This Chapter introduces the background, statement of the problem, research purposes, research questions, significance of the study and definitions of terms. The background describes the imperative of research on intercultural communication and 2012 Nan Ying International Folklore Festival which was the case of this study. The problems lying in the international events and the significance of this study are both brought out. Furthermore, the research purposes and questions are addressed. Lastly, key terms of this study are defined.
Background of the Study
In 2012, the world economy was encountering serious financial turmoil triggered by intensive and consecutive financial crisis in Europe (World Bank, 2012). The phenomenon suggests the inseparably intertwined relationship among countries. The world has opened a new chapter due to advanced technology and globalized economy. People from different places have been brought together for various purposes such as international trades, cultural festivals, sport events or academic conferences. Success is lying beyond borders nowadays (Adler, 2001). International events, rather than domestic ones, became prevalent. More and more countries and institutions have been competing for hosting international events because of potential social and economic benefit (Richards & Wilson, 2004). Events were also considered as motivators to the tourism as well as the development of destinations (Getz, 2008). Therefore, countries have begun to strive for holding unique events and to find competitive advantages during the preparation process.
In international events, there must be a group of people working as tour guides to receive the international performers or tourists. How tourists and performers perceive and evaluate a country depends on how these tour guides lead them. However, tour guides had never been credited with their devotion to the economy and the image of a nation in Taiwan
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(National Policy Foundation, 2010). Though nowadays in Taiwan, tour guides could get the official certificate by passing the examination, their contribution to the country is still not recognized, not to mention those who guide performers and tourists in the international events in Taiwan.
According to the annual report published by United Nation World Tourism Organization (WTO) (2011), in spite of the world economic downturns, the tourism industry has been growing. International tourism increased by 4.6%, achieving 982 million international tourism arrivals. Moreover, the international tourism receipts were up to 3.8%, adding US$1 trillion to the world economy. Since the tourism industry has been growing steadily, the significant role of tour guides could not be ignored, especially in international events which invite tremendous benefits and economic growth for the city or even the country.
In Taiwan, Nan Ying International Folklore Festival, held every two year by Tainan City Government since 1996, is a great international event in Taiwan. Unlike other international events such as Olympic Game in which folks would not have opportunity to interact with players, Nan Ying International Folklore Festival features the interaction between international groups with local people (Tainan City Government, 2012a). The government invites folklore ensembles around the world to the city, performing every day at different locations and interacting with public sectors, private sectors, and local people.
In light of frequent interactions among different cultural parties, the government invites mostly college and university students as their guides to facilitate communication process and negotiate performance requirements. Due to multitasking of a guide, the guide was renamed as Cultural Facilitator in this event, highlighting the main mission they were assigned. As a mediator role, Cultural Facilitators leading different ensembles have to come up with communication strategies shortly since the festival usually lasts no more than two weeks.
Hence, intercultural communication is one of the key factors of holding successful festival.
According to Adler (2001), the intercultural communication was a pivotal factor in response
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to achieving redefined success and the imperative of cross-cultural management in the internationalized world.
This study aimed to analyze communication strategies used by Cultural Facilitators during the 2012 Nan Ying International Folklore Festival and to find out appropriate strategies that could assist public sectors, private sectors and individuals in their interaction with foreigners. In addition, this study also explored under what circumstances Cultural Facilitators chose certain communication strategies.
Statement of the Problem
Intercultural communication is more complicated than general communication since it proceeds between people of different cultural backgrounds who perceive the world differently.
Different perception of the world leads to interpretation of anything people encounter or experience in life. People formed their perception of the world by going through three stages, including selection, organization, and interpretation each of which processed stimuli from outside and was influenced by people’s cultural background or personal experiences (Jandt, 2007). In international events, people from different nations and cultures with different native languages gather at one city and communication among these people are complicated due to their diverse interpretation of the world.
Due to the complexity in intercultural communication, many scholars have done researches on this field (Adler, 2001; Beamer, 1995; Beamer & Verner, 2003; Channey &
Martin, 2007; Jandt, 2007; Neulip, 2012).While a range of topics have been studied in intercultural communication, few studies focused on communication strategies particularly applied in intercultural and inter-linguistic context. As a matter of fact, according to Fasold (1990), a social linguist, even though two nations or society shared the same language, they still differ from each other in terms of linguistic variety, not to mention when both parties communicate in their second languages.
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In 2012 Nan Ying International Folklore Festival, Cultural Facilitators mostly communicated with international groups in second languages and sometimes communication barriers were inevitable due to language and cultural differences. If these barriers were not carefully tackled, misunderstandings and problems would be easily triggered. For example, performers from Japan encountered radicals from China and from Taiwan who barked at them whenever they met in hotel. The conflict resulted from the heating issue on defending sovereignty over the Diaoyutai islands among Taiwan, China and Japan. If Cultural Facilitators did not communicated with the international ensemble, local people or other foreign visitors, the incident was likely to cause serious political problems. Therefore, communication strategies are really significant for Cultural Facilitators to complete their task and are supposed to catch more attentions from researchers.
Accordingly, if intercultural communication has been a popular research topic because of international tensions around the world increasing concerns on issues about globalization (Jandt, 2007; Neulip, 2012), more should be known about how intercultural communication theories and communication strategies applied and selected in practice.
Research Purpose
This study attempts to identify communication strategies used by Cultural Facilitators for intercultural interaction and to explore rationales for their strategy selection through examining Cultural Facilitators’ experiences in international events. It tries to understand what kind of strategies Cultural Facilitators used, how they selected strategies, and what their concerns were when selecting particular strategies. To better analyze factors affecting their selection, this study applies ten components of communication developed by Jandt (2007) as a Cultural Facilitator during the analysis process. These ten components form a communication process. Cultural Facilitators’ responses were analyzed on the basis of the ten components of communication as a framework of this research.
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Research Questions
In accordance with the research purpose, this study aims to answer the following questions after exploring the case of Cultural Facilitators who served in 2012 Nan Ying International Folklore Festival:
1. What communication strategies are used by Cultural Facilitators to achieve the goal of international events in inter-linguistic and intercultural context?
2. What are rationales for Cultural Facilitators to select their communication strategies?
Significance of the Study
Nowadays, there is not a single country that could be self-sufficient in resources helping itself develops. Leaders of nations even had to admit their needs for help from other countries and to reform its domestic economic system in order to participate in the global economy (Ohmae, 1996). In other words, nations have to communicate, negotiate and trade with one another for vital resource to their best profit. Since the communication crosses boundaries, intercultural concepts should be taken care of. As the intercultural communication becomes more important, to understand what kind of preparation, skills, and strategies would positively facilitate communications is inevitable.
In addition to communication among nations, communications within organizations were also essential. Chitakornkijsil stated (2010), “Communication covers all aspects of organization activity” (p. 8). He thought communications helped people accomplish their tasks and goals in organizations. “Effective communication” was desirable for global managers. In fact, it is also important for those who need to work in a multicultural context.
Furthermore, in terms of language management, the findings of this study about communication strategies in inter-linguistic and intercultural contexts are good references for organizations to manage language-related policies.
For example, Rakuten Incorporation was the first Japanese firm implementing
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Englishnization to achieve internationalization. The company asked all the employees to enhance their intercultural communication ability by using plain English (Mikitani, 2012).
Employees had to be able to communicate in English based on 1,500 vocabularies. This kind of communication strategies, according to Tarone (1977), included circumlocution and literal transfer. In other words, extended description and simpler language were applied in this kind of situation. In a nutshell, communication strategies recommended by this study can be a guide in designing and developing trainings for enhancing communication skill.
Furthermore, many people in the modern society have to be bilingual, trilingual, or even multilingual in order to successfully communicate with others. The participants of this study were classified into four different communication types which were elaborately explained in chapter III. Not only intercultural but also inter-linguistic communications were analyzed in the study. The communication model proposed by Jandt (2007) was applied to examine components of communication process and to evaluate the effectiveness of the communication. By referring to the model, this study could provide a more thorough and clear analysis on the selection of communication strategies.
Definition of Terms Language
Welch and Piekkari (2006) in Crossing Language Boundaries: Qualitative Interviewing in International Business summarized that due to the significance to the social world, language was unlikely to be defined accurately. Despite the difficulty in summarizing a universal definition, in the study of linguistics, Algeo’s (2010) definition of language was widely accepted and adopted in this study which stated, “A language is a system of conventional vocal signs by means of which human beings communicate” (p. 2).
Intercultural Communication
In this study, taken from Jandt’s (2007) and Neulip’s (2012) two dimensions,
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intercultural communication is defined as a face-to-face communication between two persons from diverse cultures, including national cultures or local cultures.
Communication Strategy
Stern (1983) and Ellis (1997) defined communication strategies as tactics applied to deal with communication barriers caused by unfamiliarity with communication in the second languages. Nevertheless, different native languages imply different cultural conventions.
Thus, the communication strategies are defined as techniques used by communicators with diverse cultural backgrounds and native languages to deal with intercultural communications barriers.
Cultural Facilitator
The Cultural Facilitator refers to those who served as a guide as well as an interpreter in 2012 Nan Ying International Folklore Festival. Their main tasks were facilitating intercultural interaction, interpreting for the international ensembles, and babysitting the international ensemble during their stay in Taiwan. These Cultural Facilitators were research participants of this research who should be familiar with Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese and one second language.
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