Page 24 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

2 Helen Spencer-Oatey and Helga Kotthoff

evant feature for differences in contacts (Barth 1969). Whether or not this in fact
happens depends on complex historical preconditions.
Nevertheless, we still speak of intercultural and intracultural communi-
cation, well aware that the boundaries between the one and the other cannot be
clearly drawn. Schütz (1972, 53–69) drew attention to the fact that every type of
communication includes experience of otherness. The experiences of various
individuals coincide only partially, and each person processes new information
within their own horizon. Although understanding operates on the assumption
of reciprocity of perspectives; that does not mean that it actually occurs. Under-
standing is not dependent on complete reciprocity; it is sufficient that a shared
meaning can be developed.
Our “idealizations of homogeneity” – to use a further expression of Schütz’s
(1972, 12) – are different, depending on whom we find ourselves in contact
with, and in what manner. The tradition of interactional sociolinguistics has
shown that very subtle refinements of orientation to one another in conversation
determine whether people will experience and define themselves as belonging
more to an “in-group” or as belonging more to an “out-group.” If the subtle
interactional orientations to one another in the area of prosody, gesture, facial
expression, distance, sequencing of conversational contributions, negotiation
of interaction modalities, levels of directness and so on do not succeed, we are
prone to experience someone else as not “one of us.”
In compiling this handbook, we have taken a pragmatic approach, which is
in line with the aims of the series: we have started with the assumption that
people regard themselves as belonging to different social groups, and that group
members, through contact and socialization processes, develop ‘family resem-
blances’ in their behavioural practices, beliefs and values. These family resem-
blances, which individual members acquire to greater or lesser extents in re-
lation to different aspects, do not simplistically determine their behaviour; on
the contrary, interaction is a dynamic process through which people jointly con-
struct (consciously and/or unconsciously) their complex and multiple identities.
It is the study of this dynamic process that the field of intercultural communi-
cation is concerned with.
As Gudykunst points out, we need cross-cultural studies to inform intercultu-
ral studies, and so within this Handbook of Intercultural Communication we have
included both cross-cultural and intercultural perspectives. The chapters focus on
different types of social groups, including national groups (e.g. Chapter 9 by Kott-
hoff and Chapter 13 by Franklin), ethnic minorities (e.g. Chapter 12 by Roberts
and Chapter 14 by Eades), and communities of practice (e.g. Chapter 8 by Marra
and Holmes, and Chapter 21 by Corder and Meyerhoff). These types of groups
are by no means exhaustive; they represent important types of cultural groups,
but other types, such as professional groups, could equally well have been in-
cluded.