Theories of Intercultural Communication
Optional PhD course
Péter Gaál-Szabó dszabop@yahoo.com
Fri 8-10
The course is an introduction to the main directions and developments of intercultural communication with primary focus on intercultural adaptation, adjustment, and acculturation.
The course offers different angles to access and problematize the concept of culture—a necessary move to understand the multiple embeddedness even of our own cultural selves and what “intercultural” may mean in different contexts. The central question, however, revolves around how effective communication can be achieved as well as what constraints shape our self-perception and our perception of others in an intercultural encounter. In this way, the course also offers methods to analyze, manage, and resolve conflicts deriving from cultural differences. Class discussion will also include the analysis of texts of different genres to put theory into practice.
Cla ss
Date Topic
1 18/09 Concepts of Culture
Minkov, Michael. “The Concept of Culture.” Cross-Cultural Analysis: The
Science and Art of Comparing the World’s Modern Societies and
Their Cultures . Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2013. 9-18.
Hofstede, Geert et al. “The Concept of Culture.” Cultures and Organizations:
Software of the Mind . New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. 3-32.
Bohannan, Laura. “Shakespeare in the Bush.” Natural History (Aug/Sept.
1966): 28-33.
2 25/09 Culture and Imagination
Clifford, James. “Diasporas.”
Cultural Anthropology 9.3 (1994): 302-38.
Appadurai, Arjun. “Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a
Transnational Anthropology.” Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization . Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. 48-66.
Presentation:
Clifford, James. “Travelling Cultures.” Routes: Travel and Translation in the
Late Twentieth Century . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1997. 96-
116.
3 02/10 Beyond Culture
Adler, Peter. “Beyond cultural identity: Reflections upon cultural and multicultural man.”
Topics in Culture Learning: Concepts,
Applications, and Research . Ed. Richard W. Brislin. Honolulu: U of
Hawaii P, 1977. 24-41.
Welsch, Wolfgang.
“Transculturality ­ the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today.”
Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World . Eds.

Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash London: Sage, 1999. 194­213.
Presentation:
Gilroy, Paul. “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity.” The
Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness . London: Verso,
1993. 1-41.
4 09/10 Communication Incorporating Culture
Pearce, W. Barnett. “The Coordinated Management of Meaning.”
Theorizing about Intercultural Communication . Ed. William B. Gudykunst.
Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2005. 35-55.
Ting-Toomey, Stella. “The Matrix of Face: An Updated Face-Negotiation
Theory.”
Theorizing about Intercultural Communication 71-93.
Presentation:
Graumann, Carl F. “On Multiple Identities.”
International Social Science
Journal , 35.2 (1983): 309-21.
5 16/10 Culture and Identity
Imahori, Tadasu Todd and Cupach, William R. “Identity Management
Theory: Facework Intercultural Relationships.” Theorizing about
Intercultural Communication 195-211.
Ting-Toomey, Stella. “Identity Negotiation Theory: Crossing Cultural
Boundaries.”
Theorizing about Intercultural Communication 211-35.
Presentation:
Dalmayr, Fred. “Modes of Intercultural Encounter.” Beyond Orientalism:
Essays on Cross-Cultural Encounter . Albany: U of New York P,
1996. 1-39.
6 06/11 Intercultural Adaptation
Gallois, Cindy et al. “Communication Accommodation Theory.”
Theorizing about Intercultural Communication 121-49.
Burgoon, Judee K. and Hubbard, Amy S. Ebesu. “Cross-Cultural and
Intercultural Applications of Expectancy Violation Theory and
Interaction Adaptation Theory.”
Theorizing about Intercultural
Communication 149-73.
Presentation:
Kim, Young Yung, “Adapting to a New Culture: An Integrative
Communication Theory.” Theorizing about Intercultural
Communication 375-401.
7 20/11 Effective Communication
Gudykunst, William B. “An Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM)
Theory of Effective Communication: Making the Mesh of the Net
Finer.”
Theorizing about Intercultural Communication 281-323.
---. “An Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) Theory of Strangers’
Intercultural Adjustment.” Theorizing about Intercultural
Communication 419-59.
Presentation:
Hogg, Michael A. “Self-Uncertainty, Social Identity, and the Solace of
Extremism.”
Extremism and the Psychology of Uncertainty.
Malden:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 19-36.
8 27/11 Adjustment and Acculturation
Hecht, Michael et al. “A Communication Theory of Identity: Development,
Theoretical Perspective and Future Directions.” Theorizing about
Intercultural Communication 257-79.

Nishida, Hiroko. “Cultural Schema Theory.”
Theorizing about Intercultural
Communication 401-19.
Presentation:
Hecht, Michael et al. “Code or Style Switching”
African American
Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture. Mahwah, New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. 149-56.
9 04/12 Co-cultural and Muted Group Theory
Ardener Edwin. “‘Remote areas’: Some theoretical considerations.”
HAU:
Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2.1 (2012): 519–33.
Orbe, Mark P. and Spellers, Regina E.. “From Margins to the Center:
Utilizing Co-Cultural Theory in Diverse Contexts.” Theorizing about
Intercultural Communication 173-91.
Presentation:
Kramarae, Cheris. “Muted Group Theory and Communication: Asking
Dangerous Questions”
Women and Language 28.2 (2005): 55-61.
10 11/12 Intercultural Space as Contested Space
Chidester, David and Linenthal, Edward T. “Introduction”
American Sacred
Space. Eds. David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1995.1-43.
Lie, Rico. “Spaces of Intercultural Communication.” http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.202.7331&r ep=rep1&type=pdf
Presentation:
Gupta, Akhil and Ferguson, James. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference.” Cultural Anthropology 7.1 (1992): 6-23.
Availability of texts:
Texts are available in an electronic format or as photocopies.
Requirements:
Presentation : Each student will have to give a presentation (20 min) based on one of the texts under the heading “Presentation” in the course schedule.
Participation in class discussion : Students are expected to take active part in the class discussion—a precondition to earn the seminar grade/signature
Grading Policy
Classroom work 60%
Presentation 40% total 100%
Course grades (depending on the system)
Percentage Grade

87-100
61-86
0-60
Percentage
91-100
81-90
71-80
61-70
0-60
With distinction
Pass
Non-pass
Grade
5
4
3
2
1