Complete Learning Log #1

Read Building Blocks of Critical Intercultural Communication

To-Do Date: Apr 5 at 11:59pm

These are the building blocks of multicultural understanding and of Critical Intercultural Communication. We will be using these terms throughout the quarter and I will expect you to use these terms in your work for this course. You will learn more about each concept as we move through course material so you should familiarize yourself with the following definitions.

Building Blocks of Critical Intercultural Communication

Social Construction Theory

What we assume to be real is actually constructed/created through our social interaction. This theory suggests that our views of reality are created, maintained and given meaning through our communication.

Communication

Communication is the ongoing symbolic process through which reality is created, negotiated, repaired and transformed through social interaction. It is the way that meanings are shared and negotiated. It occurs whenever someone attributes meaning to another’s’ words or actions. Communication is dynamic, often unintentional, receiver-oriented, unrepeatable, and irreversible. Communication shapes what counts as factual, acceptable, good, truthful, real and possible. It accomplishes and creates our being “human”.

Culture

We will be using three definitions of culture that provide different ways to understand intercultural communication in today’s world.

 Culture as a site of shared meaning that is passed from generation to generation through  symbols that allow human beings to communicate maintain, and develop an approach and understanding of life.

  Culture as a contested site where meanings are constantly negotiated.

Culture, in the context of globalization, is conceptualized, experienced, exploited and mobilized as a resource for economic development and capital accumulation. It is also used as a resource for addressing social problems and for individual/collective empowerment and resistance.

Context

When we speak of context in this course, we are referring to the physical, social, political, economic and historical structures within which communication occurs.

Social (or Cultural) Group

A group of people who share a range of physical, cultural or social characteristics within one of the categories of social (cultural) identity. Examples include gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, class, ability and age.

Agent: Group or member of a group that holds the power

Target: Group or member of a group that is oppressed or does not have the power.

Standpoint Theory

This theory claims that the social categories (groups) to which we belong shape what we know and how we communicate. It shapes our view of society, the world and other people. Our position within social relations of power produces different standpoints from which to view, experience, act and construct our knowledge about the world.

Positionality

In society, there is an intersecting web of socially-constructed hierarchical social categories such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, age and physical ability. Positionality is your social location or position within that web, and produces the standpoint from which we view the world.

Ethnocentrism

Belief that one’s own group’s way of thinking, being, believing and acting in the world is superior to others.

Power

The ability to influence another or to limit choices for individuals or groups of people. When referencing systems, groups with the most power determine the communication system of an entire society. Those in power consciously or unconsciously create and maintain communication systems that reflect, reinforce, and promote their own ways of thinking and communicating. Those that have power define, and those that define have power.

Involuntary power is your age, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, race, sexual orientation.

Voluntary power is your educational background, geographic location, marital status, socio-economic class.

Power is negotiated verbally and nonverbally.

Oppression

A system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social group memberships and operates, intentionally and unintentionally, on individual, institutional and cultural (societal) levels.

Privilege

Unearned access to often invisible resources (social power) and benefits based on advantaged social group membership.