Read the second part of the text carefully and identify its main ideas.

IS THERE AN ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTERCULTURAL AND INTRACULTURAL COMMUNICATION? [9] Part II

 

Porter and Samovar offer the following characterization of culture: " Culture is the deposit of knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, timing, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a large group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving." They consider that culture plays the dictating role in human communication. It acts as the code according to which people encode and decode the messages. The founding role of culture is even compared with the functioning program of electronic computers. As they put it, "As we program computers to do what they do, our culture to a great extent programs us to do what we do and to be what we are."

In the light of the model of communication put forward by Porter and Samovar, when it comes to intercultural communication, a message is encoded by one individual according to his own cultural code; while another individual from another culture is facing the difficult task of having to decode the message with the possession of a different cultural code. Consequently, the message can easily be lost, misinterpreted or distorted. As Porter and Samovar remark, "[w]hen a message reaches the culture where it is to be decoded, it undergoes a transformation in which the influence of the decoding culture becomes a part of the message meaning. The meaning content of the original message becomes

modified during the decoding phase on intercultural communication because the culturally different repertory of communicative behavior and meanings possessed by the decoder does not contain the same cultural meanings possessed by the encoder." When culture is regarded as a consistent and seamless system on the basis of which communication is conducted, the conclusion can be easily drawn that human communicative practices are necessarily difficult when the individuals come from different cultures.

The analogy with the computer program highlights the sense of mechanisticity of the picture of human intercourse as delineated by Porter and Samovar. I argue to the contrary that human communication is not such a machinelike process of encoding and decoding of messages. There is not a cultural code lying hidden in one’s mind ready to program feelings, intentions and ideas into messages with clear and distinct meanings. Besides, it is confusing to conceptualize culture as a certain entity with a determinate content and a clear boundary.

People who grow up in different political, geographical and social environment, use different languages, and adhere to different living habits are often said to have different cultures. These cultures tend to be conceived as homogeneous and static totalities enclosed on their own and isolated from each other. Consequently, an individual is seen as more or less determined in terms of ways of cognition, values, verbal and nonverbal behavior, and so on, by the cultural community he is said to belong. These characterizations, however, are highly idealistic. It is true that languages, customs, and habits can be very different, but there will always be a degree of similarity or analogy between them. Both differences and similarities are not absolute, but occur or should be seen in terms of concrete manifestations of certain aspects. Moreover, these difference and similarities are always open to more concrete determinations or substantial revisions. Therefore, it is misleading to think of them in terms of differences and similarities between hypostatized "cultures". In his article "Can We Understand Ourselves", Peter Winch has pointed out clearly the nonsense of the surmise that cultures can be distinguished from each other.

It is in any case misleading to distinguish in a wholesale way between ‘our own’ and ‘alien’ cultures; parts of ‘our’ culture may be quite alien to one of ‘us’; indeed some parts of it may be more alien than cultural manifestations which are geographically or historically remote.

It is true that human beings grow up in a particular society, but it is not the case that they are mere puppets programmed in conformity with a certain cultural code, of which they have no control. Individuals are exposed in a huge variety of ways to different aspects of what is supposed to be 'the same culture'. And they respond to occasions of communication in very different ways. Fundamentally, communication is a matter of face-to-face meeting of humans with flesh and blood, with actions, reactions and judgments of various sorts. It is not a meeting of effigies or incarnations of ‘different’ cultures.

The false presupposition that cultures are essentially differentiated from one another finds one of its strongest support in the idea that language is constitutive of culture. That is to say that language shapes and informs the thought, worldview, or conceptual scheme of the people using the very language. This is what is called linguistic idealism in the field of philosophy, or, in the area of linguistic anthropology, closely associated with the Sapir-Whorf thesis. However, this is at bottom a very deterministic view of language. One consequence of this view is the widely prevailing idea that there is a principled difference between speaking a native language and speaking a non-native language.

In his critique directed at the Augustinian picture of language in the opening passages of his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein points out that Augustine overlooks the role of training in language acquisition. Augustine presupposes the existence of a language of thought whereby the child is already able to think before being able to speak. However, in the early stages of a child’s acquiring a language what plays the prominent role is training. At that time there is not yet room for guessing the meaning of an utterance. This kind of ‘guessing’ sometimes is typically seen in learning a second language. But here lies an important source of confusion. Although presupposing a language of thought makes learning and using a second language more similar to learning and using a native language (since the language of thought is the only 'native' language), it does not follow that in the

absence of a language of thought there is a fundamental difference between learning or using a second language and learning or using a native language. In the first place, one can hardly make a clear-cut distinction between the learning processes of a native and a non-native language. It is not the case that all usages of a native language are taught single-handedly by training, or by taking part in the forms of life, so to speak, while in contrast all usages of a second-language are acquired by ‘theoretically motivated’ guessing. It is quite obvious that one learns different aspects of a native language in a variety of ways: ostensive teaching, guessing, composing, and so on. On the other hand, a second-language is frequently taught by means of ostensive teaching, initiating one into a life-form. This is the feature typical of native language teaching. In the second place, it is far from convincing to assume an essential difference between the relation of a speaker towards his native language and that of a speaker towards a second language. Wittgenstein detects this kind of problem in the following passage:

Just as Germanisms creep into the speech of a German who speaks English well although he does not first construct the German expression and then translate it into English; just as this makes him speak English as if he were translating ‘unconsciously’ from the German – so we often think as if our thinking were founded on a thought-schema: as if we were translating from a more primitive mode of thought into ours.

When a German who has a good command of English speaks the second language, sometimes there might be features of his own native language reflected in his speaking: pronunciation, the order of words, etc.. This gives the illusion that he was unconsciously translating German sentences into English one. Granted that sometimes a German expression occurs to him first and then he tries to find out the English correlate, which might well happen when he is unsure about the English, it would be totally wrong to attribute a special translating process to him, as a second language. There is no such fictional mental process, just as one does not simply translates one’s thought into one’s native language.

A further supposition regarding the special status of a native language is that the native speaker has a unique feeling of attachment towards his language. This might well be the case for some people, but this feeling, if there is one, is always attributed on account of concrete manifestations. Besides, it is not necessarily one’s native language towards which people may show attachment. Such examples as the way in which one cares for one's diction, the way in which one treats a piece of calligraphy hanging on the wall, manifest one’s attitudes towards a language. Empirically speaking, it is not unusual to see people having special feeling towards a non-native language. Theoretically speaking, there is no reason to reify such feelings and then use this reified entity as a man-made obstacle to distance intercultural communication from intracultural communication.

I will try to illustrate the above points concerning the alleged intrinsic differences between native and non-native language by using Wittgenstein’s notion of language-game. Using language, according to Wittgenstein, simply belongs with our human forms of life. Language may or may not be used in all sorts of activities. Such language-involved activities as commanding, questioning, storytelling and chatting, for Wittgenstein, "are as much a part of our natural history" as such nonlinguistic activities as walking, eating, drinking and playing. Language-game [ Sprachspiel ] is a device Wittgenstein employs to help us obtain a perspicuous overview of language and communication. It is a technical term used to refer to countless activities in which language is used, such as "giving orders, and obeying them", "describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements", "reporting an event", "play-acting", etc. The language-game with the builders is perhaps the most well known one Wittgenstein puts forward. He asks us to imagine such a primitive language:

The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building-stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words "block", "pillar", "slab", "beam". A calls them out; -- B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call.

In this language-game, which is first and foremost an activity of building, there is no such things as meaning or signification as an object or a mental image referred to. The expression "This

word signifies (means) this", as Wittgenstein argues, is used as a way to describe the uses of the words. Understanding simply rests on acting in "such-and-such" a way upon hearing a call. For example, to fetch a slab on hearing the call "Slab!". By introducing the concept of language-game, Wittgenstein aims to show that communication is not a matter of mental act of meaning transference. Instead, we always have to examine it in relation to the actual activity conducted against a particular background. Furthermore, for Wittgenstein, language is not an enclosed entity with a clear boundary. It always keeps developing and transforming. Wittgenstein compares it to an ancient city, with "a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses."

Now consider an extended version of Wittgenstein’s language-game of builders. Suppose a foreigner joins the builders and learns what they are doing. He brings a block at the order of "Block!", a "pillar" at the order "Pillar!", and so on. He also learns to give orders by uttering "Block!", "Pillar!", etc.. Probably in the beginning he might pronounces the words oddly, and so his helper has to ask him to say that again. But anyway, the building activity goes on. Is there any substantial reason to say that the language-game in which there is no foreigner participating is essentially different from the one which involves a foreigner? Both cases require a certain training, and hence mutual interaction, including attunement as well as contestation. From the fact that the foreigner has a different native language, or comes from a different culture, it does not follow that communication becomes qualitatively different. Both cases are activities in which human beings participate and cooperate with each other using a certain language. We can well take a further step and imagine that the foreigner brings some part of the vocabulary of his native language into the building activity. Hence, instead of "block", "pillar", "slab" and "beam", the language takes up the form "block", " zhushi ", "slab" and " tiaoshi ". In this case, would the builders be speaking the same language or speaking different languages?

Originally language is just used in human communicative actions. And it is a long time after a language has been in use that the process of standardization sets in. Grammars are established, dictionaries compiled, ways of learning the written language made into stereotypes. All these standardizations give one the misleading idea that languages are countable things clearly distinguished from each other, and that language and culture are isomorphic. This is far from being the case. One cannot afford to ignore the fact that people who use what is supposed to be the same language have quite different social customs and habits, and that people who speak different languages are quite similar in many respects.

In a word, it is wrong to take language, culture (and thought) as reified entities and thus accordingly draw a demarcation between intracultural and intercultural communication. As a matter of fact, the term intracultural communication is parasitic on the term intercultural communication to be used as its oppositional correlate. If one regards communication as concrete activities in which humans interact with and respond to each other, would something "essential" be left out that has to added in order to say something about intercultural communication in addition to intracultural communication?! Consider the language-game of the builders with different language background, to what extent will this extended language-game diverge from the "original" one?

The language-game of the builders might be considered as a kind of thought experiment of how people, either from the same culture or from different cultures communicate with each other. Real life encounters might be far more complicated. How complicated they are, is always subject to a particular empirical, concrete situation. But no matter how the complications of speaking very different languages or having grown up in very different environments may cause particular hurdles to intercultural communication, a basic example such as the intercultural builders' language-game proves that there is no principled difference between intracultural and intercultural communication. On the other hand, speaking the same language is undeniably no guarantee for getting oneself freed from coming across particular hurdles of "intracultural communication", which can be equally fraught with misunderstanding and even conflict.

Whatever the case might be in terms of complexity of concrete situations, successful communication involves a certain sense of empathy. Empathy is not just a matter of projecting one’s

own state of mind into the other person, or being capable of feeling what the other person feels. It centers upon a readiness to accept the other person as one’s fellow being, to participate in the feelings and volitions of the other human being. Not merely in the sense of ‘to feel with’ or ‘to feel like’, empathy should be taken in the sense of ‘to live with’. This sense of empathy is well conveyed in the following remark by Wittgenstein: "My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul." On this remark, P. Winch has an illuminating comment:

The situation is not that I first recognize my common humanity with others and that this recognition then provides the intellectual justification for my response to certain modalities in my dealings with them. On the contrary it is a recognition which is itself a function of those responses.

For human communication to happen, there is a primordial rapport between one another as fellow human beings. This rapport is not an abstract mental behavior of judgment whereby one consciously recognizes the other’s person’s humanity. To the contrary, the rapport, or empathy, is a kind of comportment towards each other in engaging in a certain activity. Only on the basis of these communal activities do human beings obtain a higher level of judgment concerning one another’s character, intentions, habits, and preferences. But the empathetic rapport always underlies the very initial seeing or hearing of one another.

In conclusion, communication is always a matter of interpersonal action and reaction, not mechanistic encoding and decoding of mental states. To draw an unsurpassable boundary line between intercultural and intracultural communication in terms of difference of language being spoken and difference of culture conceived as enclosed from within proves to be a betrayal of what actually happens in human daily interactions. It is groundless to speak of an essential difference between communication which involves the same language, and communication which concerns people who have lived geographically far apart and hence might prima facie have different customs and habits. Both intercultural and intracultural communication happen at a certain location where there is an encounter of humans in a particular environment. Both involve clusters of language-games and aspects of culture with varying degrees of similarity and difference. Both depend on mutual attunements, contestations and negotiations. It is not the case either theoretically or empirically that intracultural communication is necessarily more opaque than intercultural communication. To assume an essential difference between the two is to set up fictional barriers between groups of people. This practice will bring along harmful consequences, both in the theoretical field and in the reality of mundane interpersonal encounters.

 

2. Answer the questions based on the text:

- How do Porter and Samovar characterize culture?

- In what way do the scientists compare culture with the functioning program of electronic computers?

- What is the major problem of decoding the message in the process of intercultural communication?

- Why does the author of the article disagree with Porter and Samovar and call their model of intercultural communication mechanistic?

- How do you understand the phrase: “Communication is a matter of face-to-face meeting of humans with flesh and blood, with actions, reactions and judgments of various sorts. It is not a meeting of effigies or incarnations of ‘different’ cultures”?

- What does the author say about people’s special feelings towards their native language? Do you share her ideas?

- Can you describe Wittgenstein’s language-game? What does it illustrate?

- How does a foreigner change the Wittgenstein’s language-game?

- Why does the author call a term “intercultural communication” parasitic? What are her arguments?

- What is empathy? How does it influence the communication in concrete situation?