Page 50 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

The Study of Culture 35

The United States, which constructs dams to harness the power
of rivers and builds spaceships to conquer the reaches of outer
space, would be placed on the left side of the continuum. Tradi-
tional Hawaiian culture, where people felt the forces of nature to
be so powerful that all they could do was make offerings to Pele,
the Goddess of the Volcano, in the hope of appeasing her, would
be placed on the right side of the continuum. A culture that lives
in harmony with nature, like the Taos Indians described in The
Silent Language, would be in the middle. “In the spring the Taos
believe that Mother Earth is pregnant. To protect the surface of
the earth they do not drive their wagons to town, they take all the
shoes off their horses, they refuse to wear hard-soled shoes them-
selves” (Hall 1959, 80–81).
The field of intercultural communication examines a culture’s
value orientations using such models in order to comprehend the
goals and philosophy underlying its ways of living. “Not only do
values pervade all the other topics, they also may provide the best
guidance for understanding and adapting to other cultural pat-
terns of communication” (Condon and Yousef 60).

The Intercultural Perspective

Intercultural sensitivity is not natural. It is not part of
our primate past, nor has it characterized most of hu-
man history. Cross-cultural contact usually has been
accompanied by bloodshed, oppression, or genocide.
(Bennett 1993, 21)

Intercultural encounters can be likened to crossing minefields. The
best advice when traversing them may be to carry a map, tread
lightly, and be ready for surprises. Since our natural inclination is
not to see things from another’s perspective and to judge people
negatively who are different from us, we may do well to double-
check our initial reactions in intercultural situations. One way sug-
gested by Elijah Lovejoy in Experiential Activities for Intercultural
Learning (1996) is to be on guard for “negative red flags.” We may
catch ourselves internally castigating a group of people with a
statement like “Those people are so ________!” This should tip us
off that a cultural difference may very well be at the bottom of
things (191–97).

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