In my opinion without understanding the other culture it does not work.You may say acculturation is more than understanding and that i true. According to E.T. Hall' great triad cultural phenomena may be grouped as formal, informal and technical. Formal element can be learned from books (although they will not be as compelling for the outsider than for someone being grown up in the given culture). Technical items can be really assimilated if one is being taught/educated/trained in the given culture. But even that can be learned. The toughest part is informal, which is learnt even by the members of the given culture unconsciously, thus they usually do not even know of it existence. The working of the informal (which causes most tensions and gut-feelings in the inter-cultural dialogue) can be observed and decribed by keen oservers a E.T. Hall was. The best part of his books are examples (e.g. in Hidden Language). Anyway cultural cauvinists will never be able to communicate well with the membbers of another cuture. I suggest you to have a look at the book af Alain Coulon: The Sherpa and the White Man. It is not too long, but extremely interesting and deeply penetrating. This book is available here or RG (uploaded by Alain, who is additionally a very interesting person).

Hi Gyorgy, thanks for your reply. I agree - without acculturation, intercultural communication is rarely likely to be successful. However, this aspect is not considered in cross-cultural communication and competence research. I try to find supportive reasons why inter com should be only regarded in the concept of acculturation and not separately.

I am not a specialist in this field, but having worked 7 years for a Japanese company in Hungary and being very much interested in comparative cultural research I do have a (non-expert) opinon. My impression is that acculturation is a notion used for people living on the territory of another culture for a longer time. Inter-cultural communication skills are needed, however, for a much broader circle of people, e.g. for those working in joint ventures. (Hall has very good examples of cultural misunderstanind even for European-European companies using monochronic and polychronic timescale, let alone Asian-European cooperations). From the practical viewpoint one cannot send each coworker to spend years in another culture, nevertheless (I believe) that certain inter-cultural commincation skills may be taught to them to reduce the cultural shock and misunderstanding. The most important thing is, however, empathy and keen observation. That's why women are better in this respect than proud males ...

I tend to agree with Gyorgy that in practice there are some intercultural communication skills that may be transferred to various contexts of culture-contact, and need not be specifically aimed at the contact between, let's say, two defined cultures.

In my experience most people look for a quick orientation that allows them to overcome initial cultural barriers, become aware of certain practices & customs, and help them to get quickly settled and started in a formerly unfamiliar environment (e.g. field of expatriation, professional displacement, joint venture, etc.).

On a theoretical level, any discussions of intercultural communication skills need to be addressed within the context of cultural concepts, e.g. addressing the relationship between language-culture-identity, examining the use of stereotypes, and more.

But I absolutely agree with you, Katharina: for "true", deep-going intercultural communication the interlocutors should be both acculturated into the respective settings to have a better and clearer understanding and point of reference. But that raises the next question: how to define culture.

Dear Gyorgy,

I absolutely agree with your point of view that empathy and keen observation is the clue in intercultural communication. P. Ch. Earley’a and E. Mosakowsky see the cultural intelligence as an ability of distinguish between the individual or group behaviour the universal traits and the specific traits. And there are also the third dimension -the traits neither universal nor specific - a cultural dimension.

Kind Regards,

Kasia

" Western studies (Gholamrazaei 1996; Poyrazli et.all 2001; McClelland 1996) show that mastery of the host language assist adaptation. For example, in the Western case, English language would assist in understanding lectures and academic discussions, carrying out day to day task and other social activities.

However, researchers in Japan found mastery of the Japanese host language does not guarantee psychological wellbeing (Moyer 1989; Okazaki1992; Araki 1989; Tanaka & Fujihara 1992; as cited in Maruyama, 2004). As summoned up by Maruyama (1998)....contradictory to the western studies, the communication problem does not seem to decrease with better language acquisition as the root of the problem lies deeper than words. Those who make attempts to learn about Japanese language, people and custom experience are more stressed due to rejection by the host then did less motivated students (Tsai1995). " in case you want to read more; the article is available on my page entitled UTILIZING THE FINDINGS OF INTERCULTURAL ADAPTION

RESEARCH IN THE COUNSELLING OF MALAYSIAN STUDENTS IN

JAPAN

In my opinion, Intercultural Communication Skills are necessary for one to relate to others in other cultures or worldview. My experience as a student in the US for 4 years required that I acculturate somehow in order to appreciate American education, and life. For example, for my English class, Mark Twain, Bernard Shaw or Charles Dickens  literature were used, but I grew up with Prof. Ngugi, D.Rubadiri,  or some of  West African writers. However, returning and working in my home country, I have had to deprogramme myself and adapt to my Kenyan nations in one country with expectations of the nations wherever we relate to. Intercultural communication skills are necessary, but not the acculturation, unless you want to live permanently in that culture, nation or country.

hi

parameters such as social distance, low context vs high context, integration patterns, identity commitment, decorum , ( im)politeness codes, pragmatic considerations, presuppostions , inferences , entailments, cultural scripts, schemata,  implicatures ,etc could influence acculturation procedure which  facilitates intercultural communication .