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Communicating Identity in Intercultural Communication 415

20. Communicating Identity in
Intercultural Communication

Janet Spreckels and Helga Kotthoff

When studying intercultural communication, the question automatically arises
of the identities through which individuals encounter each other and how this
encounter can be analyzed. When an Italian and a Swedish surgeon jointly per-
form an operation in Zurich, their national identities are not necessarily import-
ant. What is relevant under the given circumstances is that both are surgeons,
can communicate with each other, and who has more experience in performing
particular surgical procedures. In order to discuss, in the second part of the ar-
ticle, the various procedures which set cultural categorization as relevant, in the
first part the conceptualization of “identity” will be outlined. 1

1. Social identity

The concept of social identity arose in social psychology and was, among
others, developed by the social psychologists Henri Tajfel, Joseph Forgas and
Jim Turner. Tajfel (1982: 2) defines the concept of social identity as follows:

Social identity will be understood as that part of the individuals’ self-concept which
derives from their knowledge of their membership of a social group (or groups) to-
gether with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.

Social identity is thus the part of an individual’s self-concept that is derived
from her/his knowledge of her/his membership in social groups and from the
emotional significance with which this membership is endowed. Tajfel’s em-
phasis on “part” can be understood if one considers the other part of the self-
concept, ‘personal’ identity. The concept of this division of the ‘self’ into two
parts goes back to the social psychologist George Herbert Mead. In his major
work, Mind, Self and Society (1934), he developed an interactionist paradigm
of identity that contains the reflexive ability of the subject to behave toward
himself and toward others. Identity accordingly has two components:
i. a social component, the so-called ‘me’ and
ii. a personal component (also the personal, individual, subject or self) compo-
nent, the ‘I’

Mead thereby paved the way for the later concept of the ‘social’ vs. the ‘per-
sonal’ identity, without, however, himself using these terms. The social compo-