COMM 335: Lecture 5- Beyond Culture

Who is Edward T. Hall?

American anthropologists and cross cultural researcher

• Anthropology: the study of human behavior/civilization

Colleagues of Marshall McLuhan

• He wrote the global village (MM)

Developed concept of proxemics

• The study of proximity

What is proxemics?

The study of people’s use of space (how close are you to someone)

What are the 4 distance zones?

•  Intimate Zone: physically touching another person, play with someone's hair, sex whispering in someone's ear

• Personal Zone: how close you are with your friends and family zone

• Social Zone: the one with your friends, aqu, how far and close can you be

• Public Zone: at least 12 feet away in the US

- What he was interested in is that we have every zone in every culture, but the distance is different

• THIS IS FROM A US PERSPECTIVE 

• Latin America people touch each other more often, some places require touch

• In Tokyo the public zone is much closer

What happened in 1946?

• 1946, created the Foreign Service Institute

- realized that non verbal communication varies culture to culture when they sent people to Europe and they couldn’t communicate

- non verbal communication makes up 50% of understanding in US

- makes up about 93% of asian cultures

- In the US we are very direct and are low context meaning we like to communicate and speaking is how we communicate ideas, 50% is talking, the other 50% is the way someone is standing, their hair, hand gestures

- In other cultures they do more non verbal communication which creates conflict if you are a U.S. person and you go up to someone in China and you might BLAH BLAH BLAH  and hey say yes even if they mean no, their body said no

1 year after WW2 ended

What is culture?

Learned patterns of behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people

What influenced Hall’s work?

• cultural anthropology

• linguistics

• ethology

• psychoanalytical theory

What is cultural anthropology?

the branch of anthropology that studies human culture, diversity, beliefs, and social practices across different societies

• Social Sciences: In the 1940s it focused on the macro level, like in Mexico about 90% were catholic, looking at economics and see that they use pesos, looking at the culture

• Japan looking into culture: Shinto Buddhism, 4th largest economy yen, constitutional monarchy

• Focused on Micro Level: Katsuhiki: Christian, Hayao Miyazaki: Spiritual, Ichiro Suzuki: Buddhist

• For intercultural communication we need to focus on the micro level which is the individual people within that culture

• Social science approach: let’s make a prediction what religion somebody is based on these, but no we should talk to the individuals instead

What is linguistics?

• Linguistics Relativity: The process through which language influences human thought and meaning (also known as the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis)

• In the 90s no one believed it, in the 2000s it reemerged

• Ex: dogs and god sound the same, you can mix them up, but perro and dios do not sound alike so he might not associate them

• Some cultures do not differentiate green and blue, they are just different shades

• GRUE

• In Tokyo the stoplights can be green or blue because they don’t differentiate it

• In ancient times the word green didn’t exist so they called the ocean wine or maroon colored

• Orange is the newest word (red heads are not called orange heads): comes from aranjo from Spain but we changed it to orange because of the House of Orange in the Netherlands, their last anime was orange, so they modified their carrots to be orange and introduced the work orange to the english language

• Sapir and Whorf were researchers coming up about this idea separately at the same time, so people put them together, but they actually hate each other

What is ethology?

• the study of animal behavior

• Specifically he looked at cats

• How do cats communicate with other cats? 100% non communicative

• Kittens meow because they need help, they meow when they are older because they are trying to communicate with humans

• Cats communicate with tails and their hair and discovered that in the animal kingdom, the majority of animals communicate non verbally over verbally

• Why would humans be different?

What is psychoanalytical theory?

(Freud)

• “Out of awareness” level of human communication → Freud’s “id”

• Yelling and you jump even though you didn’t think about it

• You are not thinking, you just respond

• Your culture tells you how to respond, you saw what other people did so that is how you respond

What did Hall conclude?

“By and large, it is useless to deal with culture on the metal level”

“Culture is communication and communication is culture.” (Interpretive)

• FOCUS ON HOTEL ISSUES IN TOKYO (CHAPTER 4): test question

• Monochronic vs. Polychronic time

• Extensions of culture: people (“man” sic). School, Language

• Contexts (high vs. low)

What does it mean to be monochronic?

• Time is a commodity, wasted sold (you are wasting my time) (my time costs money, because I have things I can do)

• Deadlines, schedules taken seriously

• Low context and needs info (just tell me what you want, we don’t have time to waste)

• Committed to the task

• Respect private property

• Emphasize promptness

• Have short term relationships

• Time is a commodity, it can be bought and sold

• In the 90s, Japan became monochronic so they can do business with the US

• In the business world it is usually monochronic

• Most monochronic cultures are low context because it saves time, LETS DO IT RN, get shit done

• US is extremely monochronic (western europe, australia, US)

• US is imperialistic: monochronic is the only way

What does it mean to be polychronic?

• time is time (stupid idea above)

• Deadlines, schedules if possible (relationships are more important)

• High context and already have info (just chill out)

• Committed to relationships

• Borrow and lend often and easily

• Promptness based on relationship

• Have lifelong relationships

• Every other culture is polychronic, but slowly turning monochronic

• We have time, why the rush, time is time

What are some extensions of culture?

1. People “as extension of” → people are an extension of their culture (someone from morocco is an extension of morocco culture)

2. School “as extension of” → what we learn in school shows us what our culture values are: In Costa Rica, the school teaches them to brush their teeth and they don’t use water because sustainability is the most important thing ever (99% sustainable), we learned Texas history but others don’t know all of it

3. Language “as extension of” → every culture can say different words for the same thing (popote, etc), howdy in texas a&m

How can business meetings change between countries you are communicating with?

In the USA we want minimal chit chat, ask one question maybe, then get straight to business. Brazilians love to talk. (this is hidden). Costa Rica loves to chit chat if you are not friends, if you are you can go straight to business. Hong Long likes to chitchat, they like to stick to an agenda but they use indirect communication

What does high context mean?

High-context cultures (Japan) rely on indirect communication, shared understanding, and relationship-building before business discussions.

What does low context mean?

Low-context cultures (USA) value directness, efficiency, and explicit communication in negotiations.

Due to different places being low context or high context, what happens?

• Depending on context, you could be one or the other like for family you don’t have to be low context for instance if you didn’t do the dishes and your sister walked passed you with a look you know you have to start NOW

In east europe a smile can be seen as a symbol as foolishness and that chitchatting is a waste of time (countries that border Russia or Russia itself)

Misunderstandings arise when one party expects implicit cues while the other expects clear, verbalized statements.

In the U.S. more than 50% of communication is nonverbal and in the Asian speaking countries about 80%-90%.

• In the US we lean, if we go to another country people can tell where we are from (nonverbal communication)

Influence on Hall’s work:

Japan- love to chit chat, we will think about this and talk about it further = absolutely not, 

USA- chitchat is a wasting time, we will think about this and talk about it further = there’s a possibility

US is one of the lowest context cultures and in Japan they are the highest connect culture in the world

Recap on linguistics relativity

the word choices we use influence the way we see the world: we say pink, but in russia they say light red (does saying pink change the way we see light red?)

• There is different words for different types of snow, there's different words for uncooked rice, cooked rice, leftover rice, cooke riced in the bottom of the pot

Recap on ethology

 helps us because humans are animals, humans and animals communicate non verbally

What is the silent language as referred to by ET Hall?

Non verbal communication, low context and high context, monochronic and polychronic, context, timing and knowing how to communicate nonverbally

Recap on psychoanalytical theory

Accord to Freud, unconscious thoughts and emotions have an impact on our behavior, despite our lack of awareness of them (i.e., the out of awareness level of consciousness) → you 

You can drink water with meals, but other cultures could see it offensive or weird 

Recap on reflexibility

 process of thinking and reflecting on how we act, why we act, what that action means, who it enables, and who it hurts

You can give a server your credit card, they leave, in other places that can be illegal, they bring the machine to you

Tipping (percentages)

Nudity can be seen as natural (Italy), with clothing you will not see the sounders and knees