Fundamentals of Intercultural Communication - Essay Example

Running Head: SIMMEL’S STRANGER & ICC FUNDAMENTALS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION (ICC) Simmel’s ‘The Stranger’ This paper is focused on thedifferent dimensions and evolution of intercultural communication with respect to George Simmel’s’ extraordinary writing, “The Stranger”. The concepts used in this marvelous piece of writing have been the chief source of deriving the complex synthesis and implementation of intercultural communication. The major focus will be on effective communication. Introduction “Intercultural communication” is a diverse topic of in-depth research which gained its significance during 1960s and has been a major subject matter of different fields of study like Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics and various other branches of social sciences (Scollon, Scollon and Jones, 2012, p. 46). Before moving into the realm of intercultural communication a short hypothesis about what is “culture” and what is “communication” entails some necessity. Culture can be exposited as the amalgamation or aggregation of praxis of living (including beliefs, ideas, institutions, child rearing practices) by different groups of people with an altruistic pattern i.e, passed on from generation to generation. “Communication” in simple sense can be defined as a process of information exchange or transmission between human beings, animals and even machines however the prime focus will be on the communication of human beings. Going by the definition of effective communication which exposits that there should be a perfect correlation i.e, perfect understanding between the sender of a particular message and the recipient of the same. An important thing in communication is that “message should be intact…..offense” (Pinto, 2000, p. 20). Communication may be verbal or non verbal and it is indeed a complex phenomenon of the degree of understanding between the parties involved in it. There are different people in the world with different cultural values and norms (different language, religion, caste, sect etc) and whenever there is a scope of interaction between them there lies a greater possibility of misunderstanding, miscommunication. From here arise the need for discussion of intercultural communication. Thus concluding it can be said that intercultural communication can be said to be a disciplinary science studying the interaction between people of different cultural background and thus creating a scope for interpreting cultural differences between them and a drive towards effective communication. Intercultural Communication and Simmel’s’ “The Stranger”-An Overview “The Stranger” written by the German sociologist George Simmel’s can be perceived as the theoretical foundation of intercultural communication. Simmel has brought the concept of stranger in a very innovative way. Using the notion of distance Simmel identifies a person as a stranger who is simultaneously far away and close. In a world of perfect information it becomes utmost necessary to explore everything and group the world into a single framework and people of all ethnicity should come under a single domain of communication and network. The transboundary cultural gap is minimized if there is spontaneous connection between people of different cultures. According to Simmel a stranger is a person who is impartial or independent and can be considered as a messenger who can distribute knowledge and can spread cultural know how amongst different societies. This independent nature of the stranger is really a focus point as he acts a bridge to narrow the gap between intracultural differences – a prime driver of intercultural communication. The complex concepts of heterophily, social distance, value of objectivity (Rogers, 1999, p.58) are subject matter of debate and they need to be analyzed further in exploring the concept of intercultural communication. According to Simmel the society is a conglomeration of communication between the agents of the society i.e, the individuals in order to fulfill their fundamental needs and in due course of this mechanism rigorous and continuous communication leads to new stabilized communication structure which ultimately transforms into new culture and social structure. Intercultural Communication and Objectivity Theory As already mentioned a stranger is an unbiased identity thought to be of spreading knowledge and bridging the gap between cross cultural boundaries. The theory of objectivity by Simmel’s can be taken into account for explaining the notion of intercultural communication. As stranger moves on and depending upon the proportion of nearness and closeness his objectivity is guided by tremendous openness and confidence. The stranger acts as an impartial body. He is not restrained by any attachments, commitments or any other social tension which helps him not to deviate from his objective. Objectivity gives him the freedom. So from this evolution of freedom the binding structure of intercultural communication is strengthened. The stranger is not guided or distracted by any prejudices and this provides him the power of producing different views regarding a single object (Simmel, 1950, p. 2). Within a spatial boundary or within a social group there comes hindrance among the natives regarding the openness or approaching with a stranger as anxiety plays within those individuals and when the anxiety level reaches the maximum threshold level they keep themselves aloof from the stranger and hence cease to establish an “effective communication”, which is a chief goal of intercultural communication. In order to establish effective communication people need to keep a balance between anxiety and uncertainty. [According to axiom 39 of Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) theory, “An increase in our ability to manage our anxiety about interacting with strangers and an increase in the accuracy of our predictions and explanations regarding their behaviour will produce an increase in the effectiveness of our communication” (Yip, 2010)]. So the objective lies in effective communication. If in a society the natives can accept the stranger without any hindrance then only they will be able to explore new culture and his way of communication. The concept of trader (example of European Jews) can be incorporated into this scenario. A trader is always moving from one place to another in order to flourish his business by adopting several strategies and in this way he get in touch with several cultures and his objective is to learn their way of communication in order to carry out his business and in this process develops new means of communication and as a result exchange of thoughts takes place. So Simmel’s theory of objectivity which bears the attribute of indifference and impartiality plays a significant role in establishing effective communication. ICC and the Concept of Simmel’s Social Distance The relation between the degree of intimacy and interpersonal relations gave rise to the concept of social distance. People in the small or large socio spatial domain vary rigorously in their race, ethnicity, religion, occupation etc. Social distance can be considered as extent to which an individual differs from other individuals with respect to the early stated social parameters like race, ethnicity, religion, occupation etc. (Rogers, 1999, p. 64). Mac Farland and Brown in their paper “Social distance as a metric” stated that Simmel’s concept of social distance composed elements of both “nearness” and “distance”, “nearness” being a feature coming from the characteristics common with the observer and “distance” coming from the observers’ perception that the features common to his eyes is common for all men as a whole (Shack and Skinner, 1979, p. 28). Taking into account the concept of social distance interracial marriage is an important topic in the present world where the predominance of intercultural communication can be felt and leads to an effective communication scenario. ICC And “The Marginal Man” Simmel’s’ “The Stranger” also gave rise to the development of a new thought that is popularly known as “marginal man”. By the phrase “marginal man” it is generally meant that a person is said to be a marginal man who has two discrete social identities. As for example an individual who is born to a European mother and Indian father. Another example put forward by Park (1928), Levine & others(1976) is the first generation American offspring of European immigrant parents who created almost an unique identity of their own declining European culture and language but also refrained themselves from recognizing themselves as true Americans (Rogers, 1999). They adopted within themselves the quality of indifference and infinite freedom like a stranger as discussed earlier among themselves and can also be seen as a cause of exaggerating crime rates which is a social hazard and needs to be rectified. But the concept of “marginal man” has emerged as a prime source of study for intercultural communication among numerous social scientists. It can be well established from Park’s words: “It is in the mind of the marginal man where the changes and fusions of culture are going on-that we can best study the processes of civilization and of progress” (Crossan, 1999, p. 351). ICC and “Heterophily” The term “heterophily” generally attributes to a cognitive behavior which indicates the degree of dissimilarity among a pair of individuals. Heterophily which is opposite to “homophily” is itself a broader term i.e, Heterophily can be thought of as a superset and homophily the subset of it. Homophily takes place between the interaction of people of similar thoughts or belief and effective communication seem to establish instantaneously. But ineffective communication generates between two individuals who are heterophilous (with respect to several social variables like education status, occupational status, technical knowhow) (Rogers, 1995, p.19). Simmel describes a stranger as a person living in a system but not attached to the same and it can be said that the broader perspective is to canalize a group of homophilous networks into a larger heterophilous network which will enhance the intercultural communication mechanism to an optimal level. ICC And “Cosmopoliteness” Cosmpolitanism, which is a feature of stoicism, is a Greek word which puts its emphasis on a holistic view of unifying all human beings into a nexus of a single community where information will be exchanged which further needs to culminate. This concept was basically formulated by Robert K Merton who successfully run a data analysis of 86 respondents of a region reading local newspaper and Times Daily. The readers of the local newspapers were popular among their small social periphery but it was found that the readers of the Times were much more prone to explore different areas and spread knowledge and ideas (Rogers, 1999, p. 66). So the underlying concept which can be derived from this is that Simmel’s’ stranger behaves like a cosmopolitan who intervenes a particular system with unbiased neutrality free from all the expectations of the existent system and propagates new ideas and acts as a forerunner of effective communication (Jeffres, Atkin, Bracken, and Neuendorf, 2004). Just like Simmel’s stranger, a cosmopolitan is objective in his disposition since he can keep a distance from ‘local loyalties’. Simmel’s perception about objectivity refers to detachment (Hooft, 2010, pp. 111-112). Conclusion The seeds of intercultural communication as a branch of rigorous study have been planted in the decade of 60s and became a robust topic of discussion in the field of social science and till date a much expanded domain of research. The discussion and the brief analysis in the paper resort to the conclusion that George Simmel’s “The Stranger” can be identified as the base structure for developing diverse theories and hypothesis of intercultural communication and materializing them into the real world. Through his extraordinary explanation of the behavior of a stranger Simmel’s has promulgated the development of intercultural communication which has immense positive externality acting as a spill over mechanism in societal paradigm. References Crossan, J.D. (1999), The Birth of Christianity, Continuum International Publishing Group Hooft, S.V. (2010), Questioning Cosmopolitanism, Springer Jeffres, L.W. Atkin, D.J. Bracken, C.C. and K.A. Neuendorf (2004), Cosmopoliteness in the Internet Age, JMCC, 10(1), retrieved on March 8, 2012 from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/jeffres.html#s1 Pinto, D. (2000), Intercultural Communication, Garant Rogers, E. (1995), Diffusion of Innovations, Simon and Schuster Rogers, E.M. (1999), George Simmel’s Concept of the Stranger and Intercultural Communication Research, Communication Theory, Vol. 9, pp. 58-74 Scollon, R. Scollon, S.W. and R.H. Jones, (2012), Intercultural Communication, John Wiley & Sons Shack, W.A. & E.P. Skinner (1979), Strangers in African Societies, University of California Press Simmel, G. (1950), “The Stranger”, retrieved on March 8, 2012 from: http://www.infoamerica.org/documentos_pdf/simmel01.pdf Yip, G. (2010), A Theoretical Basis of Intercultural Communication Competence, Global Missiology English, Vol. 2, no. 7, retrieved on March 8, 2012 from: http://ojs.globalmissiology.org/index.php/english/article/view/6/16#_ednref Read More