Cultural Norms - are behaviour patterns that are typical of specific groups, which have distinct identities, based on culture, language, ethnicity or race separating them from other groups. Such behaviours are learned early in life from parents, teachers, peers and other human interaction. Norms are the unwritten rules that govern individual behaviour. Norms assume importance especially when broken or when an individual finds him/herself in a foreign environment dealing with an unfamiliar culture where the norms are different.

The culture norms for most family in China is; most year 13 students use their time to study for exam preparation. For example when in New Zealand High School , Lin is supposed to spend her time doing revision not going outside for fun.

Cultural Sensitivity - is a necessary component of cultural competence, meaning that we make an effort to be aware of the potential and actual cultural factors that affect our interactions with others.

For example; Rose Economic teacher is not cultural sensitive where she does not aware of different culture norms practised in China. The teacher does not know Rose culture back ground where she just simply asks Rose to sit which has ended up Rose sitting in the teacher’s seat. In China, most students will do things as asked and shown by their teachers without questioning them.

Cultural Universal - General cultural traits and features found in all societies of the world. Some examples are organization of family life; roles of males, females, children and elders; division of labour; religious beliefs and practices; birth and death rituals; stories of creation and myths for explaining the unknown; "rights" and "wrongs" of behaviour etc.

For example, Ken respect all elders. When Ken stays with their homestay parents, he respects them even though they are not his biological family. The homestay mother describe him as a nice and respectful as well as a polite boy.

Acculturation - refers to the processes by which families, communities and societies react to inter-cultural contact while retaining characteristics of own culture. As a result a new, composite culture emerges, in which some existing cultural features are combined, some are lost, and new features appear. The earliest recorded western discussion of acculturation appears to be that of Plato in 348 BC. More than 100 different taxonomies of acculturation have been formulated since then.

DICTIONARY OF CROSS-CULTURAL TERMINOLOGY/INTER-CULTURAL TERMINOLOGY

This Dictionary of Cross-Cultural Terminology/Glossary of Intercultural Terminology consists of terms used in Cross-cultural studies, anthropology, cultural anthropology, social anthropology, and particularly business anthropology.

Acculturation Difficulty - A problem stemming from an inability to appropriately adapt to a different culture or environment. The problem is not based on any coexisting mental disorder.( free dictionary.com)

For example, Rose is unable to acculturate herself with the new environment in her High school in New Zealand as she cannot speak English profieciently. She is also described as having aculltaration diffficulty because she said that she feels lonely and New Zealand is the the place where she belongs.

Adaptation - is a process of reconciliation and of coming to terms with a changed socio-cultural environment by making "adjustments" in one's cultural identity. It is also a stage of intercultural sensitivity, which may allow the person to function in a bicultural capacity. In this stage, a person is able to take the perspective of another culture and operate successfully within that culture. The person should know enough about his or her own culture and a second culture to allow a mental shift into the value scheme of the other culture, and an evaluation of behaviour based on its norms, rather than the norms of the individual's culture of origin. This is referred to as "cognitive adaptation." The more advanced form of adaptation is "behavioural adaptation," in which the person can produce behaviours appropriate to the norms of the second culture. Adaptation may also refer to patterns of behavior which enable a culture to cope with its surroundings.

Transculturation - is a term coined by Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging of different cultures. It argues that the natural tendency of people is to resolve conflicts over time, rather than aggravating them. Global communication and transportation technology nowadays replaces the ancient tendency of cultures drifting or remaining apart by bringing cultures more into interaction. The term "Ethnoconvergence" is sometimes used in cases where tranculturation affects ethnic issues.

Stereotypes - Stereotypes (or "characterizations") are generalizations or assumptions that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an inaccurate image about what people in that group are like. For example, Americans are generally friendly, generous, and tolerant, but also arrogant, impatient, and domineering. Asians are humble, shrewd and alert, but reserved. Stereotyping is common and causes most of the problems in cross-cultural conflicts.

individuality

the quality or character of a particular person or thing that distinguishes them from others of the same kind, esp. when strongly marked.

Sociolinguistic competence is the ability to interpret the social meaning of the choice of linguistic varieties and to use language with the appropriate social meaning for the communication situation

Cultural identity (CI) - individual or social groups choose to identify with particular cultural identities in certain socio-political and cultural contexts, under certain circumstances and for particular purposes –with benefits, tensions, costs and consequences. This may include an identification with a particular religious group, a particular ethnic or racial group, a particular country, a particular language and dialect, a particular set of foods that are thought to be good to eat, a particular set of holidays, of usual and unusual names that people might have, etc.

Cultural shock: discomfort, dissonance caused by lack of familiarity with a new or perceived ‘foreign’ other (other self, other person, other culture caused by cultural diversity and differences in terms of worldviews, structures of expectations, communication patterns (tone, loudness etc), ways of doing-saying-listening, reading-writing, values (time), meanings and purposes of individuals and communities

CANALE AND SWAIN (1980) DEFINED CC IN TERMS OF FOUR COMPONENTS

Grammatical competence – knowledge of lexical items, rules of morphology, syntax, sentence grammar, semantics and phonology

Discourse competence - ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances

Sociolinguistic competence – knowledge of sociocultural rules of language and of discourse eg. social roles of addressor-addressee, context, turn-taking, structuring of information/argument, rights/obligations

Strategic competence –verbal/on-verbal communication strategies used to compensate for a comm breakdown

Learning of and socialisation into cultures (including ICC) and languages through ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT through

Scaffolding (joint task: expert and novice)

Modelling (experts as examples)

Training (coaching)

Through these activities, novices learn to notice, order, represent themselves in communicative activities