By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY
Cross–cultural communication requires a knowledge of how culturally different people groups communicate with each other. Studying other languages helps us understand what people and societies have in common, and it has profound implications in developing a critical awareness of social relationships. Indeed, understanding these relationships and the way other cultures function is the groundwork of successful business, foreign affairs, and interpersonal relationships.
Elements of language are culturally relevant and should be considered. There are, however, several challenges that come with language socialization. Sometimes people can over-generalize or label cultures with stereotypical and subjective characterizations. For instance, one may stereotype by saying that Americans eat hamburgers and French fries in the McDonald’s restaurant daily, and Russians eat borshch (beet and cabbage soup) for breakfast and drink vodka before bedtime. Both stereotypes are far from the truth.
With increasing international trade and travels, it is unavoidable that different cultures will meet, conflict, cooperate and blend together. People from different cultures often find it difficult to communicate, not only due to language barriers but also because of different culture, styles, customs, and traditions. These differences contribute to some of the biggest challenges of effective cross–cultural communication.
Cultures provide people with ways of thinking, seeing, hearing, behaving, understanding and interpreting the world. Thus, the same words or gestures can mean very different things to people from different cultures—even when they speak the same language (e.g., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa and the United States).
The quote “Two nations divided by a common language,” often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, highlights the differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural nuances that can exist between speakers of the same language. When languages are different, however, and translation is needed just to communicate, the potential for misunderstandings significantly increases.
From the mid–1980s to early–2000s, I was an unofficial Russian translator in Alaska for the US and State of Alaska governments, as well as for various public institutions and private individuals. The most challenging aspect of the translation was relaying specific terminology, such as that used by the US Coast Guard, medical professionals, political protocols and verbiage and, especially, jokes and humorous expressions. Often, I had to provide cultural and historic backgrounds before translating a joke.
Ones, a member of the Russian delegation, in an informal setting over dinner, told a joke to his Alaskan counterparts:
“Archaeologists found an ancient sarcophagus in Egypt with human–made artifacts and skeletal remains. Experts around the world thoroughly investigated this finding to identify the person buried in the sarcophagus but had no success. So, they invited a KGB agent (Soviet Committee for State Security) Major Ivan Ivanov to investigate this matter. Major Ivanov spent nearly three hours in solitude with the skeleton and, finally, with a confidence in his voice, reported to the archaeologists that the remains and skeleton belong to the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses the Second. Archaeologists were impressed by this quick revelation and asked Ivanov, “How certain are you of this remarkable conclusion?” Then Ivanov replied with a great pride, ‘After three hours of the bulldozer interrogation, the skeleton itself revealed to me his identity!’”
The Russian jokester was a large, broad-shouldered man, his voice deep and curt. No one among the Alaskan delegation laughed after hearing the joke. They sat still at the table, holding crystal shots of vodka, and just stared with alarm at the joke-teller.
I had to provide the Alaskans with some background about the notorious brutality of the Soviet KGB. Unfortunately, in the process of explaining the joke, the humor disappeared.
In teaching Russian language at the University of Alaska Southeast for 16 years, my very first message to students was to emphasize that a language must always be understood and learned in a cultural context. As an example, I shared with them a personal and rather humorous story of my early arrival to the United States in Philadelphia during the winter of 1978.
In the early years of my immigration, I watched a lot of TV to learn English, American traditions and lifestyles. Many advertisements described food items and dishes, including various salads, using the word “delicious.”
It was a new experience for me because there were no TV ads for commercial products in the former Soviet Union due to a lack of commercial competition. The government controlled standardized prices for commercial products throughout the entire country.
So, I understood the word “delicious” as a name of the salad (a noun) rather than the quality of the salad (an adjective). In fact, food dishes have a particular name in Russia — Chicken Kiev, Salad Stolichniy (salad capital), Borshch (beet and cabbage soup), Beef Stroganoff (meat stew), Blini (Russian for pancakes), etc.
Later that year, my uncle from Canada, accompanied by his wife and daughter, visited me in Philadelphia. As a welcome greeting to America, they invited me to a fancy restaurant downtown. When the waiter asked for my order, I requested a steak, shot of vodka and “delicious” salad, hoping my order would match the “delicious” salad that I had seen on TV.
The puzzled waiter leaned slightly and whispered to me, “Sir, all our food is delicious.” Then, I clarified to the waiter, “I want a delicious salad.” The confused waiter served me a cabbage with mustard.
So, that evening in the fancy restaurant, I enjoyed a delicious steak and stuffed myself with a cut-in-half cabbage with mustard. This was a prime lesson in cross-cultural miscommunication.
Indeed, the demographics and cultural complexity of our nation changes rapidly. It is only a matter of time before ethnic minorities in our country take a lead in shaping the cultural and ethnic landscape of our nation and, eventually, become a significant ethnic majority. These demographic and cultural changes are unavoidable. However, our society should learn to make inclusive and, yet, conservative cross–cultural adjustments without undermining the fundamental core of American Judeo–Christian religious, cultural and moral values.
Alexander Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and enrolled in the Ph.D. program in anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also lecturer in the Russian Center. In the USSR, he was a social studies teacher for three years and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He then settled first in Sitka in 1985 and then in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education and Yukon-Koyukuk School District from 1988 to 2006; and Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center from 1990 to 2022. From 2006 to 2010, Alexander Dolitsky served as a Delegate of the Russian Federation in the United States for the Russian Compatriots program. He has done 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky was a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, and Clipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions. He was a Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. Dolitsky has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka, Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia, Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers in Alaska, Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During World War II, Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East, Living Wisdom of the Russian Far East: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska, and Pipeline to Russia: The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in World War II.
Alex, your post is interesting and very relevant to the present time.
Most native born Americans are limited to English, the level of the most basic literacy is 74% and rapidly dropping, and well rounded educated citizens have become rare.
This is a problem for a citizenry whose government is primarily focused on overseas foreign regime change, meddling and engaging in hot proxy wars in dozens of countries, for which the level of risk of starting a nuclear exchange is much higher than the Cuban crisis.
The overwhelming percentage of the public is completely ignorant of foreign countries, language and cultures of the peoples who populate them.
This in a country that has moved 50 million foreigners in during the last 40 years who have not been required to learn English and basic precepts of our culture or laws. We now have a fractured society, multi lingual in an easily managed by politicians to be divisive manner.
We clearly see how the public is indoctrinated in believing infantile and imbecilic narratives about Iran, Russia, China, Israel or dozens of others. With no clue of the complexity underlying the actual reality of each. The narratives are crude, and designed to be prejudicial to create an unfounded hatred based on made up stereotypes.
For example, many people “hate” “Russians” and “Iranians” while not even being able to identify which of the dozens of racial, linguistic, ethnic, political and religious peoples of just these 2 countries they actually “hate” because the narrative relied on describes someone that doesn’t actually exist.
This in turn creates public support or indifference for our government to start wars, launch missiles and create actual enemies in response to our inept foreign policy.
The number 1 priority for the country is to restore actual education and add mandatory foreign language instruction starting by 1st grade (not a semester in high school) and continue through high school and college if applicable to the student.
Sir,
In my humble opinion the majority of new ethnic minorities have no interest in assimilating into the Judeo Christian religious cultural and moral values of the country. My grandparents and my wife’s grandparents emigrated from European countries and worked hard to assimilate and integrate into their new homes country and were very successful after a lifetime of hard work. My late grandfather was a diplomat with the Hungarian embassy in NYC
My wife’s grandfather came from Ireland and his son was a founding partner at a now international law firm in Chicago.
It’s entirely different today. Most of the new immigrants and illegal aliens who are here today do not want to assimilate instead they bring their past with them and want to duplicate it here. I’m glad that I am 80 years old and sorry for our children and grandchildren who will never enjoy the same experiences we had growing up in the 50’s and 60’s as children of second generation parents.
I appreciate your perspective and thoughts as an immigrant who has been successful in America, but think it’s too late. My major in college was the Great Books Program and unfortunately history does repeat over the millennium and in my opinion is doing so now as we slowly slide in the next period of time
Best Regards
George
You live in the United States of America. English is the language, Nothing else. Stop catering to those who don’t belong here. My ancestors who came here were chastised by their wives for speaking German at home. Assimilate or leave