Page 424 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

402 Winfried Thielmann

ing, i.e. up to the lawyer, whom the prisoner not only sees as a legal expert, but
also as a helper. Hence it would have been necessary for the interpreter to give
some explanation.
Within the framework of Redder and Rehbein (1987), this is an example of
failed intercultural communication in a broader sense: The prisoner on the one
side, and the lawyer and the interpreter on the other not only belong to different
groups of actants, but also to different societies. They encounter a problem that
points to differences in their cultural apparatus (here: knowledge about institu-
tional paths and alternatives as well as about the function of institutional
agents). The actants on the institutional side and their client act ethnocentrically
in that they assume mutual validity of their presuppositions. Otherwise the
client would not have readily assumed the existence of a provvedimento, and the
lawyer and the interpreter would have expected some reference to alternative re-
medies. The three interactants make no use of the critical potential of their cul-
tural apparatus. None of them reaches their goal: The client, instead of a proper
explanation, receives what can only be called a rebuff in illocutionary terms
(44). The lawyer and the interpreter are not quite sure why the client wished to
consult them in the first place.
Since all interactants act ethnocentrically, why does the transcript seem to
transmit a strong sense that the client is being treated unfairly? This is due to the
institutional asymmetry: The agents can afford to act ethnocentrically. Their
client, however, cannot. As he does, the agents can make him “[…] accept what
he has not understood” (Mattel-Pegam 1985: 322). Mattel-Pegam aligns herself
with Gumperz (1978) when she concludes that because of institutional power
structures and role-specific behaviour institutional agents usually do not all be-
come aware of the failure of intercultural communication (Mattel-Pegam 1985:
322, Gumperz and Cook-Gumperz in this volume).
In the light of the discussions above, I feel that this point can be elaborated:
Even when agent and client belong to the same society and speak the same lan-
guage, institutional communication is already intercultural communication in
the narrow sense. And because of this it has a similar potential of failure. Re-
search into institutional communication (e.g. Ehlich 1980; Rehbein 1985b; Lön-
ing and Rehbein 1993; Redder and Wiese 1994) reveals that agents have a very
strong tendency to act “ethnocentrically” also with clients belonging to their
own society – i.e. with the majority who considers this as “normal”. An (ethnic)
minority, however, is qua se not yet part of societal normality – otherwise it
would not be perceived as such. Hence it is more likely that institutional change
is, in the long run, brought about by the ramifications of intercultural communi-
cation failure in the broader sense. Ironically, society as a whole is likely to
profit from the pain its institutions cause (ethnic) minorities.