Page 133 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

Multidisciplinary perspectives on intercultural conflict 111

acted; the rights and obligations associated with given role relationships; and the
contractual/legal agreements and requirements (written and unwritten) that apply
to a given organization, profession or social group. When people’s expectations
are not fulfilled, they may perceive this as ‘negatively eventful’ (Goffman 1963:
7), and this can (but, of course, need not necessarily) be a source of interpersonal
conflict. Many cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatic studies aim to unpack
and illuminate these processes through careful analysis, as section 5.2 reports.

5. Conflict and communication

5.1. Communicative conflict styles

Much of the argumentation on conflict and cultural values (see section 4.1)
touches on the role of communication. Directness–indirectness is seen as having
a particularly important impact on both the instigation and the management of
conflict. It has been found that different cultures may endorse the same conflict
management orientation (e.g., collaborative) yet vary in the way they handle it
verbally. Pruitt (1983) found that both direct and indirect information exchange
correlated with socially desirable, collaborative agreements. Similarly, Adair,
Okumura and Brett (2001) showed that Americans achieve collaborative inte-
gration of ideas through direct communication but that Japanese do so through
indirect communication which allows people to infer preferences. They con-
cluded that “facility in direct or indirect communications may not lead to joint
gains if parties do not also have a norm for information sharing”, and that col-
laborative behaviour is based on different motivations, dependent on the culture
(Adair, Okumura and Brett 2001: 380). Similarly, van Meurs (2003) found that
Dutch managers equated directness with being consultative, whereas the British
preferred to use indirectness and be consultative.
In much intercultural research, directness–indirectness is assumed to be as-
sociated with individualism–collectivism and/or independent–interdependent
self-construal, and it is linked with concern for face. Unfortunately, however,
the majority of studies (in management, cross-cultural psychology and in com-
munication studies) conflate the measurement of the two, using, for example, a
questionnaire item on directness both as a measure of Individualism/Indepen-
dence and as a measure of communicative directness–indirectness. This, of
course, is circular and unsatisfactory. In addition, there is a need to consider
whether other communicative styles are important.
Hammer (2005) proposes two fundamental dimensions (directness–indi-
rectness, emotional expressiveness–restraint), and four types of conflict styles:
Discussion Style (direct but emotionally restrained), Engagement Style (direct
and emotionally expressive), Accommodation Style (indirect and emotionally