The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations, Fall 1998, Vol. 1(4)   Originally Posted: 11/27/98   Book Review

Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication: Selected Readings  by Milton Bennett   Reviewed by William Kelly Associate Editor, The Edge

 

Milton Bennett is very precise about what he set out to accomplish in Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication. In his rich overview of the intercultural perspective, he emphasizes that sophisticated theory leads to the best practical results. For this reason, it is important to give the theoretical foundations of the field their due and never to shortchange theory. To maintain close contact with the conceptual origins of the field, he has gathered many of the classic statements of the intercultural vision under one cover. He believes that such contributions have more than merely historical value, for the concepts they introduce still frame the issues we presently encounter.

Bennett has arranged the concepts in a developmental sequence that moves through perception, language, nonverbal behavior, communication style, value differences, and cultural adaptation. Unlike the popular reader edited by Samovar and Porter, this work has a clear ordering framework that may facilitate application and learning.

The first two articles by Dean Barnlund and Edward Hall view the development of the field as a response to challenges arising from vastly increased contact between people who are culturally different. For them, as for the other contributors, cultural relativity and acceptance of difference are at the heart of the field. It is the recognition and embracing of cultural diversity that enables the field to make such a vital contribution to humanity's attempts to survive and prosper in the present global environment of intensified intercultural interaction.

The next article by James Banks takes us to the controversial area of multicultural education. His focus is on ways in which academic knowledge is constructed; in particular, he promotes transformative academic knowledge which "challenges the facts, concepts, paradigms, themes, and explanations routinely accepted in mainstream academic knowledge." From this critical perspective, he examines the issues of prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and empowerment through changes in social structure and educational culture.

After Banks' forceful attempt to critically evaluate social science approaches to education, we return to issues of linguistic relativity (Whorf) and perceptual relativity (Marshall Singer). Once again, the discussions center around differences in how different groups know what they know and in how they interpret what they perceive. I found the shift from the "contemporary" Banks to the "classic" Whorf jarring, but after Whorf's article there is a smooth flow from one contributor to the next.

Many important and influential notions are set forth by the contributors. Singer, for example, asserts that each identity group has its own culture, while Janet Bennett shows that culture shock is just one type of transition shock. Peter Adler indicates that a new type of person has appeared on the scene in response to increased cultural contact in the 20th century, and Laray Barna describes the kind of adaptation difficulties that sojourners face. Barna's emphasis on accepting differences and not making assumptions of similarity is strongly reiterated by Milton Bennett in "Overcoming the Golden Rule." Instead of treating others in accordance with our own cultural values, Bennett thinks we should treat others as those others would themselves like to be treated.

The articles dealing with the communication patterns of specific cultures-- Edward Stewart on the United States, Sheila Ramsey on Japan, and Thomas Kochman on African Americans--are comprehensive and insightful. However, their descriptions are somewhat dated, and their exclusive focus on cultural differences means that they ignore historical change, power, and internal diversity.

While few would deny that we need to understand the ways different groups think, feel, and communicate, there is some question as to whether cultural relativity and acceptance of difference are the only, or even the major, issues at stake. For Americans and other Western peoples, the need for awareness of multiple realities is obviously crucial. But are the gravest threats to world peace and equality largely the result of ethnocentrism? Postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha believe that the tendency of Western people to turn non-Western people into the Other, the negated binary opposite of themselves, has produced the gravest distortions within intercultural relations. Along these lines, we might take the view that racism and imperialism, the dehumanization of the Other, and the refusal to acknowledge human similarity, have been the greatest obstacles to intergroup communication.

In Milton Bennett's article "Overcoming the Golden Rule," there is the admission that the Golden Rule's aim was to promote the respect of the equal humanity of others. But no contributor addresses the issue as to whether or not the binary oppositions so often used in the field and in this book can be dehumanizing.

The anthropologist Tommy Dahlen has written a critique of the intercultural communication field that centers on SIETAR, the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication, and intercultural trainers. In Among the Interculturalists, he has pointed out the negative aspects of strongly emphasizing cultural differences. For some anthropologists, the compartmentalizing of cultures leads to a denial of human similarity and a fragmentation of the seamless web of reality. They think that the bounded notion of culture fixes and exaggerates differences of culture and echoes the West's colonial constructions when it made the non-West into the Other.

As Dahlen also notes, interculturalists tend to rely on conceptions of culture that are about a half-century old. Unlike anthropologists influenced by postmodernism, it appears that most interculturalists have not critically reflected upon their own positions. Dahlen thinks that interculturalists have tried to retain the unquestioned authority that ethnographers once possessed.

The implication of this critique is that the contributors' perspective is appropriate for an ideal world where all groups have equal power and there is no history of slavery, colonialism, or racism. In such a world, cultural differences would be the only major obstacles to intergroup communication. But we do not live in such a world.

It seems that the intercultural communication field is about to enter, or should soon enter, a period of philosophical and methodological crisis. The irony is that Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication, a book that reaffirms the field's foundations, has appeared at a time when allegiance to the traditional intercultural perspective is no longer total. The appearance of Judith Martin and Thomas Nakayama's popular textbook Communication in Intercultural Contexts indicates that culture is no longer viewed as monolithic, ahistorical, and uncontested.

There are exceptions among the contributors to the generalizations I have made about interculturalists. Marshall Singer emphasizes that interculturalists should deal with issues of power, and Peter Adler thinks that the multicultural person is grounded in both the universal human situation and particular forms of culture. But Milton Bennett in his introduction explicitly denies that power or history should play an important role in intercultural communication.

Despite my reservations about its orientation, this volume does tell us where we have been in a clear and graceful manner. Some of the book's concepts such as Edward Hall's distinction between word culture and unconscious (nonverbal) culture have yet to be sufficiently appreciated. Even the idea of cultural differences, though its importance has been exaggerated, can still enable us to avoid misunderstanding among different groups so long as it is used judiciously and its dangers are recognized.

Bridging the gap between critical and traditional approaches to intercultural communication will not be easy. Hall and Stewart have worked with the U.S. government and the Bennetts, Ramsey, and Kochman have done much work with large corporations. Within these settings, the convenient value oppositions between cultures that have been the lifeblood of trainers cannot be surrendered easily. Nor will considerations of history and power be welcomed in such environments. It matters little that intercultural communication actually does take place within contexts of power and the past as well as within the context of cultural differences.

On the other side of the divide, those critical theorists influenced by poststructuralist thought and the activist heritage of the left tend to view a focus on cultural differences with suspicion. They feel that liberals analyze cultural differences at the expense of attending to inequalities of wealth, power, and position. Critical theorists find distasteful the liberal attempt to mediate between those with unequal power. They would rather take the side of the less powerful.

Thus it may be as difficult to get the supporters of human emancipation to examine cultural differences as it is to get liberal interculturalists to deal with power and history. These divisions are unfortunate because understanding between the promoters of these two orientations should be a valued communication goal.

In any case, Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication, and Milton Bennett's introduction in particular, are a good place to start for anyone who wants to know what the traditional perspective has to offer. For me, rereading the classics was a rewarding experience as I was reminded just how perceptive these trailblazers were. They may not tell us all we need to know about intercultural relations, but that should not lead us to ignore their achievement.

 

Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication is published by Intercultural Press.