6533b839fe1ef96bd12a61ae

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Repenser l'interculturel en communication. Performance culturelle et construction des identités au sein d'une association européenne.

subject

description

This thesis examines the way in which the multiple cultures and identities that people are likely to summon up during an encounter influence the nature of their social interactions. It draws on the epistemological heritage of symbolic interactionism, rather than that of cross-cultural psychology, thus focusing less on the impact of (national) cultural differences on the way that we communicate, than on the intersubjective process that consists in negotiating common grounds for attributing meaning, during a multicultural encounter (semiopragmatics of communication). By analysing a corpus of interactions observed between members of the European Students' Forum (AEGEE), the study underlines the importance of the intercultural dimension of interpersonal communication in general. Starting from a definition of culture as a process, defined and actualised on the level of social group interactions, it explores the manner in which members of the association make themselves predictable to others by laying emphasis (simultaneously or not) on their membership of different social categories or groups. Finally, this thesis focuses particularly on the way that common grounds for attributing meaning are performed (established) during an encounter. Three levels of interpretative context can be distinguished: culture (prefigured meanings), the social context (configured meanings), and the encounter itself (meanings performed through “figuration”). Together, these three levels form the figurative context, which is actualised through the different exchanges, and to which the parties refer in order to formulate and interpret their respective symbolic acts.