The difficulties of intercultural communication

In today’s world every one of us has to deal with people from another culture every now and then. Whether it is in a business environment, on holiday, in the street, on the phone or on the internet. Most of the time we use English as a lingua franca, a language that both persons speak so that they are able to communicate but for neither one of them it is their mother tongue. The fact that we can communicate in the same language already makes the matter less complicated, we are not stuck on strange translation and don’t depend on a third person or a dictionary. This does however not take away the other problem that’s present, the fact that each person can interpret a text in a different manner. This depends on age, surroundings, culture, and many more factors. Since we are all form different cultures and surrounding the question is how we can take away this barrier as much as possible while we ourselves are not objective either?

A Dutch psychologist and sociologist called Geert Hofstede studied this subject intensively. He wrote multiple books on the subject in collaboration with other experts in this field. He succeeded in creating a list of factors that puts a country in a specific place in a table, so that we can compare countries and especially their culture and values in the most objective way possible. The factors he compared are hierarchy and power distance, the individual and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, avoidance of uncertainty, planning on the long and short term and indulgence. By being able to compare countries to each other we can find out if for example in Spain the individual is more important that the common good and so we can adapt our behavior accordingly. The same goes for knowing if for example Australians are encouraged to take risks or if they are afraid of change and won’t quickly go for something if the outcome isn’t sure.

To understand this system a little better we have to take a better look at the dimensions Geert Hofstede proposes. First of all power distance. This takes into account if in a society, both on a professional and on a private level, hierarchy is important. Does everyone know their place and stays there and only moves up with the permission of a person higher up or is it a freer environment where everyone can come up with ideas and be criticized? The results of this calculation show that Malaysia knows the biggest power distance, with an overall high score for Asian countries. Eastern European countries also score very high on this index. On the other side, at the bottom, we find Austria, Denmark, Israel and mainly North European and Anglo-Saxon countries.

The second dimension is the importance of the individual and the importance of a group. In some countries it is seen as normal to work for personal gain and not interest yourself in the people you run into on the way. In other countries the wellbeing of a group, whether it’s a cultural group, a family or friends is more important than the wellbeing of one individual. Countries we find at the top of individualism are the United States and most North European and Anglo-Saxon countries such as Canada, the Netherlands and Great Britain. Countries that are noted as the most group centered are Asian countries such as Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea but even more collectivism centered are the South American countries such as Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. Pakistan is also noted as one of the most group centered countries, as one of the only ones from the Muslim world, Middle East and Africa.

Masculinity and femininity is the third dimension. This dimension shouldn’t be interpreted in the literal way. Geert Hofstede doesn’t mean that all men are masculine and all women feminine. He merely tries to categorize countries using traditional values. This means that a masculine society focusses on power and success are important for men and quality of living is important for women whereas in a feminine society people are supposed to be humble and focused on the quality of living rather than material success. At the top of the masculinity index we find Slovakia, Japan, Hungary, Austria and Venezuela. Around the middle we find France, Turkey, and Iran and at the bottom we find the Scandinavian countries, Latvia and the Netherlands. The countries at the top share the heritage of the British culture, as old colonies for example.

The next dimension is the avoidance of uncertainty. Are people encouraged or discouraged to take a risk, qui their job and try something else, move somewhere else, etc. Countries where taking a risk is highly discouraged are Greece, Portugal, France, Guatemala, Russia, Japan. Countries where taking a risk is seen as a positive thing are countries such as Jamaica, Singapore, Denmark, Sweden, Hong Kong, Vietnam, China and Great Britain.

Moving onto long term and short term planning. In some cultures it is very important to show your face, spending money is not a problem, marriage is a moral question, and children can be raised by others. These countries are defined as short term planning. Countries with long term planning are supposed to save their money, strive for flexibility, marriage is a practical matter, respect for circumstances and being ready to be subordinate to reach a goal. The cultures that score the highest on the long term planning are South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, Ukraine and Germany. Most central European and old soviet countries follow just after whereas we start seeing South American countries only at the bottom, as the most short term planning countries. This also goes for Muslim countries, the Middle East and Africa. At the bottom we find Puerto Rico, Ghana, Egypt, Trinidad and Nigeria. Most European countries are somewhere in the middle.

The last dimension is indulgence versus restraint. This dimension shows us if a person feels free to make their own luck, if they feel happy, and if they feel like they are in control of their own life. The countries that score the highest here are Central and South American countries; Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Colombia. After this comes a list of most northern European countries and some African countries such as Nigeria. At the bottom of this list we find most old Soviet countries and central European countries, Muslim Countries and also quite some Asian countries.

Now that we have seen all the dimension being taken into account we need to ask ourselves how we can use them. We can’t carry around a book to check the results in whenever we meet a person from another country. What we can do however is take some time to analyze the results and make a division in our head. It is not good to generalize but try to have an idea in your head of what is important for each continent, and if you can divide the continents into smaller parts. By knowing that for example Greece scores high on the masculinity scale and that Greeks are discouraged to take risks shows you that power is important in Greece but you have to be careful if you bring a proposal to a Greek person because they don’t like to take risks. If you have time to prepare yourself before meeting a person from another culture try to organize yourself, see what is normal in their country and don’t assume that this person will be exactly the same but know that these values are part of their background. Intercultural communication is always difficult because we don’t know the specific situation of the other person, and we also have to take gestures and facial expressions into account but Geert Hofstede helps us to have a minimal understanding of other countries, cultures and their values.

If you are interested in seeing the results for all the countries and comparing them you can click on this link and see more, this is an example of how France scores on the six dimensions: https://geert-hofstede.com/france.html

By Vera Donker

What happens to a person’s behaviour when he or she speaks more than one language?

By Vera Donker

It is often said that a person who is fluent in more than one language does not have the exact same personality in each of these languages. How is it possible that we are not the exact same person when we speak in English as when we speak in Chinese for example? Does it depend on the surroundings, the structure of the language, our ease when speaking a language, or something completely different? And more importantly, does is have positive or negative effects on our behaviour and the results we get while engaging in another language?

The obvious advantages of being bilingual are being able to perform executive functions better (functions that demand planning and prioritising), the possibility to talk with another person in a language that suits their needs better, the prevention of dementia in an older age and the possibility of having multiple personalities and thus different worldviews.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf               (1897-1941)

In the 20th century, an American linguist named Benjamin Lee Whorf held that every language encodes a worldview that is specific to a language and the culture of its speakers. There are two version of this vision, a strong form which supposes that language determines thought and a weak form that says that language influences thoughts and decisions. Many researches have done research about these ideas and most of them have concluded that there is no real proof for the idea that language defines our personality. This does, however, not mean that researches deny that the languages we speak have an influence on how we act and think.

                  Lera Boroditsky                    Cognitive scientist and Professor

Lera Boroditsky of Stanford University says that while language is a central part of cognition, there is nothing magical about how language shapes thought. Languages shape our thinking in the same ways that going to medical school or learning to fly a plane also build expertise and transform the way we can do. According to her different languages encourage different kinds of cognitive expertise in their speakers, and as a result, speakers of different languages end up thinking differently. An example of this is that in the Chinese language there is no way to express the future using verbs. A result of this is that for Chinese people the future seems closer to today than it does to for example an English speaker. The influence of this grammatical structure is that Chinese people save more money for their future than English people, the Chinese are 30% more likely to save money in any given year. An explanation is given by behaviour economist Keith Chen. He says that in English the future seems more distant from the present and that makes that we’re less motivated to save money.

There are many explanations as to why a bilingual person can act different in each of the two languages. Most of all because the person doesn’t necessarily have to be bicultural too, depending on the way and time we learn the second language we can speak a second language but not feel engaged in the culture as much as in our first language and culture. Another explanation is that even when a person is bicultural each language can evoke different feelings. Speaking one language can create a feeling of stress for example when it’s the language we use professionally while another language can create a feeling of feeling at home if it’s the language we use to talk to our family. Another reason for a difference in behaviour in different languages is the grammatical structure of a sentence. In some languages the verb can be found at the beginning of the sentence, like in Greek, and this makes it easier for another person to interrupt because they already have to most important information after just one word.

We can thus conclude that speaking more than one language does not necessarily mean that we act in the same manner when speaking them. It shows us the influence of our surroundings and the importance of grammar. What we should always keep in mind when speaking another language is that culture is also a very important part of how we speak and what we say.
For example, Dutch people are known for being very direct and impolite in some countries, but for the Dutch it is more impolite to waist somebody’s time with useless information and formalities than it is to ask directly for something. Some Asian cultures are acting the opposite way. When meeting someone there are many courtesies and formalities you have to keep in mind. A person will also never tell you no directly, they will diverse the conversation or say yes when they mean no just to end the conversation. If you can understand these nuances and behavioural rules depends on what you know about the culture and the language.

The most important thing to keep in mind when speaking more than one language is that you don’t only have to know how to speak the language but also how to engage in a conversation with local people, accept and learn about the culture and be careful not to use the same approach as you would in your mother tongue. There are people specialised in learning you how to deal with people from other cultures and languages, it is a mistake to think that this is not important. Whilst knowing how to speak a language is an important part of being able to communicate with local people, facial expressions, gestures and formulations of sentences are just as important and need to be learned for each language that we speak.
Even if knowing how to speak other languages doesn’t mean we master the culture that comes with it too, being able to speak multiple languages affects the structure of the mind in terms of categorization, memory, perception and self-perception. These are useful skills for anyone who works in a business environment and should encourage everyone to try to learn the languages that seem useful to them, because even if we don’t use them every day, they help us in many ways, both on a personal and a professional level.

5 Principles for Learning Languages

By Gonzalo Este, 

Chris Lonsdale is a psychologist, linguist scientist, and educator. He wrote the book "the third ear", based on his studies and experience on learning different languages in the most effective way possible. Londsdale provides from there a series of procedures to follow, in order to learn any language in 6 month, regardless of talents. 

Lonsdale talks about immersion in another countries culture being one of the crucial factors into learning a language. But he also asks, what is true immersion? We can see just in Paris, countless people that after years of being in France haven’t learned the language. So why does this happen? What is truly behind learning a language. 

Lonsdale talks about 5 principles: 

1 – Relevancy: Are the things you learn relevant to you? If you are learning just by reading grammar, your mind won’t remain motivated. Relevance will help our brain to keep motivated. A new language implies learning countless variables and combinations, it’s essential to find what can keep us motivated, be it a particular subject, or even a dream we want to concrete. 

2- Communicate: Lansdale talks about using immediately the language we learned, even if we just started. Actually trying to send a message is what puts our brain into function. Our brain remembers names more easily because the effort of trying to say something emulates the effort we did as we were kids learning our mother tongue.

3- Comprehensive impute: 1000 words imply an 85% of words used in a language. 3000 are a 95%.  This tells us it’s much more important to understand a message than learning by memory countless words.

4- Talk: Forty-three muscles are used for talking. And many are used more in one language than another. Talking will get you used to it and also will help to memorize words.

5- Positive Psychological state: Chris talks to us about this being the most important attribute. When we are learning, being relaxed puts the brain in a curious state. It’s no wonder that play is the natural way of learning of most mammals. 

These principles are part of what molds our English Program. We want to provide to our travelers a meaningful experience, that will allow them to construct the foundations to the most effective way of learning a language and it's surrounding culture. These foundations are provided by teaching language tools during the morning, and providing a set of activities for the student to choose from at the afternoon, tours that will allow him to use the language in matters that interest him, living the nightlife with local people putting into motion his communication skills, visiting the artistic side of the city he desires to see.

 As Lansdale said, Relevancy and Positive Psychological state are truly important, and doing the activities you desire, in a new challenging new environment, will provide you motivation during, and for years to come. Going to a country to follow a program isn’t enough. Immersion implies study, but as well a positive adventure.

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