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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introductory remarks
Various scholars (Linton 1945, Lederach 1995, Sockalingam 2004, Lotrecchiano
2005) have given several definitions of “culture” which illustrates how complex the
concept is. People usually associate a culture with a specific race or country. Indeed,
the terms “country” and “culture” are often used interchangeably (Taras et al. 2016).
However, in our globalised world, national cultures have themselves become diverse,
inhabited by plurality (Robinson 2003).
Firstly, it is important to clarify that culture is not the same as race. Race is a social
construct used to identify groups of people by physiological characteristics such as
skin colour, hair texture, facial features, bone structure, etc. (Blakemore
2019). Furthermore, most races are included in many ethnic groups, “a large group of
people with a shared culture, language, history, set of traditions” (Cambridge
dictionary 2023).
Many societies are multicultural, and many people and organizations collaborate
across geographic and cultural boundaries that is why nowadays it is so important to
understand cultural differences (Iivonen et al. 1998). The National Centre for Cultural
Competence or NCCC’s (2006) definition of culture is: “Culture is the learned and
shared knowledge that specific groups use to generate their behaviour and interpret
their experience of the world. It comprises beliefs about reality, how people should
interact with each other, what they “know” about the world, and how they should
respond to the social and material environments in which they find themselves. It is
reflected in their religions, morals, customs, technologies, and survival strategies. It
affects how they work, parent, love, marry, and understand health, mental health,
wellness, illness, disability, and death.” Much of culture resides only in a person’s
head; thus, it is invisible and sometimes hard to detect. This can easily be understood
with the image used by the Peace Corps volunteering organisation in its training. The
image is the “Iceberg Concept of Culture” inspired by Sigmund Freud’s Iceberg
Theory:
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Figure 1.1 - The Iceberg Concept of Culture
According to culture psychology, human beings naturally internalize cultural norms
and concepts (Zittoun and Gillespie 2015). However, the process of culture
internalisation often has the effect of rendering our own culture invisible to us, though
we can readily identify cultures that differ from ours. This unconscious process
enables us to automatically know how to behave appropriately in many situations with
people from the same culture, but this doesn’t automatically enable us to appropriately
interact with people from other cultures.
The NCCC (2006) also explains that cultures always contain subcultures. Subcultures
usually relate to gender, age, class, race, religion, occupation, sexual orientation,
identity or even disability. Subcultures share much of the overarching culture of the
larger group within which they exist, but also have unique and identifiable
characteristics. Moreover, as Holliday (2011) explains, individuals may move through
different subcultural groups because they change religion, occupation, or class, for
example. Furthermore, if they live in a foreign country, they also may embrace some
of the cultural aspects of that country. It is therefore clear that cultures are dynamic.
They change and adapt over time through a variety of influences: contact with other
cultures, invention of new technologies, war, environmental changes, just to name a
few. Some aspects of a culture change slowly, as religious beliefs or social roles while
other aspects change more rapidly like the adoption of new foods or technologies.
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Culture is obviously encoded in the structure, vocabulary, and semantics of language.
Persons acquainted with more than one language are aware that there are concepts,
norms, and emotions that are available in one language/culture that are not available
in the other. In today’s complex societies there are more and more individuals who
self-identify as bicultural (Van Oudenhoven and Benet-Martínez 2015) or
multicultural. Usually, a bicultural individual understands and interacts easily and
effectively in two cultures and languages (Schwartz and Unger 2010). However, most
cultural groups tend to be ethnocentric, this means that they believe their culture is
“the correct one” (Evans 2023). This is also due to the fact most of our cultural identity
is developed out of awareness and therefore most people are not aware of their culture
and of its effects on themselves. On the contrary, culturally aware people are less likely
to be ethnocentric (Gilbert et al. 2007).
Today’s world is diverse and globalised. Thanks to technology, interactions across
cultures around the world are now a very common experience. Social networking sites,
blogs, and chat rooms are enabling people regularly interact across national borders.
Many industries currently have a significant amount of international collaboration, and
careers in many fields increasingly entail working with people from different
countries, both directly and indirectly. The Conference interpreting career itself relies
on the interactions between different cultures.
Successfully navigating today’s globalized society entails being able to understand and
appreciate diversity in its many forms, and to interact effectively with people from
cultures that we recognize as being different from our own (Guilherme 2000). This is
at the basis of the success of an interpretative event, during which conference
interpreters work (Radeva and Saržoska-Georgievska 2018). Indeed, interpreters do
not only translate words, but they also are mediators between cultures “interpreting
each in terms of the other, either for themselves or for other people” (Byram 1997). In
this way they can avoid or deal effectively with intercultural misunderstandings and
conflict situations that may arise during an intercultural event (Aragú Pérez et al. 2016)
ensuring a smooth communication. This is possible if the interpreters possess cultural
awareness, cultural self-awareness, and intercultural competence, competences and
attitudes which are best acquired through conscious, planned and facilitated
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experiential learning (European federation for intercultural learning n.d.). For this
reason, this thesis analyses the ways, and the means interpreters can develop such skills
focusing on an innovative tool: the Surprise Report.
1.1 Aim of the study
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness of the Surprise Report, a
tool created by the researcher to develop interpreters’ cultural (self-)awareness and
intercultural competence. The Surprise Report is a journal prompt built around the
main question “what surprises you?”. The journal prompts aim at helping interpreters
to observe different aspects of their host country and to describe anything that surprise
them in comparison to their own culture. This reflection should lead them to implement
what they have learned with locals making them develop their intercultural
competence. Details about the tool are thoroughly explained in 2.4.3. The journal of
the participants in the study has been shared with the researcher and it can be found in
the appendix L.
1.2 Rationale
According to several studies, to provide a successful interpretation, interpreters need
to develop their cultural awareness (that includes knowledge about language, social
relationships, inhabitants, customs, historical works and monuments, administrative
formalities, history, etc. of one’s own culture and of other cultures). Cultural
awareness is the understanding of cultural conventions that affect how we think and
behave. The skill required to navigate cultural differences which is intercultural
competence comes with time and experience. To be successful in this task, interpreters
need to gain a vast knowledge of values, attitudes, and assumptions that exist across
various cultures. Living in another country can help an interpreter to do that, and the
Surprise Report may play an effective role in the development of their cultural
awareness and intercultural competence.
The NCCC (2006) defines “cultural awareness” as being cognizant, observant, and
conscious of similarities and differences among and between cultural groups (Goode
2001, revised 2006). According to Winkelman (2005), awareness of cultural
differences and their impact on one’s behaviour is the beginning of intercultural
effectiveness. He states that “cultural self-awareness includes recognition of one’s own
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cultural influences upon values, beliefs, and judgments, as well as the influences
derived from the professional’s work culture” (p. 9).
According to Gilbert et al. (2007), culturally aware persons can see how aspects of
their culture have shaped their beliefs and behaviours. They are aware that their
individual characteristics (gender, age, race, physical and intellectual abilities, and
disabilities, etc.) interact with cultural and subcultural factors (class, education,
religion, occupation, etc.) to produce their unique identities. Culturally aware persons
are mindful of the dynamic aspects of culture and are cautious not to easily generalize
or stereotype individuals based on an over-simplified evaluation of their cultural
backgrounds. Cultural awareness includes an understanding of the potential interaction
between culture and race, and among subcultural identities within an overarching
national identity and each individual over time (Gilbert et al. 2007).
Cultural awareness seems to be an important aspect in “intercultural situations” (when
an individual perceives another person or group of people as being culturally different
from themselves -Barrett 2020) in which conference interpreters work. Cultural
awareness also appears an important element of the intercultural competence
conference interpreters need to develop to be effective in their job (Radeva and
Saržoska-Georgievska 2018). Intercultural competence is the ability to function
effectively across cultures, to think and act in interculturally appropriate ways (Leung
and Tan 2014). According to the European Federation for intercultural learning,
intercultural competence is tightly linked to empathy, listening, and observing,
flexibility, conflict resolution skills and tolerance of ambiguity. They also go hand in
hand with civic mindedness, valuing democracy and human rights.
Several synonyms are used by scholars for cultural awareness such as cultural
sensitivity (Aragù Pérez 2016) or cross-cultural awareness (Horváth 2012), and for
intercultural competence such as cultural competence (De Guzman 2016). However,
the researcher has chosen to only use the two terms cultural awareness and intercultural
competence to avoid any confusion.
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1.3 Research questions
In order to achieve the aim outlined above, the researcher needs to focus her
investigations on one main research question:
• Is the Surprise Report effective for the development of conference
interpreters’ cultural awareness and intercultural competence?
This question entailed exploratory research which had to be carried out through a
mixed-method approach experiment involving two groups of participants. Participants
were chosen through a questionnaire based on two main criteria: they were conference
interpreters who had an experience in a foreign country (Group A) but, the interest of
public service interpreters for the study led to the creation of a subgroup (Group A2);
and conference interpreters who had recently moved abroad at the moment of the study
(Group B), but the interest for the study by conference interpreters who moved abroad
a longtime ago led to the creation of a subgroup (Group B2). All members of groups
B/B2 were currently living abroad at the time of the study. The online interviews and
questionnaires collected the participants opinion and experiences regarding cultural
awareness and intercultural competence concepts and tools, as well as the Surprise
Report.
1.4 Biographical motivation
The researcher has often travelled for short or long periods of time and intends to settle
in abroad for both personal and working reasons. That is why she is interested in the
development of conference interpreters’ cultural awareness and intercultural
competence through their experience in a foreign country. She has always been
interested in foreigners’ integration particularly while volunteering with the VIDES
Ngo, where she taught Italian language and civilization to immigrants in Italy, her
country of origin. In the meanwhile, she was studying in the undergraduate course of
Language Mediation and Intercultural Communication. Her undergraduate thesis
focused on the creation of a tool to facilitate and accelerate the integration of migrants:
the Surprise Report. The Surprise Report for the integration of migrants derived from
another Surprise Report: The Rapport étonnement, which is a French tool aiming at
facilitating and accelerating the integration of new employees in French companies.
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The researcher had the chance to test a form of Rapport étonnement during an
internship in Geneva, that is why she chose to adapt it.
The core principles of the Rapport étonnement can make it suitable for its adaptation
in other contexts. Surprise, a careful observation, and networking can indeed be crucial
not only to integrate in a new company but also in a new country and therefore develop
one’s own cultural awareness and intercultural competence.
1.5 Thesis structure
In support of the aforementioned research aim (1.1) and specific research question
(1.3), the thesis is divided into five chapters and the structure is as follow:
Chapter 2 will provide a review of the literature which focus on the three main fields
of interest of the present study: cultural awareness and intercultural awareness
development tools, the Rapport d’étonnement from which derives the Surprise Report
tool; and the Surprise Report tool for the integration of migrants from which directly
derives the Surprise Report for the development of conference interpreters’ cultural
awareness and intercultural competence.
Chapter 3 will discuss the methodologies and methods of the present research study.
The researcher will provide a theoretical framework of the methodological approach
adopted in this research and she will justify her choice to adopt a mixed-method
approach, which she considered the most suited to achieve the aim previously outlined.
Furthermore, this section will present the participants involved in the study and the
choice of the sampling technique used to identify them.
The data collection methods chosen for this research project are described and
justified: a first online questionnaire and the Surprise Report tool were provided to
both groups’ participants; a first online interview was conducted with each individual
of both groups and only one group took part in the Surprise Report experiment which
was concluded with an online questionnaire and an online interview. Data validity and
reliability will also be discussed. Ethical tools and considerations will be described
and discussed as well as the pilot phase. Finally, the researcher will explain the
approach taken to analyse the data gathered during the study.
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Chapter 4 will present, discuss, and analyse the findings of the research. Firstly, the
quantitative data gathered through the questionnaires will be presented. Secondly, this
data will be corroborated with the findings emerged from the interviews to increase
the validity of the research project.
Chapter 5 will summarise all relevant findings and draw the final conclusions of this
exploratory study in relation to the research question. It will also address the question
of quantitative and qualitative data corroboration that derived from the mixed method
approach adopted. Furthermore, possible limitations to this study and
recommendations for further research will be discussed, before outlining the final
remarks. Last, but not least, the present thesis will provide a full bibliography and
appendices including all relevant information, as well as a glossary of the main terms.
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