You see your culture wearing a sunglass. If you want to
know a knew culture, you have to take of your sunglasses
and put on the sunglasses of the new culture.
You can not judge a culture based on your own standards
Iceberg Theory of Cultures
visible tip
You can see just some parts of a culture
Cooking, Games, Fine Art, Music, Dancing,
Literatur, Cloth, Ideal of Beauty,architecture
invisible
Parts you can not so on the first view. They lay under the water surface
worldviews, Ideas of Governing, Relationship to Animals, Conception of
Justice, Incentives to Work, Theory of Diseas, Conception of Cleanliness,
Nature of Friendship, Roles in Relation to Age, Sex, Calss, Occupation,
Body Language, Social Interaction, etc.
Stereotypes about British culture
Food and drinking
Brits only eat fish and chips. Not true,
they have a varied and healty diet.
Brits only eat roast beef. Roast dinners are still
very popular, but are restricted to Sundays
Now: many restaurants in Birtain = reflects the cahnge
of eating habits in Britain (Thai, Chines, Indian, Italien)
British people drink lots of tea: Ture, many british
people do this
Social customs
Reputation for being very polite: quite true (there are also people qho
choose not to bee respectful). Saying "please" ans "thank you" is normal
British people que up for everything in public: ture!
all British people speak the Queen's English: not true!
People speak with a regional accent and use a dealect
humour is very important: ture! british people use a
specific type of humour, based one sarcasm and irony
Free time
British people go often to pubs: ture! Pubs are
still important for the British to socialise and
for drinking
They love football and cricket: ture, but they also like rugby,
tennis, horse racing and Formula 1 motor racing. Sport is very
important to them and a basis of conversations
Alpine Pride
Stereotypes about Autrian: having a talent for improvisation, not
following plans, beeing light-footed, showing off, being theatrical, more
extroverted, culivated, polyglot
Stereotypes about Germans: being more accurate, thorogh, fromal,
punctual and dependable, keeping promises, being penny-pinching,
inflexible, loud, less polite, more blunt, have little sense of humour
Differences: Austrians ignor timetables. Austrian give private matter the highest priority. Austrian like to celebrate
achievements. Feedback is important for Austrians. Austrian managers search for harmony and consensus. Personal
relationships at work are more important for Austrians. Austrians are less likely to follow rules.