Cultural Schock

Sabrina Monforte Essay 2 Critical analysis To what extend are you convinced by Tanges (2005) bunk regarding cultural edition? Regarding the result of cultural adaptation there are many theories. This essay, es directially, will analyse in depth the stamp of a Professor in the Department of Language and Business communication Hanne Tange , whos major is in spite of appearance the field of Intercultural communication, in opposite cultural and shock adaptation proposed by Sverre Lysgaard in 1995. At first, Tange illustrates in her article In a cultural No Mans Land or, how long does ulture shock goal? the meaning of sojourn, a key word in her study, to understand that it represents a short stay in another country, usually amongst a suspender of months and a few years, to conduct an external project or a general work in order to expanded the companys affect over the world, in order to gain a greater successful income for it. However, cultural shock has not been analysed fro m both sides, Tanges and Lysgaard, because of the fact that Tanges has been withal inbred by taking in consideration this theme. So that, I fag not be extended to one of those theories.Anyway, lets interject the argument by saying that cultural adaptation is relevant to employees to gain the maximum result from their tasks. During their stay, in the host country, so that they can acquire internationalist competence to benefit their enterprises. According to Tange, to gain the best from a sojourn it is important that also the company should be involved in all the appendage of adaptation, by following the sojourn, and not to leave the employee on his own. So that the gain of high international qualified skills, can be elaborated as resources for international business.But Tangle introduces the definition of another author by saying that, the process of acculturation rarely moves beyond the level of onstage culture (Varner and Beamer 2005 3), which starts during the process of i nter-group communication at the beginning in their own country and it ends there. However, to support the conception of cultural adaptation beyond their own national borders, there are two quite distinct approaches Lysgasrds and Tanges influence. According to Lysgards model which is related to the 50s, cultural adaptation follows a U shape curve. Indeed, at the beginning of the stage, adjustment is felt o be easy than follows a crisis in which one feels less well adjusted, somewhat lonely and unhappy lastly one begins to feel better adjusted again, becoming more integrated into the foreign community ( Lysgaard cited in Tange, 2005). To arrive at this explanation, one survey has been conducted by analysing Norwegians visitingThe United States of America. On the other hand, against the previous theory, we have Tange who states that cross cultural adaptation is divided in three steps arrival, two years crisis, intercultural stage. In this case, the finding into the research of inter cultural business communication benefit rom a qualitative method development in the anthropology and ethnology ( Tangle, 2005). Furthermore, to make this survey more reliable, she has taken seven people which they had to move from Scotland to Denmark, aged between 25 and 44 years old, and she has assessed the interviewees through an informal dialogue. Due to this reason it is hardly to think that her methodology can be thought reliable, because of the lowest number of interviewees. It is reasonable to distinguish between the concept of sojourners and immigrants (Tangle, 2005).Tangle refers to Stella Ting-Toomey to explain that the main differences are more ased on a intercultural encounter rather then the natural experience of itself. This is due to the reason of a different point of view. Immigrants are more likely to be evince and this lead to an expectation of a invariable residence, which can be obtained by the Government only by following some standard roules, for instance , having a permanent job, staying in the same country for a couple of years without leaving it, receiving a good income. On the other hand, sojourners are also stressed however, they do not need to stay for all their life in the host country, ut the duration of the residence it is subject to the contract with their own company. Anyway they can feel anxious in the entropy stage, according to Tangles method, as a reaction of being far away from their country, and this is equivalent to homesickness, and more in detail means missing family, friends, their own culture -. In addition to that consequence, they experience also mild identity dislocation, disorientation and loneliness ( Ting-Toomey 1999 248). Although this is the second stage, the first one and the last one are quite similar to each other from the aspect of feelings.The interviewees showed an exited and relaxed attitude. It seems that the arrival stage consists of cultural assimilation, which refers to new exiting mixer ne tworks, thus they feel emotionally charged up and curious about the new culture. While the third stage is blurred for the interviewees, because under this stage everything is draped at the subconscious level and are unlikely to show in a quantitative survey. But we can state that as they gain an inside perspective on their new culture, the frustration might be tail-off but for someone is totally erased.For example, upon their return to the home country, they might find deviation between their own natural behaviour and their behavioural patterns, and it is unlikely to settle into their old way. In outlining the result from the survey, we can highlight the fact that most of the employees have been sent home, when they had the right feeling to use their intercultural skills to benefit their enterprise. According to Tanges, it is mainly advisable to extend sojourns over three years to strengthen the companys position in a particular market abroad.At the opposite side, Tange suggests th at Lysgaaeds model of the culture shock is not clear and fails to account for cultural overlapping. Whereas she sustains Tangle model is based on a simplified version of reality (Tangle, 2005). However that may be, dare I say that even if Tangle is approaching to the topic using a qualitative method, which is useful to measure something compared to real-life situation, the weakness aspect is that the interviewees analysed are concentrated. Thereof, we can add that the way putting the article is too subjective and she did not nalyse in depth Lysgaard model. In conclusion, notwithstanding what Tangle thinks about Lysgaard strategy, it could be also valuable if analysed.By evaluating the article, the strength is the duration of the survey taken from the employees settled down in the host country, and moreover it is written in an understandable way for a general audience, even if it might be written for liberal companies with subsidiaries branches. Tangle gained her aim by combining t heories of sojourner adaptation with qualitative results but without countering her arguments. In fact, it is reasonable to imagine hat the article and the survey are clashing. fetching over that, I would suggest, HR of big companies have to invest in personnel development for a cultural overview, to prepare them and push trough the stationing overseas in a reasonable way. Thereof, it is relevant that during the training and the sojourn, all the employees are accompanied by their partners, who can help them settle into their new place and to let them facing what they are going to expect. An also, HR have to send employees in another country within their same cultural region, so that they are likely to feel more relaxed.Tangle survey could be hold in a different way by taking also other resources. 1200 words References Lysgaard S. , 1995. tolerance in a foreign society Norwegian Fulbright Grantees Visiting The United States in International Social Science Bulletin 7 45-51. Tange H. , 2005, In a cultural No Mans Land or, how long does culture shock last? , Journal of Intercultural conference, issue 10. Ting-Tomey S. , 1999. Communication Across Cultures. New York The Guliford Press. Varner, I. and L. Beamer, 2005. Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace. 3rd ed. Boston McGraw-Hill.