Case Study 4 : Intercultural communication through high culture

1. Case Study 4:Intercultural communicationthrough high culture Theory: Milton J. Bennet. A national poetic form transgresses borders of languages and cultures: haiku in the “West.”

2. What is Culture? Objective Culture Subjective culture “[T]he learned and shared patterns of beliefs, behaviours, and values of groups of interacting people”; “understanding subjective cultures […] is more likely to lead to intercultural competence.” (Bennet) History, politics, classical and folk arts, etc. – institutionalized culture. “Understanding objective culture may create knowledge, but it doesn’t necessarily generate competence.” (Bennet)

3. Stereotypes vs. Generalizations • Stereotypes: thinking that “all members of a culture or group share the same characteristics.” (Bennet) • Cultural generalizations: The description of preponderance of belief based on substantial group research.

4. Dimensions of Cultural Assumptions People’s relationships to: • The environment • Each other • Activity • Time • The basic nature of human being Different positions can be present in a culture, but one position is preferred.

5. Language and Culture • Language is a tool for communication. • Language represents a culture’s perception of reality. • Language provides guidance for one’s understanding of reality. (Sapir/Whorf hypothesis – linguistic relativity) • Language directs social reality (ex., status markers)

6. Language Typesand Communication Digital language Analogic language Ex., Japanese is more analogic, relying on the non-verbal context: “most of the information is already in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message.” (Edward T. Hall) “High context” culture (meaning is more implied than expressed in words). • Ex., English expresses emotions and thoughts verbally, in distinct abstract categories; it is more “wordy.” • “Low context” culture (ideas are directly expressed).

7. North American vs Japanese communication style (Sheila J.Ramsey) North American Japanese Interpersonal Subjective Preference to nonverbal code Harmonizing, holistic, process-oriented interaction Attitude to silence: it’s meaningful. The way of achieving the goal and the form in which the task is performed are important. • Individualistic • Objective • Preference to verbal code • Persuasive, quantitative, pragmatic interaction. • Attitude to silence: it’s awkward. • It is important to reach a goal, to complete a task.

8. Japanese Poetry(based on Japanese and Western Literature by Armando Martins Janeira) • Poetry has a special status in Japan: emperors, warriors, scholars were also poets. • Writing poetry = a mental exercise and preservation of a national “core.” • Poetry is linked to calligraphy. • Poetry has traits of religion (purification of the soul).

9. Japanese poetry. Haiku • Haiku: a poem of 17 syllables distributed between three lines (5-7-5) containing two seemingly unconnected images; • Linked to the season of the year; • Contemplative; • Focused on nature; • Often melancholic; • Brief and evocative; • Condensed poetic emotion; • “Haiku is an ascetic form of art, an artistic asceticism” (R.H.Blyth); • Timelessness: all the temporal is left out.

10. Artistic Forms akin to Haiku Bonsai (dwarf tree) Netsuke (miniature carved figurine)

11. Basho Matsuo (1644-1694 ) • The greatest haiku poet. • Born samurai, became a Zen priest to dedicate his life to poetry. • Widened the range of subjects for haiku, added the philosophical dimension. • Naturalism of Taoism and Zen: dissolution of self in nature. • Saw poetry as the voice of the universe. • Symbolism of: loneliness, tenderness, and slenderness. • Left some prose travel diaries; refused to write anything but haiku to preserve his skill.

12. Haiku by Basho A warbler In the grove of bamboo shoots Growing old, sings. *** Ah, the old pond A frog jumps in Sound of water *** If I took it in my hand It would melt with my hot tears Autumn frost

13. Haiku in the West • Early attempts: beginning of the 20th century, a part of japonisme. • Translations and scholarly work by R. H. Blyth (mid 20th cent.) kindled public interest for haiku.

14. The First Famous English Haiku Ezra Pound (1885 – 1972), American modernist poet: The "one-image poem" is a form of super-position, that is to say, it is one idea set on top of another. […] I wrote a thirty-line poem and destroyed it because it was what we call work of the second intensity. Six months later I made a poem half that length; a year later [1912] I made the following hokku-like sentence: In A Station Of The Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals, on a wet black bough.

15. Great Western PoetsWho Tried Writing Haiku • Rainer Maria Rilke (Germany) • Federico Garcia Lorca (Spain) • Paul Claudel (France) • Allen Ginsberg (the US) • Jack Kerouac (the US) …And many more! The summer chair rocking by itself In the blizzard(Jack Kerouac, 1971) *** Comme un flocon de neige – Le papier a résorbé l'écriture il n'y a plus rien. (Paul Claudel, 1936)

16. Haiku and Western Limitations • Absence of freedom: the poems are too short and restrictive. • Different language structure. • Different poetic standards (themes, attitude; absence of rhyme). • Requires an emotional state of identity with nature “that Westerners are not normally able to attain” (Janeira).

17. Western Poetry and Haiku • Western poetry – explicative; active position; expresses the individuality of a poet. • Haiku – suggestive; contemplation; depersonalization of a poet. • Western poetry favours metaphor. • Haiku avoids metaphor, offering a concrete object as a starting point for contemplation.

18. Profanation of Haiku