Helping in the process of obtaining the residence in Denmark, Recording an informational video at a pig farm, destined to the candidates that are looking for a job in Danish farms. This activity was my first and only contact with the working environment from the farms, and so, it helped me to understand better the context. Some of the activities named above will be detailed in Chapter II: Communication, where these will be treated as cases, and analyzed from the theoretical perspective. 1.6. From culture to multi-culture: the theories behind This subchapter will present different understanding of culture and of the multi-culture, or as I like to call it the meeting of cultures. As the introduction paragraphs emphasized, the reason I get to about intercultural communication is the experiences, I have become a part of, during the internship period. The first step in reflecting on the conflictual situations, that occur when different cultures meets in an organization, was to attribute a meaning to the culture and to the meeting of cultures. This was the topic of my last project, as I have mentioned before, and this topic represents also the starting point for the thesis you have in hands. How can be discussed the intercultural communication without a cultural and multicultural understanding? I consider so meaningful to review, in the following section,
The context is considered in unanimity the main element in analyzing. So after focusing on what is being said, the words choice, language type, tone, there shall be considered some contextual elements as: - who the addressee is, and who has been omitted - what type of feeling that appears after a - how is individual perceiving himself, the other and what he believe to be the other’s opinion about him - the other’s possible versions of the story - the attitude over the other Now, after going through the theories about communication, will be interesting to move to the concrete situations that are a part of the everyday life. In this respect, the next chapter will analyze the situations I meet during the internship, regarding intercultural communication in agriculture industry from North Denmark. Chapter III Empery This chapter will contain the analysis of the empiric data, which I have collected both during the internship, in form of individuals interviews and observations that will be formulated here as cases, and in the following period, as a focus group discussion. The main purpose with this chapter is to focus on the central question of this thesis: what makes the intercultural communication to be a problematic issue and how different culture can better communicate together. It is not a matter of incertitude regarding the topic of this thesis, wondering if there are emerging problems between the native and the foreigners,
But this is not just foreigners, it is also between Danish employees and employer. (C, min. 18:25) Foreigners are can not understand what they are told, they are focusing on the face, the eyes. (F, min. 18:51) I have choose to mention, several times in this thesis, some statements as C’s reply, mentioned above, to emphasize that the I-Thou approach to “the others” has dominated the focus group dialog. The consultants have searched permanently to equilibrate the discussion, to point out that the most communication issue applies also when native speak together. C’s statement above can also be interpreted as a result of a personal experience, when she faced some communication difficulties in the dialog between natives. Maybe if we were better to communicate with those around us, with family, friends, colleagues, then the intercultural communication would not have been such a sensitive issue. Even if the globalization has as result the homogenization of cultures, there are still some differences between those. As I have stressed several times in this thesis, in my opinion, the deterministic approach of multicultural phenomena shall be avoid, because it tend to amplify the differences, the distances and the tension between culture (Philips:2009). However, in my opinion, the nonverbal elements of communication implies maybe more difficulties than the use of language. My point of view is based on the fact that individual can guess the meaning of a word from the context, but when foreigner expect an enthusiastic reaction to what he thinks is a great result at job, and the leader’s face is not expressing any emotions, then he may be disorientated. All the research method used have emerged similar opinion regarding the fact that Danish are usually “in control” of the face expression, of mimic, opposite to the Eastern.