Is Intercultural communication possible across the Baltic Sea Region?

Résumé du document

“The meaning behind intercultural communication is to try to bring different world views and meaning attributions closer to each others through and with the help of verbal and non-verbal interactions” . Here is a definition of intercultural communication by Niina Kovalainen that reveals the three main points for intercultural communication, that is to say “culture” (which can correspond to “different world views”), “language” (represented in this definition by the expression “meaning attributions”) and “communication” (which is reflected here by “verbal and non-verbal interactions”). In order to try to answer to the essay question, we will thus focus on each of the three aspects of intercultural communication mentioned previously and replace them in the Baltic Sea Region cultural contexts. In a first part, we will concentrate on the cultural diversity (including languages diversity) that exists across the Baltic Sea Region and try to find out to which extent this diversity (because of its nature, its origins…) can influence intercultural communication in this area. In a second part, we will deal with the evolution of super-modernity in the Baltic Sea Region's societies and with the role it plays as far as intercultural communication is concerned (both in intercultural and intra-cultural contexts).

Extraits

[...] In an extreme case, which is not reached here, with sky rocketing degrees of equality and individualism, they could no more think for something else than themselves, loosing their ability to participate to a democratic process which includes that the common interest is taken into account by the citizens when they take a decision for the whole nation. This idea has been developed by Tocqueville, in La démocratie en Amérique, which, among other risks for a democratic system, describes this represented by a society which ensures a total equality of status between people, who have thus no more reasons to defend their own rights, to project themselves within the social structure or to identify themselves to sub-communities, and who thus concentrate their attention on a very limited circle of acquaintances corresponding to their closest family and friends, letting to a benevolent and omnipotent state the task to manage their lives. [...]

[...] Indeed, under the Soviet rule, any communication with the “outside” world was prohibited and made impossible. The scope of possibilities as far as intercultural communication is concerned was thus restricted to a strict spatial and social framework for the peoples of these countries, even if certain Estonian had a clandestine access to the “western world” through the Finnish television channels, whose waves were reaching the northern coast of Estonia. Here we can emphasize on the fact that intercultural communication across the Baltic Sea Area has known a U-turn in the end of the 1980s' and in the beginning of the 1990s', as the possibilities for such communication were considerably multiplied (and in the case of certain interactions, such as those between Latvian or Lithuanian people and Finns, changed completely, from nothing to possibilities). [...]

[...] As far as culture is concerned, we have seen that it is unique to each individual. However, individual cultures are, as Fred Dervin pinpoints it, “multidimensional”, that is to say made of different identities. In our essay, we have seen that some of these identities were shared across the Baltic Sea Area by various groups (from “national groups” to social groups). This sharing of several identities facilitates the mutual understanding between Baltic area's populations' points of view. Moreover, we have underlined the progressive emergence of a new tendency of “super-modern” individuals, whose possibilities of intercultural communication are made wider by their constant spatial and mental movements, their adoption of an “international identity” (besides which their national identity can remain) and the key importance they give to choice in their identification processes. [...]

[...] Nevertheless, there are also some linguistic elements which do not play in favour of a good understanding in intercultural communication between speakers of different native languages across the Baltic Sea Region. In my view, the following sentence by Clifford Geertz describes well the different key elements in the use of languages: play violin it is necessary to possess certain habits, skills, knowledge, and talents, to be in a good mood to play, and [ ] to have a violin”[7]. When speaking in a foreign language, these elements are all the more difficult to gather as the discrepancies between this language and the mother tongue is significant. [...]

[...] Is Intercultural communication possible across the Baltic Sea Region? Intercultural communication across the Baltic Sea Region: from interconnected cultural dimensions to common communication stakes meaning behind intercultural communication is to try to bring different world views and meaning attributions closer to each others through and with the help of verbal and non-verbal interactions”[1]. Here is a definition of intercultural communication by Niina Kovalainen that reveals the three main points for intercultural communication, that is to say “culture” (which can correspond to “different world “language” (represented in this definition by the expression “meaning attributions”) and “communication” (which is reflected here by “verbal and non-verbal interactions”). [...]