Page 63 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

A cognitive pragmatic perspective on communication and culture 41

Centrality of a cultural representation
A cultural representation is central to the extent that it is causally efficacious across
many spheres of social life.

For example, a system of religious beliefs may influence virtually all aspects of
social life, whilst fashions tend to be, not only relatively short-lived, but they
may also be confined to relatively isolated social-cultural domains (e.g. how to
dress when going to a party). Therefore, cultural proximity/distance is a joint
function of the number and the centrality of cultural representations:

Cultural proximity/distance
Two or more individuals/groups are culturally close to the extent that their shared set
of cultural representations is large and to the extent that the centrality of these cul-
tural representations is high.
OR:
Two or more individuals/groups are culturally distant to the extent that their shared
set of cultural representations is small and to the extent that the centrality of these
cultural representations is low.

Clearly, the greater the cultural closeness between people, the more able they
will be to make accurate estimates of each other’s cognitive resources (e.g.
about the contextual assumptions available to other members of the same cul-
tural group), and the better the chances of communicative success between them
will be. Thus, in examples (1), (2), (3) and (5) cultural distance played a major
role in the communicators’ failure to achieve their goals.
Second, the shared cultural knowledge of two or more people may be ad-
equate for communication in some situations, whilst being inadequate for
communication in other situations. Therefore, the distinction between intra-
and inter-cultural communication should be related to situations of communi-
cation:
Situation of intra-cultural communication
A situation of communication in which the cultural distance between the participants
is not significant enough to have an adverse effect on communicative success, so it
need not be specially accommodated by the participants.
Situation of inter-cultural communication
A situation in which the cultural distance between the participants is significant
enough to have an adverse effect on communicative success, unless it is appropri-
ately accommodated by the participants.

This approach has a clear implication for the way in which research in the field
of inter-cultural communication might proceed: