cap 7 exploring intercultural comunication, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

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7 Whatcauses turbulence in intercultural communication? Reports of diplomatic incidents are abundant in the media. These include a so-called ‘misstatement’ by the former US president Obama when he referred to a Polish death camp instead of a Nazi death camp; the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s description of Barack Obama as ‘young, handsome, and tanred’; and the former British Prime Minster David Cameron’ decision to wear a red poppy during his official visit to China in 2010, not being aware that in China red poppies are associated with the Opium Wars in the 19th century. These incidents show that words or symbols are imbued with histo- ricity, perspectives and differences and communicative turbulence can occur despite one's best intentions. In this chapter, we are going to explore some main sources of turbulence in intercultural communica- tion. We will first define what counts as turbulence and then look at sources of turbulence. We will explore the process of meaning making in conversation, how speakers use information made available through conversation and relate it to their knowledge about the context in conversation. 7.14 Communicative turbulence Communicative turbulence refers to troubles in communication when partners in interactions fail to make sense of what is said and intended by others and consequences of confusion, disagreement or feelings of resentment. The term was first used by Mauranen (2006) when she defines misunderstanding as a ‘potential breakdown point in conver- sation, or at least a kind of communicative turbulence’ (Mauranen, 2006, p. 128). In fact, for a long time, the terms ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘miscommunication’ are often used as a convenient diagnostic label, in the literature, for what goes wrong in interactions involving people from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds. However, the terms such as misunderstanding or miscommunication rest on a romanticised notion of intercultural communication, that is, problems in intercul- tural communication are simply someone’s failure to understand what is said and can be made good if people make effort. The reality is that parties involved in intercultural communication are rarely in an equal