ABSTRACTS

• Kinga Williams and Rose Aghdami, Managing migration
  
• Nataliya Berbyuk, Jens Allwood and Charlotte Edebäck, Being a Non-Swedish Physician in Sweden
  
• Elisabeth Elmeroth, Public authorities speak about immigrants
  
• Iben Jensen, Professionalism in Intercultural Job Interviews?
  
• Alena Korshuk, Learning more about cultures through free word association data
  
• María Palma Fahey, Speech acts as intercultural danger zones: A cross-cultural comparison of the speech act of apologising in Irish and Chilean soap operas
  
• Jingjing Zhao and Nelson Edmondson, Conscius recognition of the limitations of human knowledge as the foundation of effective intercultural communication
  

Kinga Williams and Rose Aghdami

Abstract

Fact: Placing a skilled executive overseas for a three-year contract can cost as much as US$ 1 million.
Fact: A significant number of overseas sojourns fail, leading to premature repatriation.
Fact: Psychological adjustment to the new culture is the make or break of cross-cultural transitions.

Managing migration successfully is, therefore, crucial.
The paper will introduce the Mensana Model of Managing Migration.
According to the model, migration follows a five-stage psychological process, requiring management via three levels of support. The desired outcome is the development of the understanding and skills necessary to make the international sojourn a success for all involved.

Keywords: Migration, culture shock, psychopathology, control, heterocultural skills.

Nataliya Berbyuk, Jens Allwood and Charlotte Edebäck

Abstract

Sweden is rapidly changing from being a monocultural to a multicultural society. The effects of this process can also be seen in health care which has, up till now, been one of the most ethnically and gender segregated working places, compared to the industrial sector. Increasing multiculturality places the issue of intercultural communication on top of the agenda for Swedish society in general and for the health care sector in particular.

This article is based on the results of two interrelated questionnaires, one directed at non-Swedish physicians, a relatively new but rapidly growing group in Swedish heath care, and one directed at Swedish health care personnel, a traditionally ethnically homogeneous group. The respondents’ answers have been summarised and compared in order to get a comprehensive picture of intercultural communication in Swedish health care.

Keywords: Migration, culture shock, psychopathology, control, heterocultural skills.

Elisabeth Elmeroth

Abstract

In this article the discourse of immigrants at different authorities is studied. I have collected data from different authorities, the police authorities, the employment office, the social welfare service and the social insurance office in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden. Persons, who in their working as professionals meet immigrants, have answered an inquiry about feelings and thoughts about their meetings. With the data from these inquiries as a starting point I have been able to identify and characterise two separate cultures of authorities, or ideal types. These have been labelled open and closed authority.

The officials at the open authority say that they to some extent have sufficient qualifications, but they are aware of that they need much more to be able to meet immigrants in a proper way. The officials all affirm multiplicity and think that society should create possibilities for immigrants to keep their religion, language and culture. They also show awareness of existing discrimination. That everybody should be treated equally means that everybody should be treated with respect and empathy based on individual needs. The authority has developed work methods and has professionals that have a high competence within the field to consult.

The officials at the closed authority think that it is enough with their own culture as a starting point. The view of immigrants is impressed by a monocultural attitude. Exclusion or assimilation of immigrants is demanded. An exotic view of other cultures and depreciation of immigrants is also found here. At the closed authority the respondents think the feeling of discrimination is mistaken and that the immigrants are whining for nothing. The closed authority is impressed by monocultural work methods. Everyone should be treated equally, and as Swedes. The clients are expected to have the same experiences and frames of reference as the Swedish officials.

Key words: Immigrants reception, open authorities, closed authorities, officials’ awareness level, monocultural work methods.

Iben Jensen

Abstract

This is a slightly revised manuscript from my keynote speech at the NIC conference 2003 in Göteborg, Sweden. The aim of the speech was to put forward research towards a critical intercultural multiperspectivism in order to understand professional intercultural communication in multicultural societies. This will be discussed in relation to a case, a job interview with an untrained Danish interviewer and a Chinese candidate.

In this written version I have tried to keep the oral form, as far as possible, and my original idea of the speech , which was to create the ground for discussion at the conference concerning intercultural communication at work and reflecting on theories in relation to changes in societies. As a consequence of this the article, I will, to a certain degree, be offering fairly simplified descriptions of various positions held within the field of intercultural research.

Keywords: Intercultural communications, concepts of culture and professional job interviews

Alena Korshuk

Abstract

The paper is discussing some issues connected with verbal codes of communication. It re-introduces one of the experimental methods of cultural studies. The author shows the opportunities provided by the use of free word association experiment in cultural, cross- and intercultural analyses. To investigate how languages reflect differences in the cultural values of the Americans and of the Belarusians the author compares the free word association experiment data collected in Minnesota (USA) and in Minsk (Belarus) in 1999-2000.

Keywords: verbal codes, Culture Studies, cultural values, free word associations, experimental method Back to start

María Palma Fahey

Abstract

Intercultural communication presents many challenges and one of them refers to the need to create awareness about the importance of understanding speech acts cross-culturally. Speech acts are what the writer or speaker is doing in uttering a particular form of words, and their focus is on meaning (speaker's intention). The recognition of the meaning of a particular speech act in a given cultural setting is at the heart of successful intercultural communication. Speech acts are considered universal, nevertheless research shows that they can manifest differently across languages and cultures. This cross-cultural difference in language use is indicative of broader socio-cultural differences that underline language in use internationally and certainly it is at this level that much inter-cultural misunderstanding has its origin. This paper focuses on the speech act of apologising, and it draws on two linguistic datasets or corpora for its analysis: one comprising two hours from an Irish soap opera Fair City and the other comprising two hours of comparable data from Amores de Mercado, a Chilean soap opera. These data are transcribed to form an electronic corpus for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Extracts of data containing the speech act of apologising in both sets of data are compared and the socio-pragmatic implications for meaning and intercultural communication are discussed.

Keywords: cross-cultural comparison, speaker’s intention, apologising, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, socio-pragmatic implications.

Jingjing Zhao and Nelson Edmondson

Abstract

In the ever-smaller contemporary world, intercultural communication plays an increasingly important role. This paper discusses how to set the contents of a relevant package of university courses, which, while giving appropriate attention to practical solutions of intercultural communication problems, at the same time strongly emphasizes the final limitations of all human philosophical, religious, ideological, and even scientific comprehension. The paper proposes an educational strategy for dealing constructively with these limitations through raising the consciousness of their nature especially on the part of persons in positions of authority in different cultures. This should produce a greater sense of cultural modesty on the part of those persons, and therewith a reduction in intercultural conflicts. With this goal in mind, the paper proposes that such limitations be made the common platform of intercultural communication, thereby enriching this field of study.

Keywords: cultural history and scientific knowledge, university courses, educational strategies, religious and philosophical positions,cultural modesty.