Psychic unity constraints upon successful intercultural communication

Abstract

Miscommunication is accepted as an inevitable feature of intercultural communication. The majority of writings implicitly assume that these failures are the consequence of lack of competencies on the part of the interactants. Alternatively, at least a small percentage of these failures may be the result of the language itself. Psychic unity, the anthropological concept of a fundamental biological homogeneity of man's mental life, is the unexamined property which makes communication of any sort possible. However, the details of psychic unity, especially as they pertain to category construction, predict that communication must fail under conditions which are both predictable and articulable. Intercultural communication, which first found its disciplinary voice within the work of anthropologist Edward T. Hall, has been defined as a 'transactional, symbolic process involving the attribution of meaning between people from different cultures' (Gudykunst and Kim, 1984, p. 14). Central to the study of this process is the realization that cultural differences present obstacles beyond those present in every act of interpersonal communication. For instance, Gudykunst and Kim (1984, p. 30) suggest that all participants bring to the exchange cultural, sociocultural, psychocultural, and environmental backgrounds which interact to shape the communication event. Since these backgrounds and contexts are inherently individual, the simple fact that they differ necessarily leads to communication biases, compelling the conclusion that a universal feature of communication events is that they all fail to one degree or another. 'It is impossible,' they tell us, 'for any two people to communicate without any misunderstanding' (p. 191). Lapses during intercultural communication episodes are thereby routinely expected, a statement few would find controversial. The difficulty comes in trying to ascertain first the source of those gaps or problems, and second, the possibility of correcting or resolving them. A large quantity of research in intercultural communication is what Coupland et al. (1991, p. 13) refer to as 'Level III,' wherein 'miscommunication takes on implications of personal inadequacy and therefore, perhaps, blame.' The source of failure here is the individual participant, but for whom it is assumed that proper education, sensitivity, and/ or experience can bridge these gaps, achieving effective intercultural communication. The goal of this type of intercultural communication research is to 'minimize' the misunderstandings (Gudykunst and Kim, 1984, p. 191) by maximizing speaker 'competence' (e.g. Wiseman and Koester, 1993). This outlook has been uncomplimentarily labeled the 'Pollyanna perspective' (Coupland et al., 1991, p. 1).