A Model of Intercultural Communication Revisited

Abstract

This paper provides a general model of intercultural communication with a focus on the actual observable features of communication, including written, spoken and gestural features, and what influences the occurrence of these features. The model is thus different from most other general accounts such as those of Hofstede or Inglehart and Welzel which mostly focus on values and attitudes and are based on questionnaires rather than observation. The paper also includes a discussion of problems and solutions related to intercultural communication on an individual and societal level. The paper opens with a discussion of terminology and concepts relating to communication, culture, and intercultural communication. A model is then proposed of similarities and differences between languages and cultures concerning individual and interactive-collective communicative behavior (Sections 2–5). As part of the model, there is a discussion of the contextual factors that influence both types of behavior (Section 6). Comparisons between different languages and cultures are made throughout. In the next sections, I return to a consideration of the context and discuss some of the problems related to intercultural communication (Sections 7–8). Following this, I consider some solutions to these problems (Section 9). Finally, I attempt to formulate some conclusions (Section 10).

1. Introduction

1.1 Terminology

Intercultural communication or communication between people who have different cultural backgrounds has always been and will probably always remain an important precondition of human co-existence on earth [1, 2]. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework of factors that are important in intercultural communication within a general model of human, primarily linguistic, communication. It is not cultures that communicate, whatever that might imply, but people with different cultural backgrounds that do. This is so, even if sometimes people do so as representatives of social institutions like companies, associations, or countries. The alternative term “cross-cultural” is probably best used for comparisons between cultures (as in “cross-cultural comparison”). Even if the study and description of intercultural communication go back to antiquity, the term “intercultural communication” itself, was probably first used by E.T. Hall in the 1950s, see [3], in his work as a teacher and trainer at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Washington D.C., USA.

1.2 What is culture?

Let us more closely analyze the concepts that can be found in the term “intercultural communication”. One of them is culture which has been analyzed in several different ways by different researchers. See [4] for an account of about 200 ways to define the concept. It will be used here in the following way. The term “culture” refers to all the characteristics common to a particular group of people that are learned and not given by nature. That the members of a group have two legs is thus not a cultural characteristic but a natural one, while a special but common way of walking would probably be cultural. Analytically, we can differentiate between the following four primary cultural dimensions:

1. Patterns of thought—common habitual ways of thinking, where thinking includes factual beliefs, values, norms, and emotional attitudes.

2. Patterns of behavior—common habitual ways of behaving, from ways of speaking to ways of conducting commerce and industry, where the behavior can be intentional/unintentional, aware/unaware, or individual/interactive.

3. Patterns of artifacts—common ways of manufacturing and using material things, from pens to houses (artifact = artificial object), where artifacts include houses, tools, machines, or media. The artifactual dimension of culture is usually given special attention in museums.

4. Imprints in nature—the long-lasting imprints left by a group in the natural surroundings, where such imprints include agriculture, trash, roads, or intact/ruined human habitations. In fact, “culture” in the sense of human-engineered “growth” (i.e. a human transformation of nature) gives us a basic understanding of what the concept of culture is all about. In general, we can say that culture is always “cultivated nature”.

All human activities involve the first two dimensions. Most activities involve the third dimension, and ecologically important activities also involve the fourth. When a particular activity lastingly combines several of these traits, one usually says that the activity has become institutionalized and that it is thus a social institution. Perhaps, the most important of these social institutions is the language which combines all four dimensions thought (meaning), linguistic behavior, writing systems and tools of writing (artifacts), and biological readiness combined with acoustic, and optic transmission (traces in nature).

One may speak of a culture or a subculture when one or more of the characteristics are lastingly connected with a certain group of people. In the context of intercultural communication, the groups are often associated with national states, and we may speak about Swedish culture, French culture, etc. but the group does not necessarily have to be a national group. It may be any group at all that is distinguishable over a longer period. We can thus speak about teenage culture, male culture, working-class culture, bakers’ culture, or the culture of the city of Gothenburg. Cultural differences between groups of these types are often just as great or even greater than those that exist between national cultures. However, our focus in this article will be on studying intercultural interaction between persons with different national or ethnic backgrounds as well as on some of the similarities and differences found in comparing national and ethnic cultures. In doing so, we will pay much attention to language which is, probably the most important identifying characteristic of a national, or ethnic culture and also identifies many subcultural groups (dialects, sociolects) in a nation.

Cultures (including languages) are not static but under constant development. However, since social habits and traces in nature are involved, change is usually gradual and allows continuity with the past. We can still read Shakespeare and perhaps be influenced by features of Elizabethan culture. Among the drivers of cultural change change in the natural environment itself, technological development, imitation of new behaviors, and political and scientific ideas and ideologies. For this reason, we should always be ready to update our descriptions of cultures (and languages).

1.3 Intercultural communication

As for the other key concept in intercultural communication—communication—I mainly follow the analysis presented in [5, 6]. For the present purposes, we can briefly characterize “communication” as the sharing of information between people on different levels of awareness and control.

The concept of “sharing” rather than “transfer” implies the active role of both speaker/sender and listener/recipient. Communication is not transfer from an active sender to a passively receiving listener. The perceiving and understanding activity of the recipient is essential. The concept of sharing also implies the importance of commonality. The purpose of communication is to increase the information the communicators have in common. The more they already have in common, the less needs to be said. This means that similarities between communicators are basic. It also means that when we study intercultural communication, we should pay attention to similarities as well as differences between cultures. Finally, we should note that the sharing can take place on different levels of awareness and control. This is important since, in an intercultural context, it can become a problem, particularly with features of communication about which people have a low degree of awareness and find difficult to control. Critical examples of this include how we show and interpret feelings and attitudes of ourselves and others.

If we use what is said above about “culture” and “communication” as a base, we are now able to define “intercultural communication” as the sharing of information on different levels of awareness and control, between people with different cultural backgrounds, where different cultural backgrounds include both ethnic-national cultural differences and cultural differences which are connected to participation in the different activities that exist within a national or ethnic unit.

1.4 The danger of stereotypical descriptions

Studies and teaching programs that deal with intercultural communication are often based on attempts to understand national cultures; therefore, there is a great risk of neglecting the significant differences which exist between activities, groups, and individuals on a non-national level. An orientation toward national cultures combined with efforts to find easily conveyed generalizations gives a further risk, namely that of taking over stereotypical notions of a “national character” that often have arisen to serve what a certain group sees as its own or national interests, see [7, 8]. For example, Swedes may be characterized as envious, Scots as stingy, French as vain, Americans as superficial, etc.

The danger of misleading and biased generalizations is one of the greatest risks in research on intercultural communication, and that danger increases as soon as someone tries to describe the differences between groups from the perspective of a particular group’s interests.

1.5 Social identity and ethnicity

Two important concepts in this discussion are ethnicity and social identity. I believe that these concepts can be related to culture and national states in the following way. A group is an ethnic group when certain of its cultural characteristics are used to organize it socially and politically, and when this organization is allowed to continue for a relatively long period. The group’s ethnicity includes those traits which a politically cohesive power. If the ethnic group has or strongly aspires to have its own politically independent nation, the characteristics are termed nationally ethnic and the desire to emphasize and/or spread them is called nationalism. Depending on the strength of this nationalism or the evaluation of it, it can further be characterized as chauvinism or patriotism.

Social identity can be related to culture in the following way. At a particular point in time, culture provides some properties and relations around which individual persons can organize their lives. People construct their social identity by regarding a part of these properties and relations as decisive for who he/she is. In this way, a person can identify him or herself with his/her age, sex, family position, profession, political ideology, religious belief, regional residence or national affiliation, etc. As social organizations can be constructed around most of these characteristics, by identifying with them, one often simultaneously comes to belong to a group of people who think alike. Most people have a potential for identifying with several of these characteristics but gradually come to focus on a few as primarily creating their identity.

One of the possibilities is that you strongly identify with characteristics that you consider important for your national or ethnic group. You mainly become a Swede, a Finn, a Basque, or a Sami. Being a father or a teacher may become less important. For a person of this type, national or ethnic membership is what gives him/her their main identity. But as we have seen, identity can of course be constructed based on other characteristics. Personal preferences and degree of social recognition are among the decisive factors in constructing one’s identity. This probably means that people with high-status jobs will be less prone than people with low-status jobs to let ethnic membership be the characteristic they mainly identify with (possible exceptions here might be found among the leaders of an ethnic group).

In studying what I am here calling “intercultural communication”, it is particularly important to be aware that there are no necessary relationships between identity, on the one hand, and ethnicity or nationalism, on the other. Lack of reflection concerning this point can easily lead to hasty assumptions about stereotypical cultural differences in trying to understand your co-communicators.

1.6 Culture and activities

One way to escape the danger of stereotypes, at least to a certain extent, is to connect the concept of culture with the concept of activity, see [6]. A culture, which is a way of thinking, behaving, etc., surfaces in the activities which the people in a certain group pursue. By an activity is here meant anything from arguing to hunting, fishing, or farming. Most people participate in several different activities and can often think and act in substantially different ways in these. There is a great difference between being a father, a pastor, and a lover but, at least in Sweden, it is completely possible for one person simultaneously to have each of these roles. By taking into consideration the variation in activities and roles among a group of people, we can begin to get an understanding of the nature of intranational and international cultural similarities and differences. To complete this understanding, the variation in activity must at the same time also be supplemented with other differences that are e.g. biological or regional.

2. Components in a model of intercultural communication

When people of different cultural backgrounds meet, differences between them can potentially lead to misunderstandings and other related problems. One of the ways of grasping the problems that can arise in intercultural communication is therefore to investigate how communication patterns can vary between different linguistic and cultural communities. A way of doing this is to make use of a model in which we take into account communication behaviors and what can influence these types of behaviors and then try to analyze differences between linguistic and cultural communities with regard both to communication behavior and influencing factors.

As for communicative behavior, a distinction can be made between behavior that is produced or perceived by a single individual and behavior that requires the interaction and/or cooperation of several individuals. I will call the first type of behavior “individual behavior” (Sections 3 and 4) and the other type of behavior, “interactive” behavior (Section 5). That behavior is individual does not mean that it is not influenced by other people, such as by another person’s words or actions. It only means that some types of behavior, like the uttering or understanding of words, can be ascribed to an individual while other interactive types of behavior, like turn-taking, need to be ascribed to several interacting individuals. After having considered individual production and perception as well as interactive-collective behavior, I will turn to some of the contextual factors that influence both types of behavior (Section 6). In going through components of the model, I will, when relevant, to facilitate understanding, be making comparisons between different languages and cultures. In Sections 7 and 8, I will return to a consideration of the context and discuss some of the problems related to intercultural communication. In Section 9, I consider some solutions to these problems. Finally, in Section 10, I attempt to formulate some conclusions.

3. Individual production

On the level of individual production (sending) of communicative behavior it is often convenient to consider the following four aspects:

1. Body movements.

2. Sound and writing.

3. Vocabulary and phraseology.

4. Grammar.

3.1 Body movements (gestures)

When we speak, our speech is continuously accompanied by gestures, facial expressions, and other body movements that add to what we are saying in different ways. There are clear differences in how people from different cultures communicate with their bodies. The largest differences probably occur in the use of hands to convey different meanings. Gestures for such things as “money”, “great”, and “come here” vary considerably between for example Sweden and the Mediterranean countries. Other differences can be found concerning when and where a person is permitted to express something, perhaps particularly certain emotions. There can also be variations from culture to culture in how intensely people show different emotions. In certain cultures, such as the Mediterranean cultures, it is ok to show strong feelings such as happiness, anger, and grief in public. In others, such as Sweden or Japan, there are restrictions against this. See [9].

3.2 Sound and writing

Two very obvious differences between different languages are their sound and writing systems. The differences in sound can be seen from two main perspectives:

1. Each language has its store of “phonemes”, that is, the smallest meaning differentiating sound units. These vary in the languages of the world between 16 in the Polynesian languages, and about 80 in Caucasian languages.

2. Together with phonemes, there is also what is usually called “prosody”, “intonation” or “melody,” that is, sound characteristics whose range is longer than separate sounds. The primary functions of prosody are the following: (1) to indicate biological, social, and regional identity, e.g. that the speaker is a middle-aged female convenience store cash register operator in Gothenburg; (2) to indicate rhythm and tone; (3) to indicate what linguistic units belong together in meaning; (4) to indicate feelings and attitudes.

Not least, the way of expressing emotions and attitudes using prosody is probably not the same in all languages and cultures. In a study of how prosody is interpreted, Abelin and Allwood [10] got the following two main results:

1. There seem to be culturally given, relatively stable patterns for expressing emotions using prosody. The way of interpreting vocal emotional expressions does not vary much from person to person within a culture.

2. The way of interpreting vocal expressions of emotion is dependent upon linguistic and cultural background. People with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds make their interpretations in different ways. As most persons probably have a low level of awareness of the prosodic patterns of themselves and others, this means there is a risk of incorrect interpretations, also on a low level of awareness, in communication between people with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

The differences between different writing systems are often more obvious than differences in sound systems. A main division of the world’s writing systems can be made between (1) ideographic, where each written unit in principle expresses a morpheme (smallest meaning bearing language unit), and (2) sound-based system that either can be phonemic, based on phonemes (the smallest meaning differentiating linguistic sound) or syllabic, based on syllables. The differences between writing systems can be less obvious, for instance when two languages use the same written letters but with different pronunciations. Compare the pronunciation of (j) in English and in Swedish, where (j) is pronounced like English (y)).

In addition, it is important again to remember that all communicative means of expression, not only prosody, can signal identity, and that phonemes, prosody, gestures and ways of writing can all show considerable internal cultural differences between different dialects, sociolects, genders, ages, activities etc.

3.3 Vocabulary and phraseology

The differences between different languages, which people who learn several different languages probably most easily can become aware of, are the differences in vocabulary, in terms of words and phrases.

In every culture, the words and phrases of everyday language mirror the needs, values, and attitudes that have been common and strong and for this reason have been necessary to communicate. People who live in a desert, in their everyday language have a vocabulary that allows differentiation between many different types of sand, while people who live in areas, with a great deal of snow, instead develop a vocabulary that allows differentiation between many types of snow.

One of the differences in vocabulary that has been investigated a lot has to do with differences between the words for color in different languages. Table 1 adapted from [11], shows the great differences that can exist with regard to color vocabulary.

Jale, New Guinea	Tiv, Nigeria	Hanunoo, Philippines	Ibo, Nigeria	Tzeltal, Mexico	Lowland-Tamil, India	Nez Perce, North America	Swedish, European
						Dark	Dark
					Dark	Brown	Brown
Dark	Dark	Dark	Dark	Dark	Blue	Blue	Blue
							Grey
		Red	Red	Red	Red	Red	Purple
	Red	Green		Green	Green	Green	Pink
			Yellow	Yellow	Yellow	Yellow	Green
							Red
							Orange
							Yellow
Light	Light	Light	Light	Light	Light	Light	Light

Table 1.

Color words in eight languages.

The languages range from Jale in New Guinea where there are only two words, one for all dark and one for all light nuances of colors to Swedish where there are at least nine distinct color words in ordinary use and several more in technical use. For a discussion of the effects of differences in vocabulary such as these, see e.g. [11, 12]. It is clear that problems in understanding can arise in communication between people from different cultures as they have different expectations as to what distinctions and nuances they should be able to express using their vocabularies.

Another important area in uncovering differences that can be significant in intercultural communication is different types of standardized phrases and metaphors.

Among such expressions are what usually is called proverbs, that is, standardized phrases that directly or metaphorically express what is seen as wisdom of life, often by many people in the culture. Swedish, for example, has the following phrases that can all begin with “Man Skall” which in English corresponds to one should or you should (Table 2).

Swedish	English literal	English idiomatic
Man skall	One should	One (you) should
vara karl för sin hatt	be man for one’s hat	shoulder one’s (your) responsibility
göra rätt för sig	do right for one-self	do one’s (your) duty
inte göra bort sig	not do away one-self	not make a fool of one-(your)self
inte ligga andra till last	not lie (on) others as a load	not be a burden on others
sköta sig själv och skita i andra	take care of one-self and shit in others	mind one’s (your) own business
inte tro att man är något	not believe that one is something	not have a “swelled head”

Table 2.

Proverbs in Swedish with English translations.

Phrases of this type, sometimes as here stated as rules, reflect values that are shared by many people and thus give a good insight into the values and attitudes that are common in a particular culture. The phrases thereby function both as a guiding and legitimizing instrument: you should behave in such a way that is consistent with the proverbs and you can also use a proverb to justify your actions or opinions.

3.4 Grammar

A fourth dimension that can be used to differentiate languages is grammar, e.g. the inflection, derivation, and syntactic patterns that exist in the language. For example, in Swedish, it is possible using forms of inflection to indicate whether a noun is plural or singular and has the definite form e.g. flick[girl]-or[s]-na[the] (the girls), while this is not possible in Chinese, where it may either be understood implicitly through context or explicitly through the use of independent words that express number or definiteness. Besides morphology, languages also exhibit great differences in basic word order patterns (syntax). A very well-known way to classify language introduced by Joseph Greenberg, a California linguist (see [13]), is based on the basic word order in statements between subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) (Table 3).

SVO	SOV	VSO	VOS	OVS	OSV
Swedish	Japanese	Arabic	Malagasy	Hixkaryana	No certain cases

Table 3.

Basic word-order types in five languages.

An interesting similarity can also be noted by classifying the languages of the world in this way, namely that 99% belong to the first three categories, SVO, SOV, or VSO. The subject comes before the object in all three types. However, no satisfying explanation has yet been offered for why this pattern is the most common. See further [14].

4. Individual reception

4.1 Producer and recipient (sender and receiver)

The four aspects of linguistic behavior on the individual level mentioned above can be viewed from two main perspectives: the perspective of the producer or sender and the perspective of the recipient or receiver. All communicators are both producers and recipients. You hear what you say and see what you write. However, in interactive, face-to-face communication, rather than one-way communication, you take turns to mainly do one or the other and you can mostly hear and/or see the reactions of your recipient, while you are producing your message.

To be able to express his/her message, the producer must simultaneously plan, maintain control of and produce his/her message in all the four dimensions discussed above. He/she cannot control everything with an equally high degree of awareness but must continuously rely on pre-existing “programmed, automatic subroutines”. Among these automatic routines, we find routines for pronunciation, body movements, and grammar, while our choice of words probably has a lesser degree of automaticity.

The automatization of certain linguistic behavior is probably one of the reasons why it is so difficult for adults, when they attempt to learn a new language, to alter many patterns of grammar, pronunciation (especially prosody), and body movement, even if they can learn new words.

In the same way, as for the producer, the recipient’s task implies control and integration of several different dimensions at the same time. The recipient probably also uses automatic routines, which he/she is not able to control with any higher degree of awareness. However, it would be a mistake to believe that the recipient is only passive—a sort of clay tablet on which the incoming message makes an imprint regardless of the recipient’s reactions. The recipient’s inner activity (perhaps even the part that can be controlled) is at least as great as the speaker’s, see also [5]. At least the following must be included among the recipient’s activities and reactions:

1. Influence on a low level of awareness.

2. Perception (apprehension).

3. Understanding.

4. Other reactions.

4.2 Influence on a low level of awareness

The first type of reaction is the influence or the processing of information without a high degree of awareness and control. In a series of experiments, Marcel [15] showed that we can be influenced by a text without having consciously perceived it. Other studies show that we can be influenced by the size of pupils of other people without being aware that this is what is influencing us [16].

4.3 Perception (apprehension)

The second type of reaction is the perception or apprehension of information. This means that information is also consciously registered by the receiver through his/her five senses. This type of reaction is necessary for such specialized activities as reading.

4.4 Understanding

Some of the information that is perceived is also understood. Whether understanding can be said to take place depends on if the receiver can put the information, he/she perceives into a meaningful context, a context that is, for example, based on understood logical or causal relations. The difference between perception and understanding can be illustrated by considering a person not well-versed in mathematics who attends a lecture on topology. He/she probably perceives in some sense what is being said but probably does not understand. To be able to put perceived information into a meaningful context, a person must have already stored a certain amount of information. One must already understand to a certain extent. This relationship is often formulated as “understanding requires pre-understanding”. If you already understand a great deal, then not so much needs to be said to make you understand more.

This relationship is continuously used in everyday conversations in which we normally succeed in sharing more information than we express. By building upon the information that we assume we share with other people, we can take a great deal for granted and be satisfied with hints. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that half of the information we are sharing in ordinary conversations is implicitly understood and is based on the receiver, through his/her process of interpretation and understanding, successfully reconstructing the message the sender intends.

The consequences of these considerations that have to do with linguistic communication, in general, are relatively important if we wish to understand the difficulties that can exist in intercultural communication. Some of these difficulties occur when the persons who communicate lack a relevant common cultural background, that is, they lack common beliefs, values, and norms (see also below, Section 6). They have no shared pre-understandings on which to build.

The strategy I recommend here is to try to clarify, through the use of language, what is normally taken for granted, by making explicit as many requirements as possible for what is said. This is the strategy used in certain legal traditions, see for example [17] when you want to be sure that the law is being applied in the same way in all places without opportunity for differing interpretations by any individual reader. The process requires a great deal of thought and consideration and is probably more easily applied in written language, where passages can be changed and added to in retrospect.

In an intercultural face-to-face communication situation, the solution indicated by legislative texts is normally not available. You are mostly limited to spoken language and gestures, and the spoken language is often not shared and therefore perhaps poorly used/understood by at least one of the parties.

The starting point for reaching mutual understanding in intercultural communication is thus a difficult one and can be improved only by carefully observing and noting what types of pre-understanding are necessary for different contexts, by building a sensitivity concerning the points at which misunderstanding between people with different cultural backgrounds can occur and, secondly, by becoming acquainted with and learning about other people’s cultures.

So what types of understanding, values, and attitudes can represent relevant differences in pre-understanding? Unfortunately, the general answer to this question probably is that whatever represents a difference between two people’s understanding in any particular context can be relevant to their interpretation and understanding. However, on a general level, the following areas can be mentioned:

1. Realia: geography, history, religion, political and economic systems, industrial and commercial branches, traditions concerning food, clothing, and housing.

2. Esthetic culture: music, art, and literature (including both fiction and poetry).

3. Expert knowledge: activities with special subject areas, roles, and tools.

4. Attitudes and values: a particularly important part of a person’s preunderstanding is his/her attitudes and values. These unite his/her factual understanding with his/her emotions, desires, and actions. Although attitudes and values can differ in a national or ethnic group of people, to a certain extent they are also given by their common cultural environment (see Section 6 below).

4.5 Other reactions

Parallel to factual understanding, emotional and attitudinal reactions are integrated with the process of understanding. Factual understanding is concurrently combined with emotional and attitudinal reactions. We become interested, bored, upset, sad, angry, happy, or irritated about what we hear and we direct these reactions toward the contents of what we are hearing and toward the person who is speaking. Reactions of this type occur among all people in all communication situations and can only by training and analytical abstraction be differentiated from the more factual understanding. For example, most people have a very difficult time differentiating between claims made and the person making them. They are not aware of the fallacy of ad-hominem argumentation. If I do not respect X, then what X is saying cannot be true, or the reverse if I respect X then what X is saying must be true. Factual understanding and emotional reactions always function in an interplay with one another.

Emotional and attitudinal reactions often have a relatively low degree of awareness and are difficult to control. However, this does not stop them from showing a systematic pattern. They are the results of the norms and values that a certain individual has accepted through his/her biological nature and his/her upbringing in a particular environment. In this way, it is possible for certain emotional and attitudinal reactions to become dominant in a particular culture and we can observe phenomena like the following, “Most Swedes do not like to speak loudly and shrilly in public situations when they are sober.”

Our emotional and attitudinal reactions are thus additional factors that must be considered in intercultural communication. An intercultural situation can be open to misunderstandings connected with hasty emotional reactions on a relatively low level of awareness. These reactions, in turn, can further be connected to other reactions that have to do with desires and dispositions toward behavior. To the extent that the reactions are positive, the complex nature of the receiver’s reactions can lead to a quicker establishment of good contact between the parties. To the extent that they are negative, we can, however, based on small misunderstandings, get reactions that involve prejudice, suspicion, dislike and discrimination.

5. Communication behavior on an interactive level

Above we discussed communication behavior that can be produced and interpreted by individual speakers and listeners. We will now look more closely at characteristics of communication behavior that refer to the interaction between producer and recipient. The aspects we will discuss probably make up the most important characteristics on the interactive level, but they do not represent an exhaustive list of all the interesting aspects of interaction in intercultural communication. The aspects I will discuss here are (1) interaction sequences, (2) turn-taking, (3) feedback, and (4) spatial configurations.

5.1 Interaction sequences

The concept of an “interaction sequence” is derived from the fact that a specific type of communication can often be said to go through a number of distinct stages. For example, you begin, continue and complete a communicative interaction in a particular way. The initial sequences include greetings, introductions, and routines for opening channels between the sender and the receiver, such as the initial use of the word hello in a telephone conversation.

Different cultures and linguistic areas vary considerably in terms of how much body contact is permitted in the greeting and introduction routines of different situations. In a relatively neutral contact, body contact can be completely lacking, as in classical China, or a handshake may suffice, as is most common in Sweden at present, or one may use hand contact together with an embrace and a varying number of kisses, as is currently the practice in France. The same types of differences and preferences can also be observed in closing sequences such as in leave-taking. For a more exhaustive review of differences of this type, see [18]. It is important at this point to again warn against simple generalizations. In each culture, there are several ways to, for example, greet people and take leave from people, which are dependent on the situation and the activity at hand. Important factors that influence what should be done are here the purpose of the activity and the person with whom you are speaking. I greet my children differently than I greet my colleagues and what I say and do in parting is different if I will be taking a long trip than if I will be meeting the person with whom I am speaking again in a few hours. Purpose and interlocutor probably influence the variation in communication patterns in all cultures but do so in different ways in each culture.

Thus, the interaction sequences that take place are dependent upon the activity that the communication serves. The different purposes of the activity lead to an organization of linguistic and other behavior in the activity. This, in many cases, results in a sequence of sub-activities that is typical for a particular activity. In a conversation in which advice and counsel are given, for instance in a meeting with someone who works at an employment agency, or social welfare office, or in a psychological consultation, one or more of the following activities would probably be included (at least in a Swedish cultural setting).

1. Greetings

2. Introductions

3. Identification of problems/desires

4. Gathering of relevant background information (this point can probably be given a very large number of subdivisions depending on how much of the individual’s life is relevant.)

5. Suggestions

6. Discussion

7. Conclusions/agreements

8. Summary

9. Leave-taking

The number of activities included and the order in which they come can vary depending upon specific characteristics of the counselor and the person seeking advice as well as on the relation between them. However, it is probable that a relatively frequent pattern is developed for a particular type of counseling activity in a particular culture, not least if the activity can be regulated by establishing rules for general practice.

These patterns by no means need to be the same from one culture to another. It is highly probable that activities such as “getting to know someone”, “keeping informal company”, “teaching”, “being in meetings together” and “counseling” exhibit differences from culture to culture. As it is often exactly within the framework of activities such as these that intercultural communication takes place, differences in expectations regarding what sequences should exist and in the way they should be carried out are one of the factors that can cause difficulties in intercultural communication.

5.2 Turn-taking

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the concept of “turn-taking” has been used to characterize a basic set of principles for conversational interaction, see [19]. The principles have to do with how the right to speak is distributed—who speaks with whom, for how long, about what, when, and in which way.

A question that arises out of the five questions above is how many speakers may speak at the same time in different situations. In Northwestern Europe, it seems in most cases that the rule is “one speaker at a time”. Interrupting other speakers is generally avoided, even in informal contexts and debates. This pattern is strongest in the Scandinavian countries and somewhat weaker in Germany and England. Compare, for example, a Swedish, a German, and an English political debate. While Mediterranean countries to some extent show the same pattern, overlap and interruptions are more frequent. The tolerance for interruptions and simultaneous speaking is there much greater in lively discussions and debates. Interruption and overlap are normal expressions of involvement and participation.

Other questions having to do with turn-taking concern speed of talk and tolerance of silence, that is, such questions as how rapid speaker change should be and whether you can allow yourself, now and again, to say nothing. There seem to be great differences both between and within different cultures in these respects. A relatively general pattern seems to be that urban cultures have a higher speech rate and less silence than rural cultures. However, there seem also to be national ethnic differences, see [20]. The greatest appreciation of silence in certain types of interaction has been reported for the Apache Indians of North America, see [21]. There are also many reports of silence being appreciated from northern Sweden and Finland, see [22, 23]. Speech rate seems to be correlated with silence so a lower speech rate is associated with a greater occurrence of silence.

A third area in which there seem to be differences between cultures regarding turn-taking has to do with rights and obligations in different situations. Very generally, it can be said that rights and obligations concerning turn-taking are determined to a great extent by a person’s social role. Persons, who have roles that imply social prominence, for example, because they are considered to be associated with knowledge or power, such as bosses, ministers, or professors, seem in most cultures to have greater freedom with respect to turn-taking than do other people. They can speak about what they like, for as long as they like and in the way in which they like. They can permit themselves to interrupt other speakers, even in cultures in which the “one speaker at a time” rule is relatively strong, see also [24]. However, besides similarities, there are also differences between the rights and obligations connected with a particular role; differences that can be associated with the type of tradition and authority that is found in a certain culture. A teacher, for example, has a somewhat different role in Sweden and Turkey. Certain roles are thus very strongly associated with rights and obligations in turn-taking.

One such is the role of chairperson at a meeting. The task of a chairperson is to maintain order in turn-taking. What will we talk about? Who will be allowed to speak? In what way will we be allowed to speak? Although meetings as an activity exist in most European cultures, a chairperson’s rights can vary. In England and the USA, for example, a chairperson has somewhat greater rights than in Sweden. He/she can choose to ignore persons whom he/she does not believe will add anything positive to the discussion. This behavior would hardly be tolerated in Sweden, where tradition states that every person who wishes to say something has the right to do so if the item has not been concluded or stricken from the discussion.

5.3 Feedback

The third interactive aspect I would like to mention is “feedback”. Feedback here means the processes through which a speaker receives information from a listener about how the listener has perceived, understood, and reacted to what the speaker has said. A major division of feedback behaviors is (1) feedback elicitation and (2) feedback giving.

All languages seem to have both verbal and nonverbal (body movement) ways to elicit and give feedback. Some Swedish feedback elicitors are inte sant (isn’t that true?) and eller hur, eller, vad (or how? or? what?). Similar expressions are used in many languages. They often contain words for disjunction, negation, truth, or correctness, for example, n’est ce pas (“is this not so?” in French), ne pravda li (“not true?” in Russian), nicht wahr (“not true?” in German), no es cierto (“isn’t that certain?” in Spanish). In English, feedback elicitation has been grammaticalized through the so-called tag questions: you smoke, don’t you? you don’t smoke, do you? Feedback elicitation takes place nonverbally in Swedish (and probably in several other cultures) by for example moving the head forward and raising the eyebrows.

As regards feedback giving, there are several hundred expressions for giving feedback in Swedish. Sometimes they form derivational paradigms like the following series of triplets of feedback givers: Ja—jaha—ha (variations on (yes), jo—joho—ho (variations on a yes contradicting a no), nä—nähä—hä (variations on (no), m—mhm—hm (variations on (uhu), a(h)—aha—ha (variations on (ah), that is, the first word’s vowel (or continuant) is repeated and preceded by the addition of an <h>. Some of these are fairly unusual from an intercultural perspective. This applies to the Swedish practice of using in-breath in saying ja or nej (yes or no), which is often interpreted by persons of other cultural backgrounds as a lung problem or as holding back emotion.

Although most cultural and language communities seem to have means for eliciting and giving feedback, there are important differences between them. One difference has to do with whether the feedback takes place for the most part verbally and auditively or whether it takes place with body movements and is perceived visually. The feedback patterns here are dependent e.g. on the culture’s patterns for eye contact. In Japanese culture, for example, where direct eye contact can be interpreted as a lack of respect or as aggression, we thus find much verbal/auditive feedback, while, according to the studies we have carried out, there seems to be less auditive feedback and more non-verbal, visual feedback between Latin American Spanish speakers. See also [18].

5.4 Spatial configurations

Another area in which clear culturally dependent ethnic differences seem to exist concerns the closeness and physical contact between persons in a conversation. In cultures in northwestern Europe adult men generally, avoid touching one another during conversations and maintain a greater distance from one another than do e.g. adult men from Mediterranean cultures. The latter also shows a greater frequency of physical contact during neutral conversations. See [18, 25].

Most likely, similar but small differences between northwestern Europe and the Mediterranean countries also exist for women. This is in spite of the fact that they, in comparison with men from Northwestern Europe, show less distance and more physical contact. For conversations between a man and a woman, the pattern is less clear but, at least in public contexts, the distance can be greater in Mediterranean cultures than in northwestern European cultures.

Distance and contact are also clearly dependent on other factors than the sex of the speakers. Physical space is a basic consideration. Even Swedish men stand close to each other on crowded buses. Another factor has to do with the type of activity. In most cultures, we find more physical contact and closeness in activities of arrival or leave-taking, than in other situations The same applies in most cultures to situations characterized by love or aggression, although the differences can be considerable. In classical Chinese culture, man and wife were not allowed to show physical contact in public and public kissing among young couples in love is still today viewed with skepticism.

6. Contextual factors influencing communication

After having considered communication on an individual and interactive level, we will now turn to contextual factors that influence the three aspects (production, perception/understanding, and interaction) of communication that we have considered. First, we should note that there are many factors that influence communication and that this model only highlights a few of them. Second, many of the factors are not primarily cultural, and third it should be remembered that generalizations about differences in communication patterns cannot always be associated simply with differences between ethnic groups. A French person does not greet another person in the same way in all situations. Many different contextual factors can be relevant. However, the variation in communication within an ethnic or national group is not entirely random. There seem to exist certain factors that often are decisive for the variation. Some main factors that influence communication in the present model are the following three: (i) variation in the features of the individuals that participate, (ii) the features of the activity of which the communication is a part, and (iii) common attitudes and values in the culture of the communicating individuals.

6.1 Features of individuals

As regards individuals, their biological status, for example, their sex, age, and possible disabilities, play an important role. However, a perhaps even more important factor is what we can call their focus on identity (see above). What socially “focusable” characteristics have they made into the primary components of their identity? Is it their education, their occupation, their interests, their family role, their ideology, their gender role, age role, their regional affiliation, or something else that they have chosen to guide them in their ways of being? What they have chosen to identify themselves with will to a great extent determine their attitudes, norms, and values and will thus also color their behavior in different activities. Particularly important is probably their level of education and skills. People act and speak in different ways depending on their skills and how much information about the surrounding world they have come to possess.

Features of individuals are important since cultural generalizations, whether they are statistical or merely stereotypical, concern a group level and that therefore, in analyzing cases of actual communication, we always have to be open to the possibility that the particular individuals we are concerned with do not conform to the generalizations. Even if most Italians like pasta, the particular Italian, I am talking with, might not.

6.2 Features of social activities in a culture

To form a more complete picture of the intra-ethnic cultural variation, information is needed which goes beyond socio-biological status, desired or ascribed identity, and level of education and skills to encompass the social activity in which a particular individual is engaged. To be able to make a reasonable prediction about how someone carries out a greeting, we must know more than that he is for instance a 25- year-old male socialist industrial worker and father with a family in Paris. The prediction will be easier if we know in what situation or, if you will, in what activity context he will be giving the greeting. Is he going to greet his boss or an old childhood friend? The following factors are able to predict many of the communication characteristics that exist in different activities: (1) purpose, (2) roles, (3) artifacts, and (4) physical circumstances, see also [6]. Although all four factors are relevant for analysis in all cultures, the way they are realized can vary considerably and are important in understanding both differences and potential similarities in the way persons from different cultures interact in what, on an abstract level, should be the same activity.

6.2.1 Purpose of an activity

The purpose of social activity is the goal the activity is meant to achieve. There are many words for activities in everyday language which, if consideration is given to their meaning, show the purpose of the activity and thereby often also the types of interaction and communication that usually characterize the activity. Such words are negotiation, meeting, fight, flirt, lecture, interview, and counseling. Other words for activities, such as hunting, fishing, or business purchase, have less clear consequences for communication. However, even in these latter cases, it is possible, through reflection, to gain an understanding of certain of the communicative characteristics that are required by the activity.

A purpose can be more or less specific. Compare, for example, the purpose of “negotiation” with “diplomatic negotiation between Russians and Americans concerning disarmament”. The more specific the purpose is, the more it will influence the activity.

A difficulty in intercultural communication is that not precisely the same meaning is attached to activity words that are otherwise normally considered to be the correct translation of each other. Do, for example, the English words debate and job interview have the same meaning as the Swedish words debatt and anställningsintervju? Despite the very similar meaning of the words, there are differences with respect to for instance expectations about argumentation style in a debate and type of questions asked in a job interview. In certain situations, even such relatively small differences can lead to difficulties in cooperation between a Swede and for example, an Englishman.

6.2.2 Roles in an activity

Closely associated with the purpose of social activity are the different roles that are ordinarily associated with the participants in the activity. Compare, for example, lecturers and audience at a lecture, salesperson, and customer engagement in a purchase made in a store, chairperson, rapporteur, and participants at a meeting. As we have already mentioned above that the rights and obligations that are tied to a certain role do not need to be the same in different ethnic groups. A chairman often has greater rights at a meeting in England and in the U.S. than in Sweden.

To each role belong certain rights and obligations that normally have a strong impact on what a person with a certain role will say and do during the activity. Rights and obligations often correspond to one another so one party’s rights determine the other party’s obligations. The right of a Swedish customer to information about the price and quality of goods thus corresponds to the obligations of a Swedish salesperson to give this information (and probably similarly so in many other cultures).

6.2.3 Artifacts in an activity

A third factor that can determine a part of what is said and done in an activity is the artificial objects or artifacts that are used in the activity. As regards communication, the artifacts usually called communication aids and media (e.g. pen, megaphone, telephone, telegraph, radio, etc.) are particularly important. Special conventions are formed in different linguistic and cultural communities for how these aids are to be used. The conventions can, for example, concern how to talk on the telephone, write different kinds of letters or speak on the radio.

6.2.4 Physical circumstances

The last factor I will discuss here is the physical circumstances of the activity and the communication, that is, how phenomena such as noise level, light level, space, temperature, furniture, distance between sender and receiver, and the number of senders and receivers affect what is said and done. Activity and communication are always adapted in different ways in different cultural areas to physical factors of this type. We discussed above how even if Swedish men normally like to keep a fairly large distance between themselves and other men, will accept standing very close to one another on a crowded bus.

6.3 Attitudes and values

As we have seen above, both participating in and studying intercultural communication require taking into consideration the differences in understanding, values, and attitudes that people with different cultural backgrounds can have. These factors are important in determining both how to communicate and how to interpret and react to messages that are received. The results of questionnaire-based investigations of values and attitudes are the main topic of most studies of intercultural communication, see [1, 2]. The main problem with most of these studies is that the taxonomies of cultural differences that they present are too abstract and pay little attention to communicative behavior, and actual circumstances like type of activity, or individual differences. Another problem is that they tend to neglect the importance of cultural change and the fact that there are many similarities between human beings and human cultures.

An alternative way of identifying attitudes and values is to make a list of phenomena that play an important part in most people’s lives and then investigate whether there is any pattern in the attitudes of a particular group towards these phenomena. This list might, for example, include the following: family, child rearing, the opposite sex, socializing with friends, work—money, authorities (e.g. the state, teachers), aging, goals of life—career, death, time and space, metaphysics.

To investigate what attitudes people in a certain culture have toward these phenomena, we can consider at least two approaches that complement each other. One approach is to try to empirically investigate via direct observation, interviews, or questionnaires what attitudes people have.

The second approach is more indirect but may allow for a deeper understanding of the attitudes that exist in a particular culture. This approach is based on a historical analysis of the different influences that may have formed people’s attitudes in a certain culture. The analysis should take into consideration the following types of influences: (1) nature and climate, (2) resources, (3) technology, (4) population density, (5) types of activities, (6) types of behavior, and (7) ideological influences. In an intricate interaction, these factors, and perhaps others, form the values and norms that are typical of a particular culture. By studying not only the norms and values themselves but their background as well, one has a greater chance of understanding why certain patterns are more common than others, why changes in the patterns have and are taking place and at what points changes will eventually take place again.

Among the ideological influences, religion has often been the most important in creating norms and values, see [26]. In most cultures, religion has traditionally offered an explanatory and legitimizing framework for human behavior. Religious theses have been used to motivate and maintain such things as an approach to child-rearing, family, work, the opposite sex, and authorities. These approaches have then lived on in the culture and come to be shared also by people who no longer believe in the religious theses that originally motivated the approaches.

A development of ideological influences on Swedish culture must cover at least the following: (i) belief in the Nordic Asa Pantheon that possibly lives on in the celebration of Christmas and Midsummer; (ii) Catholicism, which introduced Christian values, for example, the idea of the equal value of all people in the eyes of God and the teaching of individual salvation; (iii) Lutheranism, which gave the king authority over the church (caesaropapism) and to some extent gave Christianity another meaning than what existed under Catholicism. (iv) During the 1800s, Calvinism was often introduced together with liberal political ideology. (v) Different forms of socialism also turned up, some were atheist and others were combined with different forms of religion, especially Lutheranism. (vi) The latest ideological influence in Sweden has probably been the so-called “green wave”, that is, a strong emphasis on certain ideas and attitudes concerning man’s interplay with nature. Other doctrines also exist but are somewhat less widespread than those listed above.

Of the mentioned ideologies, the most important influence is probably Lutheranism. Luther’s doctrines have been preached in churches, religious house examinations, morning assemblies in schools, and many other places for over 450 years. In many ways, Luther’s doctrines have affected attitudes toward (e.g. work, the idea of the calling), obligation, authorities, child-rearing, the opposite sex, the difference between private and public, the value of man, and goals in life that are common in Swedish culture. Departing from the model, let us now go on to look at some of the problems that can arise in an intercultural context on an individual and collective level.

7. Some problems related to understanding intercultural communication

We will begin by looking more closely at some different types of problems that can arise in situations of intercultural communication. As in all communication, a fundamental problem has to do with understanding.

Let us further assume that two persons with different cultural backgrounds start to communicate because at least one of them needs to do so. As they have different cultural backgrounds, they probably have less common pre-understanding than two persons with the same cultural background. If the lack of common pre-understanding is relevant to their joint activity and communication, this may lead to several consequences which will be treated below.

7.1 Lack of understanding

Lack of understanding is a failure to interpret parts of or all of what the other person is saying or doing. The lack of understanding may be conscious or unconscious, that is, you may or may not notice that you have not understood. The lack can, if it is a conscious lack, lead to an attempt to do something about it, such as to say that you have not understood or to ask for an explanation. The lack of understanding can also be allowed to pass, in spite of the fact that you are aware of it, perhaps because, owing to a lack of time or to an inferior status, you do not consider yourself in a position to ask for help or to admit that you have not understood.

7.2 Misunderstanding

A difference in relevant pre-understanding can also lead to misunderstanding, i.e. one actually makes an interpretation but this interpretation is inadequate or incorrect. The risk that poor understanding will lead to misunderstanding is dependent on factors like:

1. Strong expectations concerning communicative contents.

2. Insufficient awareness of your lack of understanding of the other’s cultural background.

3. Strong motivation, or perhaps an absolute need, to try to understand.

4. Degree of competence in the language used for the communication.

5. The occurrence of something that gives strong evidence against the interpretation about to be made.

Consider the following example of misunderstanding from [27] in an interview concerning living conditions:

Interviewer: du har två bord intill sängen (you have two tables near the bed).

Interviewee: jag har sängen jag kan inte sova på golvet (i have the bed, I can’t sleep on the floor).

The interviewee, who at the time in question was attempting to learn Swedish, later reported that she had interpreted intill (near) as inte (not). The example shows a combination of some of the factors named above. The interviewee did not have a great enough mastery of the Swedish language and thus did not notice the sound differences between near and not (in Swedish, the sound difference between the words intill and inte). She also had a suspicion that the interviewer believed that the standard of her living quarters was primitive. These two factors, in combination with a desire to understand and to demonstrate a mastery of Swedish, lead her, rather than simply noticing that she does not understand (lack of understanding), to make an incorrect interpretation (misunderstanding). The example is typical of how misunderstandings take place. Misunderstandings are nearly always the product of a combination of some or all of the factors mentioned above.

7.3 Emotional reactions and actions

Integrated with the process of understanding are different factors that have to do with emotions and attitudes. These factors are also present in cases of a lack of understanding and misunderstanding. Even if a lack of understanding sometimes is experienced as a challenge and an incentive toward increasing mutual understanding, it is likely that it generally and particularly, if it leads to misunderstanding, is connected with negative emotional reactions. As emotional reactions are usually associated with desires and dispositions toward behavior, the consequence can be that verbal and other actions based on misunderstanding and hasty negative reactions occur. The nature of the further consequences of such actions depends on how great the misunderstanding is, how great the need for communication is of each of the parties, the occurrence of conflicts of interest between the parties, and, not least, the power relation between the parties.

If the misunderstanding is great, the need for communication small, the conflict of interest large, and the power difference small, it is likely that the misunderstanding will lead to some sort of conflict.

Such a conflict can in turn have several different consequences, on an individual level for the individuals that are communicating, and on a group level, one individual’s reaction pattern, in some cases, can become the general one for a larger group of people.

7.4 Interruption and breakdown

A possible reaction to a lack of understanding or a misunderstanding is that the communication is interrupted or breaks down and that one or both of the communicating individuals then refuse to communicate. Another less common consequence of a breakdown is that the individuals are stimulated to try to improve their possibilities for communicating with one another. One of the factors that determine whether the reaction becomes a refusal or motivation for a new attempt is the power relation between the parties. If A has equal power to B, it is easier for A to refuse to communicate with B than if A is dependent upon B. In the same way, if A’s need to communicate with B is not very great, it is also easier for A to refuse to communicate than if A truly needs to communicate with B. Furthermore, A’s and B’s ability to communicate in the language they have chosen is also relevant. If the distance is too great between A’s ability and what is demanded of A for communication with B to be possible, the probability that A will not make further attempts at communication also increases.

7.5 Communication on the conditions of only one party

Another development that is also often related to a power difference between parties is that one of the parties gives up and begins to communicate completely on the conditions of the other party. This pattern is typical for persons from ethnic groups who live in countries in which they are not in the majority and do not belong to the ruling class.

7.6 Communication via a third party

If the need for communication between two parties is great and they are not able to speak each other’s language or do not wish to be brought into a position of inferiority towards the other party, they can choose to communicate via a third party. One of the possibilities is then to use an interpreter. If the parties are very mistrustful of one another, as sometimes is the case at international political negotiations, two interpreters can be used, one for each party. The interpreter’s task is generally difficult as he/she must constantly compromise between being faithful to what has been said and adapting himself/herself to what he/she knows about the level of pre-understanding of the receiver. His/her social position is also insecure because he/she can often be suspected by both parties of having exploited the potential power he/she has in his/her role as a connecting link.

If the communication takes place in written form, one can instead choose a translator as a third party. The translator’s problem is often different from that of the interpretor because he/she does not have immediate access to either the sender or the receiver. He/she must trust his/her general cultural and linguistic competence, and his/her audience is less clear than the interpreter’s. However, as is often pointed out, for example, in [28], the translator’s role as a transmitter of culture can hardly be overestimated. A further possibility occurs if the communicating parties have knowledge of a language that is not the first language of either of the parties. If the need for communication is great enough and the power differences are not too large, they can then choose to use this language. In certain small countries such as Sweden, this has become something of a national strategy, as most people believe they can communicate in English in most contexts.

7.7 Communication on the conditions of both parties

A fourth conceivable communication situation between two parties with a different language and cultural backgrounds is what may be called communication on the conditions of both parties. This can be designed in at least two ways. The first is that an exchange takes place in an alternating manner in the languages of both parties. A’s language is spoken for a while and then B’s language is spoken for a while. This type of communication most often occurs between persons who are relatively equal in terms of power and who also have relatively good competence in the other party’s language. This is thereby a special case of what linguists have called code-switching—see [29]—that is, there is a switching from one language to another in the same conversation.

The term “switching” could also be used for the form of communication that occurs, e.g. in diplomatic negotiations between equally powerful parties. Each of the parties speaks his/her language which, in turn, is translated by an interpreter into the other language.

Another form of communication on the conditions of both parties is what could be called “mixture”. In this case, the boundaries between the two languages in question are not maintained; the parties begin to use forms from each other’s language and a sort of mixed language is created. The probability that this form of communication will arise is greater if the parties are equal with respect to power, do not have good knowledge of each other’s language (over and above what they can pick up online), and have a relatively great need to communicate.

8. Problems on a collective level

The effects on the individual level that I discussed above can also occur on a larger scale on what could be called a collective level, see [30].

8.1 Expulsion and segregation

On a collective level, expulsion and segregation correspond to the individual-level phenomena of interruption and refusal to communicate. Expulsion, which in its most extreme form becomes extermination, is the process by which a powerful group of people chooses, often with violence, to remove a less powerful group of people from their territory. Expulsion has most often been associated with extreme manifestations of ethnic and national identity in the powerful group as well as with far-reaching interruptions in communication between the two groups.

Interruption of communication also characterizes what is usually called segregation, that is, that one group of people, instead of being removed, is isolated and extremely limited in their contact and communication with surrounding groups of people. The groups that are segregated most frequently have less power than those who do the segregating, e.g. Black people in South Africa during apartheid or so-called ghettos in many large cities. However, it also occasionally happens that the segregated group has more power. It is and has been common for the powerful elite in many countries to live in great isolation from the people it tries to control.

In cases where the segregated group has less power, the motivation for segregation is often, although not always, ethnic—national identity. Social segregation occurs somewhat less frequently but is also relatively common (Parias in India, Romanis and vagabonds, drifters, and tramps in Sweden or Buraki in Japan). Even if a segregated group has less power, the reason for its segregation is not always that it is directly forced into segregation by a powerful group. Segregation also often seems to be a socio-political protection mechanism for avoiding being dominated by a stronger group. This is especially the case if segregation is related to ethnic identity.

8.2 Assimilation

On a collective level, assimilation corresponds to an individual giving up and communicating on the other party’s conditions. A dominant group’s pressure on a group with less power does not need to be expressed in expulsion and/or segregation. It can also be expressed in attempts toward assimilation, that is, an attempt to get the group to disappear by handling it in such a way that it becomes dispersed within the dominant group. This has been the primary political direction in Anglo-Saxon-dominated countries of immigration. It has also been a strong political tendency in both the Soviet Union and Russia.

One of the important steps in assimilation policy is directly oriented toward linguistic communication. The group to be assimilated is forbidden to use its language or attempts are made in some other way to ensure that the group cannot do this. Compare the previous prohibition against the Sami and Finnish languages in Swedish schools in Tornedalen or the previous prohibition against Scottish-Gaelic in Scotland.

8.3 Dominance by a third party

We saw on the individual level that one solution to the problem of understanding in intercultural communication is to use a third power, either a language that is foreign to both the communicating parties or a third person—an interpreter or a translator who conveys the contact.

Both these ways of handling problems of understanding can be found on a collective level. The first way probably represents the most common type of intercultural communication in the world today. The communicating parties must use a language that neither of them has mastered sufficiently, such as English. Through the difficulty of attempting to master a third culture’s way of thinking and speaking that is foreign to them both, they are forced to add to the difficulties in understanding that might already exist between them because of differences between their respective background cultures. That which is said must now be interpreted not only with consideration to the background of the speaker but also with consideration to the values and norms of the third, imported culture.

In addition to the relatively obvious negative consequences of using a third language, that is, the greater risks of misunderstanding, there are probably also positive effects such as an equalization of power. Both parties have difficulties and may therefore take a flexible position where certain of the opposing party’s mistakes are excused and where there is greater awareness of the risk of misunderstanding and therefore also greater caution in reacting and acting based on what you have understood. These effects are probably canceled if representatives of the culture whose language is being used, participate as equal discussion partners and may well be replaced by a greater normative focus on the culture whose language is used, which results partly in a greater fear of saying the wrong things (prestige and losing power) and perhaps also in a pressure to consider a greater number of relevant factors. If this analysis is correct, it should then be simpler for Japanese people and Swedish people to carry on bilateral negotiations in English than to carry on trilateral negotiations with participants who have English as their first language. This consequence is probably most clear when there exist conflicts of interest between all three parties but might disappear to some extent if the English-speaking party altruistically puts its language abilities at the disposal of the others.

The language used as the third language in intercultural communication is largely dependent upon political and economic relations of dominance. The groups that have the most money and guns usually succeed in getting others to use their language. Important world languages like—Latin, French, Russian, Spanish, and English—have all initially been based on economic and political dominance. Despite the weakening of the economic and political bases of the Romans and the French, Latin and French have managed to have a more lasting dominance owing to their use in international organizations such as the Catholic church (Latin), the postal services, and the diplomatic corps (French).

Unfortunately, none of the artificial natural languages (as opposed to artificial non-natural languages like computer languages) that have a more idealistic basis, such as Esperanto, Neo, or Ido, have become sufficiently widespread to offer an alternative on the international level. This would probably require a connection based on political power. A first step might be achieved if international organizations such as the U.N. started to use one of these languages. The advantages of the use a non-national state-based third language for intercultural communication could be significant with a considerable effect toward equalizing power and more flexibility, caution, and patience in interpretation, at least initially.

A further problem is that probably none of the present artificial natural languages would be optimal as a global auxiliary language. To serve this purpose, the language should be neutral in relation to the main language groups in the world. This requirement would not be met by, for example, Esperanto, which is completely based on Indo-European languages. In the same way, the language should be neutral in the question of what demands are placed on cultural pre-understanding to use the language. None of the presently existing languages meet this requirement.

The practice of including a third party through the use of interpreters can also be found on a collective level. Certain groups of people have relatively often during the course of history created a role for themselves to their advantage as negotiators of contacts between other groups of people, such as the Phoenicians, Jews, the Hanseatic League or the Venetians. These groups have, exactly as some interpreters, sometimes been able to wield a considerable amount of power through their central role in contact and communication.

8.4 Pluralism and integration

Pluralism and integration correlate on a collective level with the individual-level communication phenomena of code-switching and code mixing.

Pluralism usually calls to mind a pattern in which different groups are given the possibility, and perhaps a certain support, to maintain their distinctive characters without the coercive and defense mechanisms usually associated with segregation or assimilation. On a group level, pluralism can be multilateral, that is, it may equally apply to several different groups. However, in many states, it is more what may perhaps be called “centripetal bilateral” (centripetal force = force pressing from the periphery toward the center). This occurs when there is one majority group in a country and a number of minority groups and the members of the minority groups receive certain support to have freedom of choice between his/her group and the majority group. However, they do not receive support for having freedom of choice between their own and other minority groups, and the members of the majority group do not receive support enabling freedom of choice between the majority culture and one or a number of the minority cultures. The Swedish immigration policy of today, just as traditional US immigration policy, can be said to aim at just this kind of centripetal bilateral pluralism. There is hardly any corresponding centrifugal (centrifugal force = force from the center toward the periphery) bilateral pluralism in Sweden, as the members of the majority group neither receive support for nor try on their own (to any great extent) to become acquainted with the cultures of any of the minority groups.

International organization today mostly adheres to multilateral pluralism, at least regarding five to ten strong nations. That is, representatives of these nations speak their languages and have interpreters translate what others are saying into their languages. Under the condition that an acceptable ideally based artificial natural language could be developed and accepted as the language of these organizations, it would probably be desirable to complement this multilateral pluralistic system with a centripetal, bilateral pluralistic system based on this language. If this were so, it would be possible to utilize the advantages that direct communication gives in combination with the equalization of power.

Pluralism and multiculturalism are often associated with integration which is the case when the exclusive features of different groups start to dissolve and new groups develop which in their culture, mix new and old features. Internationally, integration processes of this type are unusual because they require equality between the integrating parties. The more unequal the situation, the more integration will resemble assimilation. A common case might be labeled “asymmetric integration” where members of one group while maintaining their own culture, to varying extents also become competent in another culture, whose members, however, only stay competitive in their own culture. We can imagine a scale where one extreme is the assimilation of one group into another with a total loss of their culture—total assimilation—and the other extreme is the entering of both groups into a new integrated unit in which the resulting culture contains features of both the previous cultures.

9. Can any of the problems of intercultural communication be avoided?

To investigate whether it is possible to avoid any of the problems of intercultural communication, it is suitable to start with the communication situation itself and analyze why misunderstanding and conflict arise. If you do this, you find that it should be possible to put in preventive measures related to the factors which according to the analysis given above lie behind the problems that can arise. As most of these actions are found to require education and training, they will be goals for education in intercultural communication since if we can speak the language, we can learn from people from another cultural background than our own.

9.1 Awareness and insight into differences between cultures and communication patterns

Since the basic difficulty in intercultural communication is the differences that exist between the producer’s and recipient’s cultural backgrounds and ways of communicating, a first action to reduce the risks of misunderstanding would be to gather good insight into the differences and similarities that exist. Although differences between cultural and communication patterns are in focus, similarities should not be ignored as they form a general human base that can be used to solve some of the difficulties in intercultural communication.

As the road to insight for many people goes through education and training, the first goal for education in intercultural communication is to give:

1. Overall information about how cultural patterns can be similar and different. This type of information is meant to give a general preparation for what can happen in intercultural communication and should include as many as possible of the points named above.

2. Specific information about the characteristics of a particular culture. This type of information is necessary as a complement to the first type for a person who will have contact with people from the culture in question.

9.2 Flexible attitudes toward differences in culture and communication patterns

As emotion and will are so closely connected with the process of understanding, no education in intercultural communication should ignore these factors. If there is no empathy and desire to adapt to the other party, better insight into the differences between cultural patterns will not necessarily lead to better understanding. There are several studies that show that more information does not always positively influence negative attitudes and biases. See example [31] which is a report from a Swedish parliamentary committee on discrimination. In some way, feeling and desires must also be influenced.

This requires experience that leads to greater empathy for other cultural patterns and for the difficulties experienced by those who are trying to come closer to your cultural patterns. For this to happen through education, the studies need to include methods that can appeal to emotion, desire, and action. One such method is role play. It would be very valuable to try to develop role play as an aid in teaching intercultural communication. Another type of education that seems to increase empathy and understanding is the teaching of co-existence found in international children’s camps and international work camps. A third type of experience that points in this direction is international exchange programs for students, for example, AFS, Rotary, Lions, ERASMUS, SOCRATES, People to People, and Nord Plus.

One feature of the ability to adapt to other people’s cultural patterns is the ability to form a common social identity with the person with whom one is speaking. We are both fathers, teachers, businessmen, or interested in stamps. Keeping in mind that there are many more possible foci of identity than national or ethnic identity will very likely facilitate mutual adaptation and understanding. This is probably not the case if we neglect similarities and focus on the potential differences that can surface when the emphasis is on national or ethnic identity.

9.3 Ability and skill

The most far-reaching goal of intercultural education is to give people the ability and skill to live in other cultures and exercise other communication patterns. For this type of education, training in the language of the new culture is clearly of the greatest importance. Training and education in a foreign language is education in intercultural communication since we can speak the language, and we learn with people from another cultural background than our own.

To serve as an effective instrument for intercultural communication, language instruction must place greater importance on how a language is tied to a cultural pattern. Beyond traditional written language instruction, much greater consideration must be given to the conditions for understanding, that is, what sort of preunderstanding is normally required among large groups of people in a culture. Greater consideration should also be given to factors that are decisive in face-to-face interaction, such as body communication, intonation, feedback, and turn-taking.

Language instruction that contains more of these components would have the possibility much more so than is the case today to be a support for the individual who gradually with the help of the learned language will begin some type of intercultural communication.

10. Concluding remarks

In a world increasingly characterized by contact over national and ethnic boundaries, we have no choice, for the foreseeable future, but to communicate interculturally. This paper, therefore, presents an overview of a model for intercultural communication which hopefully might be useful both for continued research and practical training. The model stresses, for example, the following features which are less common in other accounts:

1. The model is open to the fact that there are similarities as well as differences between people across cultures and that this greatly facilitates communication.

2. There is an emphasis on actual communicative behavior, which is mostly linguistic, rather than merely on common attitudes and values which are the focus in most other accounts, like [1, 2].

3. The model is open to the fact that culture is continuously changing and that all cultural generalizations therefore also need to be updated continuously. It is also open to the fact cultural variation can sometimes be greater within than between a national-ethnic units. In line with this, the model is further open to the fact that other factors than cultural beliefs, attitudes and values can influence communication.

In addition, I have also tried to point to some of the problems and solutions related to intercultural communication. Most of the solutions involve openness and flexibility and the realization that cultural generalizations, whether they are statistical or merely stereotypical concern a group level and that therefore, in analyzing cases of actual communication, we should always be open to the possibility that the persons analyzed do not conform to the generalizations. The model thus primarily provides a basis that always must be modulated by the circumstances at hand.

Finally, I have tried to link features of the level of individual intercultural interaction with phenomena like assimilation, integration, or segregation which are features of collective multicultural and intercultural social organization.

Acknowledgments

I would like to warmly thank the following people for valuable discussions of the contents of this paper: Teresa Allwood, Elisabeth Ahlsén, and Sven Strömqvist. Furthermore, I would like to thank Christina Andersson and Gunilla Wetter for their help in getting the paper into readable shape. A special thanks for the help with the translation to Janet Vesterlund and Susan Szmania.

Additional information

This paper is a revised and translated version of [32].