In the course “Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communications": we will: 1) Build skills in the analysis of the intercultural communication process using Russian-Western communication as an example. 2) Apply the knowledge of interrelations between different contexts of communication (cultural, institutional, professional, social, interpersonal, etc.) to the cultural history and national psychology of Russians. The purpose of the course is to provide the students with a broad overview of the basic principles governing the past, the present and the future interactions between Russia and the West, with a focus on the culture and national psychology of Russians and Western Europeans. For example, we will look at the cases when basic cultural values of Russians show up through the linguistic choices shaping language production which is consequently misattributed by Western partners. No matter what the language of intercultural communication is – Russian, or English – the meaning of many linguistic expressions may be reconstructed wrongly by the representatives of another culture. Some of the basic questions we will tackle are: • What are the concepts of culture that have the strongest influence on communication? • What are Russian basic cultural values and how they shape modern Russian consciousness? • What are the specific communication patterns of modern Russians, including those of public and electronic discourse? • What is important to know about communication with Russians in organizational contexts? Importantly, this course is NOT just a list of practical instructions of dos and don’ts of dealing with Russians. The course contains a substantial academic component introducing the key notions and concepts of the Theory of Communication, which will be extensively introduced throughout the first few modules of the course. These theoretical grounds will be further on used as a tool for analyzing the intercultural communications with Russians.
2.2. Components and Characteristics of Culture
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Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
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Culture in Intercultural Communication
This lecture will focus around Culture per se and the language we need to be able to discuss it. The more complex and less formalized is the subject of the discussion, the more crucial are its instruments. We will introduce various dimensions that are applicable to different cultures and will also start to discuss the Russian culture in these terms. Starting this week we will also present short interviews of Prof. Bergelson's with people (non-Russians culturally) who have lived and worked in Russia, and who will serve as experts on various issues and contexts of communication with Russians. As stereotypes are one of the central concepts in the cross-cultural discourse, this week we will see interviews centered on this topic. The experts you will meet -- and not only this week -- are Anna Skaya (CEO VisualDNA Russia), Michael Johnston, (Private Equity Sector Lead Director of Strategy at Deloitte), and Ilya Gnoensky who specializes in crisis management.
与讲师见面
Mira BergelsonProfessor
Philological Faculty
[MUSIC]
The second item on our plan for this week is components and
characteristics of culture.
We won't be characterizing culture in full detail, of course,
it's really a big topic, just to mention a few things.
When we talk about culture, what we mean is actually, for a given group,
we mean these group's dominant values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.
And these are for ideas, for processes,
that characterize both observable and non-observable,
below the water level, aspects of culture.
Behaviors, then cognitive things like attitudes,
and beliefs, and values, which are not purely, but
which are very much part of our emotional aspect, part of our emotional mind.
Speaking about characteristics, or sometimes they say levels of culture,
we can say that a culture is both collective, situational,
learned, complex, dynamic, and contradictory.
Let me say a few words about some of these features of characteristics.
Culture as collective is clear, one person doesn't create a culture.
It's always about a certain group, or collective,
or teams sometimes they say, or organization, but it's always some group.
It is situational, because if it were not situational, we would be able to give
general characteristics about everything that French culture is this,
this, and that.
But this is stupid because we know how many aspects any culture has.
And also, even speaking about some aspect, for instance, like how
French treat gender issues,
or how French behave at the dinner, or what they prefer to do in past time.
We need to give certain context, and this is the central topic of this course.
We need to have certain context, certain situations in which we will see how this
cultural features or parameters, whatever we find, or
variables, will perform in this situation.
Culture is learned, because we are not born with a culture built into us,
it's not hereditary.
It is complex, and contradictory, and dynamic.
Let me give some details on this three features together,
because they are related to each other.
It is so complex that sometimes, and it's so
situational that sometimes we'll find some contradictory patterns.
The easiest thing to see is if we look at the proverbs that each
culture has, everyone knows that you may find very different and
contradictory proverbs in one and the same language from one and
the same time because, well, they were applicable in different situations.
And the dynamics of culture which evolves in time and
which sometimes evolves very quickly at different period of history of this or
that in a group of people, it's what we understand as dynamic.
For instance, the end of 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century, what we
call the newest Russian history is a very dynamic period for the Russian culture.
So many changes taking place in the society.
So many revolutionary changes taking place also influenced
the culture very much, and it has, we can say about some tectonic changes,
or maybe if you use a more humble word,
would just say that it develops, at the moment is very dynamically.
To elaborate on this again,
let's look again on this iceberg metaphor of a culture.
And we'll see, to fill this iceberg with certain items,
below the water and above the water.
What we see when we enter, when we encounter another culture,
when we get to know it going across the communication borders.
We see how people dress, we see their fashions,
we see how they gesticulate, whether they do, how much.
We see their dancing, we see their manners in public places.
We see sculptures, theater.
We hear how they speak, so we see their language.
We look at the furniture in their houses, at the architecture.
We see rituals.
We hear music.
We participate and we see certain ceremonies.
We look at their paintings, at their artists.
What we don't see, we don't know how they, for
instance, grant social status to people in this culture.
How in this culture people experience time, is it a commodity or a value?
What are their ideas about authority?
How they approach problems, how they solve problems.
What do they consider beautiful, and what they consider ugly?
How they define truth.
And the most important, probably the deepest,
what is considered to be good and evil in this culture?
Because although we're all human beings, and the understandings of good and
evil normally must be more or less the same for
all of us, it's still very much defined in terms of culture and time.
Just remember the middle ages, when it wasn't considered to be a bad thing to
torture people because it was done for some purposes,
and something that we now can not accept.
So let's summarize with characteristics of culture.
It is transmitted from one generation to another.
That's what is considered to be dynamic and
development in time, but at the same time, it is not genetically transmitted.
It is transmitted through some other means that
humankind developed in the course of its life.
And sometimes using the metaphors from the way the language emerged,
we can say that humanity developed culture as its environmental niche in this world.
Culture is a whole thing.
We can talk about American culture, Russian culture, Chinese culture.
So we have some idea of something whole behind it, or
the culture of some other groups.
But at the same time, and it is continued because when we talk about Russian
culture, we mean some continuation, some time that passes through
when this culture passes through time starting from
the beginnings of the first millennium and to our days.
So it is both whole and continual.
At the same time, it consists of different very heterogeneous components,
and it changes with the time.
It is symbolic, and it in itself creates symbols.
The culture consists of symbols and creates them as well.
And the last very important point is that culture is ethnocentric.
Which means that for any observer,
he or she would look at certain things happening in the world from
the point of view of his or her own culture, which is not even being conscious
within the person, still influences the way we see things.
And the issue of ethnocentrism is very important,
we will cover it a little bit later.
The central thing in any culture is values.
And here on the screen, you can see a very long quotation, but
a very important quotation, from a very important man in the history of
cultural anthropology and intercultural communication.
Clyde Kluickhohn, who was one of the first cultural anthropologists to start
comparing cultures according to the same lines of behavior and parameters.
We'll come to this in a few minutes.
So what is stressed here in this quotation?
No society is healthy, or creative, or strong, unless the society has
a set of common values that give meaning and purpose to group life.
This giving of meaning is actually what we understand as creating symbols by culture.
Culture is much more than just the appearance of
people, of their dwellings, of their cities.
It's something that is inside us and gives us the meaning of what we do, gives
us understanding of why we are here in this world and what is expected from us.
Speaking about values, are really these values so
different for different cultures?
In a way, if we look at the most basic values that people would have about life,
about the world, about themselves, as some studies show actually for
many countries, including Russia, most important values are the same.
Because this is what makes us human beings, living the life we have.
Here on the screen you see a chart, a graph showing the results of the survey
where groups of people from many countries,
it was performed in 1999, so quite a long ago, but I don't think there
are other surveys of this kind that would give really differing results.
This chart shows the percentage of people who say
that value is extremely important for them.
And the top t10 values will be then, protecting the family,
47% of the respondents, honesty, health and fitness, self esteem,
self-reliance, justice, freedom, friendship, knowledge, and learning.
These are basic values of that make human life in its private,
in its family circle,
in its attitude to what people want to do in this world,
what they would like to have and how they would like to live.
An interesting thing is that with all this talk about cultures as islands in
the ocean that really started in the mid 20th century, we came to understanding in
the process of developing these ideas and following the strengths to
something what some scholars calls inter-culture that
emerges as a result of globalization of the world, be it good or bad.
This is called new values and styles of global culture which
are reflected partly in such an interesting trend, I would say,
movement, or maybe approach, which is called cultural creatives.
Values of cultural creatives, cultural creatives as a loosely
defined group of people who probably live all around the world.
They don't have any special connections between them, but
they believe in the same values.
Because current paradigm usually defines culture according to the national borders.
That's how I was using it, French, Chinese, American, Russian.
But the future is linked to global trends.
And one of these global trends is what we could
develop as cultural creatives attitude to life.
And most important values of cultural creatives include
ecological sustainability and concern for the planet.
Not just environmentalism, it's a concern for the planet as a whole.
Liking what is foreign and exotic in other cultures, it came from the 20th century.
Then what is often called women's issues by politicians and the media, and
this include concern about the condition of the women and children both at home and
around the world.
Concern for better healthcare and education, desire to rebuild neighborhoods
and community, desire to improve caring relationships and family life.
Usually considered as women's issues,
which is already saying a lot about our cultures.
Then social conscience, a demand for
authenticity in social life and a guarded social optimism.
So belief in that we can do something about life, about changing life,
that we should be active in trying to change life around us and
making it better for us and other people.
And then giving importance altruism, to self-actualization and
spirituality as a single complex of values.
Self-actualization is something that is available when you
have already fulfilled other probably aspects of human needs.
But the value self actualization is extremely important for
those people who believe that they are a new trend,
a new type of culture in this world, the community of cultural creatives.
And please look at the link at the screen,
because you can get more information there.
And there is also a very funny test that you can try to take in
order to find out whether you also are a culture creative.
[MUSIC]
