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Culture shock is a significant concept in intercultural communication. “It is a feeling of frustration, uneasiness, or uncertainty that many people experience in unknown settings” (Chang Junyue, 2011:128). Usually, people suffer a lot from the discomfort caused by culture shock. As globalization goes on, it is common to see more and more people go abroad, and it is inevitable for sojourners to experience culture shock.
In order to draw people’s attention to this issue and let them be more aware of this cultural phenomenon, this paper further provides the symptoms and causes of culture shock. It summarizes the previous interpretation of culture shock and presents its own understanding. It also explores some strategies for managing culture shock. Among the coping strategies, great attention is attached to the enhancement of intercultural training and intercultural communication competence. 源'自:优尔]'论-文'网"]www.youerw.com
2. Literature Review
Culture shock, “the present selection is an adaptation from a talk that Oberg gave to the Women’s Club of Rio de Janeiro on August 3, 1954. Bobbs-Merrill published this talk in 1954 and it was then republished in Practical Anthropology in 1960” (Fu Siyi & Chenyan, 2011: 37). According to Oberg, “culture shock might be called an occupational disease of people who have been suddenly transplanted abroad. Like most ailments it has its own etiology, symptoms, and cure. Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse” (Oberg, 1960: 177). Oberg also proposed the four phases of culture shock.
Since Oberg’s time, lots of scholars have dedicated themselves to probing into the phenomenon of culture shock. Adrian Furnham and Stephen Bochner coauthored the book Culture Shock: Psychological Reactions to Unfamiliar Environments. They considered culture shock as psychological reactions to unfamiliar environments. Generally speaking, when a person moves from one place to another, the set of symbols, customs, behavior patterns, social relationships and values which he is familiar with are replaced by another set that he is unacquainted with, the psychological anxiety or depression thus occurs. Researchers Taylor and Kaye have exploited and examined simple models to forecast who suffers most from culture shock. Shupe proposed a model to understand international student conflict. Kim holds that cross-cultural adaptation is a process that the sojourners are pressed by the unfamiliar cultural environment, making constant adjustments to adapt to the new way of life and ultimately leading to the formation of intercultural identity. She also points out that culture shock is a precondition for cross-cultural adaptation in intercultural communication and expounds the potential positive effects of it.
A series of researches has been done by scholars to elaborate on the causes, symptoms and phases of culture shock, to search for effective countermeasures of minimizing its negative effects and maximizing its positive effects. However, the issue of culture shock is rather complex. Thus many of the researches have still remained unsystematic up to now.
3. The Phenomenon of Culture Shock
3.1 Definition of Culture Shock
A very significant aspect in the field of intercultural communication is the issue of culture shock. Many scientists investigate the phenomenon of culture shock and find their own definitions, but most of them adhere very closely to the one Oberg gave in 1954. Hofstede, for example, states that culture shock is a human distress accompanied by transferring to an unfamiliar cultural following some physical symptoms. For Bock, it is a disturbing feeling of helplessness and disorientation evoked by exposure to a strange society directly while Marx just called it “the experience of foreignness”.
Nowadays, there are myriad definitions of culture shock. But all these definitions have something in common, that they view culture shock as a disagreeable reaction when facing an unfamiliar culture. To conclude, culture shock is a common experience of people who have been transplanted abroad. It is a feeling of uneasiness or frustration. Also, it refers to phenomena extending from mild irritability to profound psychological panic and crisis. Two important points require to be noted concerning the concept of culture shock. First, when people go to a new country, most of them experience some degree of culture shock. Culture shock is not the traveler’s personal character but a product of the situation of being in a new culture. Second, culture shock is normally transient. It’s a process which passes with time.