Transcripts
3.3 Federico Hi, guys. I’m Federico. I’m a student in my third year, and I also work for the university radio station. You look like a bit of a mixed bunch. Oh, that sounded rude. I mean you look like you come from lots of different countries.
Maria Well, I’m from Italy. My name’s Maria. Federico Cool, me too! Ciao, Maria. Maria
Federico Hi, Mei-Ling. Omar
Ciao, Federico. And this is Mei-Ling, my roommate. She’s from Shanghai in China.
I’m Omar. I’m from Dubai, and these are my classmates, Takis from Greece and Julia from Brazil.
Federico Great. So can I interview you all for my radio show? Julia
That depends. What do you want to ask us about?
Federico About cultural differences. What do you find strange or interesting about living in Britain? What is different from home?
Maria Julia
Omar Maria Omar Julia
That sounds fun. Let me think … That’s OK, I guess.
One of the first things I noticed was the food. In Dubai, we use a lot of fresh spices in our food and we go to restaurants a lot more than you do here in the UK.
Yes, that’s true. It’s really weird. When I go to the supermarket, I always see a lot of ready-made meals for one or two people. I think British people should eat more fresh food.
And that’s not good. Where I come from, families must eat together. I think that’s important, because families should spend time together.
That’s OK, but in the UK a lot of women also work, and they do most of the cooking. Cooking as well as working can be very difficult. Men and women ought to share the cooking more!
Federico OK, guys, I’m recording now. Let’s get back to the subject of the British for now, OK?
Takis
I find something very strange. My parents own a restaurant in Greece. Often customers turn up quite late at night. My mum and dad don’t have to keep the restaurant open, but business is business, so they prepare a meal for the customer, of course. But here, OK, it’s not so bad in the city, but if you go to smaller places you can’t get anything to eat except at the times the restaurant owner decides.
Mei-Ling I know, you’re right! But I think it might not be the owner who decides; there could be laws about it. Once I was in a little village in England and went to a café at about two, wanting lunch. They said to me, ‘We’re sorry, but you have to wait until five and then we may serve you a meal.’
Maria Julia
Oh, yes, and the classic British ‘I’m sorry’.
I think they are hypocrites. They are always saying sorry, but they don’t really mean it. It’s like somebody says, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch what you said’, when really they just weren’t paying attention.
122 English for the 21st Century • Transcripts Maria
Omar Takis
I think that’s unfair, Julia. In fact, it’s sometimes quite sweet when they say sorry. A guy accidentally kicked my suitcase at the train station the other day and he said ‘I’m sorry’ to it!
You can’t be serious! He apologized to a suitcase? He must be crazy.
Either that, or he wanted an excuse to get talking to Maria.
3.4 This week’s lecture is the first on a very broad topic – cultural differences and how to deal with them. Today I’ll be giving you an overview of some of the key theories about cultural differences and intercultural communication. In subsequent lectures we shall examine these in more detail.
I looked at the class register earlier today and I can see that you are a pretty culturally diverse group, so I expect that you have already noticed differences in behaviour between people here, people in your own culture and your classmates from other countries.
This slide shows what is known as the ‘Iceberg Model of Culture’. As you probably know, 90% of an iceberg is below the surface of the sea and so cannot be seen. This analogy is commonly used to describe culture because the majority of what constitutes culture is below the surface – in other words unseen, and often subconscious and taken for granted. The 10% that is visible is behaviour – the way that people dress, what and when they eat, their dances and literature and traditional celebrations, and so on. Below the surface, here at the bottom of the iceberg, are the core values of a culture – the things that are widely considered to be good or bad, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. These core cultural values have been shaped by the history, religion and political background of a specific country or culture, and are passed on by education, the family and the media. Slightly higher up the iceberg we have attitudes that grow out of these core values.
These could be attitudes to gender roles, care of the elderly, work versus family, punctuality, showing affection in public … a host of different things. For example, if a core value of your culture is respect for your elders, this could result in an attitude in which young people put the needs of older generations before their own. This in turn could result in behaviour such as giving up a career to care for an ageing relative at home, or following a career you do not really like in order to please a parent.
As I said before, this analogy is frequently used in the field of cross-cultural studies and is now so widely accepted that there is disagreement about when it was first formulated and who actually originated the model. The general consensus is that it was most probably Edward T. Hall, about whom you will hear more later in this lecture.
3.5 So, bearing in mind that what lies below the surface in the iceberg model is not only unseen but also often subconscious
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