Research into Cultural Patterns: Basic cultural concepts and patterns
by Stephan Dahl
A number of mostly behavioural concepts has been identified that can be used to distinguish between cultures. These include, for example, the differences in the usage of kinesics (body movements), proxemics (space organisation), oculesics (eye movement), haptics (touching behaviour) as well as paralinguistic concepts, such as accents, intonation, speed of talking etc.. Not surprisingly each of these concepts plays an important role in intercultural communication, particularly in communication where the context plays an important role. Most people will either consciously, or subconsciously look for affirmative action (or reaction) by their counterparts when speaking to them face to face, for example to signal that what is being said is understood. In those cases the affirmative action is, not surprisingly, often directly linked to cultural context. Failure to provide the correct affirmative action may well be interpreted as undermining the spoken word. Depending on the context, this may lead to a complete communication breakdown. For example, eye contact is an important part of the communication process in Western cultures. It is often seen as an affirmative action of what is said. However, maintaining eye contact is not usually acceptable in certain Asian cultures, where, for example, a woman can only maintain eye contact with her husband. Clearly a woman from such a culture will cause confusion, if not disbelief, when communicating with a Western interlocutor.
Another frequently examined concept are “thought patterns”. These can be summarised as being logical or pre-logic, inductive or deductive, abstract or concrete and alphabetic or analphabetic (Maletzke, 1996). These concepts are more complex, and they may require more attention, as they are slightly more difficult to grasp. For example, inductive or deductive thought patterns may have a profound impact on argumentation and communication styles, but also on the way the world is seen and understood. Whereas Anglo-Saxon thought patterns are predominantly inductive, Latin American and Russian thought patterns are predominantly deductive. Whereas inductive thinking aims to derive theoretical concepts from individual cases, deductive thinking aims to interpret individual cases within previously derived theoretical concepts. Clearly, argumentation styles will be quite different in the two approaches. Equally, thinking within the Aristotelian logical tradition, which is dominant in most Western cultures may not be understood by people from a culture which emphasises a more holistic approach to thinking.
Although all of the concepts that have been proposed are interesting as a possible way to examine differences in cultural patterns, they are difficult to apply in the current study because of the severe lack of quantitative data. It is thus necessary to look for classifications of cultural patterns at a deeper level than the behavioural one (or the outer layer of the culture onion), as well as research that is backed up by the availability of empirical data. All of the concepts referred to above are limited to only one aspect out of the multi-aspect differences that make an effective research agenda into cultural differences. Even when taken together, they do not allow a broad analysis or classification of cultures to any great extent or depth. More systematic and profound concepts, such as Hall and Hofstede were required to allow for a more detailed analysis of culture at a different level than only behavioural.
Source: Stephan Dahl
See complete document here: Intercultural Research: The Current State of Knowledge
12.07.07 | |
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