cultural misunderstanding essay

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By Heidi Burgess

Original Publication September 2003, updated June 2013. Current Implications added by Heidi Burgess in August, 2017.

Current Implications

This article talks about misunderstandings between different cultures...particularly highlighting high-context cultures with low-context cultures. We are now seeing in the United States, how there can be cultural misunderstandings between groups that appear on the surface to be quite similar. More...

Social conflicts often involve some misunderstanding. Parties in conflict communicate by what they say (or do not say) and how they behave toward each other. Even normal interaction may involve faulty communication, but conflict seems to worsen the problem. When two people are in conflict, they often make negative assumptions about "the other." Consequently, a statement that might have seemed innocuous when two parties were friends might seem hostile or threatening when the same parties are in conflict.

Sources of Misunderstanding

All communication has two parts: a sender and a receiver. The sender has a message he or she intends to transmit, and s/he puts it in words, which, to her/him, best reflect what s/he is thinking. But many things can intervene to prevent the intended message from being received accurately.

If the communication is verbal, tone of voice can influence interpretation. The boss's words, "Hey, I noticed you were taking an especially long break this morning," could be interpreted as an attack if she or he said that in a disapproving tone, while the comment might be seen as a minor reminder about office rules if it was said in a friendly way. If the employee has a health problem that sometimes requires long breaks, the comment might have even been a friendly inquiry about what was happening and whether the employee needed any help. Here, tone of voice as well as situational and relationship factors would influence the interpretation of the message.

Nonverbal cues also are important. Is the sender's posture open and friendly, or closed and cold? Is her facial expression friendly or accusatory? All of these factors influence how the same words will be received.

In addition to how the message is sent, many additional factors determine how the receiver interprets the message. All new information we learn is compared with the knowledge we already have. If it confirms what we already know, we will likely receive the new information accurately, though we may pay little attention to it. If it calls into question our previous assumptions or interpretation of the situation, we may distort it in our minds so that it is made to fit our world view, or we may dismiss the information as deceptive, misguided, or simply wrong.

If the message is ambiguous, the receiver is especially likely to clarify it for him or herself in a way which corresponds with his or her expectations. For example, if two people are involved in an escalated conflict, and they each assume that the other is going to be aggressive and hostile, then any ambiguous message will be interpreted as aggressive and hostile, even if it was not intended to be that way at all. Our expectations work as blinders or filters that distort what we see so that it fits our preconceived images of the world. (Conflict theorists call these filters "frames." See the essay on Frames, Framing, and Reframing for more information.)

An analogy can be made to an experiment that tested people's interpretation of visual cues. When people were given eyeglasses that turned the world upside-down, they had to suffer through with upside-down images for a week or two. After that, their brains learned to reverse the images, so they were seeing things right-side up again. The same thing happens when we hear something we "know" is wrong. Our brains "fix" it so that it appears as we expect it to.

Cultural differences increase the likelihood of misunderstanding as well. If people speak different languages, the danger of bad translation is obvious. But even if people speak the same language, they may communicate in different ways.

Common differences are between high-context and low-context communication . Low-context communication stands on its own; it does not require context or interpretation to give it meaning. High-context communication is more ambiguous. It requires background knowledge and understanding (context), in addition to the words themselves, for communication. While everyone uses both kinds of communication, Western cultures tend to use low-context communication more often, while Eastern and Latin American and African cultures tend to use high-context communication. If such differences are not understood and adjusted for, misunderstanding is almost inevitable.[1]

Culture also affects communication by influencing the recipients' assumptions. As described above, our minds try to twist incoming information to make it fit in our worldview . Since different cultures have very different worldviews, cross-cultural communication is especially likely to change meaning between sender and receiver, as the sender may have a very different worldview from the receiver.

Given our tendency to hear what we expect to hear, it is very easy for people in conflict to misunderstand each other. Communication is already likely to be strained, and people will often want to hide the truth to some extent. Thus the potential for misperception and misunderstanding is high, which can make conflict management or resolution more difficult.

How to Avoid Misunderstanding

In conflict situations, avoiding misunderstanding takes a lot of effort. Roger Fisher and William Ury list four skills that can improve communication in conflict situations.

• The first is active listening . The goal of active listening, they say, is to understand your opponent as well as you understand yourself. Pay close attention to what the other side is saying. Ask the opponent to clarify or repeat anything that is unclear or seems unreasonable (maybe it isn't, but you are interpreting it wrong). Attempt to repeat their case, as they have presented it, back to them. This shows that you are listening (which suggests that you care what they have to say) and that you understand what they have said. It does not indicate that you agree with what they said, nor do you have to. You just need to indicate that you do understand them. [2]
• Fisher and Ury's second rule is to speak directly to your opponent. This is not considered appropriate in some cultures, but when permitted, it helps to increase understanding. Avoid being distracted by others, or by other things going on in the same room. Focus on what you have to say, and on saying it in a way that your opponent can understand.
• Their third rule is to speak about yourself, not about your opponent. Describe your own feelings and perceptions, rather than focusing on your opponent's motives, misdeeds, or failings. By saying, "I felt let down," rather than "You broke your promise," you will convey the same information, in a way that does not provoke a defensive or hostile reaction from your opponent. This is often referred to as using " I-statements " or "I-messages," rather than "you-messages." You-messages suggest blame, and encourage the recipient to deny wrongdoing or to blame in return. I-messages simply state a problem, without blaming someone for it. This makes it easier for the other side to help solve the problem, without having to admit they were wrong.
• Fisher and Ury's fourth rule is "speak for a purpose." Too much communication can be counterproductive, they warn. Before you make a significant statement, pause and consider what you want to communicate, why you want to communicate that, and how you can do it in the clearest possible way.

Other rules might be added to these four. One is to avoid inflammatory language much as possible. Inflammatory language just increases hostility and defensiveness; it seldom convinces people that the speaker is right. (Actually, it usually does just the opposite.) Although inflammatory remarks can arouse people's interest in a conflict and generate support for one's own side, that support often comes at the cost of general conflict escalation . Making one's point effectively without inflammatory statements is a better option.

Likewise, all opponents should be treated with respect. It doesn't help a conflict situation to treat people disrespectfully; it just makes them angry and less likely to listen to you, understand you, or do what you want. No matter what you think of another person, if they are treated with respect and dignity -- even if you think they do not deserve it -- communication will be much more successful, and the conflict will be more easily managed or resolved. Engaging in deep conversations (through problem-solving workshops or dialogues ) can also reduce misunderstanding by improving relationships , by providing more context to communication, and by breaking down stereotypes that contribute to negative characterizations or worldviews. The more effort one makes to understand the person sending the message, the more likely the message will be understood correctly.

This article talks about misunderstandings between different cultures...particularly highlighting high-context cultures with low-context cultures. We are now seeing in the United States, how there can be cultural misunderstandings between groups that appear on the surface to be quite similar. Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. are mostly all low-context communicators, yet they seem to be almost completely talking past each other. Each sees the world in fundamentally different ways--their interests are different, their understanding of facts is different, their reasons for advocating various policies are different.

Certainly some of this difference is the result of media manipulation, which spawns not only misunderstanding, but distrust and even hatred as a result of propaganda. Extreme stereotyping of "the other," also prevents effective cross-group communication, so when communication between groups occurs (which is becoming increasingly rare as we self-segregate into different parts of the country), the messages are very likely to be misinterpreted.

Much needs to be done to get the right and the left talking at all. But once they start, mediators or facilitators are going to be needed to try to reduce misunderstandings and build a groundwork for coexistence and tolerance.

This is one area where every individual can make a difference. When we talk to our family members who have different belief systems, for example, take care to use good conflict communication skills (see particularly the articles on empathic listening and I-messages) among others, instead of escalatory communication. This grave conflict within the United States is only going to be defused (if it is), one conversation at a time--and it is incumbent upon all of us to start having those disarming, de-escalatory conversations.

Heidi Burgess, August, 2017.

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[2] Edward T. Hall,  Beyond Culture . (New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1971)

[2] We have more detail on active listening on this website in an article called empathic listening --because the author argued that empathy and listening were too closely linked to write two different articles--so he combined them into one.  

Use the following to cite this article: Burgess, Heidi. "Misunderstandings." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: September 2003 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/misunderstandings >.

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Cultural Misunderstandings in Communication Essay (Article)

Non-verbal signs and symbols, preconceptions and stereotypes, tendency to evaluate, high anxiety, works cited.

The difference in communication between the representatives of different cultures is the point of many researches. Only narrow-minded persons suppose, that all people are to some extent similar, and just knowledge of foreign languages helps them to avoid the cultural gap in communication with the representatives of other nations. Among a great variety of reasons, several major aspects, which cause misunderstanding, are distinguished. We will try to make a short brief of them.

This stumbling block of communication is obvious. Syntax, slang, idioms, vocabulary, different dialects are considered to be the most common reasons for misunderstanding between people of different countries. However, the lack of vocabulary or poor pronunciation is not the worst problem. More serious problems are observed, when a word or even a phrase in one language, is translated from word to word into another language, disregarding its context. “The reason the problem is “worse” is that each thinks he understands.” (Barna 340). Even the simplest words, which imply only one meaning, depending on the situation and cultural peculiarities, may have an unrehearsed effect.

The perception of the same things is different by the people of different cultures. They pay attention only to those facts, which have some importance for them. People perceive things, in accordance with their own world vision. In most cases, the misunderstanding on this level is taken place because of the difference in gestures, postures, movements. It is much more difficult to understand the “unspoken codes of the other culture that are further from awareness, such as handling of time and spatial relationship” (Barna 341). In such cases, it is important to clarify, what values and cultural clichés determine the sojourners behavior.

“Stereotypes are overgeneralized beliefs that provide conceptual bases from which to “make sense” out of what goes on around us.” (Barna 341). In many cases, these beliefs are far from being true. On an intercultural level, stereotypes and prejudices increase the sense of safety, in a situation when a person cannot understand or cannot deal properly with other people. Stereotypes interfere with a persons objective viewing. They are characterized by the human ability to perceive only that information, which corresponds to his vision of the world. Stereotypes and preconceptions are some of the main reasons for the cultural gap. The only way to overcome the influence of stereotypes is to avoid considering one person, as the representative of the whole culture.

Another stumbling block of misunderstanding between the representatives of different cultures is the tendency to immediately evaluate, approve or disapprove the actions of a representative of another nation, without taking into consideration his religious or cultural views. This evaluation is made by a person in accordance with his own world outlook. In such a case, in order to avoid a communication gap, it is better to listen to the sojourner, rather than evaluate immediately.

Unlike the above-mentioned stumbling blocks, which are the reasons for misunderstanding in itself, high anxiety sometimes is viewed as a mixture of different factors of misunderstanding. The feeling of anxiety may exist in both parties of communication. The native speaker may be irritated by the fact of the sojourners poor language, or bad pronunciation. While the foreigner may feel threatening, finding himself in a hostile atmosphere. After that, even an ordinary situation and the normal act of communication are perceived by the sojourner as inappropriate.

Barna, LaRay. Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication. PDF file. 2015. Web.

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Lessons Learned from Cultural Conflicts in the Covid-19 Era

Cultural conflicts became more common during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. through a deeper understanding of how our cultural differences evolved, we can begin to deal with intercultural conflict..

By Katie Shonk — on January 29th, 2024 / Conflict Resolution

During the Covid-19 pandemic, new types of conflict arose. People would argue on Facebook or Twitter about whether stay-at-home orders had gone too far. Protestors—sometimes armed—showed up at state capitols, demanding the right to move about freely. In your own home, you might have been clashing with teens who trying to assert the same right.

Such conflicts reflect a fundamental intercultural conflict : a tension between personal liberties and societal constraint. Cultural conflicts between “loose” and “tight” cultures dates back many centuries, writes University of Maryland professor Michele Gelfand in her book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World (Scribner, 2018).

By understanding the roots of the tight-loose cultural conflicts we witnessed, we can understand each other better and determine how to deal with cultural conflict more productively.

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The Tight-Loose Divide

All cultures have social norms—accepted standards of behavior, from whether jaywalking and tardiness are acceptable to whether citizens should wear protective masks in public. Cultures vary in the strength of their social norms along a tight-loose continuum, with profound effects on behavior.

The degree of threat that cultures face from the outside world greater determines whether they evolve to be relatively tight or loose (or somewhere in the middle), Gelfand and her colleagues have documented in their research. Countries such as China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Pakistan have survived severe threats—from earthquakes to wars to pandemics or scarcity—by “tightening up.” Coordination and strict adherence to social norms have been keys to their survival, though they risk becoming too homogenous or authoritarian.

By comparison, cultures that have faced fewer threats have the luxury of being loose. In loose cultures such as the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, and Brazil, citizens prize their freedom, and social norms are lax. Loose cultures run on creativity and innovation, but they can be chaotic and have difficulty responding to crises that require tight coordination.

Not surprisingly, countries that “lean tight,” such as Singapore and South Korea, were successful at slowing the spread of the coronavirus through their disciplined coordination and the ready compliance of their citizens. By comparison, the U.S. government’s disorganized response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resistance of some citizens to restrictions on their freedom garnered predictably loose responses.

When Cultural Conflicts Arise

Beyond nations, all types of cultures—from states to companies to families—tend to vary from tight to loose. Moreover, a sudden threat can lead a culture to tighten up dramatically. New York City, for example, thrives on looseness, as seen in its reputation for openness, diversity, and creativity. But as the coronavirus threatened to overwhelm the city’s hospitals, New Yorkers quickly tightened up, largely accepting restrictions on their movement. Meanwhile, areas that have been less affected by the virus, such as Florida and Wisconsin, favored looser responses, such as allowing businesses and beaches to stay open.

Tight-loose cultural conflicts even showed up within families. Those most vulnerable to the virus, including the elderly and those with underlying health vulnerabilities, may have had the “tightest” responses, venturing outside rarely and wearing masks when they did. The young and the healthy may have been more inclined to resist such limitations, believing they’re at low risk of becoming seriously ill.

“When groups with fundamentally different cultural mind-sets meet, conflict abounds,” writes Gelfand in Rule Makers, Rule Breakers . Those who lean tight accuse those who lean loose of endangering their lives. And those on the loose end accuse those who favor tightening measures of devastating the economy and curbing fundamental American values.

Strategies to Prevent Cultural Misunderstandings

Given these cultural conflicts, how can we engage in effective intercultural conflict resolution in our homes, our communities, and society at large? “Creating space for empathy can prove invaluable for combating intergroup hostility,” Gelfand writes in Rule Makers, Rule Breakers .

When cultural conflicts about adherence arise in your home, think about whether tight-loose mindsets are clashing. Where do you fall on the tight-loose continuum? While all of us are capable of tightening (think libraries) or loosening (think parties) depending on the context, we tend to have a default preference for rule making and rule breaking. To find out yours, take the TL mindset quiz .

Next, think about where others fall on the continuum and why their own experiences may have affected their own mindsets. Listen to their perspective without judgment. Share your own experience and fears, then try to negotiate solutions.

Virtual interactions can reduce cultural conflicts for those located far apart. In their research, Gelfand her collaborator Joshua Jackson tried an intervention aimed at reducing hostility between Americans and Pakistanis—members of loose and tight cultures, respectively. Students from both cultures were asked to read diary entries written by other students about their daily lives. Those who read entries by students from the other culture came to view that culture as much more similar to their own than they had previously believed, and also more positively. By taking time to read and listen to people’s stories, we can better understand their behavior.

What types of cultural conflicts did you manage to resolve effectively during the Covid-19 pandemic?

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Understanding Misunderstanding. Vol.1: Cross-Cultural Translation

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Table Of Contents

• Copyright Page
• About the editors
• About the book
• Citability of the eBook

List of Contributors

Introduction. Misunderstanding as Innovation

• PART I: Interference as Art
• Understanding Understanding: Literary Translation as a Special Case of Interference
• On Not Knowing Languages: Modernism, Untranslatability and Newness
• The Desire to Name the World. Andrzej Tobis’s A-Z Project and the Uncategorized Things
• PART II: Misunderstanding in Translation
• Two Aspects of Translational (Mis)Understanding: In Literary Work and in Literary Reception
• (Mis)Understanding Charades: A Translation Perspective
• Misunderstandings(?) in Translation: J. L. Borges on “Various Versions of Homer”
• Matryoshka-Hamlet: Censorship in Nikolai Polevoi’s Popular Shakespeare Translation
• PART III: Politics of Misunderstanding
• The Fusion of Art and Politics: A Futurist Misunderstanding?
• The Politics of Literary Misunderstanding: From Identity Prejudice to Hermeneutical Injustice
• Resistance in Omission: Day-to-day Conversations, Consensus and Misunderstanding

Günter Berghaus

University of Bristol

Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz

Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences

Magda Heydel

Jagiellonian University

Zakhar Ishov

Uppsala University

Marta Kaźmierczak

University of Warsaw

Lisandre Labrecque-Lebeau

University of Quebec in Outaouais (UQO)

Katarzyna Lukas

University of Gdańsk

Wojciech Małecki

University of Wrocław

Joanna Partyka

Institute of Literary Research,

Polish Academy of Sciences

Magdalena Rembowska-Płuciennik

Clive Scott

University of East Anglia

Beata Śniecikowska

Juliette Taylor-Batty

Leeds Trinity University

Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz, Magdalena Rembowska-Płuciennik, Beata Śniecikowska

Can misunderstanding be innovative? Can anything positive come from a communication failure, pragmatic uncertainties and semantic ambiguity? At first glance, not at all. Misunderstanding seems like nothing more than a communicative inconvenience and disorientation. The main idea behind this two-volume collective work, however, is to show that studying misunderstanding in an integrated manner may create an inverted mirror, reflecting essential pieces of cultural history. Moreover, we are deeply convinced that such an image of cultural reality is surprisingly complementary to what we already know well about cultures in contact, and wide-spread and seemingly fully described artistic currents and their local specificities. Viewed from our perspective, misunderstanding proves an elementary and unavoidable aspect of linguistic and cultural communication that can have a surprisingly beneficial impact on social relations and concomitantly stimulate the emergence of new cultural forms. Various artistic practices not only represent communicative misunderstandings, but also invent them and make them available as artistic strategies.

Misunderstanding has so far been conceived as an obstacle to effective cultural cooperation, both counterproductive and causing irreparable losses with regard to cultural encounters. It has been neglected, if not entirely absent from mainstream approaches to cultural communication in the humanities. Researchers have been predominantly concerned with avoiding, bridging, and overcoming interlingual and intercultural misunderstandings, while promoting the strategy of cultural adaptability. Remarkably, the major 20th century models of linguistic communication assumed that language tends to redundancy in order to avoid mistakes of transmission during the processes of coding, transfer, and decoding. Surprisingly, such models still remain in force behind many contemporary cultural theories of communication. 1 Recent discussions on cultural transfer models reveal a significant incongruity between the descriptive tools and the actual character of the object of cross-cultural communication studies. ←9 |  10→ Although asymmetry between cultural systems is crucial to cultural transfer, we believe that there is no such a thing as a “failed” cultural transfer. Moreover, the very notion of “a failure in cultural transfer” or “a failed transfer” implies a hierarchy of cultures, where the inferior part is not sufficiently developed to “successfully” adapt foreign cultural elements 2 . We believe that the process of translation, which involves both linguistic and cultural transference, is a rudimentary communicative environment which makes creative misunderstanding occur. In this sense, a translation cannot be considered a full equivalent of the original meaning. It necessarily involves semantic shifts and depends primarily on the translator’s creative effort.

The innovative potential of misunderstanding as a stimulating force for cultural change can be explored in many domains of cultural interaction, including verbal and non-verbal, artistic and non-artistic communication processes. Still, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the creative potential of cultural misunderstanding manifests itself most vividly when it is linguistically structured and worked out artistically. A paradigmatic example is the widely known cultural misunderstanding between Chinese and Anglo-American cultural poetics which resulted in the splendid and vigorous development of modernist Imagism, namely, Ezra Pound’s “mistranslations” of classic Chinese poems in Cathay (1915) inspired (or, more precisely speaking, “misled”) by Ernest Fenollosa’s “misunderstanding” of Chinese written language ( The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry , 1908). One of the greatest exegetes of Pound’s poetry, Hugh Kenner, has rightly spoken of “the virtual necessity of the misunderstanding” in Pound’s appropriation of Chinese poetry and in establishing innovative techniques in modernist translation practices. 3 The idea of misunderstanding is also frequently referred to by literary scholars in the context of studies devoted to the problem of creative writing in non-native languages, as practiced by such emigre writers as Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski), and Samuel Beckett. Studies on the reception of these authors in non-native cultures show that their works were first rejected by critics as excessively extravagant, estranging, linguistically and culturally incomprehensible. They were only “rediscovered” years later as the renewers of the artistic languages of their new homelands. A related field that is fairly well-researched is the creative writing of those luminaries of modernism who grew up in mixed ←10 |  11→ cultures, for example Franz Kafka, who wrote in French and Italian in addition to his native German, Czech and Yiddish, and the Russian-born American novelist and critic Vladimir Nabokov. The present collective monograph confirms that literary territories are indeed a forum for studying misunderstanding in communication and its implications for cross-cultural translation.

In the field of cultural literary history, misunderstanding has only ephemerally appeared as a subject of critical studies. An example of the vitality of this research problem surfaced in a distant academic environment. In her essay The Poetics of ‘Misunderstanding’: An Ahistorical Model of Cross-Cultural Literary History , the Chinese-American comparative literature scholar Xiao-mei Chen reminds us to be aware of the creative role which senders and receivers play in both intra- and cross-cultural communication. Chen puts forward the idea that misunderstanding is a “legitimate and necessary factor, indeed, […] a dynamic force, in the making of literary history” 4 .

Looking for antecedents to our approach to misunderstanding in cultural literary history, we might point to several concepts in Western post-structuralist hermeneutics and reception theory of the 1970s. From Hans Robert Jauss’s celebrated essay Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory (1967) to Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology (1967) and Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (1973) both literary theory and criticism have increasingly treated “misunderstanding as the mechanism that creates literary history, indeed which makes literature and perhaps all forms of human communication and interaction possible” 5 ; even if the inevitability of that driving force and its subversive power are not desired. Instead of praising hiatus and incongruity, we are interested in revealing the positive aspects of cultural misunderstanding.

The objective of the two-volume monograph Understanding Misunderstanding is to foreground the innovative, both covert and overt, potential of communicative and translative displacement in cross-cultural encounters. The books contain a selection of papers presented at the international interdisciplinary conference “Poetics of (Mis)understanding: Culture-Making Potential of Interference in Artistic Communication” organized by the Department of Historical Poetics of the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences and the Foundation “Center for International Polish Studies” in Warsaw, December 7–8, 2017.

The contributors strive to answer how a diligent reading of culture-specific and tradition-bound works produces “fallacious,” “erroneous,” but nevertheless productive, persuasive and ultimately accepted views on the original’s semantics and function. The authors explore multiple aspects and sources of misunderstanding in cross-cultural contacts: multilingualism in literature; translation mistakes as an inspiration for artistic creativity, experimental translations as strategies of going beyond the limits of linguistic communication, and, last but not least, the politics of misunderstanding. The first volume of the collective monograph addresses a number of problems which have profound implications for the understanding of the dynamic, vibrant cross-communication processes.

It is not a coincidence that eminent practitioners and theoreticians of translation treat their professional vocation as not only a linguistic operation, but also as an activity conveying culture-specific perceptual realities and cognitive conceptualizations. Examining the very concept of understanding in relation to translational reading experience, Clive Scott arrives at crucial re-definitions of the source text as formal and expressive palimpsest, and of literary translation as a mode of textual interference. Providing a set of his own intermedial conceptual translations of Guillaume Apollinaire’s and Charles Baudelaire’s poems, the scholar foregrounds the essential role of the target recipient’s sensual, somatic, perceptual, and cognitive experience of the artistic text. Both Marta Kaźmierczak and Katarzyna Lukas focus on the tension between incomprehension and comprehension being the core of various literary works. Kaźmierczak examines literary charades and the intended conundrum in the original and translated works by Achille Campanile, Charlotte Brontë and John Fowles, whereas Lukas investigates some examples of multilingual entanglements resulting from poor translation within the play by Plautus (and its Polish version) and in J. S. Foer’s novel. Both scholars inquire into how the translators represent the original (mis)comprehension as the fabric of the original texts causing both humorous and surprisingly serious effects. Lukas also scrutinizes German retranslations of one of the most influential volumes of Polish Romanticism – Ballady i romanse [Ballads and Romances] by Adam Mickiewicz tracing their (changing) stylistic immersion in the target culture, and, last but not least, revealing the surprising perpetuation of the early translators’ (mis)comprehension of the original.

Misconception may also determine the process of acceptance of literary characters. In his chapter on the 19th century Russian reception of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet , Zakhar Ishov investigates a set of startling images the Danish prince acquires in the target culture. His analysis focuses on Nikolai Polevoi’s popular translation portraying Hamlet as a “superfluous man” – a ←12 |  13→ Russian intellectual utterly helpless before political reality and completely lost in contemplation of his pitiful fate and pathetic human condition.

However, in the opinion of Magda Heydel and Joanna Partyka even purposeful transmutations of the original may not always be proclaimed invalid. Heydel’s article concentrates on Andrzej Tobis’s A-Z photographic project based on Bildwörterbuch Deutsch und Polnisch: Mensch – Natur – Gesellschaft (1953). While tracing the artistically intended (mis)matches between the lexical entries and their photographic counterparts, the author emphasizes the creative potential of misunderstanding as deliberate artistic strategy and a source of cross-cultural estrangement. In her metatranslatological study, Joanna Partyka explains why Jorge Luis Borges praised mistranslations as a full-fledged inspiration of his own original writing. According to the Argentinian writer, the freedom of re-creating the original text produces unexpected and astonishing effects. Thus, mistranslation should be evaluated as an invaluable source of expressiveness and beauty, and as an indispensable side-effect of translational processes. This approach is inseparable from the focus on modernist multilingualism as an integral part of the cultural landscape and artistic creativity. In her article on interlingual tensions and translational misunderstandings in modernist prose, Juliette Taylor-Batty clearly demonstrates that “not knowing” foreign languages can indeed become a source of modernist innovation and stylistic experiment.

However, not only cultural, but also social and political impact of misunderstanding seems to have been overlooked. Günter Berghaus focuses on the intersections of art and politics, discussing some of the greatest misunderstandings within Italian Futurism. The author traces the entanglements of the Marinettian idea of making politics aesthetic, and art – political. Utopian projects collapsed one after another in different socio-political circumstances, leaving a trace in the Futurist artistic and meta-artistic texts and proving politics and art cannot be easily joined. Wojciech Małecki adds some other solid arguments to the debate on political aspects of miscomprehensions. They are also a function of the major partitions existing within literary and social fields, as Małecki theorizes the problem. Misunderstanding occurs at the intersections of political and social factors, including class, ethnicity, and others. As such it not only has important consequences for the institution of literature, but also – in a broader context – for the whole public sphere.

Lisandre Labreque-Lebeau takes the discussion on miscomprehension to the level of everyday and face-to-face contacts. She analyzes linguistic and semantic markers of misunderstanding as an elementary and unavoidable element of verbal and non-verbal communication, highly influencing interpersonal/intercultural dialogue and the exchange of any aspect of tradition. As the author ←13 |  14→ shows, misunderstanding creates almost transparent setbacks in everyday conversation. The shared conversational space of negotiations of meaning inevitably converges with the areas of active resistance of interlocutors. These two opposed forces seem to establish the equilibrium of our temporary consensuses in face-to-face exchanges.

Cross-cultural contact is definitely a dynamic and asymmetric process rather than a static and symmetric transfer of values from one culture to another. New “understanding misunderstanding” may become a crucial factor whenever people try to negotiate their past, disseminate ideas, compare analytical tools and terms, or arrange common ground for connections and dialogue across linguistic and cultural borders. In the world of intense international contact, in a time of increasing social and political conflict, we do need to deepen reflection on the reasons for various cultural misunderstandings, and on their positive aspects. Such reflection enables a collaborative rather than confrontational approach to communication – both face to face and at a global level…

This collective monograph is one of the publications commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1948–2018). The editors express their gratitude to the Institute authorities for co-funding the publication.

The editors of the monograph would also like to express sincere thanks to its reviewer, Prof. Witold Sadowski (Institute of Polish Literature, Warsaw University) whose sustained counsel and incisive methodological suggestions have helped to complete this monograph in its present form.

Within the monograph all the quotations from literary works of art appear both in the original form and translated into English. Cited fragments from critical and scholarly texts are given in both language forms only if the original shape of the quote is of special importance for the presented analyses.

1 See Anna Veronika Wendland, “Cultural Transfer,” in: Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture , ed. B. Neumann, A. Nünning (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), p. 55.

Biographical notes

Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz (Volume editor) Magdalena Rembowska-Płuciennik (Volume editor) Beata Śniecikowska (Volume editor)

Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz is Associate Professor at the Department of Historical Poetics, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Her most recent works concern comparative modernism studies, literary translation studies and experimental translation. Magdalena Rembowska-Płuciennik is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Historical Poetics, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Her main subjects of research are literary theory (cognitive narratology) and literary anthropology. Beata Śniecikowska is Associate Professor at the Department of Historical Poetics, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Her most recent works concern transcultural genre studies, comparative avant-garde studies and intersemiotics.

Key Subject Areas

• English Studies
• German Studies
• History & Political Science
• Law, Economics & Management
• Linguistics
• Media & Communication
• Romance Studies
• Science, Society and Culture
• Slavic Studies
• Theology & Philosophy
• Peter Lang Classics

Cultural Barriers to Communication: Meaning, Examples and How to Overcome Cultural Barrier

Digital marketer Tanu was on her way from India to a new job in Singapore when the pandemic shut down…

Digital marketer Tanu was on her way from India to a new job in Singapore when the pandemic shut down travel between the two countries. The organization didn’t waste any time onboarding her virtually. When she joined work, she tried her best to get to know her new team. But managing 20 people she’d never met who were scattered all over the world was a challenge.

Tanu was dealing with a cultural barrier . A cultural barrier is an issue arising from a misunderstanding of meaning, caused by cultural differences between sender and receiver. It can cause outright conflict, but more often, it creates stress in the workplace.

As the world becomes smaller and the mobility of employees is on the rise, culture shock or cultural barrier is a problem more of us are facing every day. Managers already know that communication is the key to any great business. But if the team doesn’t all speak the same language—literally—it will face one of the most common examples of cultural barrier . Cross-cultural communication barriers are among the most important hurdles to overcome in a global marketplace.

Let’s take a closer look at the meaning of cultural barriers .

The Definition Of A Cultural Barrier

How to work across cultures, how cultural barriers can hold back an organization, how to identify a cultural barrier.

Going from one country, city or town to another can be difficult. When there’s work to be done when we get there, it’s even harder.

Some people assume all cultures are more similar than they actually are. Or even if they’re aware of the differences, dealing with them sensitively is difficult for them. While we all have a lot in common, there is also much that separates us. Particularly in the workplace. And communication is often the first problem to arise as a result.

While handling examples of cultural barriers to communication , it’s important to determine if the issue is a socio-cultural one or a cross-cultural one.

A socio-cultural barrier occurs at the level of the group or social group. Cross-cultural communication barriers occur at the level of the individual. Understanding which type is present will reveal what specific barriers to communication to solve. For example, if a manager can communicate with a team of Chinese speakers because he can speak Mandarin, but cannot communicate with a French speaker because he cannot speak French, then it’s easy to recognize the issue.

For instance, a manager may not understand how to process a request from a colleague if he doesn’t know how his colleague communicates.

With a socio-cultural barrier , the message may be understood, but a barrier exists in the receiving party’s ability to respond. It can even occur between two people who belong to the same culture. It can be caused by confusion or discomfort about how to express oneself respectfully. There are cultures, for instance, where hierarchy plays an important part in society, in which a junior will hesitate before contradicting a senior. That’s a socio-cultural barrier .

The meaning of cultural barriers is easy to grasp. We’ve all had trouble understanding the culture of another person at some point in our lives. While trying to understand the meaning of a message, the receiver interprets it from his or her own cultural perspective. While the receiver may grasp the individual words that make up a message, they may not comprehend its overall meaning. This causes confusion and anxiety because receivers can’t act appropriately. People who are unaware of the cultural barrier may also communicate inappropriately, using unacceptable verbal and non-verbal cues, leading to even greater misunderstanding.

The good news is that it’s possible to overcome a cultural barrier in the workplace.

When up against a cultural barrier , individuals must make the effort required to communicate effectively. But it’s the organization that must take the lead. How can managers prepare to work with people from a different culture? Here are some steps to follow for successful and positive communication:

1. Introspect On Your Own Culture

Solutions start with the self. Individuals must try to understand their own culture and how it’s conditioned them. They can translate that into an understanding of where cultural differences might arise with others. 

2. Learn About Others

All employees across teams should attempt to understand the culture of the other person with whom they’re trying to communicate. This might mean that the marketing team has to do a deep dive to understand the culture in a new country the organization is entering. Or that global teams need to get to know their colleagues’ cultures. Over time, the efforts will show results as a better understanding develops of how people behave, work and care for their families, friends and communities. And it’s fun!

3. Get Personal

Get to know the person and team. To understand how someone thinks, there is no substitute for the personal. This will allow colleagues to improve communication much faster than any other effort. Encourage managers to spend more time getting to know their employees personally. Managers will also need training on how to adjust their communications for those who have a different cultural background. Developing attentive listening skills and body language that’ll make those from all cultures feel comfortable is a good practice.

To overcome cultural barriers, employees across the board need to put in the work. They must take the time to understand other cultures and gain a thorough understanding of the barriers that may arise from an individual’s background.

It isn’t just that cross-cultural communication barriers create interpersonal problems. A socio-cultural barrier can also have a deep impact on organizations. Here’s a few examples:

• An inability to get the job done and meet deadlines. When communication breaks down, this is the worst-case scenario.
• A low employee morale that leads to high turnover and poor performance.
• Constant misunderstandings because of cultural differences can cause a stressful and unpleasant workplace. At its worst, it can cause legal issues.
• An inability to trust the boss, which could cause a lack of motivation or care towards the organization’s success.

To overcome the socio-cultural barrier , organizations should look at examples of cultural barriers to communication that have been faced by others. Organizations large and small have been able to succeed with teams spread across the world and there’s no reason issues can’t be addressed head on.

It isn’t uncommon for problems to arise from cultural differences. But how to diagnose the problem? These are the signs there are cross-cultural communication barriers in the workplace: 

• The use of unprofessional language. This might include incorrect use of phrases and slang words in another language
• Resistance arising from the preference of some for a more direct communication style, which can be interpreted as angry or disrespectful
• A failure to get the point across. Misunderstood messages can result from language problems. While this is understandable, it must be addressed
• Rude or snide behavior, such as mocking a person for not understanding the conversation or talking over them during meetings or conversations
• A lack of interest in getting to know others from other cultures. This can lead to animosity because of the missed opportunities for growth within an organization

The cultural barrier can be overcome just like any other by understanding them, but it takes a lot of time and effort. However, understanding the differences in behavior, values and communication styles will help managers become more effective and successful cross-cultural communicators.

The pandemic has altered how organizations function across borders. On one hand, more and more people are working from wherever they are. On the other, it has made in-person meetings harder, which can worsen cultural conflict. Here’s how remote working can make cultural barriers worse:

• There is no opportunity for people to observe one another and reflect upon what they see, and therefore to learn from one another’s behavior
• The inability of remote workers to be aware of their behavior because they lack feedback from others
• Emails and texts can be misinterpreted and misconstrued. When it’s not possible to cross the office for a clarification, this can cause friction

To overcome cross-cultural barriers, managers need to learn about the culture and language of others. They can also study examples of cultural barrier . This way, they’ll understand how their words are interpreted and be able to better communicate. It’s important that managers develop and show trust through their interactions with all employees, so that they feel comfortable in expressing their feelings and thoughts regarding the culture barrier affecting them.

Now more than ever, it’s important for organizations to work toward building cohesive international teams. Cross-cultural barriers to communication can be overcome by leaders who put in the work. Harappa’s Building Presence course will help them do just that. It’ll teach positive body language, how to build trust and develop an individual voice that gives everyone space to shine. With the course’s live support and self-paced learning, it’s easy to develop as a professional. Empower your teams with the Harappa advantage.

Explore Harappa Diaries to learn more about topics such as What are the Emotional Barriers To Communication , Examples of Physical Barrier To Communication , How to overcome Organizational Barriers and Interpersonal Barriers to communicate with impact.

How to Date a Foreigner

Cultural Misunderstanding Examples – The 4 Types (Real Life Stories)

Summary: In this article at How to Date a Foreigner , we will take you through the 4 types of cultural misunderstanding examples with many real life scenarios. Any misunderstanding you might encounter will usually fall into one of these categories. Even though it is hard to identify them when you don’t know someone’s culture, it will help you to know which direction to look.

What is cultural misunderstanding?

Cultural misunderstanding happens when two or more people speak the same language, but they mean or understand different things.

This is usually due to their cultural background and experiences.

We often don’t realize how much our experiences shape our understanding of words. We have divided them into 4 types and will take you though each of them with an example.

4 Types of cultural misunderstanding (examples):

1. language based misunderstanding.

Language based cultural misunderstanding happens when you have a different understanding of the same word / expression. One person’s experience (and often even feelings associated with a word) are different than the other’s, despite using the same word. Let’s look at a few examples:

Example 1: Britt vs. Dutch

A popular one is the Anglo-Dutch Translation Guide that has been circulating the internet in different forms:

Example 2:  ‘How do you Date?’

Another one, that was actually a personal experience of mine several years ago was when I just started researching dating cultures.

I asked my Vietnamese friend ‘How do you date?’. We were well into our 2 hours long discussion when we realized our understanding of the word ‘dating’ is different!

Her culture has a clear separation between the dating phase and the relationship phase. So for her, dating was everything that happens prior to a relationship.

However for me, in my culture, the dating phase gradually becomes a relationship. There is no clear separation. So for me, dating meant the same thing as a relationship.

Example 3: Vulnerable

I had a few other surprising experiences with language based cultural misunderstandings. You can read my other surprising story on: Vulnerable Meaning and My Personal Experience

2. Behavior based cultural misunderstanding examples

Example 1: yes or no.

Behavior-based cultural misunderstanding happens when one person acts in a way that means a different thing to the other.

Maybe you are used to people acting a certain way in your culture, but this person acts contradictory to how you are used to it.

Example 2: ‘You Talk too much!’

This is a perfect example for behavior based cultural misunderstanding.

My friend was seeing an American guy and very early on in the relationship, the guy told her she talks too much. They blocked each other back and forth, until eventually they ended up moving in together.

By that time, she was more than comfortable with him, so she didn’t feel like she had to ‘entertain him’ anymore. She went quiet and enjoyed doing her things.

On the other hand, the American guy really wasn’t used to this. His dating culture was the opposite. They talk little in the beginning until they warm up to the other person. So he assumed she had a problem and started really going out of his way to try and make her happy. 

Now, she got very confused and started assuming there is a problem and she is a burden for him. So she asked whether she should move out, just to find out, the guy thought she had a problem.  

3. Mixed Language & behavior based

The third type sound like the most complex, but it is actually the easiest to detect. This is because you can feel something doesn’t add up. However, as we often don’t question things, it often makes people think the other person is lying. 

Mixed language & behavior based misunderstanding often happens when we have the same understanding of the words, but the behavior of the other person makes us not believe what they say. 

Example 1: ‘I love you’

A really good example for this is when my Vietnamese friend’s British boyfriend told her he loved her. She told him, she doesn’t believe him. Why was it?

In Vietnamese culture, there are 2 different words for ‘love’. One is used for a person and the other is for everything else. As her British boyfriend used the word ‘love’ for everything (from football to chicken) it lost its meaning for her. It wasn’t as powerful anymore. They used the same language and had the same understanding, but his behavior (using the word) degraded the meaning for her.

You can read the full story here: ‘I love you!’ – Why She Doesn’t Believe You?

Example 2: ‘Negrita!’

I loved reading about Oneika’s experience , a black American girl who traveled to Mexico. Based on her American cultural background, using the ‘N’ word was a NO-NO. Soon after she arrived to Latin America a friend of her called her ‘Negrita’. Understandably she was shocked. 

However one of her commenters, Miguel M Miguel,  explained :

For good or bad, in Latin America we call each other “negro,” “chino,” “gordo,” “flaco,” “chaparro,” etc. both in Spanish and Portuguese. No one gets offended because is a TERM OF ENDEARMENT. That’s our way to show affection and treat others (friends or not) with warmth and familiarity. We are not insulting anyone, is actually ALL THE OPPOSITE. If you are called Negro or Chino in a friendly manner, is same as being called “buddy,” “mate,” or even “darling.”

Example 3: Dating

Dating can be frustrating on its own, let alone mixed with some cultural misunderstandings.

The more I research dating cultures, the more cultural misunderstanding examples I find between US and Eastern Europe.

A friend of mine had a date with an American guy she really liked. He told her he likes her then disappeared from the face of the Earth. Took ages to reply to messages and his actions screamed he is not interested. Well, at least according to her Eastern European experiences.

In many Eastern European countries, if you had a date with someone and you would like to continue seeing them , you message them you had a great time to let them know you are interested. 

However, the total opposite is true in the US. In the US, you are supposed to play mind games and play the ‘cool, not interested’ type. There is even a dating agency called the ‘Three Day Rule’ implying you are not supposed to message for 3 days. Otherwise you will come across as needy. 

In Eastern Europe if you don’t message for 3 days, it is likely the other person won’t even speak to you.  

If they message you, you need to reply usually within 30-60 mins if you can or if you are super busy, then by the end of the day.

4. Silent Assumption

The last one I feel should be mentioned is the silent, assumption based cultural misunderstanding. Where you don’t talk or behave in a certain way, just assume based on your cultural experience.

Example: Eating out – a Treat or Threat?

One of my close friends, who is in a relationship with a guy from Africa, got a message from her boyfriend to get ready. They are going out (around 9pm). 

She was getting a bit hungry, but thought they are going out and automatically assumed they will eat outside. For her, eating out is a treat, but on top they live in a cheap Asian country where many people eat out even 3x a day.

He got home and they ended up in a 1 hour long argument why she didn’t cook and now he will have to go out hungry. Turned out, he automatically assumed they will eat at home before going out. Why?

In his developing country, when he was growing up, he was tought to ALWAYS eat at home. They only eat outside if there is no other option as people could poison their food. So for him, eating at home is standard for security reasons, and could mean saving his life.

When you are in an intercultural relationship, never assume. Always ask. It could save you from unnecessary arguments.

…and talking about food and cultural differences, we just couldn’t close this blog post without a funny video! Enjoy!

If you are going through some differences with your partner, consider that it could be cultural. These types of cultural misunderstandings don’t only happen in personal relationships, but they often happen in business too. You can read some interesting ones here .

We hope you liked this article. If you had a surprising cultural misunderstanding (especially when it comes to international dating), we would love to hear it! Let us know in the comments below.

Read next: The Best 13 Intercultural Relationship Advice

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Paul Krugman

Stumbling into goldilocks.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

The U.S. economy has been far more successful at recovering from the Covid shock than it was in dealing with the aftermath of the housing bubble of the 2000s. As I noted in my latest column , four years after the 2007-9 recession began, employment was still five million below its pre-recession peak. This time it’s up by almost six million.

And while there was a wave of inflation, it seems to have broken. This is especially clear if you measure inflation the way other countries do. The Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices differs from the regular Consumer Price Index in that it doesn’t include Owners’ Equivalent Rent, an imputed cost of housing that nobody actually pays and is very much a lagging indicator; and by this measure inflation has already been cut to roughly 2 percent, the Fed’s inflation target:

Basically, America rapidly restored full employment while experiencing a one-time jump in the level of prices without a sustained rise in inflation , the rate at which prices are rising. Not bad, especially considering all the dire predictions made along the way.

But could we have done better? And to the extent that we got it right, were we just lucky?

My take is that we did very well, that the U.S. response to the Covid shock was, in retrospect, fairly close to optimal. But the miracle of 2023, the combination of rapid disinflation with a strong economy, was sort of an accident. Policymakers thought that raising interest rates would cause a recession and raised them anyway because they thought such a recession was necessary. Fortunately, they were wrong on both counts.

What do I mean by saying that policy was close to optimal? Covid disrupted the economy in ways previously associated only with wartime mobilization and demobilization: There was a sudden large change in the composition of demand, with consumers shifting away from in-person services and buying more physical stuff, a shift enlarged and perpetuated by the rise of remote work. The economy couldn’t adapt quickly to this shift, so we found ourselves facing supply-chain problems — inadequate ability to deliver goods — together with excess capacity in services.

How should policy respond? There was a clear case — nicely formalized in a 2021 paper by Veronica Guerrieri, Guido Lorenzoni, Ludwig Straub and Ivan Werning presented at the Fed’s Jackson Hole conference that year — for strongly expansionary monetary and fiscal policy that limited job losses in the service sector, even though this would mean a temporary rise in inflation. And that’s more or less what happened.

The big risk in following such a policy was the possibility that the rise in inflation wouldn’t be temporary, that inflation would become entrenched in the economy and that getting it back down would require years of high unemployment. This was the argument infamously made by Larry Summers and others. But that argument turned out to be fundamentally wrong — not just a bad forecast, which happens to everyone, but a misunderstanding of how the economy works. Although inflation lasted longer than Team Transitory expected, it has, as we predicted, subsided without a big rise in unemployment. Notably, inflation never became entrenched in expectations, the way it did in the 1970s:

In fact, America has had the strongest recovery in the advanced world without experiencing significantly higher inflation than other countries:

U.S. policymakers, then, seem to have gotten it more or less right. But as I’ve already suggested, this was arguably a lucky accident.

It’s instructive to look at the projections made by members of the Fed’s Open Market Committee — which sets interest rates — in December 2022 and compare them with what actually happened:

The F.O.M.C. had been raising rates since early 2022 in an effort to control inflation, and it’s clear from the projections that members believed both that its efforts would cause a recession and that a recession was necessary. Their median projection was that economic growth would almost stall and unemployment would rise by about a percentage point, which would have triggered the Sahm Rule linking rising unemployment to recession. And if growth had actually stalled, it would probably have gone negative, because large growth slowdowns tend to cause sharp declines in business investment.

What actually happened was that the economy proved far more resistant to higher interest rates than the Fed expected, so growth kept chugging along and unemployment didn’t rise significantly. But inflation fell anyway, coming in below the Fed’s projections. So the economy surprised the Fed in two ways, both positive. Disinflation, it turned out, didn’t require a bulge in unemployment; but rate hikes, it turned out, didn’t damage employment as expected.

My view is that the first error, believing that we needed high unemployment, is hard to excuse — there were very good reasons to believe that the 1970s were a bad model for postpandemic inflation — while nobody could have known that the economy would shrug off high rates. But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I, because I didn’t make the first mistake but did make the second.

In any case, the remarkable thing is that these were offsetting errors. The Fed’s error on inflation could have led it to impose a gratuitous recession on an economy that didn’t need it, but rate hikes turned out to be appropriate, not to induce a recession but to offset a spending surge that might otherwise have been inflationary. Overall, policy seems to have been about right, creating an economy that was neither too cold, suffering unnecessary unemployment, nor too hot, experiencing inflationary overheating.

Yes: Policymakers stumbled into Goldilocks.

What went right? As I’ve said, the claim that inflation would be hard to tame never made much sense given what we knew. The economy’s resilience in the face of high interest rates is harder to explain, although a driving force may have been immigration: Slow population growth was one popular explanation of secular stagnation , so an influx of working-age adults may have been just what we needed.

I guess the larger point is that in macroeconomics as in life, it’s important to be good, but also very important to be lucky. And we got lucky this time.

Immigrants haven’t taken jobs away from the native-born but have boosted growth .

Interest rates have less effect on nations like America, where most mortgages are fixed-rate .

Something else that was transitory: the pandemic murder surge .

A favorite guidepost for policy has become blurry . (Can guideposts do that?)

Facing the Music

A bit of “ Escapism .”

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @ PaulKrugman