Abstracts English version:

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Abstracts English version:

The aim of this dissertation is the investigation of translated language and multimodality in order to uncover interesting patterns in the presentation and promotion of balsamic vinegar, a culture-specific product.

The materials consist of the English and Italian versions of eighteen websites of balsamic-vinegar- producing Italian companies situated in the area around Modena and Reggio Emilia. Only the homepages and the “About us” sections are selected, because they are thought to be those parts most resonating with the presentation of cultural identity and company’s image.

In terms of methodology, Hofstede’s monolithic conceptualisation of culture was rejected to argue for cultural dynamism. Initially, only the target English texts were analysed considering their acceptability in the target system. Then, following Poppi (2012) and Salvi, Turnbull and Pontesilli (Bamford & Salvi 2007), certain language patterns were looked for that would possibly compromise the naturalness and intelligibility of translated language. The websites’ multimodality was investigated in terms of organisational, orientational and presentational characteristics.

Initial observations yield that the emphasis on product quality, the enactment of a timeless atmosphere, the use of evaluative lexicon and of the cultural model of family/tradition are effective and appropriate in an international context. The authoritative and distant approach to the audience is instead a cause of promotion inefficacy. Further, I argue that repeatedly found grammatical mistakes do not compromise the audience’s comprehension, in line with ELF considerations. However, culture-dependent terms lack thorough explanation and contextualisation and do not allow easy understanding. Moreover, I claim that translation issues convey a sense of uneasiness because they cause pragmatic mistakes that seriously hinder communication. Regarding multimodality, the interplay of images, text, video and the resulting establishment of an alluring, encompassing atmosphere successfully involve the audience only in some of the websites, while negatively affecting the communicative aims’ effectiveness in others.

Versione italiana:

Obiettivo di questa tesi è l’analisi della lingua tradotta e della multimodalità per scoprire caratteristiche interessanti nella presentazione promozionale di un prodotto estremamente legato alla cultura di un posto, quale è l’aceto balsamico.

I materiali analizzati consistono delle versioni inglese ed italiana di diciotto siti web di acetaie nelle province di Modena e Reggio Emilia. Oggetto dell’analisi sono in particolare le homepage e le sezioni

“Chi Siamo”, perché considerate essere le più rappresentative dell’identità culturale e dell’immagine aziendale.

Per quanto riguarda la metodologia, la concezione monolitica della cultura di Hofstede è stata rifiutata, per sostenere invece il dinamismo culturale. Inizialmente, ho considerato solamente i testi di arrivo (inglesi) e la loro accettabilità nel sistema di arrivo. Successivamente, basandomi sulle indagini di Poppi (2012) e Salvi, Turnbull e Pontesilli (Bamford & Salvi 2007), ho cercato nei testi inglesi, anche attraverso il confronto con i testi originali, alcuni pattern linguistici che potessero compromettere la naturalezza della lingua tradotta e la sua comprensibilità per un pubblico non

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italiano. La multimodalità dei siti web è stata infine studiata per quello che riguarda aspetti di organizzazione, orientamento e presentazione.

Dalle osservazioni iniziali sui testi risulta che l’enfasi sulla qualità del prodotto, la costruzione di un’atmosfera al di fuori dal tempo, l’uso di un lessico valutativo e del modello culturale della famiglia/tradizione sono efficaci e appropriati in un contesto internazionale. L’approccio al pubblico autoritario e distante è invece considerato inefficace dal punto di vista promozionale. Ritengo che gli errori grammaticali ripetuti non compromettano la comprensione del pubblico, coerentemente con la prospettiva di ELF. Tuttavia, i termini più fortemente legati alla cultura d’origine non godono di una spiegazione e contestualizzazione tali da poter essere facilmente compresi. I problemi linguistici legati alla traduzione da una lingua all’altra suscitano inoltre un senso di disagio nel pubblico, perché causano errori pragmatici che ostacolano la comunicazione. Infine, l’interazione tra immagini, testo e video riesce solo in alcuni siti a costruire un’atmosfera attraente che possa coinvolgere il pubblico, mentre in altri compromette l’efficacia comunicativa delle finalità aziendali.

Deutsche Fassung:

Das Ziel dieser Diplomarbeit ist es, die Untersuchung von übersetzten Sprache und Multimodalität, um interessante sprachliche Merkmale und Muster in den Präsentations- und Promotionsaktivitäten eines kulturellenspezifischen Produkts, d.h. Balsamessig, aufzudecken.

Untersuchungsgegenstand sind die Englischen und Italienischen Versionen von achtzehn Websites Balsamessig-produzierender Unternehmen, die sich in dem Raum rund um Modena und Reggio Emilia befinden. In der Websites werden die Homepages und die „Über uns“ Bereiche für die Analyse selektiert, weil sie als die repräsentativsten Ausschnitte für die Firmenimage und die kulturelle Identität gehalten werden.

Was die Methodik anbelangt, wurde Hofstedes monolithische Konzeptualisierung der Kultur abgelehnt, und ich plädierte für kulturelle Dynamik. Anfänglich wurden die Englischen Zieltexte angesichts ihrer Angemessenheit in dem Zielsystem allein analysiert. In Anlehnung an Poppi (2012) und Salvi, Turnbull und Pontesilli (Bamford & Salvi 2007) wurden zunächst einige Sprachmuster gesucht, die möglicherweise die Natürlichkeit der übersetzten Sprache und die internationale Verständlichkeit beeinträchtigen würden. Die Multimodalität wurde hinsichtlich Organisations-, Orientierungs- und Präsentationsmerkmale recherchiert.

Die Anfangsbeobachtungen zeigen, dass der Schwerpunkt auf Qualität, die Errichtung einer zeitlosen Atmosphäre, die Verwendung eines evaluativen Lexikons und des kulturellen Modells

„Familie/Tradition“ in einem internationalen Kontext wirksam und angemessen sind. Hingegen verursacht der autoritative und distanzierte Ansatz zum Publikum eine Promotionsunwirksamkeit.

Wiederholte Grammatikfehler sind in Einklang mit ELF-Überlegungen. Kulturabhängige Wörter fehlen dennoch tiefgehende Erklärung und Kontextualisierung und daher ermöglichen sie kein leichtes Verständnis. Außerdem fordere ich, dass Übersetzungsprobleme ein Gefühl von Unbehagen vermitteln, weil sie pragmatische Fehler verursachen, die die Verständigung ernstlich behindern.

Schließlich gelingt die Verflechtung zwischen Text, Bildern und Video nur in einigen Websites, eine verlockende, umschließende Atmosphäre für das Publikum zu bilden. In anderen beeinflusst sie negativ die Wirksamkeit der kommunikativen Ziele.

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The dissertation firstly explores culture and intercultural communication, taking into consideration Othering tendencies and awareness-acquiring processes in the concretion of identity of a sociocultural group (Assmann 1991; Lee et al. 1995; Moon 1996; Assmann 2002; Posner 2008; Bardhan 2011). I hold that individuals’ language activities raise self-reflective awareness mechanisms that make the individuals gain a shared consciousness of unity and specificity – both at the internal, mental level and at the external, exogenous level. I argue that cultural meanings are learned through the medium of language itself (Williams 1983; Wierzbicka 1997; De Pedro 1999; Leveridge 2008; Lemke 2012;

Elmes 2013). Thus, I claim that language and culture are related to the point that language strongly influences cultural descriptions. I further suppose that the very concept of cultural description crumbles if no communication is involved, and yet intercultural communication is often cause for biased generalisations and stereotypical assumptions about cultures (Kim 2001; Halualani et al. 2009;

Hsueh-Hua Chen 2014; Martin & Nakayama 2015); hence, the dissertation contemplates intercultural communication competences able to discard those. In addition, the thesis fosters the view that cultural identity is constantly redefined and negotiated, and meaning does not exist per se but it is co- constructed in social interaction (Hall 1997; DeTurk 2001; Bezemer & Jewitt 2009; Tighe 2012).

Subsequently, the dissertation focusses on globalisation and web discourse, touching on how the advent of the Internet helps revolutionising former existing spatio-temporal dynamics (Spitzberg 2000; Friedmann 2005; Held & McGrew 2007). Such ongoing processes of change consequently determine a disruption of traditional corporate communication in the business environment (Garzone 2002; Poppi 2012; Elliott et al. 2014), also leading to the establishment of English as a ‘lingua franca’

within communities of business practice (Cambridge et al. 2005; Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner 2011; Hoadley 2012). The Internet era paves the way for new Web genres and representational modes (Said 1995; Hallam & Street 2000; Schultz & Schumann 2011; Yin 2013). In this regard, the thesis offers views over multimodality and multimodal discourse, with the articulation and activation of the media text in relation to business websites of companies (Kress & van Leeuwen 2001; Lemke 2002;

Lemke 2005; Jones 2006; Kress & van Leeuwen 2006; Bresner 2010; Burton 2010; Holliday 2010).

I consider the articulation of the media text in terms of purpose, content, style and language, organisation, and audience. Notions of genre, intratextuality, intertextuality and power within the discourse are also discussed (Hall 1997; Shepherd & Watters 1998; Kilian 2004; Shepherd & Watters 2004; Bamford & Salvi 2007; Ephratt 2008; Bhatia 2010; Bhatia 2012; Majid 2013; Van Drie 2014;

Nordquist 2016).

The thesis further explores concepts of translation theory (Nergaard 1995) and of text translation according to equivalence parameters (Lebedewa 2007; Stolze 2008; Cinato Kather 2011; Koller 2011). The concept of target-orientedness is discussed starting from Meschonnic (1995) and Toury’s (1995) descriptive approach is later defined, because it is adopted as methodological foundation of the case study. Nida’s notions of formal and dynamic/functional equivalence are thoroughly explored and lead to considerations of fidelity to the sense of the original (Eco 1995) and of the importance of context in translation practice (Firth 1957, quoted in Tognini Bonelli 2001). Moreover, I discuss dictionary and corpus linguistics as helpful instruments in translation practice (Iser 1996; Partington 1998; Wadensjö 1998; Chapman & Routledge 2005; Tognini Bonelli 2001; Nasi 2004; Manca 2012).

Lastly, translatability questions arise and the chapter ends with a reflection on the “third space”, a

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polyvalent and productive limbo in which translators may condense new intercultural perspectives (Rutherford 1990; Bhabha 1994; Kretschmer 2011).

The thesis lastly centres on the case study. The English and Italian versions of eighteen websites of balsamic-vinegar-producing Italian companies situated in the area around Modena and Reggio Emilia were chosen to investigate how translated language would affect the promoting of a local-, culture- specific product for an international audience. Within the websites, only the homepages and the

“About us” sections were selected, since they were thought to be those parts most resonating with the presentation of cultural identity and company’s image. The resulting English corpus and Italian corpus were classifiable within the category of business English.

In terms of methodology, Hofstede’s monolithic conceptualisation of culture was rejected, with the resulting supposition that culture cannot be reduced to the national level and displays a certain dynamism. My approach to the texts followed Toury (1995), in that the research started out with the analysis of the target texts alone and later brought the source texts in for comparison. Throughout the language analysis, the search for language patterns was carried out through repeated readings aimed at identifying reiterating topics and language inaccuracies and through the exploitation of the software AntConc’s Word List and Concordances to uncover repeating words and word configurations.

Moreover, word contextualisation was considered in the case of culture-dependent terms and translation analysis.

Following Toury (1995), the analysis starts with a focus on the English versions of the websites and considers their acceptability in the target system in terms of purpose, content, style and language, and audience. Subsequently, following Poppi (2012) and her analysis of English as a Lingua Franca in non-native speakers of English, it was hypothesised that the English texts could display formal grammatical mistakes and contain culture-dependent terms and untranslated names of people and places. Such elements were expected to be found in the English corpus because according to the theory described in 2. Culture and intercultural communication, language cannot be isolated from the culture of the people who use it. The analysis later centres on translation. Following Salvi, Turnbull and Pontesilli (Bamford & Salvi 2007), three language patterns were searched for in the English texts, which would compromise the naturalness of the language: unnatural distribution of information in sentences, morphopragmatics matters and unusual connotative value of words. The descriptive model of Toury (1995) provided the theoretical background for the following coupling of

‘problem-solution’ pairs, comparing the original Italian sentences with the problematic English ones.

Notions of formal and dynamic/functional equivalence, appropriateness and fidelity laid the basis for the investigation of translated language’s naturalness.

The last part of the analysis deals with multimodality. Following the examples of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001; 2006) and Pontesilli (Bamford & Salvi 2007), two exemplar homepages are investigated in terms of organisational features, orientational aspects, and presentational characteristics. Colours, sounds, images (and their interlocking with written text) are taken into consideration to understand how companies construct and promote their image and cultural values (Breeze 2013) in the eyes of a non-Italian audience.

The dissertation closes with considerations presenting the findings of the case study; it later offers recommendations for better practice and it ends with a personal reflection.

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3 2. Culture and intercultural communication

The 2009 volume of “Critical” Junctures in Intercultural Communication Studies: A Review by Halualani, Mendoza and Drewiecka tries to locate and identify a recurring significant issue in the field of intercultural communication, namely the “reconceptualization of culture” and consequently as well of “intercultural communication relations” (Halualani et al. 2009: 17), since the authors recognised in the field a vibrant turn (ibid.) towards an emerging critical perspective. Such an unsettling turn is referred to by Starosta (2003) as a “ferment” which broke through the long-held functionalist and essentialist research traditions.

Up until the late 1970s culture had been defined through an interpretive paradigm (Martin &

Nakayama 2010) as dynamic, and socially and communicatively constructed (Bardhan 2011). It had been conceptualised in terms of patterns like race, social class, gender, and nation (Moon 1996), and there seemed to be “a deep interest in how intersections between various nodes of cultural identity”

would “play out in” and would be “constructed by” (ibid. 73) communication. The gist of the interpretive approach to culture is reflected in Geertz’s classic definition (1973: 89, quoted in:

Bardhan 2011: 16), which states that culture is an “historically transmitted […] and inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life”. Hence, the focus stayed on how people created and maintained patterns of meaning through every day social interaction (Bardhan 2011;

Hsueh-Hua Chen 2014).

However, by about 1978 and continuously in the 1980s, intercultural communication research adopted a positivist approach that believed national cultures to be essentially static entities, which could be abstracted from surrounding socio-political conditions (Halualani et al. 2009), and objectively and quantitatively measured (Bardhan 2011). Having culture become a variable in positivist research (Moon 1996), a culture’s members would thus have acted in predictive behavioural formulae (Holliday 2010) ‘inherent’ to the culture. Following on from this, little attention was devoted to individual variations in the research, and the members’ behaviours were rather classified as functional or dysfunctional to the equilibrium of the whole. This is a view that might be termed

‘structural-functionalist’, since culture is assumed to have a known type of structure that “achieves equilibrium through the functioning of its parts” (Holliday 2010: 260). Descriptions of culture that treat it as systemic and functional tend to believe in a naturalised homology between culture and nation (Halualani et al. 2009), because nation seems to provide a useful framing for cultural identities.

Understanding culture from a national perspective might be of some value; however, this view usually tends to support a hegemonic description of culture (Ono 1998, quoted in Holliday 2010: 16). This is due to the fact that ‘nations’ as conceptions are unmistakably distinct and easily recognisable, and culture as a consequence is hegemonically constructed as a variable, with clear-cut boundaries that sharply distinguish it from other cultures (Bhabha 2006).

Moon (1996), Lee et al. (1995), Asante (1980, quoted in Halualani et al. 2009) and other scholars compelled intercultural communication researchers to steer their focus back on the pre-1978 diverse constructions of culture (Halualani et al. 2009), involving the articulation of gender, class, race, and without forgetting the interplay of bigger factors such as the historical context. Asante (1980, quoted in Halualani et al. 2009) was first to claim that the analysis of cultural groups needed to be historically contextualised for the full understanding of cultural identities and their related communication

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practices. Asante’s momentum saw the contextualisation of history always coupled with that set of power relations that underlie cultural groups and their surroundings. By connecting cultural descriptions to their historical and socio-political contexts, the ‘cultural givens’ that were previously

‘inherent’ cultural characteristics and as such naturalised as belonging to a specific culture could finally disentangle themselves from preconceptions and acquire instead dynamism and realness. Lee et al. (1995) also sustained epistemological claims to be framed and influenced by history and culture;

therefore, such constraints and influences must be identified and explained before true knowledge can arise. Mendoza (2001, quoted in Halualani et al. 2009: 22) also advocates a more dynamic role of history and in particular its interplay with cultural identities. She observed that the self-centred historical discourse of dominant groups might overlook if not fully obscure the cultural identities of historically marginalised groups; thus, the study of cultural difference¹ by means of the same static viewpoint would result in the representation of essentialist, fixed cultural identities, without regard for their actual prominence nor for the veridicity of their descriptions. From this, Mendoza (2001, quoted in Halualani et al. 2009: 21 et seq.) further reasoned that the 1980s hegemonic approach might inadvertently privilege one cultural identity over the other. Therefore, the historical context must be restored to play a major role in the uncovering of unjustly dominant identities.

A later critical turn embraced the arguments here aforementioned and discarded the previous monolithic view. Scholars casted off identifications of cultural groups as nation-bound and stable, but framed them in their contextuality and dependency upon temporal and spatial changes (Hsueh-Hua Chen 2014). In the last 25 years, the world has experienced a gradual but steady flattening (Poppi 2012) due to the “advancing economic globalization, shifting demographic patterns, and the rapid pace of technological change” (Martin & Nakayama 2015: 14). All these factors are “catapulting people, practices and beliefs from different cultures into shared and contested physical and virtual spaces (…) in unprecedented ways” (Sorrells 2012: 372, quoted in: Martin & Nakayama 2015: 15).

As also Bardhan (2011) observed, national cultures have been increasingly entangled in a “global flux” (2011: 17) and are becoming increasingly fluid. The concept of culture is hence nowadays shifting, deterritorialised, and traveling along circuits of power (Clifford 1992, quoted in Bardhan 2011: 23). Still, the conceptualisation of national culture is of some value, and it cannot be discarded completely (Bardhan 2011). Furthermore, culture was acknowledged as a “site of struggle” (Martin

& Nakayama 1999: 8) or, as Fanon (1967: 168, quoted in Bhabha 2006: 156) described it, as the

“zone of occult instability where the people dwell”. Mendoza also argued (2001, quoted in Halualani et al. 2009: 22) that culture is “not merely a benign system of signification but an ongoing struggle for hegemony – ultimately, […] a process of negotiation around meaning that can never not be about politics”. This new critical perspective entails two conceptions.

First, a critical turn requires scholars to “understand how relationships emerge in historical contexts, within institutional and political forces and social norms that are often invisible to some groups”

(Collier 2002: 12). The study of culture from a critical perspective needs to be attentive to issues of

1 It is not to be overlooked that when I say ‘difference’, I imply an idea of decency versus indecency that is undoubtedly dependent on my own experience of “power and safety” (Hage 1997: 142). As such, it can only be biased. Furthermore, the choice was made to never use ‘cultural diversity’, but always to opt for ‘cultural difference’, no matter how repetitive it might get. The former term would represent an epistemological object (Bhabha 1995), “culture as an object of empirical knowledge” (Bhabha 2006: 155), recognised as a kind of pregiven entity. On the other hand, ‘cultural difference’ endorses a position of “liminality” (Rutherford 1990: 209), a kind of productive space that is adequate to a fair construction of culture in the spirit of otherness (Bhabha 2006).

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context, historical forces, power and how these constrain and influence communication. In this sense, a critical turn is not new, for such an approach was pursued before the 1970s already; still, it has called for the alternative reconceptualization of general notions (such as identity, intercultural communication, and so forth) in which notions of power, context, ideology and historical hierarchies are admitted to play a major role. As history permeates intercultural encounters, thus also shaping the very foundation of culture and cultural identity, it is also believed to reproduce power relations that are embedded in the concerned contexts. Therefore, “power inflects and becomes determinative of cultural meaning” (Halualani et al. 2009: 22)². This is a basic tenet of the critical theory and acts as a catalyst for the second conception.

Second, the critical approach connects culture to power and meaning-making practices (Bardhan 2011). The reality of unjust power relations – clearly visible in historical times such as colonialism but which nonetheless exist even when less observable – questions whether a just encounter between sociocultural groups might exist at all, for history can “never be deemed a pure innocent space”

(Halualani et al. 2009: 22). This is why the act of cultural enunciation detaches itself from objectivity to meet the new definitions of contested and dynamic; hence the capacity of a discipline to historicise and problematize its own disciplinary formation is telling about its maturity in the negotiation of meaning. I wish to expand on this topic because it intermittently emergences in the thesis and its delineation has far-reaching implications for the overall representation of cultural difference.

I wish to start off by claiming that, as Bakthin argues (Tighe 2012), meaning does not exist per se and it does not belong to any one speaker; knowledge too is not a phenomenon that exists prior to communication (Bezemer & Jewitt 2009); “we should instead view meaning as something which is co-constructed in social interaction” (DeTurk 2001: 376). Complex interactions intervene in meaning-making, and how we make sense of oral or written texts is potently affected by the interplay of different factors, such as “issues of gender, personal experience, age, social status, race, ethnicity […], shared background, shared religion, social class/elite, and many others” (Shah 2003: 553).

Meaning is established through dialogic speech, for it is sustained in the encounter of a “multiplicity of speakers and a variety of perspectives” (Tighe 2012). Arising thus meaning “in the give-and-take between different speakers” (Hall 1997: 235), truth becomes something that is disputed and negotiated, rather than pronounced from a higher position. Consequently, meaning-making activities might generate representational problems, because they deal with several cultural positionalities and stem from changing attitudes to symbolic systems³ or antithetical symbolic representations within different cultures (Bhabha 2006). The problematic focus is not quite on the content of symbols or their social function, but it is instead on the “structure of symbolisation” (Bhabha 2006: 156), that is to say on the bar of separation between the signifier and the signified (Rutherford 1990). It all comes down to a linguistic difference, which is “crucial to the production of meaning and ensures, at the same time that meaning is never simply mimetic and transparent” (Bhabha 2006: 156). Truth is, “we can only construct meaning through a dialogue with the ‘Other’ ” (Hall 1997: 235). The production of meaning requires the collision of two separate identities, an I and a You, within an ambivalent semiotic terrain for negotiation. In “difference-based contexts” (Shah 2003: 559), for the communication exchange to be at least effective, not even efficient, the interactants need to have cultural knowledge of the other part (Wierzbicka 1997; Shah 2003). They need to engage in a process

2 See: 3.4 Discourse and power.

3 See: Posner (2008) in 2.1.1 Cultural memory in the concretion of identity.

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of decentring (DeTurk 2001) to achieve mutual understanding and arrive at a mutually satisfying relationship (Kupta et al. 2007, quoted in: Martin & Nakayama 2015: 17). Only then, when a process of “alienation and […] secondariness” (Rutherford 1990: 210) in the symbol-forming activity underscores the claim to an organic identity, the conceptualisation of meaning may strive to be objective.

Concluding, it is only when we understand that all cultural statements are constructed in an ambivalent space (Bhabha 2006) which makes present time, specific space and sociocultural relations relative, that we begin to understand “why hierarchical claims to the inherent originality or “purity”

of cultures are untenable” (Bhabha 2006: 157). Further object of the analysis of meaning-making activities is the construction of cultural identity.

2.1 Cultural identity through cultural memory

An individual’s cultural identity is an intrinsic factor in meaning-making activities, because it acts as a filter through which the individual feels and conceives the world. It refers to the sense of connection with, or sense of belonging to, a particular group (Hsueh-Hua Chen 2014); such perceived embeddedness in a collectivity is “constructed and maintained through the process of sharing collective knowledge such as traditions, heritages, language, aesthetics, norms and customs” (Hsueh- Hua Chen 2014). As a consequence, the individual’s perceptions and thoughts about the others are bound to be ceaselessly influenced by these cultural goggles, and therefore the investigation of cultural identity is thought to be able to grasp the influences on the individual’s ability to interpret his/her surroundings.

Before diving into cultural identity, one should first rest on the concept of memory. Specifically, a kind of memory that is collective, societal in a way, because for it to be capable of building up the cultural identity of a people, it surely needs to be consistently shared. The collective memory has the aim to retain resemblances in order to perpetuate the self-portrait of a group; it projects “an image of the past” to allow the group to “recognise itself throughout the total succession of images”

(Halbwachs 1992: 86). I feel it meaningful to state that Halbwachs (1992) and Warburg (1923, quoted in Assmann 2002) independently developed two theories of collective memory. Both theories dismissed the conception of collective memory as a result of biological evolution (Assmann 2002);

instead, socialisation and custom started being believed to be the bedrocks of collective memory. A similar and consequent transition took place with cultural identity, which needs not be defined by biological traits or ethnicity anymore: it is the result of socialisation.

It might be difficult to conceive collective memory. As Halbwachs (1992) recognised, “we are not accustomed to speaking […] of a group memory” (1992: 50). As individuals with a definite and personal consciousness of our own memories, we are very well aware of our individual memory, which comes from our own personal experience and reflection. It might be then difficult to recognise the double organisation of remembrances: there is indeed also a collective memory, on which the individual relies upon to fill the voids in his/her memories, as well as to evoke and maintain

“impersonal remembrances of interest to the group” (1992: 50). In this way, the individual has his/her own viewpoint, which is only one of the viewpoints that the collective memory encompasses.

Collective memory is however not the same as formal history (Halbwachs 1992) in at least two

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respects. First, collective memory is a continuous flow of thoughts whose continuity is not artificial, but it is kept alive by the consciousness of the groups who come in succession. History shows that

“everything - the interplay of interests, general orientations, modes of studying men and events, traditions, and perspectives on the future – is transformed from one period to another” (Halbwachs 1992: 80). Second, collective memory is a general category and, as such, it includes several kinds of memories. This distinguishes cultural memory from history as well, because history is a universal memory, while collective memory only relates to a group in a specific space and time.

I will examine two subcategories of collective memory, for I think they serve best the aim of the unfolding of cultural identity. The first subcategory is called “communicative memory”, and it is made up of memories exclusively based on everyday communication; the second subcategory is instead called “cultural memory”, and it is defined by Assmann (2002) as the way the society sees its past via newspaper articles, monuments, films, buildings, and so forth. As I already made clear about the general category, neither communicative nor cultural memory are based on ethnicity; they instead relate to society.

The differences between communicative memory and cultural memory are clearly presented by Aleida Assmann (1991), when she distinguished Lebenswelt from Monument. Lebenswelt is linked to the everyday life, to what is temporary and to the present. Men are part of a communicative community [Kommunikationsgemeinschaft], because they were part of the socialisation phenomenon. This means that through everyday communication, each individual composes a memory, which is socially mediated and related to the group. The memories of the individuals are part of an oral history that has a limited temporal horizon (from 80 to 100 years). People’s values, suppositions, imaginations, thoughts are thus related to this horizon, which is always linked to the present moment and which shifts in direct relation to the passing of time. Contrarily, Monument is a dimension linked to the festivities, to what lasts and to the progress. People are part of a cultural community [Kulturgemeinschaft], because they were part of the Enkulturation phenomenon.

Monument brings about the crystallisation in a fixed form of people’s thoughts and imaginations, because some signs of the culture are now intentionally produced and transmitted (Bezemer & Jewitt 2009). This is concretely opposed to the Lebenswelt, whose communicative thoughts are characterised by a high degree of non-specialisation, disorganisation, and instability. The fixed cultural signs of the Monument were found by individuals as ways by which their nature might be consistently maintained through generations in repeated societal practice (Assmann 2002), with a horizon that may expand across millennia, assuring a people’s cultural persistence.

It is indeed this meaningful act of intentionally conveying one’s own culture which, according to Halbwachs (1992), makes the transition from everyday communication to more objectivised culture happen. The transition to cultural memory is significant and it is showed in the form of texts, images, rites, buildings. Halbwachs (1992) holds that once the memory is transformed into history, then the group relationships and the contemporary references are lost; actually, the only means by which the totality of past events can be put together in a timeless manner is by separating it from the social milieus and psychological perspective, while “retaining only the group’s chronological and spatial outline of them” (ibid. 84). Assmann (2002), on the contrary, embraces the idea that in the concretion of identity, “a group bases its consciousness of unity and specificity upon the group relationships and the contemporary reference” (Assmann n.d.: 128), so that it can reproduce itself. Therefore, Assmann

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insists on the idea that objectivised culture maintains the structure of a memory precisely because of the connection to groups and contemporary reference.

Before enumerating and describing some of the characteristics of cultural memory, and how these compose cultural identity, I would like to dwell on the fixed points of cultural memory. They are figures of memory, whose presence is critical in the identification of the culture, its celebration and persistence; not last, they also play a role in the establishment of power (Assmann 2002). The ways in which such figures of memory are preserved include, among others: cultural formation (texts, rites) and institutional communication (recitation, observance). They are called “islands of time”

[Zeitinseln] (Assmann 2002: 12), or “islands of the past” (Halbwachs 1992: 66) and allow a retrospective contemplativeness, because rituals, images, and all the cultural formation that is concretely tangible are crystallised through time and therefore become accessible across millennia.

We may see eventually why Assmann’s theory of cultural memory is so appealing to present day conceptions of cultural identity: it relates memory, that is to say the contemporised past, to culture and to society. Thus, this bundle of interdependency makes much sense in modern-day cultural conceptions.

2.1.1 Cultural memory in the concretion of identity

Cultural memory has six characteristics; their description expands Assmann’s consideration on the islands of time and might make our perception of cultural memory clearer, so to ultimately ease the representation of cultural identity.

First, cultural memory has a capacity to reconstruct [Rekonstruktivität] (Assmann 2002: 13). As I previously stated, individual memory constantly relates to the collective memory to confirm and maintain the remembrances it creates individually. Cultural memory exists then in the modalities of potentiality and actuality: it relates on the one hand on the archive, whose islands of time stretch towards infinity and are thus potential; on the other hand, it works in reconstructing knowledge in the real, actual world, because the contemporary and individual situation builds it up.

Second, cultural memory has the characteristic of formation: it means that the prerequisites for the transmission of knowledge in society are the objectivisation and ensuing institutionalisation of the communicative meaning that is collectively shared. The formative role of cultural memory is manifested in the “educative, civilising, and humanising functions” (Assmann n.d.: 132) of the group’s members. Again, we see the transition from everyday communication to institutionalised, crystallised cultural heritage.

Third, cultural formation and the formulation of islands of time lead necessarily to some sort of cultural organisation: communicative, collectively shared knowledge is passed down through rites, ceremonies, festivities; the bearers of cultural memory specialise to accomplish the task of cultural transmission.

Fourth, cultural memory shows a degree of obligation [Verbindlichkeit]. The image that cultural memory creates is in fact normative in its formation: the group whose cultural memory is concerned produces a system of values and differentiations in importance, which structures the group’s

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knowledge, symbols, and islands of time. Obligation has a crucial role to play, because it actuates the decisive discernment among cultural groups: the knowledge of cultural memory is binding on its members as it provides rules of conduct that need to be followed in different degrees of obligation.

This matter deserves further clarification, and I will provide it following Posner (2008: 47 et seq.).

According to Posner, every culture has some codes available, and with ‘code’ I rather mean

‘language’ after Lotman’s conception of ‘language’ opposed to ‘code’ (Lotman 1992: 12, quoted in Wadensjö 1998: 31). These codes make some segments of the world [Weltsegmente] available and the codes’ users discern which segments are more important and which are less. The codes thus organise the segments of the world in a hierarchic system of semiotic spheres, which are surrounded by non-semiotic spheres. What is considered more important for the identity of a culture is the central sphere; still, what is at the centre for some may appear only marginally in other cultures, or may be even excluded. The semiotic segment that was excluded through marginalization poses a threat to the culture concerned; this threat helps with the concretion of cultural identity because it defines what the culture is not. The cultural identity of a group bears on the establishment of a counterculture [Gegenkultur]. The fourth characteristic of cultural memory thus determines a kind of containment, realized through the institutions of norms given by the host society, which says that “these other cultures are fine, but we must be able to locate them within our own grid” (Rutherford 1990: 208).

Sustaining the existence of semiotic spheres does mean backing skewed essentialist views; Posner (2008) himself believes such spheres to have blurred contours. Therefore, Posner’s thinking seems to be in line with Wolf (1994: 5, quoted in Wierzbicka 1997: 18), when he affirms: “races, cultures, and peoples are not essences. They have no fixed contours. They have no self-evident content. Thus, we are all members of multiple, indeed myriad, ‘groups’ – crosscutting, overlapping, and ever-evolving”.

Posner and Wierzbicka agree with most of Wolf’s statements, albeit they are both distant from the idea that cultures would not have any “self-evident content” altogether. Posner’s theory itself denies the assumption that all individuals are members of groups with no form whatsoever of boundaries of limitations. Wierzbicka (1997) thinks that this kind of reasoning would ignore the central reality that, especially to a bilingual, the existence of at least two cultures and two languages is loud and clear.

Even though fixed contours might not be there, nor might heterogeneous cultures be clearly separated from each other, still, this “does not mean that they are total fictions” (Wierzbicka 1997: 19):

individualities might still distinct themselves.

Deriving from Posner (2008) and Liebert (2003), the fifth characteristic of cultural memory is then self-explanatory: the concretion of identity. Cultural memory, so as Assmann (2002) conceives it, relates to the group; it “preserves the store of knowledge from which a group derives its unity and peculiarity” (Assmann n.d.: 132). The objective manifestations of cultural memory are often identified negatively – we are not this – as Posner argued. This is part of a process of differentiation, which individual groups achieve by answering to some fundamental questions [Grundfragen] (Liebert 2003: 63). The basic idea is that a sociologic-oriented group concept emerges as soon as a social group asks the fundamental questions and finds collectively suitable answers to them. The Grundfragen relate to a group’s identity, its history, present status and future development. According to Liebert (2003), they are to be traced back to the beginning of Bloch’s book “Das Prinzip Hoffnung”

(1990: 1, quoted in Liebert 2003: 63), namely “Who are we? Where do come from? Where do we go from here?” [Wer sind wir? Wo kommen wir her? Wohin gehen wir?]. The existence and future definition of a sociocultural group come down to a very broad response to such interrogations, which essentially deal with about the human condition. As with Posner (2008) and the semiotic spheres, the

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first question asks about the social identity of the group. Of course, the question entails many more correlated queries such as whether the group differs from another group, how can group members differentiate themselves from the others, whether subgroups are present, which are the resources that the subgroup members have available, and so forth (Liebert 2003). The second question resonates with the previous characteristics of cultural memory. It involves a group’s history: the group is asked to take consciousness and comment on the shared events and thoughts of the past, how they had impact on the present situation, and how and whether the future will be influenced by them (Liebert 2003). The last question addresses the future. The collectivity must confront all the aims, visions, expectations, fears, and hopes (Liebert 2003: 8) that surround the future. The answers to the fundamental questions hence determine and organise the activities of the group, as well as their range of motion: formation, organisation, and obligation.

The sixth and last characteristic of cultural memory is reflexivity. So far, we have observed how cultural formation and obligation are integral parts of a cultural memory. We might add that the group members do not passively receive education and do not passively abide by the rules of conduct either;

they rather actively participate on the preservation of their group’s knowledge by self-reflecting on their practice. Proverbs, maxims, rituals; they all hypoleptically contribute to the knowledge explanation and reinterpretation. Self-reflexivity is explained as the group members worry about their own image, meaning that their view is inward looking and again confirming that even though the group exploits negativity (Posner 2008) for its formation, the main concern will always be the members’ own social system.

The concept of cultural memory in the concretion of identity has been thoroughly defined because it overlaps with another concept: narrative (Baker 2005; Baker 2006), which is introduced in 4.

Translation studies and meaning and later considered in the analysis in 5.4.2 Culture-dependent terms. Cultural memory sustains the concretion of identity through narratives, which the individuals appropriate and create selectively. The individuals position themselves in the narratives through self- reflexive processes. Cultural memory also shows formation and organisation characteristics, which the narratives also have: individuals relate themselves to former events throughout history cohesively in order to define their identity to themselves and others, as the acetaie do for presentational and marketing reasons. The companies tell narratives that are true symbolic, selectively appropriated practices and render their placing in centuries-long traditions coherent. This is indeed passed on to later generations. Hence, companies shall be interpreted in the bigger context in which they position themselves.

2.1.2 Othering and the importance of difference

Deriving from Posner (2008) and the concept of Gegenkultur in the concretion of identity, I wish to dwell on the importance of difference.

The first account on why difference matters comes from linguistics: “difference matters because it is essential to meaning; without it, meaning could not exist” (Hall 1997: 235). The idea that meaning is relational points in the direction of the coexistence of opposites, i.e. binary oppositions, often reductionist and oversimplified (ibid.) in their mental construction, which connote diverse ways of capturing value and as such are polarised (one of the poles is normally the dominant one). These

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binary oppositions are explicit in the ‘othering’ process. According to Bresner (2010: 11), othering can be defined as “the process of creating and maintaining a dichotomy between ones-self, as marked by a particular (Western) identity, and the Other(s)”. Intimately linked to the process of othering is the desire to “identify who we are by seeing ourselves as separate from and different to ‘others’ ” (MacNaughton & Davis 2001: 88). Such self-identification relies on the negative mental process of

‘I am me’ because ‘I am not the other’. As I outlined before with Posner (2008) and the concept of Gegenkultur, the other is necessary to the identity construction of the self, because the self constructs himself/herself within the gaze of what Lacan (Usher & Edwards 1994, quoted in MacNaughton &

Davis 2001) called: the Great Other. The emerging of representational practices and repertoires of discursive formations to signify the Other is part of the atavic bustle of mankind in the concretion of identity (Hall 1997). The Great Other stands for the dominant framework of ideologies and knowledge by which individuals make sense of themselves and also make themselves recognisable to others. The Other is what is “different from an invisible, unarticulated, and submerged ‘norm’ ” (McMaster & Austin 2005: 63). Indeed, in any culture, othering works by naturalising the worldviews of those in power, while establishing their supremacy over other subjects. Othering eventually reveals itself as a political vision of reality, whose structure intentionally promotes some kind of difference (Said 1995); this vision creates such a dichotomy between “us” and “them”. As a social species, “the delineation of “us” and “them” is a natural phenomenon through which we bind together the social groups which serve, primarily, as a mechanism for survival” (Schultz & Schumann 2011: 80). It is undoubtedly positive. However, even though theoretically the othering process has no implicit value and it is capable of creating social cohesion, it is actually as well capable of creating conflict: the dichotomy lies down the theoretical foundations for the power legitimisation of the group in charge.

The subjugated subjects are “homogenized into a collective “they” ” (MacNaughton & Davis 2001:

87), and can be easily identified because their differences from mainstream culture are stigmatised.

As a consequence, perceptions and understandings of dominated populations had since then been potentially biased (Bresner 2010). Still, uniform cultural identity does act as social glue, it is a kind of “communal entity” (Kim 2001: 145); also, the whole process of home-buidling (Hage 1997) is fostered through an emphasis on “shared symbolic forms, shared morality, shared values […] and shared language” (Hage 1997: 103). Common elements create a sense of safety and belonging in an unfamiliar environment, and hence the culture becomes “a symbol of identity, of inclusion within a certain group” (Schultz & Schumann 2011: 75). However, inclusion implies exclusion, for the binary

“us/them” and the consequential Othering is a “natural phenomenon through which we bind together the social groups [and] which serves, primarily, as a mechanism for survival” (ibid. 80). Othering produces social cohesion through the establishment of a common framing for identities. However, this process of bordering also generates a pre-constructed social structure in which many elements escape the control of the individual and might eventually become harmful. I will later expand on this with the example of stereotyping.

The second account of why difference matters comes from the theories of language (Hall 1997):

difference is needed to construct meaning. I have already accounted for this claim in 2. Culture and intercultural communication. I wish to add that if we debate the existence of meaning per se, it comes about the stunning realisation that everything we say is unavoidably modified by the interplay of another person, and therefore dialogic speech acknowledges “sets of social relations between and among speakers, and is thus more descriptive of historical and cultural realities” (Tighe 2012).

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Summarising, the concept of collective memory comprises cultural memory, which is the very bedrock for the concretion of identity of a group and for its members’ formation, organisation, and obligations. Cultural memory is composed of the figures of memory (texts, images, rituals, and so forth) which help maintain and convey a society’s self-image. Members of a group actively reflect on their signs. Upon such collective knowledge, a societal group concretes its identity and awareness of unity. A sociocultural group’s organisation varies greatly through times and environments; still, the cultural heritage somehow remains identifiable throughout them and it is the way the sociocultural group becomes visible to itself and to others (Assmann n.d.).

2.1.3 Language and culture

The concretion of cultural memory and identity is achieved through the self-reflective activity of individuals. They bestow signs certain meanings to create shared awareness. It is therefore important to include a reflection on language, for it is has decisive influences on culture; cultural meanings are actually learned through the medium of language itself (Lemke 2012). Standard approaches to language are based on a static view of semantics, which tends to obscure language’s dynamics. This thesis argues instead for a non-static approach to language that might be able to capture those aims that go beyond the superficial meaning of words. The argument is that language and culture are closely related (Wierzbicka 1997; Leveridge 2008).

Wardhaugh (2002: 219 et seq., quoted in Elmes 2013: 12) reported that two claims about the relationship between language and culture may be advanced. First, the structure of a language seems to determine the Weltbild of speakers, so that from differing languages there are resulting differing worldviews (Emmitt & Pollock 1997, quoted in Leveridge 2008). Reasons for this are that there are objective difficulties in the rendering of those words that are characteristic of a language, as for example: “esprit, patrie, charme…” (Stolze 2008: 29); also, differences in the systems of colour scale, natural phenomena characterisation and so forth are apparent and grounding for it. Language relates to the common experiences of its speakers and reflects the ways in which they answer to the existential questions about their history, present and future situation (Williams 1983); it is in this sense that “language expresses the cultural reality of those who use it” (Poppi 2012: 86). If the first assertion holds, then it is also true that a sociocultural group comes to use language in a certain way because they have certain beliefs, they are consistent with certain practices and they act in socially predictable ways: culture is reflected in language ().

The idea that language is by no means an arbitrary (De Pedro 1999; Elmes 2013) exchangeable attachment of cultural identity [beliebig austauschbares Anhängsel der Identität] (Stolze 2008: 25), but it is fundamental for the classification and expression of a cultural world is known as linguistic determinism. Therefore, it cannot be isolated “from the culture of the people who use it to express themselves” (Poppi 2012: 85). This line of reasoning hints at the unified identity of language and thinking (Wierzbicka 1997; Stolze 2008; Cinato Kather 2011). Therefore, language is a “key to the cultural past of a society” (Salzmann 1998: 41, quoted in Elmes 2013: 12) and it is a “guide to social reality” (Sapir 1929: 209, quoted in Wierzbicka 1997: 10).

It is on this conception that the untranslatability of language is grounded (Stolze 2008). Texts might be translated with difficulty: the historic, literary, cultural, linguistic, and emotive context of an author

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accompanies the semantic conversion of the text (Stolze 2008; Cinato Kather 2011), and it is actually almost impossible to transpose all elements of the source text into a target text (Nasi 2004), let alone if the source text is also intratextually intertwined with images and sounds and it belongs to a particular genre. Dante ([1304-7] 1980) himself was convinced of the extreme unlikelihood of a beautiful rendition in another language: “Sappia ciascuno che nulla cosa per legame musaico armonizzata si può de la sua loquela in altra trasmutare, sanza rompere tutta sua dolcezza e armonia”

(Convivio I, VII: 14). Still, no matter how imperfect the final rendition or how difficult it is, the need for translation is nowadays even bigger than before (Cinato Kather 2011), and central in business communication. How can then the need for translation and an almost impossible satisfying translation yield be associated? This question reveals the awareness of incommensurability [incommensurabilità]

(Eco 2003: 37 et seq.; Rutherford 1990: 209) between different Weltanschauungen.

2.2 Intercultural communication: domain, definitions, boundaries

This section takes a closer look at the domain of intercultural communication and some of its subdomains, and it unfolds by relating intercultural communication to the recent theoretical developments in the conceptualisation of culture. Intercultural communication competence and some of the intrapersonal processes in intercultural communication are object of investigation. Intercultural communication is essential in the construction of cultural identity, and “it produces a contested space where cultural identity is constantly redefined and negotiated” (Hsueh-Hua Chen 2014); therefore, it will also be core of later discussion regarding individuals’ perception of translated texts and how they might make sense of another culture altogether, especially in business and promotional contexts.

I will start out by connecting intercultural communication to previous discourse. So far, culture and the concretion of identity of a sociocultural group have been the central focus inside the bigger picture of intercultural communication. There have also already been some insights about the overlapping of confining cultures; however, the transmission of a group’s culture has until now been framed among individuals either within the same culture or very close to it. Cultural identity has been so far firmly concentrated on the single individuals’ identities to underline how unquestionably important it is in offering a salient “sense of historical connection and embeddedness […] in the collectivity of a group”

(Kim 2001: 145). Generally, the concept of culture is held to describe “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor 1871: I, 1, quoted in Stocking 2009: 783). Nevertheless, the conception of cultural identity itself crumbles if no communication is involved. As Martin &

Nakayama (2010) argue, culture and communication are interrelated to the point that “culture is communication and communication is culture” (Hall 1959: 169, quoted in Adair et al. 2009: 202).

Further, the reference to man as part of a collective life experience within a “commonly recognisable”

(Kim 2001: 140) group, i.e. a society, which I have so far established (Assmann 1991; Assmann 2002;

Posner 2008; Halualani et al. 2009; Bardhan 2011; Hsueh-Hua Chen 2014), denotes culture as an inclusive conception and as such, it allows for the “viewing of all communication encounters as potentially ‘intercultural’ ” (Kim 2001: 140), for intercultural communication (abbreviated: IC) is frequently defined as the “communication process in which individual participants of differing cultural backgrounds come into direct contact and interaction with one another” (ibid.).

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As outlined before, from the late 1970s onward culture has been encapsulated in nation-state entities by neo-positivist and quantitative studies which abandoned the former dynamically and socially constructed conception of culture. In this turn, Martin and Nakayama (2010) recognised the categorisation of culture in the intercultural communication field according to the functionalist paradigm as a static thing that could be empirically and quantitatively measured. People who belong to a culture, it was assumed, are programmed to abide by its rules and values. Heterogeneous cultural groups were then treated as “homogenous and static collectives” (Halualani et al. 2009: 21), with the consequential assertion that intercultural communication could be the neutral medium through which national differences were expressed. Intercultural communication was that space wherein “two disembodied ahistorical beings” (Moon 1996: 76) would communicate across cultures. This monolithic view (Iser 1996; Kim 2001; Halualani et al. 2009) presumed that cultural descriptions could be, in a way, objective. The idea that objective communication is indeed possible reminds me of Lotman’s discussion of ‘code’ (1992: 12, quoted in Wadensjö 1998: 31) as opposed to ‘language’.

The former is a sort of structure without a memory, created for certain purposes, which is actually able to transmit some objective information, albeit the value of it is severely restricted. It would correspond to the kind of communication possible among beings outside history and detached from any real-life bond. The latter instead is a code together with its history, and as such, it is able to fulfil the various purposes conventionally ascribed to language (Wadensjö 1998). Building on this, it can be inferred that the discourse production of those who sustain a monolithic view on language and culture is claimed to be neutral, but it can never be: the visions and politics of those in power end up ascribing labels to “historically less powerful groups” (Halualani et al. 2009). As previously delineated, this theoretical reasoning regards culture as a homogenising force (Halualani et al. 2009)

“which tends to regulate the behaviour of people and institution within an integrative framework of values and believes thus necessarily defining variation as deviant” (Harris & Bargiela-Chiappini 1997: 5). The risk with this is that individuals might “become shaped and regulated by a system of values that limits their ability to make sense of their experiences self-reflexively” (Harris & Bargiela Chiappini 1997: 5), this happening whenever there is an attempt to explain human behaviour as a function of culture. Such cultural descriptions would only reflect ruling power interests and project an ideology of unequal Central-Periphery relations typically constructed through “binaries” (Cargyle 2005: 107, quoted in Bardhan 2011: 23). The ruling group benefits from the binaries (Iser 1996), since they may justify imposed worldviews like colonialism, while ignoring the communication issues that arise from the inequality. Prejudices arise from this; it was only later than scholars embraced IC as that kind of communication that “elimina stereotipi e pregiudizi dall’analisi” (Baraldi 2012: 42) and that constructs cultural difference (Bardhan 2011).

It was actually in the 1990s, along with the blossoming of the critical perspective, that “culture began to be problematized, and the country = culture assumption began to be questioned” (Bardhan 2011:

15). The critical conceptualisation of culture came back to see culture as socially and communicatively constructed, focussing heavily on issues of power, structural hierarchies, and context. Since then, intercultural communication relations started to be seen as “constrained and enabled by institutions, ideologies, and histories” (Collier 2002: 12). Thus, if history and contexts cannot be considered an innocent space, neither can intercultural communication (Halualani et al.

2009). The array of factors that enables and constrains intercultural communication also affects the reproducing of cultural identity, which is central in IC perspectives (Kim 2001). It is then easy to understand that meaning is actively enacted during the intercultural exchange, and it is therefore not

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the product of an individual’s identity or actions. IC is an autopoietic process that shall be initiated by the observation of a communication problem, namely that a lack of generalised⁴ structural assumptions is apparent (Baraldi 2012), since the participants have dissimilar language and sociocultural (or even subcultural) backgrounds. The participants overcome this impasse by trying to communicate “effectively and appropriately” (Sun 2014) with one another. Such an outlook on the participants’ behaviour reconciles with Harris and Bargiela-Chiappini's (1997) stance that, in communication, individuals act together as self-reflexive creators of cultural values, rather than passive recipients (1997). Lippi-Green (1997: 70, quoted in Sun 2014) has emphasised as well the importance of “sharing the communicative burden”.

Briefly, IC deals with the reproducing of cultural identities in cultural contexts, how individuals develop skills for communication in intercultural milieus, and what happens in the case of intercultural communication breakdowns. These themes overlap in the research.

2.3 Intercultural communication competence

In recent years, there has been research on the importance of intercultural communication competence (Sun 2014). Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is considered very broadly as “an impression that behaviour is appropriate and effective in a given context” (Spitzberg 200: 379). It encompasses a set of congruent skills, behaviours, policies, awareness, and knowledge at different levels along the cultural competence continuum (Dadfar 2001; Bennett 2008; Kohn 2013; Sun 2014) that enable and support effective and appropriate interaction in cross-cultural situations. More specifically, intercultural communication competence encompasses being aware of one’s own Weltanschauung while gaining knowledge about and positively empathising with other cultural practices and worldviews. Efficient intercultural communicators must be aware of unilateral idiomaticity, namely they have to keep in mind that everything that can be articulated in one language does not necessarily exist in another; that meanings are not directly translatable and that cultural aspects influence communication (Dadfar 2001; Poppi 2012). What is perhaps most important in ICC, among other factors, is one’s flexibility: the willingness to adapt and to understand, because “with some degree of intercultural awareness, one is capable of understanding the other” even though “the two persons’ communication styles are different” (Honnar 2005: 80, quoted in Sun 2014).

Summarising, effective intercultural communication requires flexibility, empathy, respect, sensitivity, and lastly tolerance; in other words, understanding and being responsive to other’s people behaviours and ways of thinking. Acknowledging and accepting but also truly appreciating the difference will surely deepen the learning and understanding of other cultures, one’s own culture, and ultimately improving communication performances (Poppi 2012).

Such a positive social behaviour may be valued along a continuum, at one extreme of which are maximum appropriateness and effectiveness. Appropriateness and effectiveness become in fact the two most important characteristics to value communication. Appropriateness refers to whichever communicative event in which “the valued rules, norms, and expectancies of the relationship are not violate significantly” (Spitzberg 2000: 380), while effectiveness is the “accomplishment of valued

4 Meaning ‘accepted by all the participants’.

Abstracts English version:

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