Telling the Difference: Observations on Culture in Cross-Border and Cross-Cultural Teaching

Adam FITAS

Abstract

Where borders and cultures meet there are essentially three possible communication scenarios: (1) speaking about one’s own to others; (2) talking to one’s own about the other; (3) talking about the other to others. This article is mainly concerned with the first two perspectives.

Acquainting one’s fellow countrymen with another culture needs to be based on a common level of communication and on comparative contexts which are available to both the sender and the recipient. The main problem, though, is the vivid and sensual evocations of a distant reality (as in the reports by Ryszard Kapuściński, for example).

When talking about one’s own to others, the sender knows the subject, but there is lacking a common language (cultural community) with the receiver. There are thus two narrative strategies which are especially helpful in reaching out to the receiver’s awareness. Firstly, you must put what is specifically your own into wide, but gradually narrowing a context. Secondly, there is the need to translate indigenous cultural meanings into those that will be recognisable to a foreign audience. Both these strategies are illustrated with examples from Czesław Miłosz’s Native Realm.