Page 300 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

278 Peter Franklin

Secondly, Hofstede’s and Trompenaars’s approaches are, to use terms
brought to anthropology by Pike (1966: 37–72) and defined for intercultural
purposes by Berry (1980: 11–12), Gudykunst (2000: 293–294) and others, etic
rather than emic in character. Etic studies contrast a large number of cultures ac-
cording to criteria regarded as absolute or universal using structures devised by
an expert looking at the object of investigation from the outside and applying
quantitative methods. Thomas’s approach is essentially emic in that it examines
one culture or pair of cultures, studies behaviour in the culture from within the
system using structures discovered by the analyst, the absence of an overall
framework thus allowing cultures to be studied in their own right and using
criteria that are “relative to internal characteristics” (Berry 1980: 12). Given
these conditions, it is unsurprising that different studies dealing with slightly
different contexts may produce slightly different sets of culture standards, as in
the case of Schroll-Machl’s and Thomas’s culture standards for Germany re-
ported above.
Thirdly, and most importantly for the applied linguist and the trainer inter-
ested in improving communication and cooperation across cultural borders, the
culture standards approach uses a research procedure which is extremely valu-
able for identifying many types of cultural manifestations (behavioural orien-
tations, communication styles and values) in as much as they are noticeable or
difficult and thus for accessing key issues in intercultural interaction.
It is true that some of the culture standards described here may be seen as
manifestations of Hofstede’s dimensions (e.g. German rule orientation as an ex-
pression of higher uncertainty avoidance, British pragmatism and ritualized rule-
abuse as expressions of British extreme low uncertainty avoidance) and some in
turn may be similar to Hall’s behavioural orientations and communication styles
(e.g. German directness/honesty and British indirect interpersonal communi-
cation can be associated with Hall’s low and higher context communication).
However, the culture standards approach allows us to predict and explain a
significant difficulty experienced by both the British and German managers,
namely that described by the British managers as formality, surnaming and the
use of titles and by the German managers as informality and humour (cf. Kot-
thoff in this volume on ritual and style). What the British experience here as dif-
ficult can be regarded as an expression of German differentiation of interper-
sonal distance as reported by Thomas (2003: 26), and what the German report as
difficult can be seen as an expression of British reduction of interpersonal dis-
tance, as recorded by Schmid (2003: 57–58).
In summary, the culture standards approach allows us to predict more com-
pletely some of the difficulties of British and German managers in their interac-
tion with one another than the classical studies. 2
The difficulties reported by the German managers concerning the lack of lin-
gua franca skills of their British colleagues are features well-known to the