Interpreting Other Cultures

Question 1

What does the greek word ‘hermeneutics’ mean?

Answer 1

The translation and interpretation of what is ‘foreign’ to us in terms we can understand.

Question 2

What is hermeneutic interpretation?

Answer 2

What occurs when a really or apparently unfamiliar cultural meaning is made intelligible.

Question 3

What are the 4 types of hermeneutic interpretations?

Answer 3

Religious, Literary, Historical and Intercultural hermeneutics.

Question 4

What is Religious hermeneutics?

Answer 4

Interpretation of the Bible, Koran etc.

Question 5

What is Literary hermeneutics?

Answer 5

Interpretations of novels, poems etc.

Question 6

What is Historical hermeneutics?

Answer 6

Interpreting meaning of past civilisations, times etc.

Question 7

What is Intercultural hermeneutics?

Answer 7

Interpreting cultures of which we are not familiar.

Question 8

What is an example of Intercultural hermeneutics?

Answer 8

Translation.

When we translate from one language to another, we do not just translate words, but also the cultural concepts needed to understand them.

Translation is a hermeneutic process: making the ‘home’ culture understood in the ‘target’ culture and vice-versa.

Question 9

What is Ethnography?

Answer 9

Ethnography = the observation and interpretation of cultures through the understanding of cultural signs.

Question 10

What is the role of the Ethnographer?

Answer 10

To observe a culture as a participant observer in it and interpret the cultural meaning/ significance behind cultural, rituals, symbols thus observed.

Question 11

Describe what anthropologists and ethnographers mean by Emic

Answer 11

It is an aspect of a culture which is meaningful only/ principally to persons within that culture (culture-specific)

Question 12

Describe what anthropologists and ethnographers mean by Etic

Answer 12

It is an aspect of a culture that is not just specific to any culture (but is generalizable or universal).

Question 13

What does Clifford Geertz describe culture as?

Answer 13

A context within which we interpret signs.

‘Interworked systems of construable signs’ (P.14, The Interpretation of Cultures)

Question 14

‘Culture is not a power, something to which social events, behaviours, institutions, or processes can be causally attributed; it is a context, something within which they can be intelligibly …. described.’

Answer 14

(Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, P.14)

Question 15

What does Simmel’s 1908 seminal essay ‘Der Fremde’ (The Outsider, Stranger) describe?

Answer 15

The attitude of ‘objectivity’ required by ethnographer.

1) Attitude is a combination of: ‘distance and nearness, indifference and involvement’.
2) Outsider develops an attitude of objectivity: ‘the objective individual is bound by no commitments which could prejudice his perception, understanding, and evaluation of the given’. When we visit/live in another culture we may adopt the role of an outsider.

Question 16

What does Geertz describe the aim of ethnography to be?

Answer 16

The aim of ethnography is to produce ‘thick description’. He describes what is going on at the detailed level in a culture (the signs and symbols), and the ‘imaginative universe’ in which it operates.

‘Thick’ description of baseball or cricket (for someone unfamiliar with it) = the specifics of how to play the game + a general description of cultural context (the imaginative universe)

Question 17

From a semiotic perspective, what do cultural rituals, habits, events, facial expressions etc. signify about the culture/inhabitants which/who produce(s) them and their beliefs?

Answer 17

Is there a universal (etic) relationship between emotion and facial expression?

Etic aspects: seemingly 6 basic ‘pan-cultural’ emotions universally recognised

1) Anger 2) Fear 3) Happiness
4) Sadness 5) Disgust 6) Surprise

Question 18

Are there emic aspects of cultural habits e.g. facial expressions?

Answer 18

There are also emic aspects of facial expression:

“Several recent ethnographies have demonstrated that emotions that appear to be universal may actually work differently across cultures.” (Haidt and Keltner Culture and Facial Expression, Cognition and Emotion, 19 (3),1999).

Basic facial expressions may be etic, but the context of meaning in a particular culture may be emic.

Question 19

According to E.T Hall (in context) what is required by the hearer/receiver to ‘de-code’ its full meaning?

Answer 19

The amount of information or the environment surrounding a communication event.

Question 20

What can context (according to E.T Hall) include?

Answer 20

Non-verbal communication, dress, space, arrangement of furniture hierarchy, time and expectations of it.

Question 21

In 1959, what did E.T Hall classify cultures in to?

Answer 21

‘High’ and ‘Low’ context cultures.

Cultures seen as common ways of thinking and acting, different forms of ‘in-group communication’.

Question 22

What is the importance of appropriateness of response to messages in different cultures?

Answer 22

Understanding context of communication:

‘The essence of effective cross-cultural communication has more to do with releasing the right responses rather than with sending the “right” messages’ (Hall)

Question 23

What are contextual factors?

Answer 23

Physical environment (e.g. workplace, home), superior/subordinate relationships, attitudes and emotions (e.g. open emotional display or not), body language, dress.

Question 24

‘A high-context (HC) communication or message is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or is internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message’

Answer 24

(Neuliep p.52)

Question 25

Describe High context cultures, according to E.T Hall?

Answer 25

Language often transmits very little in the explicit message

Cultures have extensive information networks among family, colleagues, clients

Use indirect and often non-verbal signs
‘reading between the lines’ is often necessary to interpret the meaning of messages.

Question 26

What are ‘Collectivistic’ cultures?

Answer 26

They are usually high context (group takes precedence over individual) e.g. Far East, Arab countries, ‘Mediterranean’ cultures (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal)

Question 27

Describe Low context cultures, according to E.T Hall?

Answer 27

Messages that are explicit, that state clearly what is wanted or expected directness in communication is valued.

Tendency towards compartmentalization of aspects of day-to-day life (e.g. work/private).

Question 28

What are ‘individualistic’ cultures?

Answer 28

(Individual takes precedence over group) e.g. Anglo-Saxon countries, Germany, Scandinavia.

Question 29

What are the main differences that emerge between ‘High’ and ‘Low’ context cultures?

Answer 29

Different negotiating styles.
Different priorities attached to schedules or deadlines.
Different channels of information flow (formal or informal networks).

Persons from high-context cultures often interpret the preference for directness in low-context cultures as ‘aggression’.

Persons from low-context cultures often interpret the indirectness of high-context cultures as ‘evasiveness’ or ‘inability to get to the point’.

Question 30

Describe Space in terms of Context.

Answer 30

Invisible boundaries that determine personal space and interaction (Proxemics)

Immediate = 1.5ft 
Personal = 4ft
Social = 9ft

Question 31

Describe Time in terms of Context.

Answer 31

Attitudes to past, present and future.

Question 32

What is the Polychronic time concept?

Answer 32

Simultaneous occurrence of many things is normal.

Emphasis on human transactions and their value as ‘investment’ in time, rather than strictly keeping to schedules.

People comfortable about changing plans often and easily.

Question 33

What are the main focuses of the Polychronic time concept?

Answer 33

Multiple activities at once. 
Flexible approach to time. 
No strict agenda.
Focus on relationship. 
Relationship's are more important to job. 
Promptness based on relationships.

Question 34

What are the main focuses of the Monochronic time concept?

Answer 34

One thing at a time. 
Rigid approach to time. 
Strict agenda. 
Focus on task. 
Completion of job most important. 
Emphasize promptness.

Question 35

Does high and low context culture theory have an effect on polarizing cultures?

Answer 35

US often seen as paradigmatic ‘low context culture’: open, unambiguous, clear.

Japan/Far East as paradigmatic ‘high context culture’: mysterious, ‘exotic’ (is this a stereotype?)

Westerners see themselves as ‘rational’ and ‘transparent’ in business > difference confirms their believed superiority?