INTERCOM
Intercultural Communication in the European Context
BOOK OF
ABSTRACTS
Edited by
Adam Bednarek
LODZ ACADEMY OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
2009
Today to an even larger extent than in the past centuries, communication frequently takes place between individuals and institutions representing different national and cultural backgrounds. This has resulted in a vast body of theoretical discussions on the relation between language, culture and discourse as well as in the emergence of empirical research on intercultural encounters.
The conference "International Communication in the European Context" aims at presenting and discussing multiple approaches to cross-cultural communication within Europe, or involving European cultures and perspectives. The organizers welcome contributions on a wide range of subjects, such as e.g. sociolinguistic studies on biculturalism and migration, child and adult education of migrants and members of linguistic minorities, the effects of linguistic and cultural differences upon the process of European integration, business communication, new media, as well as the communication aspect of political relations and cultural exchange between the European Union and the United States of America.
We welcome contributions on the role of pragmalinguistic differences and different conventions of speech and text genres in encounters between members of different cultures, as well as on the effects of power relations upon the forms of intercultural discourse. Social change, international political campaigning, linguistic minorities, intercultural pedagogy, advertising, management, corporate internal communication, tourism, youth culture, international diplomacy, internal communication in the institutions of the EU, and public media discourse are all within the range of subjects which we expect to be dealt with at the conference. Contributions from empirical studies, as well as proposals related to the acquisition and teaching of cross-cultural competence are most welcome.
In order to meet these objectives, the organizers also invite contributions from related non-linguistic disciplines such as international relations, business studies and comparative social psychology.
Organisers:
prof. dr. hab. Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
WSSM Łódź, Institute of English Philology
University of Łódź, Institute of English Linguistics
prof. dr. hab. Hanna Pułaczewska
WSSM Łódź, Institute of English Philology
dr. Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka
WSSM Łódź, Institute of English Philology
University of Łódź , Institute of English Linguistics
dr. Adam Bednarek
WSSM Łódź, Institute of English Philology
University of Łódź, Institute of English Linguistics
PART 1
ENGLISH ABSTRACTS
Victoria Akulicheva
Moscow State University
Gender linguistics in sociolinguistic and intercultural communication aspect
Recently growing attention has been devoted to a new approach in linguistics termed gender linguistics in connection with the advent of the category gender in scientific paradigm. That happened due to the fact that social factor has become determinative in language studies which are deeply related with an individual and intercultural communication.
The history of gender studies originates from the Antiquity and is related with philosophical conception of gender which divides people into two biological categories – male and female. It was supposed that grammatical gender is determined by biological division on masculine/feminine. Nowadays the problem of gender and language is one of the most recent branches of sociolinguistic studies, for years far little research has been undertaken in the field of gender. Although sex is usually defined as a person's biological traits, gender is defined as how a person identifies themselves to the world.
Though the concept of “gender” is now in use and is recognized by majority of scientists, there are some difficulties in translation of this term. In the English language “gender” means not only grammatical category but also social category. But in the French language despite the existence of such words as “le genre” that means grammar category, and “le sexe” that means biological category, the word “le genre” is not used for “gender” designation, moreover its English equivalent is avoided. As a result French language prefers such constructions as “masculin-féminin”, “l’identité sexuelle”. In Russian linguistics the concept of “gender” is widely spread as well as its equivalents: gender relations, gender aspects, gender studies.
Furthermore, versatile analysis of gender features fills in gaps in gender linguistics as well as it also reveals facts important for sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, intercultural communications and other disciplines connected with language and society.
Łukasz Albański,
Jagiellonian University
Small town Canada with a little Muslim twist- Making a Picture of Islam in Our Head
The portrayal of minorities in Canadian media serves to play a formidable role in shaping the formation of Canadian minority identities. The media constitute a monopoly of the knowledge, and through their practice, selection and production, they have the power to choose which images of minorities dominate the public domain. The media simply suggest who they are as Canadians, who is allowed to belong, and who is located on the peripheries of “Canadianness.” In addition, they affect understanding of minorities through the replication of popular stereotypes of minority groups.
In Canada, questions surrounding the relationship between identity formation among minorities and media are particularly fraught because of multicultural policy. The Canadian media are expected to reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada. Since the Muslim community began to grow rapidly after the 1970s, building the mosques and establishing the trans-ethnic communities across Canada they have been portrayed in the Canadian media as a subject of interest and concern. The September 11 terrorist attack, its aftermath, and the ways in which the event and Islam is associated have also been subject to intense scrutiny in the media. Particular the impact of immigration and integration has come under constant inquiry.
The Little Mosque on the Prairie is a Canadian sitcom on CBC Television, created by Zarqa Nawaz. The show is full of the interactions of the Muslims with the non-Muslim townspeople of Mercy helps to reveal a variety of Islamic views and misunderstandings of that cultural community. Through the comedy as one of the unique ways to break down barriers and to foster a platform for dialogue and cross-cultural understanding, The Little Mosque takes issue with mainstream media approaches to polarized frameworks of culture (Christian v. Muslim, Islam v. the West) on stereotyping a media narrative. Though, Nawaz herself has stated that the show's primary agenda is to be funny, not to be a political platform. This paper provides a critical review of the sitcom as a tool in shaping media representations of minorities in Canada.
Jens Allwood
University of Göteborg
Some Issues related to Intercultural Communication in the European Context
Jo Angouri
(UWE)
“People here think I am rude”
National identities and National Stereotypes.
Studies in intercultural (business) communication (ICC) often take a macro perspective and foreground ‘national culture’ as bearing major influence on norms, work practices and interactions. Accordingly IC literature is often based on ethnocentric approaches and it is not uncommon for ‘preferred’ values and behaviours (attributable to culture) to be associated or even correlated with different nationalities. This stance however, taken to the extreme, risks essentializing national characteristics and creating unhelpful stereotypes. And the view that national culture is constituted by a static cluster of characteristics has been repeatedly challenged in the literature. Barinaga has recently suggested that the dominant cross-cultural literature tends to conceptualise national culture as “a structure that precedes and constrains group members’ behaviour” (2007:316).[1]
Against this backdrop I take a micro perspective here and I discuss data from eight multinational companies in Europe. I argue that national culture constitutes a resource the participants draw upon in their work lives. The paper also addresses the concept of national identities (as one of the many identities of the interactants). I take a social constructionist stance and I consider identity not a stable, pre-defined entity but an on-going dynamic process which is constantly negotiated and co-constructed between the interactants.
I problematise the widespread ‘values approach’ and I explore an alternative for the study of IC talk. Specifically, the paper focuses on the Communities of Practice (CofP) framework, widely used in sociolinguistic research, and studies on workplace discourse which could provide an alternative for investigating how things are getting done in the multinational workplace. I close the paper by showing how such an approach can feedback into IC training and provide a powerful insight into the variation in practices and norms employees are likely to face at the multinational corporate workplace.
Marko Babić
Warsaw University
Language and political disintegration: the case of Yugoslavia
The political entity of South Slavs called Yugoslavia was a country with its many nations, languages and religions. All this generated centrifugal tendencies that eventually led to the most brutal war in Europe since the World War II. In such multiethnic communities linguistic issues are extremely sensitive political matter. Linguistic tolerance depended on the nature of mutual relations between Yugoslav nations – whenever they were comparatively good, differences were underplayed. But, whenever they were bad, differences were emphasized to the absurd.
Contrary to many European countries where language was the basis for constituting modern nations as political communities in the former Yugoslavia membership in different religions and confessions was the basis for national divisions. Moreover, the Yugoslav nations were constituted as ethnic rather than political communities.
The language shared by the four Yugoslav peoples with slight variations in linguistic expression – Croats, Serbs, Muslim Bosniaks and Montenegrins – Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian, did not facilitate a better mutual understanding of ethnically akin peoples. From a means of communication among peoples this language was turned into a symbol of the struggle for nation-states. It was transformed into a instrument of war propaganda and a seed of destructive hatred. The most tragic event of the recent civil war in Yugoslavia was that along with ruining all the common institutions of the Yugoslav state this language was also killed. In performing this act of deliberate murder the sides in war easily found a common language.
My work will focus on an attempt to explain this process and present the outcome in the region that was once Yugoslavia.
Adam Bednarek
Lodz Academy of International Studies/ University of Łódź
Multiculturalism and socio-lingual conventions – Canada, the United States and Europe
Hymes’(1972) model of communication focuses on the assumption that conversation is ruled on the basis of one’s internal knowledge of a set of social and contextual norms, which determine appropriate verbal reactions depending on various cultural factors and social roles. In this case, his theories have a sociolinguistic, or rather a socio-cultural value, opposed to the psycholinguistic approach presented by Chomsky (1965). The ‘culture’ factor has been present in many influential studies, and I need only mention the works of Labov, Malinowski, Lyons and naturally, the Sapir-Whorf Hypotheis to show the enormous impact on contemporary language and culture studies. As a result, the concept of cultural competence has become an important issue in developing trends in sociolinguistics and anthropology. One can thus naturally assume that knowledge of certain socio-lingual conventions will greatly determine speaker performance.
This paper aims to present certain practical applications of cross-cultural communication, focus on implications in everyday discourse and society and finally, portray outcomes of multicultural societies.
Marta Dynel
University of Łódź
Making friends globally – Cultural references and understanding “Friends”
A fundamental factor in the process of cultural globalisation is the impact of the powerful US film and television industries, whose products flood countries on all continents. Audiovisual translations of American films and series are most frequently rendered in the form of subtitles, which is why audiences with rudimentary knowledge of English are at liberty to appreciate original dialogues.
“Friends” is a highly acclaimed sitcom recognised by viewers not only in the USA, where it was shot and first released (1994-2004), but also in many European countries. Although the production team must have acknowledged the series’ worldwide success after it had run for a year, they did not rid further seasons of cultural allusions and references which could turn out to be unavailable to foreign audiences unacquainted with the US culture.
My primary objective is to conduct a qualitative analysis, and to propose a categorisation, of cultural references in humorous dialogues of “Friends”. Even if a number of references can be regarded as pancultural, given the dominance of the USA on the international arena, many are available only to the US audience, which affects foreign viewers’ reception of humour and the way they conceive of the characters’ world. Also, while some cultural elements transparently preclude the target audience’s understanding of characters’ utterances, others operate at the connotational level, frequently below awareness threshold.
John Abraham Godson, UŁ, Poland
Cultural Systems and Intercultural Communication in Europe
There is a large population of immigrants in Western European nations like Britain, France and Holland, which is of course as result of their colonial history. Globalization and especially the accession of Poland into the European Union mean the opening of the polish job market to more and more migrant workers from different cultural backgrounds. Eurostat puts the number of immigrants from outside the EU at more than 25 million in 2004[2] while Migration Information Source puts the number in 2005 at 42 million[3]. According to the Economist magazine the real issue for European societies is not how to keep new foreigners out but how to integrate the minorities they already have[4]. The premiseof this article is that: Lack of understanding and competence in the area of intercultural communication by host countries and immigrants is one of the factors that has led to integration problems in many European countries. The article and presentation addresses the following issues in the fields of international relations, international human resource management and intercultural communication- European immigration and cultural challenges involved, national cultures based on Gaert Hofstede’s mental programming, Alexander Grave’s thinking systems and impilactions on intercultural communication. The article ends by proposing practical steps that could be taken to enhance integration and assimilation of immigrants in their host countries.
Jan Grzymski
Institute of Political Science
University of Warsaw
Eastern Europe. Otherness in Europe?
The EU Enlargement (2004/2007) is widely perceived as the successful completion of the consecutive stage in the European Integration, thus making Europe ‘whole and free’. However, the process of both political transformation and integration’s efforts in candidate countires to meet the EU entry conditions revealed a tacit distiction between Europe and Eastern Europe, where the latter represented the distance from and the lack of the Europeaness (the idealized and essential Europe).