Building Trans-Cultural Standards. On Demolishing the Barriers to Intercultural Communication

Abstract

The relationship between the individual and intercultural communication becomes clear when weunderstand culture within the cultural anthropology paradigm. From this point of view, any individual is thebarer of a certain culture (subculture, sub-subculture etc.), and interindividual communication is anintercultural one. That is why the issue of tolerance between individuals and groups becomes an issue of theefficient communication and mutual understanding between cultures. My research on demolishing thebarriers to intercultural communication aims not only to institutionalized communication (betweengovernments or national organizations), but also to communication between well established culturalcommunities, with a strong identity (linguistic, ethnic or religious communities): they regard any act ofcommunication, including here the international professional one (where the main barriers dwell in thecommunication between national cultures). I think that in its current shape, based on economic criteria (whichsplit rather than unify), the European Union does not offer enough “common tasks” in order to give birth to anew Pan-European civic culture, as a variety of the third culture. But, a European Federation could offer thepolitical, economical, social and cultural framework necessary for the achievement of what Casmir called“the third culture”.

Keywords

• culture
• identity
• civic culture
• intercultural communication
• the third culture