2. Intercultural communication and diplomacy

What is diplomacy?

Today, diplomacy is an activity involving a range of relations with states and non-state actors and

hence, it requires the creation of networks where no single member has the monopoly. This means

that the traditional view of ‘diplomacy’ relying on the term ‘negotiation’ and defining it as “…the

management of relations between countries by negotiation rather than by force” (Oxford Learner’s

Dictionary) cannot be exhaustive.

“Diplomacy’ is today a multilayered concept signifying simultaneously “content, manner, character,

method and art”. The following examples out of the 144 concordances of diplomacy as node from

DiCo, highlight this continuous shifting and expanding of the term and give us the chance to extract

more “conceptual knowledge” (Bowker and Pearson 2002: 217) showing the trends outlined above:

(1)We are seeing a shift not just in the tools of diplomacy but in diplomacy itself.

(Beckett, 20/03/07)

(2)What we need is not so much a diplomacy of hindsight, but rather a diplomacy of

foresight. (Straw, 25/03/02)

(3) Today diplomacy is more than ever about 'soft power' – persuading others that

they have an interest in your agenda; that you and they want the same things.

Diplomacy today means putting our values into action. (Straw, 24/04/06)

(4) Diplomacy in the 21st Century needs to be hard-edged, clear in its goals and

determinedly activist: grounded in core but flexible in the face of rapid change. (Straw,

28/03/06)

(5) It is not state to state diplomacy. It is people to people diplomacy. (Cook,

28/03/01)

What is culture?

Culture is viewed as something unconscious that operates in our thoughts and becomes visible only

in particular situations that require exposure to other cultures. In an attempt to visualize his concept

of culture, Kohls compares it to the image of an iceberg with three layers: the section above the

waterline represents the observable part of culture (language, music, food, clothing, crafts); the

level under the surface consists of unspoken rules and, finally, the section at the very bottom

concerns the unconscious rules. Hofstede introduces the image of an onion. The other layers of the

onion from inside to outside contain ‘rituals’ (e.g. ways of greeting), ‘heroes’ (e.g. admired people

who offer example of behaviour) and symbols (e.g. language) and altogether constitute the culture

intended in his words as “the collective programming of the mind” meaning that it is somewhere

inside us. All the layers, except for values may be learned through ‘practices’.

In order to analyse the complex relationship between language and culture, we will rely on Edward

Hall’s theories (1989, 1990) of high-context communication and low-context communication

(henceforth HCC and LCC) and on Hofstede’s cultural orientations.

Whereas the ‘text’ refers to the information transmitted, the context is primarily concerned with the

total environment of the text. In low-context communication, the interlocutor knows very little and

everything must be told. Conversely, in high-context communication, the listener does not need

much background information and great importance is given to implied meaning and non-verbal

communication.

High-context cultures, including much of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and South America, are

therefore rational, intuitive and emphasize interpersonal relationships. Words are not very important

as in these societies context and people tend to take their place within a stable network, where they

are indirect and more formal. On the other hand, LCC cultures, comprising North America and

much of Europe, are linear, individualistic, and action-oriented.

High-contexts can be difficult to enter if you are an outsider, since you do not carry the context

information internally, whereas low-context cultures are oriented to the newcomer. As Katan

observes (2004: 248-253), the United States are an example of a loosely-knit society, because

everybody is accepted in the social fabric, which is not resistant to change. Indeed in New York, for

instance, people find helpful signs indicating everything, while in Japan, which is known as the

highest-context culture “silence is more valued than the word”.

The English language itself is undoubtedly LCC if compared to other languages, because its

vocabulary enables speakers to use a lot of words to express shades of meaning, or simply because

it is more direct, rational and concise.

Furthermore, the style of written or spoken text to express information is different: whereas

American and English cultures follow the KISS principle (keep it short and simple) for the sake of

clarity and brevity, the opposite approach is labelled KILC (keep it long and complete) aiming to a

more detailed and complete expression.

Borrowing Katan’s outline, (2004: 250) communication in the two types of culture can be

characterized as follows:

LLC: loosely knit, shallow rooted HCC: tightly woven, deep rooted

Emphasis placed on: Emphasis placed on:

text context

facts relationship/feelings

directness indirectness

consistency flexibility (in meaning)

substance (social/personal) appearance

rules circumstances

Thus, identified as low context cultures, the USA and the UK cultures focus on facts rather than emotions, on ‘doings’ rather than on ‘beings’, and tend to emphasize individualism (Katan 2004; Trompenaars et al. 2000). On the contrary, the Italian culture prefers to express feelings and is more past-oriented. Accordingly, HCCs prefer implicitness and indirectness and leave context outside the text, whereas LCC communication is more instrumental and prioritizes information and facts.

In a previous comparable study (Spinzi 2010) it was shown that the more impersonal Italian approach is set up against the long and detailed wording of English texts about how to act in dangerous situations, for example telling people how they should carry their handbag in order to avoid being robbed. Where the British institution illustrates the techniques that pickpockets use relying on a strong overlap between images and text, appearing sometimes redundant, the Italian one counts more on a union between the two or in some cases leaves the viewer to interpret the message trusting images only.

Dimensions of culture

Hall’s conception of low/high context culture seems to be difficult to apply when comparing close

cultures analytically. In an attempt to provide a more universally applicable framework, Hofstede

(2004) addresses this issue and distinguishes six cultural independent dimensions classified

according to some research on work-related values in employees at IBM during the 1970s. Each

dimension is measured in relation to a basic problem all societies have to cope with, with different

responses to its solution. The dimensions are as follows:

-‘power distance’ relates to how (in)equality is distributed in society. Cultures with low power

distance are characterized by more interdependence and mutual support; on the contrary, in cultures

with high power distance stratification and hierarchy prevail because there is a larger distance

between those with power and those without it;

- ‘uncertainty avoidance’ measures the level of stress when facing the unknown and unpredictable

future, and cultures like the USA and the UK, which score low on this parameter, show a higher

level of tolerance towards uncertainty and for them ‘what is different’ is stimulating;

Needless to say that these cultural frames underlie any communicative event and that they are also

relevant at the diplomatic level where operators help their governments “to understand why certain

things are as they are” (Hofstede 2004: 36). Accordingly, they cannot be neglected in translation in

that “the translator is the first exponent of the foreign culture in the research process, and the impact

of culture in our findings starts in the translator’s mind” (Hofstede 2001: 21).

In a study (Borelli & Pistillo 2005) of a 2005 script released by the European Commission’s

Audiovisual Service about the main advantages of the European Constitution, written in French and

translated in 20 EU languages, it is shown that the EU was viewed by the euro-optimist Italians as a

superior institution with a decision-making power able to reduce anxiety levels in society. Among

the many examples provided by the two authors two cases were picked out from the script and two

from the interviews which interspaced the video:

Case 1:

The 25 member states sign the treaty establishing the European Constitution.

I 25 firmano il trattato che istituisce la Costituzione per l’Europa.

Case 20:

Europe therefore is no longer just a representative democracy; it’s a democracy the people can take part in

too.

Pertanto, l’Europa non è più solo una democrazia rappresentativa, ma diventa una democrazia partecipativa.

Case 4/VP:

Decision procedures, these are one black box for the ordinary people like me.

Il processo decisionale è la bestia nera di noi persone comuni.

Case 7/VP:

One reference person should be appointed to represent Europe.

Ci vorrebbe una persona di prestigio per rappresentare l’Europa.

The first example points out the different communicative orientation of the English language which

specifies who the 25 are by adding the phrase ‘member states’ with respect to the French source text

which is on the contrary equally translated in Italian1. Furthermore, the use of the preposition ‘per’

1 Source text: Case 1: Les 25 signent le Traité instituant la Constitution européenne. Case 20: L’Europe n’est donc plus

seulement une démocratie représentative, elle devient une démocratie participative. Case 4/VP: Les procédures de

before ‘l’Europa’ (for Europe) at the place of the existing equivalent collocation ‘Costituzione

Europea’ (European Constitution) indicates a positive aptitude for the constitution Europe will

benefit from.

Again, in the following case the two authors notice the more informal and addressee-oriented

English communicative style where a full explanation of what a participatory democracy means is

offered. Interestingly, in the case 4 two different metaphors are supplied at the place of the source

phrase ‘bouteille à encre’ (bottle with ink) which conveys the connotation of an extremely complex

and obscure matter. By referring to any device whose workings are understood by its users (the

‘black box’), the English text repeats the same metaphor of complicated equipment whereas the

Italian translator resorts to a different image (e.g. bestia nera: a pet hate) to allude to a “disliked

person”. The unequal choice mirrors a feature of high-power-distance nation where “politics is

regarded as something serious and complicated by both masses and the elites who hold the power”

(Borelli & Pistillo 2005). Finally, the last example has been reported in that it best epitomizes the

cultural filtering of the power distance dimension which brings the Italian translator to render the

‘reference person’ as ‘prestigious’ confirming once again the high score of the Italian culture on this

orientation.

Translation strategies

Sapir was to first to highlight the differences between languages to the point of talking of

untranslatability:

• "…no two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing

the same reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not

merely the same world with different labels."

This is of course an exaggeration but it points out the importance of differences between cultures.

We will illustrate the strategies used to try to overcome problems when translating:

We will focus on sone strategies which are:

Equation and Substitution

Divergence and Convergence

Amplification/addition and Reduction/deletion

Diffusion

Paraphrase

Cultural substitution

Reordering

Equation The most obvious form of Equation is that of the loan word, where equality would seem absolute:

Italians play football and the English eat lasagna.

A second form of equation is provided by the calque, where the target language adapts the source

language term to its own morpho-phonological framework. The Italian football terms dribblare and

crossare, derived from the English verbs to dribble and to cross, are now well-entrenched in Italian.

Another example is the shout of approval Bravo! in English, particularly in musical contexts, which

is addressed to one or more people of either sex, given the lack of English gender and plural

markers for adjectives. Even the expression Buon pomeriggio is calqued on the common English

greeting Good afternoon.

One of the most well-known traps associated with the word-for-word equation is that of false

cognates (‘false friends’), where the meaning of deceptively similar terms do not match across

languages. The classic examples are actual/attuale, sympathetic/simpatico, editor/editore.

décision, c’est la bouteille à encre pour les gens ordinaires come moi. Case 7/VP: Je ne sais pas si on l’appellerait un

président ou pas, mais une personne référente, qu’on sache quand on parle d’Europe, c’est telle personne.

Substitution

The antithesis of Equation, to return to Malone’s terminology, is Substitution, adopted when there is

no direct equivalence. For example, at a purely grammatical level, the Italian prepositional phrase

replaces (substitutes) the English Saxon genitive:

Gulliver’s Travels = I Viaggi di Gulliver

The Italian subjunctive can be replaced by an English infinitive:

Farò in modo che si interessi …

I’ll try to get her to ……

At a more semantic level, the proverb The straw that broke the camel’s back is replaced by La

goccia che fa traboccare il vaso.

Divergence: it represents a relationship of one-to-many

The strategy of divergence is that of choosing a suitable term from a potential range of alternatives.

There may be a limited number of alternatives, e.g.

cream = panna or crema

or a bewildering selection, e.g.

girare = to turn, to switch on, to pass on, to twist, to go round, to avoid, to tour, to travel, to

endorse, to invest, to shoot, to spin, to circle, to wind, etc.

We have different ways in English to express the same conditional hypothesis:

Se dovesse succedere

If it should happen

Should it happen

Were it to happen

If it were to happen

You had better go early

Faresti meglio ad andare presto

Sarebbe meglio se andassi presto

Non serve lamentarsi

There is no point (in) complaining

It’s no use complaining

Complaining will get you nowhere

Convergence: it represents a relationship of many-to-one

Convergence is the opposite of Divergence. Malone, in one of his rare example of Italian, cites the

personal pronouns tu/Lei/voi/Loro all converging into you, depending on the context of use.

The three Italian terms commercialista, ragioniere, and contabile would converge in a commercial

context to provide the single translation equivalent accountant in most circumstances when

translating into English, without causing any embarrassment.

Care must be taken when going in the opposite direction, where professional jealousies might well

require a fine distinction between the diverging commercialista, ragioniere and contabile.

Amplification/addition

Amplification requires that the translator add some element to the source text for reason of greater

comprehensibility. The most obvious form of Amplification is the translator’s note, be it in endnote,

a footnote or a bracketed addition following the item in question.

Sometimes, a single lexical item in one language needs a collocational partner in the other: e.g.

Hanno interesse a tenere il prezzo basso

They have a vested interest in keeping the price low

vested interests = Interessi acquisiti (leg.), interessi costituiti (polit.)

in high office= rivestono un elevato incarico (from Obama’s speech)

Reduction

Reduction, as the term suggests, consists of omitting elements in a target text because they are

redundant or even misleading. The Italian “carta geografica” is merely a “map” in English. Author-

translator Tim Parks (1994) offers the example of a car-park instruction as to what to do with one’s

ticket that read in Italian “Esporre in modo visibile”, translatable as simply “Display”.

Diffusion

A source text item is expanded without adding any extra layer of meaning, that is it provides more

or less elaboration in the target language: e.g.:

Magari!

requires diffusing into a locution of the type:

If only I could

Would that it were!

I wish that were the case!

Reordering

Reordering requires a different order of the words in the expression used:

1 vita e morte / life and death

2 sano e salvo / fit and well

3 bianco e nero / black and white

4 il diavolo e l’acqua santa / (between) the devil and the deep blue sea

The third type provides another obvious example of the need to activate Reordering strategy.

Italian will typically front a verb phrase, for example, when an intransitive verb is used to introduce

a new phenomenon into the discussion, e.g. è successa una disgrazia. The English version of such

clauses is usually the typical subject-verb structure : something terrible has happened.