Culture Shock and Cultural Iceberg

Using the concept of cultural iceberg, that is, the fact that what is available to our senses is pretty limited and that deep structure contains a lot more about cultures than the surface one, Chapter 3 highlights the significance of culture-dependent, hidden components such as stereotypes, prejudices, beliefs, hopes, and fears. On some occasions, especially when we talk about unrelated parts of the world, we might be shocked by even minor acts or issues, like apparently negligible verbal exchanges, unexpected attire, prosodic features of language, make-up, etc. Culture shock, as we might expect, can occur in more and less severe forms, and is usually seen in terms of four stages: it typically begins with euphoria, which develops into awareness of differences, and ends (when we don’t get stuck along the way) in accepting these differences and even adapting to what was initially foreign, new and different. In order to raise consciousness of the roots of this initial sense of puzzlement, which can be overwhelming, and to facilitate the process of acceptance, this chapter includes quite a lot of interactive scenarios that depict cultural traits, as well as the stages of culture shock.