WELCOME!
My name is Nikolatka and today you are going to learn something new with me!
Since I am a Uni Student, I usually spend a lot of time studying. This is the last year of my Bachelor degree study and I would like to have as good grades as possible. Therefore, I decided that I will be sharing with you guys some of my Uni materials and it will serve two main objectives. First, I hope it will be interesting and perhaps something new for you. Second it will help me revise and prepare for the upcoming classes since the posts will be like a summary of the previous lectures and serve as notes.
So let's dive in today's class topic - CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS (CCA)
What is cross-cultural analysis?
- CCA is the comparative study of forms of behaviour in specific social, national, cultural or ethnic groups
- Typical purpose is to discover if/how a form of behaviour and an actor’s cultural identity are connected
Types of Analysis
- Cross-cultural analysis A-B, A-BCD etc. (etic)
- Intra-cultural analysis A-A (epic)
- Emics = analysing the group from within (native's point of view)
- Etics = comparison of cultures
Examples
- Cultural phenomenon in country A as seen by researcher in country B
- Cultural phenomenon in social group D as seen by researcher from social group E
- Cultural phenomenon in time F as seen by researcher living in time G
- Cultural phenomenon in language H as seen by researcher speaking language I with language H as second language
Research Problems
- Over-generalization with minimum or poor data
- Explicit or implicit cultural bias
- Interference from own cultural assumptions
- Translation – difficulty of ‘explaining’ one culture in the ‘language’ of another
- Challenge of defamiliarization (emic and etic perspectives)
The defamiliarization is a very important thing to keep in mind during the research and the analysis of the findings. If you decide to use emic perspective - think of the research as if you are a Martian coming to this Earth with no knowledge of cultures whatsoever so that you do not take things you know for granted - what seems to be easy, simple and straightforward for you does not necessarily have to be that clear to people who do not know your culture. Focus on details :)
And that is it for today's study session!
Until the next time
KISSES
