Social domain theory: interpreting intercultural communication
The psychobiographical domain
The fourth of Layder's social domains is the most individual. Against some of the current claims from postmodernism about selfhood, we would argue that each of us has not only a physical identity which distinguishes us from everything else in the world, but also a continuous sense of self. Psychobiographies are 'the personal feelings, attitudes and predispositions of individuals' (Layder 1997: 2-3). Our existence in the world, which is constantly changing and shaped by different kinds offerees which are separate from us, also means that no two individuals will experience the world in identical ways. One property of 'being human' (Archer 2000) is being able to reflect on ourselves and our experiences. Joanne's email message is other directed, but there is always the potential for the 'inner conversation' which is an emergent property of the human agent, to be deployed in dialogue.
Let us consider how Joanne's psychobiography may be relevant to the case study we have been discussing. We have very little specific information to go on, but we do learn that she 'made friends easily' in Australia. Not everyone makes friends easily, for numerous reasons. Suppose Joanne had arrived in Germany with a history of feeling rejected when trying to become part of a social group. This might have made it more or less easy for her to deal with her failure to make friends in this new context, but it would certainly have been different.
At the point when she was feeling baffled by not being able to find a group to work with, she writes that she 'was homesick and had pms'. Might her reaction have been different if the incident had occurred at a point only slightly different from the time when it did? Her account of this incident is preceded in the message by some background:
I will describe a particularly horrible morning to you. It was the first time I had to get the bus by myself. I missed it because it was too early. So L. had to drive me to school. I felt like a complete idiot. I couldn't even get the bus. So I wasn't feeling that happy to begin with. We had an information gathering and we had to sit and listen to the teacher (I couldn't understand. 3 weeks after getting here).
In context, this part of the text is represented as illustrative of some general trends in Joanne's experience of intercultural communication. Yet much of this passage is about Joanne herself. The final sentence quoted deals with a cognitive issue, about understanding spoken German in an authentic communicative context. It is possible that another student would have found this less demanding, due to a greater facility with spoken German perhaps (what if Joanne had happened to be born into a family with some German-speaking relatives?), or if she had been taught using a different method (one introduced a year after she started her course, say, or used in the neighboring school but not hers).
Much of the rest of the content, however, is about the affective impact of these experiences. Joanne describes this morning as 'horrible', reports' that she 'felt a complete idiot' and that she 'wasn't feeling that happy'. The conclusion to the incident is that her colleagues 'sure made me feel like dirt'. The affective is a crucial strand in the psychobiographical domain: Layder (1997: 62) claims that 'the emotional dimension infiltrates thought and action at every opportunity'. Blommaert (1998) maintains that the affective is also a critical variable in intercultural communication. He found when researching the experiences of Turkish migrants in a refuge for battered women in Belgium that they deployed a particular communicative style, 'Immigrants' Dutch', particularly when telling 'the most painful and sensitive aspects of their story'. Shifts in the choice of language from actors' communicative repertoires may well be as sensitive to the psychobiographical domain as to any supposed 'cultural difference'.
As we have said before, there is a constancy about human beings' contradictory impulses towards both dependence and independence, both intimacy and separation. The access we have to the emotions as depicted in literature from all times and cultures indicates their universality, despite the specificity of the ways they may be understood, represented, or held to be significant (cf. Craib 1998). Archer (2000) identifies emotionality as an emergent property of the interaction between the human being and the natural, practical and discursive orders of reality (p.197), and these connections serve to reinforce the interconnectedness of the domains whose different properties we have sought to elaborate in this account of the area of applied linguistics designated 'intercultural communication'.
Other detailed studies of the experiences of individuals tend to reinforce such insights. For example, the extended ethnographies reported in Bremer et al. (1996b) include a number of case studies (Bremer et al. 1996a). Berta, from Chile, whose approach to learning French displays a propensity for problem solving and a willingness 'to learn and become involved in French society' (p.123), demonstrates a particular pyschobiographical disposition. Tino, from Italy, living in Germany, is seeking more fulfilling employment; the situated activity of his counselling interview includes such misunderstandings as the reluctance on his part to pay for further training, while the counsellor knows (but fails to make explicit) that funds would be available for this (contextual resources). Santo, an Italian living in England, does not attend language classes, due not to lack of motivation (psychobiography) but to lack of opportunity (contextual resources). His personal resources, however, facilitate a particular kind of negotiation in the situated activities recorded in the social settings of a travel agent and an estate agent. '[TJhrough Santo's interactions we have evidence of a learner who uses his assertiveness to redress the imbalance of power between minority and majority speaker' (p.158). Further examples of what we would identify as the interplay between the different domains of social life are suggested in the 'critical ethnography' produced by Canagarajah (1999, 2001). While his analysis is in many ways at odds with the realist account we have been developing, we would endorse the inclusion, in his description of students learning English in a Sri Lankan university, of the political, economic and historical context of this activity, together with details of the community setting, the classroom setting, and the differentiated ways in which his students interpret and respond to available contextual resources. We continue the discussion of the similarities and differences between our own position and those of 'critical ethnographers' such as Canagarajah.
