Building Trans-Cultural Standards. On Demolishing the Barriers to Intercultural Communication

• Author: Dumitru Bortun
• Position: Associate Professor, PhD, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania
• Pages: 725-732

Globalization and Cultural Diversity

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Building Trans-Cultural Standards.

On Demolishing the Barriers to Intercultural Communication

Dumitru Bortun

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Abstract: The relationship between the individual and intercultural communication becomes clear when w e

understand culture wit hin the cultural anthropology p aradigm. From this point of view, any individual is the

barer of a certain culture (subculture, sub-subculture etc.), and interindividual communication is an

intercultural one. That is why the issue of tolerance between individuals a nd groups becomes an issue of the

efficient communication and mutual understanding between cultures. My research on demolishing the

barriers to intercultural communication aims not only to institutionalized communication (between

governments or national organizations), but also to communicati on between well established cultural

communities, with a strong identity (linguistic, ethnic or religious communities): they regard any act of

communication, including here the international profess ional one (where the main barriers dwell in the

communication between national cultures). I think that in its current shape, based on economic cri teria (which

split rather than unify), the European Union does not offer enough “common t asks” in order to give birth to a

new Pan-European civic c ulture, as a variety of the thir d culture. But, a European Federation could offer the

political, economical, social and cultural framework necessary for the achievement of what Casmir called

“the third culture”.

Key words: culture; identity; civic culture; intercultural communication; the third culture

1. Introduction

The relationship between the individual and intercultural communication becomes clear when we

understand culture within the cultural anthropology paradigm – for instance, as defined by E. B. Tylor,

T. Parsons and Chombart de Lauwe. In the introductory study to Images de la Culture called

“Systemes de valeurs et aspirations culturelles”, Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe classified the culture

approaches as follows: (1) culture as the individual’s development within society, (2) culture as a

feature of a particular society or social milieu and (3) the problem of developing a universal culture

(Chombart de Lauwe, 1970, pp. 14-21). It is obvious that out of the three approaches, that one that

does not involve a previous evaluation and does not lead to a hierarchialisation of cultures (societies,

groups and individuals) is the second one. It will also be the privileged referential of the present essay,

because it is the one that suits best its objectives. The second approach goes mostly with Anglo-Saxon

culturalists. Thus, E. B. Tylor sees culture as “the whole complex incorporating knowledge, belief, art,

morals, law, customs and all the other possibilities and practices acquired by an individual as member

of a society” (ibidem, p. 17). Another anthropologist, school founder, F. Boas, completes this

definition: “the products of human communities determined by their practices” (idem).

The largest acceptance (and most proper to my aim) is the one given by T. Parsons, for whom culture

is “organized feelings and beliefs”, representing “common values that are essential to a system of

action proper to a society” (ibidem, p. 18). Parsons puts in practice, in the paradigm of actionalism that

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Associate Pr ofessor, PhD, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania, Address: 6 Povernei

str., Sector 1, Bucharest, Romania, Tel.: +4021.318.08.97, fax: +4021.312.25.35, Corresponding author:

dumitru.bortun@comunicare.ro.