“Some lights on how culture, ethnicity and language operate

in counselling and interview”

Kou Kunishige

Diversity Counselling New Zealand

A distance between people

• There always exists a distance between people in counselling. There is no set of scales to measure this distance, but it can be considered in terms of culture, ethnicity, and language. I'd like to cast some lights on these possible dimensions, and discuss them with you.

A way of measuring a distance between a counsellor & a client

LanguageCulture

Ethnicity

The Same Language & Same Ethnicity

• The same language from the same region & country

• The same cultural background • The same ethnicity• In this simple situation, there are so many

dimensions. So there are a lot of challenges in term of developing good counselling relationship. Differences between a counsellor & a client can be e.g., Age, Sex, Sexuality, Education, Experiences

The same language & different ethnicities

• The same language• The same NZ cultural background• Different ethnicities (e.g. Maori & 2nd

generation of migrants)• Even though we share the same language,

the level of challenge will be tremendously increased. E.g., cultural sensitivities are required.

The common language, same(?) ethnicity, & different cultural background

• The English language from different regions or countries (English & American)

• The same ethnicity (European or whites) - Under those categories, people can regard themselves as the same ethnicity?

• Not sharing NZ cultural background

English for Speakers of Other Languages 1

• People who speak ESOL• There are migrants who can speak English

reasonably well. It doesn’t indicate their educational level, but their history of country of origin.

• There are countries where English is largely spoken. British colonisation.

• Ironically, they can go out to the other countries more easily.

English for Speakers of Other Languages 2

• If English is not largely spoken in their country of origin, it is so difficult for them to learn English, especially after they grew up.

• E.g., as English does not cover all of sounds which Japanese has, Japanese does not cover all of sounds English has. Eventually, people drop the ability to distinguish particular sounds which are not required in their own language.

ENGLISH for Japanese

• “R” & “L”, “S” & “Th” • “Would you like to eat Flied Lice?”• “Can you sink by yourself?”

• There are some sounds English Speakers can not differentiate

Difficult sounds for English speakersKon Ya Ku Kon Nya Ku

Difficult sounds for English speakersByo In Bi Yo in

Characters

• 2000 to 3000 Chinese characters in Japanese.

• 3500 to 7500 Chinese characters in Chinese.

• 「生」 means “life” or “fresh”, and has many pronunciations. 10 to15 pronunciations are regularly used, but there are more.

Impossibility of Language

Acquisition

What does this distance

indicate?

Distance of contexts that give

meanings to words

Bakhtin, 1986, p.88

neutral dictionary definitions of the words of a language ensure their common features and guarantee that all speakers of a given language will understand one another, but the use of the words in live speech communication is always individual and contextual in nature ... the word is expressive, but, this expression does not inhere in the word itself.

Yes or No?

“Yes, I will consider it,” said a Japanese diplomat.“Do you mind if I have this?” “Yes, please”“Don't you like her?” “Yes, I don’t”

What do you mean by saying “…”?

You can get an answer, because

you ask.

I ask

What color do you like most?

You provided a name of color, but what have I known and what

haven't I known yet?

People will not disappoint you

An answer will be provided for the sake of yourself

e.g. Evaluation on my speech

• “How is my speech for you?”• You have been trained to

provide positive feedback.• But why do you provide

positive feedback?

How an answer will be

circulated?

How tsunami survivors responded

• Tsunami survivors who were high school students went to a school trip to another city. They were asked by people about their experiences.

• How do you imagine this story will be circulated?

Reporting high school students

• A sport journalist on young baseball players.

• Often typical questions does not work.

How can we ask?

Asking a way of questioning

How would you think of this

question, if I ask …?

How would you like to be asked if I

would like to hear your experience?

Critical Question

Can you help me to understand more?

It is important to think of what I may not have known yet.

Diversity Counselling New Zealand

• Each counsellor uses her/his own counselling philosophy and skills.

• The most important requirement from DCNZ to our counsellors is to understand his/her client.

A distance between you and I has a

possibility - Deconstruction

You can ask something I have taken for granted

First hand talk & Second hand talk

• We tend to hear similar stories. We can not assume that the number of being-told represents the number of existence of the story.

• The people tend to circular salient stories. We cannot spot who told this story to begin with.

• Original story & Circulated story

Circulated stories by professionals

• Questions can be generated before hand. Questions themselves would not be questioned whether they are appropriate for them or not.

• Questions can generate answers as they require.

• Such answers will be taken and form particular stories. Then they will be circulated.

Echoes

The number of echoes you hear doesn’t reflect the number of incidents

themselves.

Ludwig WittgensteinThe Blue and Brown Books (1958)

Instead of "craving for generality” I could also have

said "the contemptuous attitude towards the particular

case"