Miscommunication: from intracultural to intercultural socialisation

• Acculturation
• Cultural paradigm shift
• Economic paradigm shift
• Linguistic paradigm shift
• Conclusion
• References

Miscommunication indicates a breakdown in a communicative process between interactants. Miscommunication is caused by many factors such as attitudes, linguistic ability, generation gap and cultural difference. Cultural difference is considered the most interfering factor in miscommunication as it covers many communicative aspects already existing in an intracultural context in addition to a vast ocean of differences between cultures.

The concepts 'enculturation' and acculturation' are very useful in examining miscommunication caused by intracultural to intercultural socialisation. Enculturation takes place within one's own culture, particularly in the early learning of culture. It is often referred to as primary socialisation.

(Scollon & Scollon, 1995, p.150)

Brown (1994, p.169) defines acculturation as the process of becoming adapted to a new culture. It is a reorientation of thinking and feeling is necessary. According to Brown, the process of acculturation runs even deeper when language is brought into the picture. He argues that culture is a deeply ingrained part the very fibre of our being, but language - the means for communication among members of a culture - is the most viable and available expression of that culture. Therefore, a person's worldview, self-identity, systems of thinking, acting, feeling and communicating can be disrupted by a change from one culture to another.

According to Scollon and Scollon, pattern of social behaviour are also given a firm cast during the period of enculturation. Children learn and develop patterns for relating to those of higher and lower status, older and younger and same age, boys and girls and they learn how to be boys or girls as well. They emphasise the significance of enculturation in the following quotation.

This quotation captures very well the nature of miscommunication caused by people who move from one discourse system to another. The intensity of miscommunication depends a great deal on the gap between the two discourses. This paper examines the miscommunication encountered by Vietnamese migrants in Australia. The miscommunication is discussed in terms of three changes, which can be described as three paradigm shifts: cultural, economic and linguistic.

Cultural paradigm shift

According to Brown (1994), there are four successive stages of acculturation. The first stage is the period of excitement and euphoria over the newness of the surroundings. The cultural shock stage follows. It emerges as individuals feel the intrusion of more and more cultural differences into their own Images and self-security. In this stage individuals rely on and seek out the support of their fellow countrymen in the second culture, taking solace in complaining about local customs and conditions, seeking escape from their predicament. The third stage is a culture stress stage in which some problems of acculturation are solved while others are still causing hardship. The last process represents near or fulls recovery, either assimilation or adaptation, acceptance of the new culture and self-confidence in the 'new' person that has developed in this new culture. Brown's last stage seems like a happy ending. However, this may not be the case to many migrants. Current racial debates and wars in various parts of the world paint a different picture about the acculturation process. Some Vietnamese migrants have never reached this final stage.

The Vietnamese culture is often seen as a rice culture. Everyone, every activity is geared to the toil of producing rice, the staple food to feed the whole nation. Hoa Dinh Nguyen (1988, p.4) describes the significance of rice in the Vietnamese culture:

Confucianism has permeated the Vietnamese society for centuries. It has given Vietnamese people a comprehensive and workable foundation for maintaining social values and human interaction. It emphasises the significance of hierarchy and power within different social structures and institutions such as family, village, town, city, and country. The nuclear family consists of husband, wife, and children. The extended family consists of grandparents, uncles and aunts. Each person occupies a certain role with specified duties and power in relation to others such as parents/children, king/people, husband/wife, brother/sister. For instance, a woman is assigned certain obligations towards her father, husband and children. Many Vietnamese remember well the three 'tong' (duties) prescribed to a woman:

How does this Confucian moral code apply well to Vietnamese people in Australia?

Of course, there are some Vietnamese families that still maintain this tradition. But to others, the following situation has become a common reality.

That saying sounds rather amusing but somehow it accurately reflects a cultural shift in the Australian society as far as family is concerned. Though the traditional family is still here, but it is not the only one. There are other members in a family apart from the traditional picture of parents and children. Terms such as partner, de factor husband, adopted children, fostered parents etc. are also included in the modern concept of family. In the present context, each member of a family often has his or her own space. They interact with each other in ' common public place' in the house such as the lounge, garden, or car (if there is only one car in the family). In some families, children and parents see one another very briefly, sometimes five or ten minutes a day. Each has his or her own life to live. The pressure and temptation of life have created an exclusive discourse for each person. Some children move out of their family at a very young age to search for independence. The three 'tong' (duties) of a female role mentioned above does not seem to be appropriate to a modern Vietnamese Australian woman.

Culture shock is a common experience for people moving from one culture to another. It refers to the phenomena ranging from mild irritability to deep psychological panic and crisis. Culture shock is associated with feelings in a person of estrangement, anger, hostility, indecision, frustration, unhappiness, sadness, loneliness, and even physical illness (Brown 194, p.170)

The new way of life in Australia has created a big challenge for parents who strongly believe in the Confucian tradition. In some cases, the female and male roles have been reversed: the husband stays at home serving the family while the wife is working somewhere. On one hand, Some Vietnamese parents accept the fact that they are in a Western country, whose culture promotes individualism and a fair go for everyone, on the other hand they want to maintain family unity and respect for traditional values. In many cases, the values that parents have treasured over the years may be rejected by their children. Similarly, there are some values held by the children which are condemned by the parents: privacy, ability to express ones' view, assertiveness etc. To young people, privacy means relaxation, rest, being in one own place; whereas to old people, it could me selfishness and rejection. The worst thing that many old Vietnamese people fear is to be dumped in a nursing home when their children can no longer look after them. This is a violation of the family tradition of sharing and caring.

Tran (1996) conducted an interesting study of the cultural meaning of the word 'privacy' in relation to the Vietnamese intracultural and intercultural discourses. She said:

Vietnamese elders tend to interfere with the private life of their children as they believe that what belongs to them belongs to their children and vice versa. The word 'interfere' seems to be rather harsh from the parents' perspective, which values caring and sharing as an essential part of family survival. According to Tran, In a Vietnamese family, the older members will always advise those younger and the young expect and seek advice from the family elders. It is regarded as a sign of love to pass on one's wisdom to young members.

In the Australian context, children do not feel obliged to act according to parental advice. Parents treat their children as individual beings and it is important to encourage independent thinking and the development of self-concept. Caught in an intercultural discourse, conflict between Vietnamese parents and children in Australia occurs when Vietnamese children consider their parents' advice as 'interference' and the parents interpret their children's lack of interest in their guidance as a sign of disobedience and rejection of family value and solidarity.

In the Australian context, there are issues, which receive great attention to Australian people, and they need to be discussed openly and fairly, for example issues relating to sex, politics, human rights etc. These topics can be discussed openly in a family. Australian parents tend not force their children to accept their views. If there are different opinions between children and parents, they can be discussed. Each member of the family is entitled to their opinion. Sometimes they need to accept that they agree to disagree!

It is important to point out that not all Australian families operate 'harmoniously' in this way. In a person-orientated family communication mediates power and relationship as individuality is respected and communication is a meaning making process; whereas in a position-oriented family, open communication is not important as individuals are assigned to specific roles and are expected to behave in a predictable way. Vietnamese family is very much position-oriented. Young members are not expected to dispute with older members of the family. A Vietnamese mother once said to her son: "If I see a dog and say it is a cat. You must reply: "Yes, mother". This does not mean that he must agree with her that it is cat. What his mother's advice means is that he should not openly argue with her.

Economic paradigm shift

In Vietnam, young children are often dependent on their parents. They live with their parents till they are financially self-sufficient. In some families, the children stay with the parents after marriage, it becomes an extended families. In Australia, financial support for young people gives them a means to be independent, whether they are living with parents or moving out to live on their own. Like everything in the world, economic power affects self-determination and control. Vietnamese children brought up in Australia start to exert their rights on various decision making processes in the family: where to go, what to do, whom to marry etc.

It is interesting to note that banking takes place so early in life. Children in early primary school are encouraged to have their own bank accounts and are taught how to budget their expenses so that they can decide how to conduct their financial affairs. Some children even borrow money from their parents to pay for things that they cannot afford. They are expected to return the debts to their parents from their saving and earning. This aspect of socialisation creates a sense of financial responsibility for each child. This helps to promote financial independence as well as self-control in children from childhood to adulthood. Financial independence leads to personal independence. Children learn to make their own decisions. A boundary of power relationship between parents and children has emerged and the hierarchy of power has started to decline due to the economic shift.

Linguistic paradigm shift

Wittgenstein, a German philosopher, once said: The limit of my words is the limit of my world. This statement is painfully true to many Vietnamese parents whose English is very limited. They start to feel vulnerable in a new society with a new language. This has restricted their movement and interaction with 'foreigners' constantly surrounding them. They feel so threatened to pick up a phone and hear a foreign voice at the other end. Their children are their protectors in many daily encounters.

There are two aspects of meaning in a word: lexical meaning and cultural meaning. Lexical meaning denotes the meaning of a word that we often find in a dictionary such as cat, book, near, little, wind etc. Cultural meaning of a word refers to the cultural context in which the word is used. Thus, the word 'teacher' in Vietnamese and in English has different cultural meaning. In Vietnamese, teacher is the person who guides his or her children in school-based learning as well as in life. Therefore teachers are expected to have great wisdom and lead a noble life. The Confucian hierarchy 'quan, su, phu' (king, teacher, father) indicates the superior position of teacher , which is higher than father. Whereas in English, teacher is viewed different culturally. A teacher should have certain academic qualifications recognised by the government. Therefore teachers are expected to be experts (to some degree) in their own fields. They should respect students as significant others. Vietnamese parents who do not know English will interpret the world differently from English-speaking people in Australia. The word 'family' is not just a word in the minds of the speakers of a language. In Vietnamese, it denotes cultural expectations such as family solidarity, responsibility of each member in the family, respect for others, gender, power, authority etc. Miscommunication therefore can easily occur when Vietnamese parents and children communicate social issues which have different cultural interpretations. For instance, the word 'education' means one thing to Vietnamese parents but a different thing to Australian parents. Let us look at the issue of misbehaviour. Some Vietnamese parents feel that teachers should be given more power to deal with classroom discipline. To them, some classroom misbehaviours of children, such as abusive language and disruptive acts, should not be tolerated in class. Such misbehaviours show disrespect for teachers. These children should be punished severely. In the Australian context, this issue is not simply a misbehaviour issue. There are other issues which need to be taken into account in dealing with children's misbehaviour in education; for instance, children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, human rights, hyperactive children, legal matters etc. All these factors should be taken into account into dealing with classroom misbehaviour.

When Vietnamese children start to lose their mother tongue and become competent in English, communication between parents and children is very restrictive, particularly when parents are still incompetent in English. Daily communicative interaction is restricted to stereotypical expressions used frequently in speech events at home such as 'dinner is ready', ' turn on the TV for me please', and 'I'll pick you up at the station today'. Some children are aware of their parents' poor English and would not want to share their feelings and thoughts about schools with their parents. This could lead to a very dangerous situation in which these children start to depend heavily on their peers. Peer influence can be very destructive when the children lack communication and guidance from their parents and turn blindly to the 'support' of their peers as a source of survival in a new cultural environment.

Language is not just a means of expression. Any text is encoded with ideology. The Vietnamese language consists of different ways of greeting and addressing which reflect the attitudes of the speaker toward the hearer. For instance, the following choice of words in a greeting is made to express the young brother's respect for his older brother.

The words 'da thua' is used to show respect and the word 'chao' just means 'hello'. The respect is also linguistically marked in the words 'anh' (old brother) and 'em' (young brother').

However, in the Australian context, the linguistic markedness of respect disappears in English as seen in the following example.

The pronouns 'I' and 'you' in English denote an addressor (I) and an addressee (you) regardless of any social significance between the addressor and the addressee. The father addresses his son as 'you' and similarly the son addresses his father as 'you'. Whereas in Vietnamese, there are different words for 'you' (and ' I ') depending on the scale of social significance, respect and politeness.

The examples given above indicate an interesting shift of power when Vietnamese children communicate in English with their parents. The use of 'you' and 'I ' place both parents and children on an equal footing, whereas there is a hierarchy of relationship in the Vietnamese text. It sets out a sociolinguistic condition to be adhered to by the speaker and hearer.

Conclusion

Intercultural communication is an interesting and valuable theme for discovering insights about problems facing migrants in Australia. The concept 'acculturation' is particularly useful in explaining the pain and joy of migrants in their attempt to make sense of a new way of life in a new cultural discourse and to adapt to a new discourse system. For some, the journey into a new cultural territory is marked with excitement, fascinating discovery of the inner world as well as the outside world. For others, it could mean a nightmare and an exile on a lonely land, which is full of miscommunication, sadness, disappointment, and loss of self-esteem.

(Note: special thanks to Tri Tran for his insights about Vietnamese migrants in Australia).

References

Nguyen, Dinh Hoa. 1988. A brief look at Vietnamese culture. Journal of Vietnamese Studies. Vol.1, issue 1.

Scollon, Ron. and Collon, Suzanne. 1995. Intercultural Communication. Oxford, UK: Balckwell.

Tran, L. 1996. The concept of privacy in intercultural communication. In Alex Barthel (Ed.): Intercultural Interaction and Development: Converging Perspectives. Syndey, Australia: University of Technology - Sydney.