Social domain theory: interpreting intercultural communication
Culture as a system of propositions
Let us put aside for the moment the problem of identifying different 'cultures', and what people have to do to qualify as members of Culture A rather than Culture B, although we shall return to this issue below. Assuming that we have identified a recognizable, single culture, we would advocate drawing a distinction between the propositions, or 'ideational elements', of knowledge, belief and norms, accessible to this group of people, and the practices in which they participate. As Archer (1996: 682) points out:
When we examine a kinship structure, for example, we are not just investigating how that 'group' does intermarry, transmit property, have specific obligations towards specific others and so on, but what rules govern their inter-marriage etc. Comparison of kinship structures is to compare different rules not different groups, for the rules regulate what the members do.
This distinction makes it possible to explore the properties of the 'rules' themselves (although, as discussed below, there are further issues to be considered in respect of the ways people respond to such rules). Groups of ideas, components of the 'Cultural System' (Archer 1988), may be more or less internally consistent, and people will always have access to various beliefs, about which they will make choices. Thus a citizen of the United Kingdom, for example, who might be classified as belonging to 'British culture', may be more persuaded by the commitments, values and claims about the future which are to be found in the manifesto of the Labor Party than that of the Conservatives. This manifesto will need to demonstrate at least a degree of internal consistency in respect of claims about, say, public spending and taxation: opponents from other political parties will seek to expose any inconsistency. However, the two groups of views — those which hold that the state should spend significantly on public services, and those which prioritize individual responsibility, for example - can, despite being mutually inconsistent, co-exist as elements within 'British' culture.
When human beings interact, however, two further components are involved, beyond the nature of the Cultural System itself. Firstly, each person has to respond to the propositions and beliefs available in the culture. They may exhibit inconsistency in their views (espousing high public spending, let's say, while resenting high personal taxation) because of 'intellectual idleness, patches of ignorance, nostalgia or closing the emotional shutters' (Archer 1988: 5). Yet for any individual too great a degree of logical inconsistency within their beliefs and values will almost certainly become untenable, and may provoke a crisis. Those MPs who 'cross the floor' because of differences between crucial aspects of their own beliefs and those of the party they are supposed to represent, or the bishop who finds himself no longer able to accept an article of faith such as the resurrection, may become celebrated examples of the cost to an individual of trying to subscribe to ideas from the Cultural System which are internally incompatible.
The second component to be distinguished from the ideas themselves, alongside whatever individuals make of these ideas, is how people choose to act. Actions and practices may derive from the ideas and propositions of the Cultural System, but they are not synonymous with them. So, I may be persuaded by the arguments of the political party which promises high public spending, but decide for any number of reasons, including apathy, pessimism or cynicism, not to go out and vote on election day. Or I may be a convinced atheist, and yet have any number of reasons - from a general desire to conform to social expectations, to fearing harsh political and maybe even physical sanctions - for being seen to attend church (or mosque or synagogue) and to visibly engage in acts of worship alongside true believers. In other words, none of these three elements: the consistency of ideas within a Cultural System, nor the beliefs of an individual living in that culture, nor the observable practices of the people of the culture, can be 'read off unproblematically from any of the others. This is one aspect of what Archer (1988) terms the 'Myth of Cultural Integration'.
There is yet a further distinction to be drawn, which is that between the ideational cultural system and the degree of social uniformity which it produces. The issue here is how, and to what degree, people come to act in accordance with the propositions of the cultural system. Those writers on intercultural communication who draw on social psychology often rely on theories of socialization, including claiming a key role for identification with some groups in contrast to others. Traditionally, this process is portrayed as a predominantly one-way influence from adults to children, who participate in behavior '... that allows them to become valued members of their culture' (Brislin 1993:127). 'Socialization', he continues, 'includes activities in which children are guided away from certain behaviors and are strongly encouraged to engage in others. ... Children learn which of these behaviors are appropriate and which are inappropriate, depending on their culture' (ibid.(. One element in coming to recognize what is valued in one's own culture is a concomitant rejection of its obverse, which may, of course, be highly valued by members of some other culture. (One example would be children's learning about the degree to which it is acceptable to show and talk about one's emotions. Behavior that some people interpret as frankness and warmth, others may perceive as an embarrassing display or an intrusion on privacy,) To some extent, intercultural communication training consists in a process of re-socialization, to allow for the valuing, respecting - or at least tolerating - of a wider range of behavior than people were 'socialized' into as children.
It will probably be evident by now that this account depends on one of the elisions we have already rejected, between beliefs and behavior. It also depends on an identification of groups of people as groups, an identification which is required of the participants themselves, and some explanation for why people should make such identifications. Thus Gudykunst (1995: 9), for example, posits the need for a 'linking concept' in order to explain interpersonal and intergroup communication. He continues, 'I use the concept of the stranger to accomplish this', while Cushner and Brislin (1996: 325) claim:
In people's interpersonal relationships, one of the major reasons for both categorization and differentiation is the basic human need to form in-groups and out-groups. In-groups consist of people who can be trusted, whereas out-group people should be kept at a distance.
We do not find this claim a particularly convincing one, for several reasons. It classifies as a 'basic human need' something whose status as such is difficult (if not impossible) to demonstrate empirically, except insofar as there is evidence that people do constitute themselves into groups of various kinds, some of which are in conflict with other groups. However, there are many counter-examples, including people who choose to defy these notional group boundaries and interact with members of some other group: if this did not happen, then presumably there could never be any intercultural communication! Furthermore, stating the issue in these terms relies on the use of internal, psychological states to account for external, sociological phenomena.
