cultural identity

Cultural identity

Abstract:When people from different cultures come together to share ideas，feelings，and information，then intercultural communication occurs. Intercultural communication is the circumstance in which people from different diverse cultural backgrounds interact with another. What is significant and critical to this kind of interaction is the extreme cultural diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and assumptions which constitute the unique identity of communicators. So, it is important for us to appreciate what constitutes memberships in the cultures and how that membership influence the manner in which we approach, perceive and interact with other cultures. Key words：cultural identity communication

摘要：跨文化交流源于来自不同文化的人们在一起交流分享信息，在该情境下，不同文化背景的人产生互动。不同的文化背景，文化经历，文化假设，对于这种跨文化的交流互动是非常关键的，同时它也构成了交流者的特殊特征。因此，跨文化交流对于我们理解构成交流关系的成分以及这种交流关系怎么影响交流者之间的互动和洞察具有重要意义。

关键字：文化特征交流

1 what is cultural identity?

To talk about our identity, we try to answer the question: who am I? One’s identity consists roughly of those attributes that make one unique as an individual and different from others. Or it is the way one sees or defines oneself.

Cultural identity is bureaucratically or self-ascribed membership in a specific culture[1]. Cultural identity is the feeling of identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as he or she is influenced by his or her belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity may refer to the membership of a racial, ethnic, regional, economic, or any other social community exhibiting characteristic patterns of behavior sufficient to distinguish it from others. Cultural identity can stem from the following differences: race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, country of origin, and geographic region [2]. we are all of course members of many overlapping communities: speakers of our native language, citizens of the same city or neighborhood, members of the same sports teams , churches or political groups, fellows of university students or co-workers of a particular profession or occupation, or friends of the same sex or the opposite sex, etc.

Cultural identity is important in intercultural communication, because there are cultural differences in the structures of expectation to identity. Each community implies certain types of culture which might be shared with other members and which communicators must seek to infer as they interact. When people from different cultures come in contact, if one perceives himself in one way, and the people with whom he interacts perceive him in another way, serious problems can arise. In this case, a single term used to define a particular culture is often exclusive; therefore, "culture is a group which shapes a person's values and identity"

2 Cultural identity and communication

Everyone has multiple identities. And those identities connect the individual to cultural groups and the main institutions of the culture. A person's cultural identity exerts a profound influence on his or her communicative style, because communication constitutes identity and also

reflects identity. So, the relationship between identity and communication is reciprocal.

2.1 Communication constitutes identity

"You are not born with an identity. Through countless interactions you discover who you are ". People who identify themselves as members of a social group acquire common ways of viewing the world through their interactions with other members of the same group [3]. Communicative practices are themselves a crucial means through which cultural identity is constituted, exercised, resisted, and contested. Once discovering their identities, people learn what they need to know to become members, with a particular ideological position, and with quite specific forms of interpersonal relationships among members of those groups and will use the linguistic resources and social strategies to affiliate and identify with many different cultures and ways of using language in communication.

2.2 Communication reflects identity

All communication is communication that divides us into different memberships of different groups. "Everyone has multiple identities which may compete with or reinforce each other: kinship, occupational, cultural, institutional, territorial, educational, partisan, ideological, and others"[4]. And those identities connect the individual to cultural groups and the main institutions of the culture. A persons made of a multiplicity of social roles or "subject positions" which they occupy selectively, depending on the interactional context in which they find themselves at the time.

In communication, persons with many identities may select different communicative styles according to the different context. So, "behavior is governed by many factors---socioeconomics status, sex, age, length of residence in a locale education---each of which will have an impact on cultural practices as well. Finally, individuals may differ by the degree to which they choose to adhere to a set of cultural patterns, some individuals identify strongly with a particular group: others combine practices from several groups." Usually, through socialization or acculturation in a given society, all those who share a common culture can be expected to behave correctly, automatically and predictably because common attitudes, beliefs, and values are reflected in the way how members of the culture behave. And people learn to expect certain behaviors of others as well. So “a person's cultural identity exerts a profound influence on his or her life ways"

3 Construction of cultural identity

A person's identities can be used to identify similarities and differences in behaviors, interpretations, and norms. So, we identify ourselves in relation to others. An identity is established in relation to a series of differences that have become socially recognized. These differences are essential to its being. Identity requires differences in order to be, and it converts differences into otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty [5]. If they did not coexist as differences, it would not exist in its distinctness and solidity.

Any culture defines itself in relation, or rather in opposition to other cultures. Common characteristics and ideas may be clear markers of a shared cultural identity, but essentially it is also determined by differences. The shared conventions on which identity is based are often implicit. In order to make the internal functioning of a culture possible, certain basic rules and meanings underlying its production are generally taken for granted by the participants. We feel we

belong to a group , and a group defines itself as a group, by noticing and highlighting differences with other groups and cultures. People who feel they belong to the same culture, have this idea because they rely partially on a common set of norms, but the awareness of such common codes is possible only through the confrontation with other cultures.

4 Threats to cultural identity

A significant part of an individual's personal identity consists of his or her social identity, and so depends on group membership. Group identity tends to be defined by contrast to other groups. Nevertheless, "membership in a group leads to systematic comparison, differentiation, and derogation of other groups". Social identity theory points that one's social identity is also clarified through social comparison, but generally the comparison is between in-group and out-groups. Individuals' desire for positive self-evaluation provides a motivational basis for differentiation between social groups. The in- group is perceived as both different and better than the out-group, thereby achieving positive distinctiveness, one's social identity is enhanced. Social identity theory conceives of the self-concept as a collection of self-images which vary in terms of the length of their establishment. Complexity and richness of content, etc. It emphasizes that real social groups and categories stand in status relation to one another and are often in competition for resources, rights and power.

Thus the dynamics of cultural self-definition imply a continuous contact between cultures. When two groups come into contact to exchange, they select certain cultural elements and combine them in dynamic ways. There is an ongoing, relational struggle to maintain and recreate identity, particularly in regard to other cultural groups doing the same.

Those relations between two cultures are never relations of equality, since they never exist in an isolated form, the complex relationships, created by the superposition of political, economic, scientific, and cultural relation, turns any relation between two cultures into an unequal one. There is always a dominant culture, or a dominant cultural practice [6].

The unequal character of intercultural relations implies, in establishing its identity, a cultural practice constructs, reproduces, or subverts social interests and power relations.

Within a culture or cultural practice, there is an awareness of a common identity implies that there has also been a striving toward preservation of this identity, toward self-preservation of the culture[4]. Often groups may define their identity by their common opposition to some "out-groups". If identity is constructed in opposition to the alien, intrusions from other cultures imply loss of autonomy and thereby loss of identity. Therefore, every culture is continually forced to determine its position toward alien elements, in order to preserve or redefine its identity, because of cultural migrations and possible loss of identity.

Cultural influence can be seen by the "receiving” culture as either a threat to or an enrichment of its cultural identity. It seems therefore useful to distinguish between cultural imperialism as an (active or passive) attitude of superiority, and the position of a culture or group that seeks to complement its own production, considered partly deficient, with imported products or values.

A culture characterized by a defensive posture enhances its specificity by heavily emphasizing the otherness of the "alien” culture. A defensive culture will try to keep alien elements out, for instance by import bans. This case is heard most strongly in some homogenous old world (European) nations where citizenship was long tied to a person having deep historical

roots in the country. Wes teen Europeans nations, Japan, and other countries have long been deeply concerned about the national culture being subsumed. This concern can be especially high when the immigrants are of differing race or religion than majority. Sometimes, the threatening intrusion of the alien culture is often characterized as an “in version", it will generally lead to racist reactions.

The imperialist attitude is to deny" the other” the status of a "valid culture", "only our culture is universally human." The practice of promoting the culture or language of one nation in another is called cultural imperialism [7]. In the long term, populations have tended to be absorbed into dominant culture, pr acquire its attributes indirectly. In the history, as exploration of the American increased. European nations including England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal all raced to claim territory in hopes of generating increased economic wealth for themselves, In these new colonies, the European conquerors imposed their language and culture. In matters of “foreign policy", this superiority compels naturally leads to assuming the role of “cultural guide" for the more primitive people. As to “internal policy," an assumption of superiority leads to as assimilation of the imported alien cultural artifacts, this kind of assimilation effectively denies their specificity.

The trans-cultural practice can consider itself explicitly as a part of a larger cultural domain, therefore, doesn't explicitly consider imported elements “other," or "alien", let alone “threatening."

[8] Both foreign cultural elements and this of "local production" are seen as equal contributions to a common goal. Often, such an attitude is a reaction against what is seen as “unfruitful provincialism", the local production is not really considered defective or uninteresting, but is expected to reach beyond its local context. In such a case, a local cultural practice is establishing its position within a larger entity. Still, this attitude may lead to disavowal or neglect of local featires and products. A larger, hegemonic culture is ignoring or denigrating local practices. The trans-cultural doctrine then becomes an imperialist one.

Reference

1 布拉德福德.J.霍尔，《跨越文化障碍-交流的挑战》，第四章《文化与身份的关系是什么》。麻争旗等译.2003年北京，北京广播学院出版社.

2 Alcoff, L.M.1997.Philosophy and Racial identity, in Philosophy today.

3 Barger, K. 200

4 Communication in a Global Village, in Public and private self in Japan and the United States. Tokyo: Simmul Press, Inc

4 Bate, B. 1988. Communication and Sexes. New York and Row

5 Bhandari, J, Racism, Old and New, in Negotiation Theory and Practice

6 Brown, H.D. 1994 Principles of Language learning and teaching,3rd ed. Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

7 Bruff. K.A Taking the Common Ground: Beyond Cultural Identity, in Change February 2002.

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8 Busse. I.W. 1968 Viewpoint: Prejudice and Gerontology. In the Gerontologist,8,66.