Analysis: what we say and how we behave is influenced by cultural norms and can lead to critical (and sometimes funny) incidents
This article is now available above as a Brainstorm podcast. You can subscribe to the Brainstorm podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
What would your reaction be if the person you fancied, but whom you barely knew, proposed to you? This happened to me, many moons ago, on a first date. After coyly dancing around each other for a couple of weeks, my shy-self and this charming lad finally managed to find ourselves in the same pub and struck up a conversation. We talked about our daily lives and aspirations, whispered sweet nothings, and exchanged our mobile numbers. This is when he rather confidently said to me: "Sound. I'll give you a ring, so." I naively took the information literally.
There were a few signs in the months prior that should have prepared me for this moment. It all started the day I first landed in Shannon airport after leaving my native France. I began to hear phrases that I had never encountered before: 'well, how’s yourself?', 'tis grand, sure' and the inevitable 'what’s the craic?'. I also noticed that people used the words 'like’ and ‘now’ in high-frequency and polysemic ways. All of the above as explained in Elaine Vaughan's previous Brainstorm article on the characteristics of Hiberno-English.
The language barrier was not the only cause for confusion. Other peculiar situations included contrasting demeanours: people could either be overly affectionate or openly rude towards me. For instance, the An Post employee called me ‘love’ about five or six times in a brief stamp-buying transaction, while the shop attendant in my local convenient store once reprimanded me for talking about the good weather.
I have learned since that ‘love’ can be used like a punctuation mark in a sentence ("What can I do for you, love?"; "There you go, love.") and what sounded like a complaint to me was actually banter. Another striking example was how people seemed unable to express forthrightly what they really wanted for fear of losing face or sounding impolite.
I learned that if I wanted my tea-loving housemates to accept a 'cuppa' (and I had made sure I had the right brand), I had to ask them at least three times or use elaborate stratagems that showed I was not putting myself out ("I just boiled the kettle" or "I am having one myself"). They just could not say "yes" straight away. This was all quite puzzling and at times irritating.
One could say that I was experiencing ‘culture shock’, the feeling of disorientation when confronted with cultural or linguistic differences. We have all experienced this to some degree while travelling abroad or when interacting with others in our increasingly diverse society.
To better understand and overcome culture shock, it is useful to examine what the various components of a culture are. The ‘cultural iceberg model’ proposes that culture is made of explicit manifestations like language, food, art, music, dress, and traditions. These are easily observable but only represent the tip of the iceberg. The implicit manifestations that constitute the most parts of a culture are below the surface and comprise concepts of time, non-verbal communication and power relationships, to name a few. Because these are less visible and often follow unspoken norms, they usually are the root cause of misunderstandings as described earlier.
In my lectures on 'Communication across Cultures' or ‘Preparation for the Global Workplace’, I explore ‘critical incidents’ with international and Irish students. Narrative anecdotes offer us opportunities to reflect on our own beliefs, values and behaviours. They make us aware that what we consider to be standard is the product of our upbringing, socialisation, and cultural habitat
We often start by comparing ways of doing things from different countries and highlighting differences and similarities. Over the semester, we realise that the specificities of a group of people are learned and not innate. We learn that nations are rich with multiple languages and cultures. A light-hearted poll on the name of a particular object reminded us of an unexpected linguistic variation in Ireland and sparked a fierce debate.
We discover that a culture can be shared beyond state borders or be as small as a family unit. We identify organisational culture and, in the process, enjoy decoding the University of Limerick’s unpredictable building, room and floor mapping system. Above all, we appreciate the variety of value systems and, to paraphrase President Michael D. Higgins, we conclude that "difference is a resource. Difference is richness."
As for the outcome of the first date with the Irish fella, if you must know, things went more smoothly once I bought a dictionary of Hiberno-English. After several years of dating and dropping hints, he finally did put a ring on it.
Culture Shocked! is a free ecomic compilation of 50 illustrations celebrating our community's diversity and capturing cross-cultural incidents experienced by students and staff at the University of Limerick
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
