Affective Factors and Interpretive Judgments in Intercultural Encounters

Abstract

It is quite obvious that culture and language differences can cause misunderstandings during encounters between people from different cultures. What is less often noted is that such differences may cause participants to experience negative feelings. Culture differences often lead to violated expectations, which may cause participants to feel discomfort or stress; language differences often make it necessary for one or more of the participants to function in a language that is not their mother tongue, which may lead to feelings of anxiety, stress, or what is sometimes called language fatigue. In turn, these uncomfortable feelings may have a negative impact on interpretive judgments participants make about each other, especially by serving as a handy source of ready-made “substitute” questions (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002) which encourage participants to make subconscious and automatic (System 1) interpretive judgements rather than more conscious and careful (System 2) interpretations. In foreign language courses, especially English courses, teachers should teach students about the role these two factors — violated expectations and language fatigue — play in intercultural communication, and how they may influence interpretive judgments. Learners who are consciously on the lookout for these factors, and for the feelings they may cause are more likely to effectively manage the impact of these factors on interpretive judgments made during intercultural communication; learners will also be more aware of and have a better understanding of how interpretive processes work in intercultural encounters.

Keywords

Intercultural communication / interpretation / affect / feelings / language fatigue / dual process views of thinking / System 1 / System 2 / substitution

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