T H E M E S

Diplomatic Services and Intercultural Communication
It is now standard in the business world for employees of international corporations to receive special training for working abroad and dealing with international colleagues. Even more than business, diplomacy involves constant interaction with members of other cultures, yet most diplomatic services have not yet formally incorporated training programs in intercultural communication.

• Can the experience of the business world with intercultural communication training be usefully applied to diplomatic services?

• Should diplomatic services include intercultural consultants to train diplomats and assist with negotiations?

• What should such training involve and how can it be most effective?

• What specific challenges do female foreign service officers face when they are posted abroad?

• How can diplomacy not just benefit from intercultural communication but also actively promote intercultural communication?

• What is the role of the “cultural diplomacy” performed by cultural centers?

Intercultural Negotiation, Mediation and Conflict Resolution
Raymond Cohen writes: “By definition, negotiation is an exercise in language and communication, an attempt to create shared understanding where previously there have been contested understandings. When negotiation takes place across languages and cultures the scope for misunderstanding increases.”

• What role does cultural difference or misunderstanding play in the creation and perpetuation of conflicts?

• Can improvements in intercultural communication assist with conflict resolution?

• Can we identify national styles or tendencies in negotiation?

• How can we apply this knowledge to improve negotiation skills?

Examining Cultures
Looking for categories or patterns is a useful part of analysis, and helps us to understand complex issues. Leading experts on intercultural communication have proposed various ways to categorise cultures based on certain traits, in order to help people prepare for encounters with other cultures.

• Can viewing cultures through categories help prepare diplomats for more successful encounters with other cultures?

• Can we identify specific traits in the diplomatic communication of particular countries?

• What are the problems with categorising cultures, in terms of creating stereotypes and false assumptions?

• Can we assume a direct connection between cultural and communication, without considering the sub-groups included in any culture and the influence of social context on communication?

Communication between Professional Cultures
Sometimes the diplomat must translate between different professional cultures. For example, with negotiations on the environment, the diplomat must translate the language and logic of the environmentalists into language understandable to politicians, and vice versa. This task is sometimes more difficult than communication between different nations.

• When is translation between different professional cultures necessary?

• How can the diplomat prepare for this kind of intercultural communication?

EU Professional Culture and Language
Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states: “The Union shall respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.” While the protection of distinct national cultures and languages is given high priority, little attention has been paid to a new professional culture now developing: the EU professional culture. Information about EU organisations, laws, economy and other matters is readily available, but this is not true of the professional culture and the language that goes with it.

• What specific features does the EU professional culture include?

• Are there specific linguistic features – terminology, grammar, language choice – that form part of the EU professional culture?

• How does the EU professional culture relate to and interact with the various European cultures?

Technology and Intercultural Communication
The Internet has made possible direct communication between vast numbers of people with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. With the growth of the Internet, the use of English as an international lingua franca has increased, and a new culture of text-based communication has emerged. For diplomatic services, information technology has brought a huge change in modes of communication both with other diplomatic services, and with domestic and foreign publics.

• What effect has information and communications technology (ICT) had on relations between countries?

• How has the use of ICT affected the means and impact of public diplomacy?

• Will the growth of a text-based culture have an impact on diplomacy, which is largely a text-based activity?

• Can text-based negotiation take place over the Internet?

Translation and Intercultural Communication
At the same time as English has gained currency as an international language and as the most commonly used diplomatic language, many international organisations are recognising the various languages of member states as official or working languages for their proceedings, both oral and written. As a diplomat cannot learn an unlimited number of foreign languages, he or she must rely, to a large extent, on translators and interpreters.

• What are the difficulties or “pitfalls” in diplomatic translation and interpretation related to different cultural practices?

• Should training for translators and interpreters include intercultural communication as well as languages?

Inter-Religious Communication
Contact and communication between cultures often involves contact between religions, both between different religious communities within nations, and between nations. In many cases, religion is an essential part of the ethnic identity of a people, and as such is capable of contributing significantly to conflict or to peace.

• What are the difficulties or barriers to inter-religious communication?

• How can tolerance and cooperation between different religious communities be fostered in order to prevent or end conflict?

• What are the benefits of better understanding, better communication and increased tolerance between different religious groups?

Intercultural Communication, Migration and Minorities
People migrate for a variety of reasons: as refugees, as recruited migrant workers, and as groups who find themselves as ethnic minorities when borders change. All of these situations involve contact and communication between different cultures: the host culture, already existing ethnic communities, and the new community, and the potential for misunderstanding, racism and ethnically based violence. These relations also affect the international relations of host countries with countries of origin.

• How can diplomacy assist with relations between migrant or minority host countries and countries of origin, and relations between the migrants or minorities and their hosts within countries?

• How does cultural misunderstanding and miscommunication lead to ethnic conflict within countries?

• What impact do immigration and refugee policies have on intercultural issues in the integration of migrants and minorities?

• Can intercultural communication training for migrants, minorities and hosts assist with integration and the creation of multicultural societies?

• How can a global mindset in politicians and policy makers be encouraged in order to preserve internal and external peace?

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