normal' in speech that speakers of other languages might not.

And this is all from us about speech acts - congratulations for making it to the end of this long post! This might've been more theory-heavy than some of our other posts with fun examples, but we hope it helps you approach those with a clearer perspective :)