Communication styles in Morocco

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COMMUNICATION STYLES IN MOROCCO

Cross-Cultural Paper

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Contents

I.        Introduction:        

II.        Concept:        

III.        Description:        

IV.        Discussion:        

V.        Conclusion:        

VI.        Bibliography:        

1. Introduction:

Nowadays, it is hard to find, especially for experts, an integrated and inclusive definition of culture. Anthropologists alone have provide the world with a long list of definition of culture based on their expertise and the analysis of different types of data. In 1994, Bodley tried to unify these long list of definition into eight diverse definitions of culture which are: Topical, Historical, Behavioral, Normative, Functional, Mental, Structural and Symbolic. The table below will give definition of each one of those diverse.

     Source: Bodley, 1994: 9.

However, according to our textbook, culture is a code of attitudes, norms and values and a way of thinking that we gained from the society. In other words, culture is inherited since it can be passed down from generation to another and it’s more about individual behavior. In addition to that, culture determines first how we perceive ourselves and then how we perceive the world.

Next, as we saw in class, culture operates on three levels. The first, the outer layer is the “behavioral” or explicit level .It’s what you notice immediately when you go abroad like language, food architectures …etc. Next there is the second layer, which contains the “norms and values”. Norms and values form the national characteristics of a culture, and act as its framework of reference. Finally there is the third and innermost layer, and which lies at the core of “culture” contains its assumptions and beliefs. These are difficult to describe or explain because it’s something that everyone there is using (MJ. Browaeys & R. Price, 2008, p13).

In this paper, I will play the role of a cross cultural consultant to a group of foreign expatriates who are about to come, live and work in Morocco. I, as a cross cultural consultant, will brief this group of employees on the communication styles used in Moroccan citizens and how it is different from their own country.

1. Concept:

First of all, communication is the process of sharing meaning by sending messages through channels such as words or behavior. When communicating, there are three types of communication that we used to transmit our message which are:

• Verbal communication: refers to the words and the meaning of the words.
• Paraverbal communication:  is the way you transmit your message like tone, pitch and the pace of the voice.
• Nonverbal communication: messages sent through human actions and behavior rather through words, 70% of communication is nonverbal.

When communicating, each sender and receiver is unconsciously referring to a framework consisting of their knowledge of the subject under discussion, their experience in professional or individual terms, their norms since each individual can have different culture and their assumption (MJ. Browaeys & R. Price, 2008, p330). When talking about communication, we shouldn’t forget about the noises. Noises are any types of interference that disrupt the message and lead to a difficulties of communication between the sender and the receiver. This noises or barrier can be the languages, the culture … etc. next we will be talking about the context, which is defined as the environment in which the communication process takes place. There two types of context depending on the culture. We have the high context culture where most of information being sent is contained in relationship between those communicating and the situation where they are communicating. In other words, what is said and how or where it is said are significant and we find this type of context in Asia, Latin America and Middle East. Then we have the low Context culture where information is explicitly in the message itself. In other words, what is said is more important than how or where it is said and we find this type of context in Anglophone countries, Scandinavian countries and Germany (Hall, 1976).  

Next there is chronemics inside the culture. There are two types of culture using chronemics which are Monochromic cultures which handle one thing at a time; schedule co-ordinates activity; appointment time is rigid; time is inflexible like Scandinavian countries. And we have the Polychromic cultures multiple tasks being handled simultaneously; interpersonal relations co-ordinate activity; appointment time is flexible; time is fluid like Middle East countries (Hall, 1976).

Finally there is Proxemics, which is refers to how people perceive their social and personal space. In high Context Cultures, they prefer close distances when speaking to one another and they do have small personal space since it is culturally acceptable. While in low Context Cultures, they prefer far away distances when speaking to one another and do have larger personal space since they prefer personnel freedom.

Communication is mostly based on language since its one of the ways to send messages. Also, language can be seen as part of the social process, a systematic framework for handling events. As such, its use allows entry into a social organization, which is at the same time a sort of language community. Its members share certain language habits which are formalized with rules (MJ. Browaeys & R. Price, 2008, p330).

As a cross cultural consultant, my role is to advise those expatriate so that they can live and invest in Morocco. As they are haven’t lived in Morocco, they need to have cross-cultural communication skills to engage an intercultural communication. Cross-cultural communication is comparing communication patterns across culture, while Intercultural communication occurs whenever a message sent by a member of one culture is received by a member of another culture, which is the case in this paper.    

When the sender and the receiver do not share the same culture, the particular filters through which the messages pass can lead not just to incomprehension of the messages, but also to their distortion and misunderstanding. That’s why, in the description part, I will try to illustrate some communication style that is widely used in Morocco to overcome this problem.  

1. Description:

Before talking about the communication styles used in Morocco, we will start by a background of this country. Morocco is a unitary state regionalized, whose political system is a constitutional monarchy, located northwest of North Africa. Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city Casablanca. The country is subdivided into twelve regions, according to the new project of advanced regionalization that was lunch in 2011, and those regions are divided into sixty two provinces. Historically, Morocco was a bridge for different types of cultures since it’s located between Africa and Europe and also it was also colonized by French and others. All of those factors impact the Moroccan culture a shape it to what we do have now. The official language here is Arabic (Moroccan dialect) and we use French in administrations and formal meeting.