Cultural dimensions and an intercultural study of

Cultural dimensions and an intercultural study of narratorial behavior Patrick Cattrysse

This paper introduces the concept of ‘cultural dimension’ as developed in intercultural communication, into the field of intercultural narrative studies. Since cultural dimensions describe and explain social human behavior, the question emerges whether they can also help to study narratorial behavior. If so, cultural dimensions may assist scholars to study the cultural localization of global values in narratives. When conceiving of narrative as the representation of characters acting in situations, one may distinguish two levels of narrative behavior: the level of character behavior, i.e. the represented, and the level of a narrator behaving narratively, i.e. the representation. This paper focuses on the level of the narrative agency. Borrowing some classical concepts from narratology (real authors, implied authors, narrator, narratee, implied audience and real audiences), it examines how narratorial behavior may display cultural, i.e. localized values at various levels. By way of conclusion, this essay suggests how the concept of ‘cultural dimension’ could assist a study of cross-cultural audience empathy. Keywords: cultural dimension, localized values, cross-cultural audience empathy

1. Introduction The notion that cultural dimensions may help an intercultural study of narratives appears already in intercultural communication studies. In his 1980 seminal study Culture’s Consequence, Hofstede mentions the category ‘heroes’ as one of four visible manifestations of culture. The author defines ‘heroes’ as persons, alive or dead, real or imaginary, who possess characteristics that are highly prized in a culture and thus serve as models of behavior (Hofstede 2001, 10). In this essay, I examine if and how the concept of ‘cultural dimension’, as developed in the fields of intercultural communication studies and cross-cultural psychology, could be useful to a cultural study of narratorial behavior. If so, cultural

The Journal of Internationalization and Localization 3:2 (2016), 113–132. doi 10.1075/jial.3.2.01cat issn 2032–6904 / e-issn 2032–6912 © John Benjamins Publishing Company

114 Patrick Cattrysse

dimensions may assist scholars to study the cultural localization of global values in narratives. Since the concept ‘culture’ has become an umbrella term, section two suggests first a working definition of the word: whereas nature is understood to refer to what is global or universal, culture is defined with respect to what is local. Section three reiterates briefly what the concept of ‘cultural dimension’ stands for. Within intercultural communication studies, cultural dimensions generally represent localized solutions to global problems. Section four discusses how cultural dimensions could offer an additional conceptual and operational tool to a cultural study of character behavior. Section five explains some narratological concepts that could help to study narratorial behavior in a more specific way. Section six subsequently looks into how one could study narratorial behavior in terms of cultural dimensions. Section seven discusses how a cultural dimensions study of narratives could be relevant to a study of cross-cultural audience involvement. Finally, section eight draws some conclusions and points to some caveats that could trigger further research. 2. What is culture? There are many definitions of ‘culture’, but scholars agree that values represent a key factor in the debate.1 Values are understood as principles that guide human thought, emotion and behavior. Values may be innate (e.g. fairness, justice) or learned (e.g. speak for yourself vs. speak only when spoken to). The former are universal and part of human nature; the latter vary locally and are deemed the makeup of culture.2 A clear conceptual distinction between nature and nurture does help the researcher to better understand the complex and dynamic interaction that obtains between the two. Learned values may be personal or collective. However, scholars agree that culture deals with collectively shared values.3 The next question is then: which group of people shares which values? Hence, I hereafter use the word ‘culture’ in reference to a set of learned values that collectively guide the thoughts, emotions and behavior of the members of an ingroup. Since people form ingroups on the basis of many parameters (family, friends, education, profession, hobbies, language, region, nation, religion, politics, ideas, …), there are many cultures or cultural units to consider. Whereas evolutionary psychology and cognitive studies focus on universals and the global features of narrative 1. See, e.g., Liu, Volčič, and Gallois (2015, 54ff.; 104) 2. See, e.g., Hofstede and Hofstede (2005, 4); Liu, Volčič, and Gallois (2015, 67–68). 3. See, e.g., Minkov and Hofstede (2014, 144) .

Cultural dimensions and an intercultural study of narratorial behavior 115

communication, a cultural approach adds insights into the local characteristics of narratives.4 3. What are cultural dimensions? The concept of cultural dimension was developed in intercultural communication studies and cross-cultural psychology. Textbooks generally refer to the work of Geert Hofstede5, but the concept appears earlier, for example in the work of Talcott Parsons (1951), Florence Kluckhohn and Frederick Strodtbeck (1961) and Edward T. Hall (1966). Since then, studies on cultural dimensions, value orientations and cultural value theory6 have evolved into a substantial sub-field in ICC studies and cross-cultural psychology. Cultural dimensions refer to patterns of social behavior. These patterns represent localized behavioral solutions to universal problems. ICC scholars generally study three types of universal issues: how people relate to each other, how they relate to time, and how they interact with their environment. ICC researchers present surveys, often formatted as forced-answer questions, to large sets of interviewees, aggregate their answers statistically according to common values, and build indexes to position groups of people on the bi-polar continuum of a value orientation. For example, the universalism-particularism dimension distinguishes between cultures that are predominantly rule-based as opposed to cultures that consider interpersonal relationships first. Both types of societies aim at the universal values of fairness and justice, yet implement them culturally, i.e. locally, in different ways. Whereas the universalist culture assumes that fairness and justice involve one law that applies always to all, the particularist culture upholds that since all humans are born different and lead different lives, it is unfair to apply one law to all. One should give priority to the development and maintenance of strong interpersonal relationships. Similarly, the individualism-collectivism dimension offers a bi-polar set of localized solutions to the universal issue of how to optimize the functioning of individuals in a society. Whereas in the individualist society self-orientation prevails, in the collectivist society group-orientation is more important. In the former 4. For practical purposes, I hereafter use the following abbreviations: CD for cultural dimension, IC for intercultural, and ICC for intercultural communication. 5. See, e.g., Hofstede (1980; 2001; and Hofstede and Hofstede 2005). 6. See, e.g., Schwartz (1994).


society, people consider themselves primarily as independent individuals while in the latter culture, they consider themselves primarily as the interdependent part of a group. Another dimension is called the ‘specific-diffuse’ divide. Once again, it presents the local implementation of a universal code that involves what is understood to represent proper social conduct. This cultural dimension is more complex than the previous two in that it combines three sets of values: it refers to what groups of people consider to be public or private, whether life spheres are cut up into neatly separated sub-sections (e.g. work, leisure time, family, …) or not, and how accessible (or not) certain life spheres are to specific groups of people. The latter trait recalls Edward T. Hall’s (1976) distinction between high and low context cultures (see below). The next two dimensions deal with the universal feature of hierarchy in societies, and its culturally localized implementations. The achievement versus ascription based status CD refers to societies that value people for what they do as opposed to for who they are (e.g. royalty, gender, age, race). The power distance index (PDI) measures to what degree a society tolerates unequally distributed power. It deals with questions such as how parents treat their children, how a boss deals with her/his employees, how vertically versus horizontally specific ingroups organize authority and decision-making, etc. The masculinity vs. femininity divide concerns what both concepts mean in a society and how societies divide the roles between men and women. An obvious link emerges here with the existing gender studies. CDs also deal with how people manage time and space. For example Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s (1998, 123ff.) discuss past, present and future oriented societies, what it means ‘to be on time’ in one culture as opposed to another, and how this relates to the organization of work (e.g. making appointments) and life in general (e.g. meeting friends, having meals together). Finally, with respect to the human interaction with space, I mention Rotter’s (1966) distinction between inner and outer directed cultures,7 which points to societies where people are convinced that they control their environment as opposed to those societies where people feel that whatever happens in the world is beyond their control, and that therefore, they need to adapt to the world as best they can. Time and again, the cultural dimensions refer to culturally localized solutions to universal problems. In general, the latter deal with the survival and wellbeing of humans as a social species.

7. See also Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1998, 145ff.)


4. Cultural dimensions and character behavior Elsewhere (see Cattrysse forthcoming), I have argued that, if one accounts for some caveats, cultural dimensions may be helpful both as a writing and as a hermeneutical tool to design and study narratives from an intercultural point of view. The caveats I mentioned were twofold: 1. CDs have been studied as patterns of behavior at a societal (mostly national) level, while a CD study of narratives looks at narrative behavior in individual texts, and 2., an ICC scholar examines the interpretation (of thousands of interviewees of one particular instance) of behavior, whereas a narrative analyst examines (one particular instance of) behavior. The latter observation raises the question if and how one can compare or even replicate research results. However, pending a solution to that problem, I argue that CDs emerging as patterns of social behavior do allow a narrative analyst to recognize singular occurrences of behavior as the tokens of a type, in the same way as the thousands of interviewees surveyed in ICC studies recognize and label the singular behavior they are questioned about. Take for example the US-Mexican co-production Bella (2006). At some point, we see Nina (Tammy Blanchard) who, for the second time, arrives late at the restaurant, where she works. Thereupon, her employer, Manny (Manny Perez) fires her. Manny lectures her on the classical universalist values: if everyone acted like you do, he might just as well close the restaurant. Manny is not interested in ‘personal excuses’, which make up Nina’s particular background situation: Nina has been late for work twice because she has been sick, and unlike what Manny suggests, she has not been sick because she was drunk but because she is pregnant. However, the father of the baby has left her, and Nina remains undecided whether to keep the baby or not. The rest of the movie is all about how good interpersonal relationships may solve existential problems. Manny’s brother, Jose, who is the cook in the restaurant, leaves his work because he worries about Nina, and wants to help her. Since life comes before work, Jose and Nina spend the afternoon together. Jose looks up a friend who offers Nina a new job ‘for old times’ sake’, i.e. the friend hires Nina on account of her friendship with Jose, not because of an impressive bullet listed cv. In other words, she hires Nina for particularist reasons, not universalist ones. Subsequently, Jose invites Nina at a warm and hearty Mexican lunch with his family at his parents’ house. They talk about their past and their future, — is she going to keep the baby? -, and end the day at the beach. Finally, we learn that Jose will adopt Nina’s baby, and that after some years, Nina shall come to terms with her being a mom, and be able to take care of her daughter, Bella, too. To the extent that the narrative is biased in favor of particularism, it is also biased against universalism (see below). Manny, who is a Mexican expat working in New York, is presented as a particularist who has a hard time struggling with his newly adopted universalist


way of life. At one point, when Jose leaves the kitchen to help Nina, Manny fires his brother too. To the particularist viewer, this is a sheer act of desperation showing that Manny is at the end of his rope. As Hofstede and Hofstede (2005, 100) put it, in a particularist society, the workplace is like a family: ‘poor performance of an employee in this relationship is no reason for dismissal: one does not dismiss one’s child’, or brother in this case. Hence, examples like this one suggest that one can recognize individual behavior or specific situations as tokens pertaining to or actualizing one or more types of value orientation. In other words, one can ex post facto interpret a singular occurrence of character behavior as one specific ad hoc actualization of an intermediate position on one or more bi-polar cultural dimensions. In Cattrysse (forthcoming), I argue that other CDs may serve an IC study of narrative in the same way. The Hunger Games illustrates social unrest due to power distance issues. Period films or TV series (e.g. Inspector George Gently, Endeavour, Foyle’s War) presenting 1940s, 1950s or 1960s customs to a 21st century audience, deal with gender issues, sexism and the masculinity-femininity divide, smoking, health and environment issues, the emergence of an achievement based status society, the corollary abandonment of values such as loyalty and trust, the favoring of universalism over particularism, individualism over collectivism, and the PDI related treatment or rather discarding of elderly people as participatory members of society. However, in what follows, I take a closer look at a CD study of narratorial behavior. 5. Narrative participants When considering narration as an act of communication, scholars distinguish between a (set of) flesh-and-blood and implied author(s), one or more narrators and narratees, and an implied and a flesh-and-blood audience.8 Simultaneously, there is still disagreement on how to define some of these narrative participants, and some commentators even dispute the very existence or need of one or more of these concepts.9 Hence, for practical purposes, I hereafter suggest the following working definitions. The real authors refer to anyone closely or remotely involved in making the narrative. For example, when dealing with filmmaking, the notion of ‘real authors’ is likely to point to hundreds of people. Needless to say, the very purpose of the investigation, its limited means, and the (inter)personal interest of the analyst will co-determine the widening or narrowing of the analytical scope. 8. See, e.g., Chatman (1980, 146ff.), Rimmon-Kenan (1983, 86). 9. See, e.g., Bordwell (1985, 61–62), who rejects the concept of narrator, and Verstraten (2008, 126–29), who discards the concept of ‘implied author’.


The ‘implied author’ represents a more contentious term. The literary critic Wayne Booth coined the term, but since then narratologists have challenged Booth’s proposals.10 I hereafter define the word to refer to text features, which the analyst can assign to one or more of the flesh-and-blood makers of the narrative. Actors are an obvious case in point: on the one hand, they play roles that are part and parcel of the story world, but on the other hand, they represent flesh-and-blood beings who also lead their lives outside the story world. As such, they leave traces in the text of the makers who exist outside the narrated world. The better one knows these real people, and the more one knows about their work, the more text features one may attribute to the extra-diegetic instance of the makers and the wider ad hoc making conditions. To some critics, the concept of ‘implied author’ offers a pathway to the study of authorial intentions, which avoids Wimsatt and Beardsley’s (1946) ‘intentional fallacy’. Also, following Booth ([1961] 1991), many narratologists postulate the concept of implied author as an instrument to identify unreliable narration.11 However, I hereafter do not share this view. The concept of unreliable narration brings us to the next narrative participant: the narrator or narrative agency. Narratologists distinguish between the narrator as a text feature and the flesh-and-blood people involved in the making of it. Most film narratologists have adopted the notion as such from literary narratology. A few film scholars, David Bordwell being the most prominent among them, have disputed its relevance.12 In short, the debate tackles at least two questions: is there such a thing as a narrator? And is the concept relevant, i.e. does it help to explain features that could not be explained without it? I hereafter take on the view that it does exist and that its relevance, as always, depends on the purpose of the investigation and the analyst’s (inter)personal interest. I contend that the overall organization of a narrative may generate a narrator in the mind of the viewer or reader, just like the sphere-like black shapes generate the representation of a white triangle in Figure 1. This implies that the emergence of the narrator (or the triangle) depends on the presence of certain narrative cues, and that in the absence of these cues, the Gestalt disappears.13 I consider the word ‘narrative’ to refer to the manmade representation of a series of events where one or more subjects perform actions and

10. For a brief introduction to the subject, see, e.g., Nünning (2005). 11. See, e.g., Nünning (2005, 89ff.). 12. See, e.g., Bordwell (1985, 61–62; 2008, 121–33). 13. For example, narrative inconsistencies may endanger the perception of a narrator’s Gestalt: e.g. paralepses and other focalization-related inconsistencies (see below).


Figure 1.

undergo happenings that manifest temporal and causal relations.14 To what extent the narrator or the white triangle exist in a mind-independent way and/or result from mental construction remains an open question. However, to claim that we ‘imagine’ the narrator in the same manner someone having taken the right substances could claim to ‘imagine’ a pink elephant sitting on top of the white triangle, is problematic. It would be a simple test indeed to ask a hundred randomly chosen individuals with good eyesight to measure the three sides of the white triangle independently, and they would come up with surprisingly accurate or corresponding measurements. That trick would be harder to pull with the pink elephant. I therefore consider the narrator or the triangle to be as real as the movement perceived in motion pictures. As for the narrator’s relevance: to claim that the real authors created the narrator is to state the obvious, but that does not disprove its analytical relevance. Neither does the fact that its behavior can be explained also through decisions made or actions taken by the real authors. The concept of narrator may become relevant in those cases where a Gestalt emerges in the mind of the viewer (or analyst) that displays features, i.e. thoughts, emotions, behavior, which for convincing reasons cannot be assigned to the real authors without succumbing to the intentional fallacy. Needless to say, it will be easier to distinguish these categories in some cases than in others. At times, it may even be impossible. However, these cases do not justify the general disposal of the set of narrative participants. In conclusion, I hereafter consider the narrative agency to represent a principle of intelligibility, the features and relevance of which are to be investigated empirically on a case-by-case basis. This leaves three more narrative participants to explain: the narratee, the implied and the real audience. The narratee represents the intra-diegetic addressee of the narrator. Once more, this instance may emerge more or less clearly, often dependent on the (more or less conspicuous) behavior of the narrator. A cliché 14. See, e.g., Carroll (2001).


application would be the character of a grandfather (character narrator) telling a story to his grandchild (the narratee). In parallel with the implied authors, text cues may allow the analyst to (re)construct an extra-diegetic implied audience, i.e. features of an audience that could exist outside the represented story world and be targeted, or interested in such a narrative. The implied audience may be studied as intended by the real authors, in which case, it could be called the intended audience, or it may be studied as resulting from the critic’s text analysis, in which case one could label it the inferred audience. Need I repeat that text analysis does not exclude an interest for the productional and receptional contexts. Finally, the real audience represents the flesh-and-blood people watching, reading or listening to the narrative. 6. Cultural dimensions and narratorial behavior Accepting the abovementioned working definition of the term ‘narrative’, one may distinguish two levels of narrative behavior: character behavior displayed at the level of the represented, and narratorial behavior displayed at the level of the representation. The fact that it may not always be easy or possible to distinguish between the two levels does not imply that it never is. If and when it is, the behavior displayed at the two levels may partially or entirely overlap or not. This section focuses on the level of the representation, and more specifically on the behavior of the narrative agency. As suggested above, the narrator is understood as an organizing principle that emerges as a Gestalt from the ‘reading’ of a text. As indicated above, its emergence depends on the presence of certain narrative features in the text. Just like one can describe the white triangle (e.g. measure its sides) in Figure 1, one can describe features of this narrative agency. Narratologists commonly discuss three sets of issues with respect to the narrator: Who or what is the narrator?, When and where does narration take place?, How does the narrator behave? I hereafter contend that to the extent that the representation displays humanoid features, cultural dimensions may help to describe it. Furthermore, I claim that even if one disavows the notion of ‘narrator’ in film narration, an IC narrative study may still examine cues sown by the makers into the text, revealing CD type characteristics. I repeat that time and again, the narrative actualization of cultural dimensions corresponds with a localization of universal values. A non-informed audience may or may not be aware of this cultural localization, but its perception is bound to be conditioned by it. Section 7 discusses some possible connections between CDs emerging from narrative behavior and intra- or cross-cultural audience empathy.


6.1 Who/what? Traditionally, narratologists distinguish between a narrator who appears also as a character in the story world, and a narrator who does not. The latter goes under different names: 1. a ‘heterodiegetic narrator’ (Genette 1972), which is probably the most accurate term, even though it frightens some Anglophone readers15 as too technical; 2. the ‘non-character narrator’, which some Anglophone critics prefer for its simplicity, even though a heterodiegetic narrator may still emerge from the text as a fictional character, created by and distinct from the real authors, i.e. remaining at once absent from the story world it represents, and displaying features that cannot be assigned to any of the makers; or 3. the ‘external (or extra-diegetic) narrator’, perhaps the simplest but also more vague denomination. Narrative commentators generally accept the concept of character narrator. Disputes start, notably within film studies, when discussing the existence and epistemic relevance of a heterodiegetic narrator (see above). If the narrator is a character, its actions and words reveal cultural values that may express CDs. Character narrators justify logocentrism, — they talk -, and anthropomorphism, — only humans use natural language -. This may not be true when dealing with an external narrator. In that case, narration may occur without the use of words, and it may do so in a way no human could. Think for example of Timecode (2000), which splits the screen in four parts to simultaneously represent events that happen at different times and in different places. In this case, both the logocentric and the anthropomorphic conception of a narrator become problematical. Cases like Timecode offer probably the most convincing argument to the opponents of the concept of ‘narrator’. However, the fact that one cannot reconstruct a humanoid causing the narration does not necessarily prevent viewers from (re)constructing an overall organizing principle that emerges when viewing. Indeed, coherence may appear in the ‘choices’16 between what is shown and what is not, and in how what is shown is shown. To the extent that it displays features that resemble narrative behavior, this coherence, — or why not call it simply the narrative agency -, may reveal CD-type features, consciously or unconsciously created by the real authors, but not necessarily shared by them. Studying what is represented and what is not represented, and how the represented is represented leads to the next section, dealing with focalization, i.e. the ‘when’ and ‘where’-questions concerning the act of representing.

15. See, e.g., Phelan (2005). 16. It should be understood that narrators do not ‘decide’, ‘select’ or ‘choose’ any more than genes do say in bacteria. However, that does not stop them from behaving in a goal driven way. The words are used for practical purposes.


6.2 Where-When? The ‘when’ and ‘where’-questions deal with what narratologists call ‘focalization’. One could study focalization as part of the ‘how’-question too (see Section 6.3). However, since narratologists deal with this subject separately, I hereafter do so too. Perception and communication generally occur in time and space, even though, on occasion, narration may leave both time and space undetermined. Consequently, I use the term ‘focalization’ to characterize narrated information in terms of perceptual and representational time and space. Although it does not entirely match the creation process, one practical way to conceive of narration and focalization consists in thinking of the story world as an entity that can be reconstructed on the basis of the plot, i.e. the narrated story; and focalization as the act of both ‘selecting’ and deselecting materials from this story world in order to present the selected items in manner X and not Y. As such, focalization represents an information filter, which allows the narrator to both reveal and hide information to and from the real audiences and the characters in the story world. Consequently, focalization represents an excellent tool for the narrator to create viewing situations such as ‘dramatic irony’, — where the viewer knows more than a character -, to prime17 the viewer in favor or against this or that character or situation, and thus to display cultural bias. For example in Bella (2006), we saw that Nina hopes for a particularist treatment, whereas Manny rebuts her in a universalist way. However, before showing us the confrontation between Nina and Manny, the narrator informs the viewer why Nina has been late, and thus installs dramatic irony. Folk psychology and storytelling experience tell us that understanding brings the average viewer half way to empathizing. Consequently, in highlighting Nina’s problematical situation, and in downplaying Manny’s interests, the narrator shows a particularist bias. As a thought experiment, one could imagine a reversed focalization: one that favors the exceptional importance for everyone at the restaurant to perform at their utmost best; the narrator could elaborate what is at stake if Manny fails, and hide why Nina, when arriving late twice, appears so indifferent to what happens to the restaurant and to her colleagues. Outsourced (2006) offers another yet different case in point. The movie tells the story of Todd Anderson (Josh Hamilton), an American call-center manager for an on-line retailer that sells cheesehead hats, burger branders, American eagle sculptures playing the national anthem, and other patriotic junk. The narrative opens with Todd’s boss Dave (Matt Smith) telling Todd that the whole department is being outsourced to India. Consequently, when Todd travels to Bombay 17. See, e.g., Carroll (2011, 169) who uses the term ‘criterial prefocussing’ with respect to priming the viewer and viewer empathy (see below).


to train the people who are going to replace him, he will deal with various CD related issues. For example, upon his arrival in the village Gharapuri, outside Bombay, he is met with Purohit (Asif Basra), the man who is to replace Todd in the Indian call center. Purohit brings Todd to Aunti Ji (Sudha Shivpuri) instead of to an anonymous hotel. Aunti Ji receives Todd at her home and treats him like family. Indian behavior is shown to be particularist and collectivist. Yet when the narrative moves to the workplace, the view favors features of achievement based status over ascription based status, a specific culture rather than a diffuse one, and individualism rather than collectivism. Todd’s first main concern is to get the callcenter’s MPI (‘minutes per incident’) under six minutes in order to return home as soon as possible. The employees are thus trained to perform telephone calls that achieve a sale in six minutes or less. When repurposed to a sales talk, conversation is not meant to build a relationship, as one character called Manmeet (Bhuvanesh Shetty) mistakenly believes, but rather to take the caller’s money as quickly as possible. The narrator presents this universalist type of human interaction as a ‘normal’ procedure, and the particularist one as a funny deviant. Manmeet’s continuous hitting on any woman who calls him is used as a running gag to poke fun at whoever displays a particularist attitude. The trick Todd uses to manipulate his employees is the same as trainers use to make monkeys perform in the circus: they reward good behavior.18 Here Todd suggests that whoever improves the MPI on a given day can pick a product from the company’s catalog for free. Stretching the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, the narrator suggests that the employees actually want the kitsch they sell. All the employees are thus set up to compete against each other on an individual basis in order to obtain their ‘reward’. When at some point, they are allowed to somewhat ‘personalize’ their workplace, one character Sanjeev (Ketan Mehta) brings pictures of his family to hang on the walls, but we never actually meet any of the family members. The chosen focalization discards not only the family relations but all non-work related societal relations. None of them play a role in the narrative. In proceeding as such, it renders a specific rather than diffuse image of society, one that may not correspond with actual Indian culture. An alternative focalization could have shown how working long hours at night, for weeks if not months on end, impacts upon private and family life. However, the narrator only shows Todd who once or twice seems to suffer from sleep deprivation. We do not even meet the family members of the main characters Todd and Aisha. This is a story about two individuals. Only near the end of the movie, when the obligatory love interest evolves between the two, is there talk about their respective families. However, once again, the narratorial perspective remains predominantly 18. Consistent with this logic up to the end of the movie, Todd wants his love interest to perform one last trick: monkey pulls the turnip, a position taken from the Kama Sutra.


individualistic. When presenting the love affair, the narrator takes on the Western view on marriage, which represents a romantic agreement based on love between individuals, to the detriment of the planned marriage, which in collectivist societies constitutes rather a contract between families. The narrator presents the local community negatively, as an inhibition to individual freedom and choice, and not as a protective haven that provides its residents security and happiness through social integration. 6.3 How? Most narratologists agree that a narrative agency may ‘act’ in various ways. One distinction that is commonly known in narrative studies refers to the overt versus covert narrator. Narration is called ‘overt’ when the act of narration calls attention to itself; narration is called ‘covert’ when the act of narrating passes ‘unnoticed’, and audience interest remains focused on the narrated. Overall, one may assume that a conventional mode of narrating is more likely to operate in a covert manner whereas an unconventional mode of narrating is more likely to become overt. From this it follows that the overt-covert distinction relies on both text-immanent features, which may appear as more or less conventional, and viewer competence, which is bound to display individual, collective and universal features. A good example of overt narration appears in the movie Memento (2000), where audiences struggle at first to figure out how the narrative is put together before comprehending what is actually going on. Conversely, covert narration is common in mainstream (e.g. Hollywood) moviemaking. Here, the aim of the narrative consists in creating a viewing situation where the audience experiences the narrated ‘im-mediately’, i.e. without the intervention of an intermediate narrative agency. Covert narration may contribute to enhance audience involvement in the story world. In other words, it may facilitate the viewer’s access to the story world. Overt narration, by contrast, distracts the viewer’s focus from the narrated to the narrating, and thereby creates a different, more mediated viewing situation. The notion of ‘ease of access’ versus the opposite recalls the specific-diffuse divide mentioned above, and more specifically Edward T. Hall’s (1976) distinction between low versus high context cultures. This cultural dimension refers to how much or how little previous contextual knowledge is required for a newcomer to function in an ingroup. For example, in high context cultures words may carry various meanings depending on who is speaking to whom, when and where. Efficient everyday communication requires previous knowledge about longstanding but unwritten cultural traditions, habits, rules, common practices and expectations. Consequently, high context cultures are harder to access, and take more time for newcomers to integrate and to function on a daily basis. Conversely, in low context cultures, the


opposite is true. People rely on elaborate code systems, which are made openly available to everyone on day one. Likewise, procedures and expectations are explicitly and widely communicated to everyone; what you see is what you get. Consequently, low context cultures are ‘easy to access’. To the extent that overt narration inhibits the audience to access the story world, one could, if only in a metaphorical sense, suggest that it installs a high context narrative interaction with the viewer, whereas to the extent that a covert narrator facilitates the viewer’s access to the story world, it installs a low context interaction. The high versus low context divide may find a more specific application in the way a narrative agency deals with exposition. The term ‘exposition’, aka backstory, refers to story material that happened before the narrative starts. When writing classical drama, experience shows that, generally speaking, it is better to show than to tell. Instead of saying that character X is smart, the (screen)writer creates a scene where character X does something showing that s/he is smart. The same writing principle applies to the showing of backstory. Conveying expositional information in a covert way may at times represent a challenge. Since classical storytelling aims at ‘im-mediate’ or rather ‘un-mediated’ audience involvement, the challenge consists in passing expositional information to the audience without the latter becoming aware that it is being given that information by an intermediate or intervening narrative agency. One commonly used dramatic device to create this viewing situation is called the ‘convention of the fourth wall’. It consists in actors pretending not to be aware that an audience is watching, and the audience playing along with this pretense. Hence, a classical way to convey expositional information consists in not breaking the fourth wall. In that case, actors are asked not to look into the camera, and characters do not talk directly to the audience. Paradoxically, the skillful maintenance of this fourth wall facilitates the viewers’ involvement in the narrated world. Breaking the fourth wall signifies breaking the charm that ties the viewers to the story world, snatching their focus out of the story world and shifting it from the narrated to the narrating. Once again, one may argue, the more covert, — i.e. effortless as seen from the point of view of the audience -, the exposition is conveyed, the lower context the narration, i.e. the easier the narrator gives access to the story world; and vice versa, the more difficult for the audience to figure out the exposition, the higher context the interaction may be said between the audience and the narrator. To study two levels of narrative behavior, — character behavior and narratorial behavior proper -, allows the analyst to verify if and to what extent both types of narrative behavior concur or not. We saw for example that in Bella (2006), the narrator reinforces Jose’s particularist behavior and invalidates Manny’s universalist actions, while in Outsourced (2006), narratorial behavior seems to align


more with the behavior of Todd and only to a lesser extent with the attitude of his universalist boss Dave. 7. Cultural dimensions and audience empathy Studies on empathy concur that beholders have more chances of empathizing with someone, real or fictional, who displays similar morals.19 If cultural dimensions are understood here as the cultural localizations or implementations of universal values, it stands to reason to assume that, for example, a particularist viewer is more likely to empathize with particularist narrative behavior while a universalist viewer might more likely empathize with universalist behavior. On this view, a textual study of character and narratorial behavior in terms of CDs could help the analyst to construct an implied or inferred viewer, intended or not by the real authors. The assumed values assigned to the implied audience could subsequently allow the analyst to expect certain real audiences to perform a dominant, negotiated or oppositional reading.20 Adapting Hall’s terminology, a reading or viewing is said to be ‘dominant’ or ‘preferred’ if the dominant values expressed in the text coincide optimally with those shared by an actual audience. A viewing is qualified as ‘oppositional’ if the endoxa21 of the implied audience conflicts totally with that of the real audience. In that case, the audience is actually more likely to stop reading or watching altogether.22 Thirdly, the ‘negotiated’ reading sits in between the two extreme positions and requires the real audience to ‘negotiate’ the values expressed in a text, i.e. to put aside certain values it does not share in order to continue enjoying those it does share. Finally, subsequent empirical audience research may verify (or falsify) the expectations based on the text analysis. In conclusion, it should be noted that scholars generally use the word ‘empathy’ in reference to a complex and composed set of phenomena. Perhaps the word ‘audience involvement’, which covers a wider semantic field would be more 19. See, e.g., de Waal (2009, 221); Grodal (2009, 19); Cattrysse (2010, 92ff.); Morton 2011, 318); and Grodal (2009, 19). But see Keen (2007, 169) who contends that empathy is possible even when the character and the reader differ from each other in all sorts of practical and obvious ways. 20. See Hall (1980) quoted in Cattrysse (2010, 92). 21. I borrow the term from Aristotle to refer to the dominant opinions and values shared by an ad hoc community. 22. See John Fiske’s anecdote (discussed in Cattrysse 2010, 93) about the homeless people watching Die Hard (1988) and cheering for the ‘villains’ when they overtook the ‘good guys’, but switching off the VCR when the latter started to prevail.


appropriate? Since there are a gazillion reasons why people do or do not continue watching or reading a text, it stands to reason that only an empirical study of actual audiences and actual readings or viewings may uncover some of these reasons. 8. Conclusions The idea that the ethical attitudes that are presented in narratives translate the values that are dominant in the societies that produced and consumed them seems rather common (see, e.g., Hofstede and Hofstede 2005, 6ff.; Kitcher 2011, 141). Correlations between the success of anti-social stories in times of crisis seem to corroborate such a hypothesis (e.g. the gangster and crime stories in the 1930s, and the currently perceived dominance of ‘bad guy’ protagonists in narratives such as American Psycho, Dexter or House of Cards). However, the question whether this applies to CDs remains open. I am not aware of any systematic study of the correspondence, or lack thereof, between the CDs prevailing in a culture, and the narratives produced and consumed in that culture. For example, countries like China, England, France, Ghana, Japan and Korea are known to orient to the high-context end of the spectrum, while other countries or regions such as Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland and the US sit at the low-context end of this continuum.23 Could one detect parallels in terms of cultural dimensions between the narratives on the one hand, and the cultures representing or being represented in these narratives? This line of research could supplement existing research in the field of (trans-)national cinema studies. Moreover, Bearden, Money, and Nevins (2006) point out that whereas CDs present a bi-polar pattern at the societal level, by contrast, individual behavior displays multi-dimensional and even contradictory CD-type behavior. In other words, to recycle a Marxist term, singular narratives may display ‘uneven development’. For example, whereas Memento’s (2000) overall narrative structure can be said to trigger a high context interaction with its audience, its opening sequence applies classical devices of expositional storytelling, and thereby appears to aim at the opposite, a low context interaction. The narrative starts with a ‘hook’, a spectacular action scene in this case, which screenwriters commonly use to grab the viewer’s attention at the beginning of a movie. Next, the narrative presents the main character, Leonard, as a victim. This is yet another commonly known (screen)writing device to enhance viewer empathy with a character. Leonard and his wife have been attacked. The wife has been killed and Leonard has lost his short-term memory. Hence follows the protagonist’s dramatic goal. If convincing, 23. See Liu, Volčič, and Gallois (2015, 110).


the narrative goal represents the main narrative24 reason for the audience to become involved in the main character’s actions. Leonard intends to find and kill the murderer of his wife. To the extent that this presentation of expositional information is classical, the narration is covert and more likely to align with the convention of the fourth wall. In doing so, the narration lowers the threshold that keeps the audience from accessing the story world, and thus enhances a low context interaction with its viewers. This narratorial behavior goes against the high context interaction installed at the level of the overall narrative structure of the movie. From this it follows that the available knowledge about CDs and their distribution across the world does not allow the narrative analyst to predict that any singular narrative will display the CDs prevailing in the culture that produced and/ or consumed it. Indeed, when I throw the dice, I know I have one chance out of six to throw any number between one and six. However, that knowledge does not permit me to predict the exact number I shall throw next. On the other hand, CDs do allow us to label individual narrative behavior. Moreover, current ICC knowledge about the CD distribution around the world also justifies scholars to foster expectations. Indeed, when throwing the dice, I may not know the exact number I shall throw next, but I may expect that one chance out of six, I throw a six for example, and I may also expect that five chances out of six, I throw another number. Similarly, the currently available knowledge in ICC studies does allow me to funnel expectations. For example, if in the US universalism and individualism prevail, I may not predict that the next US narrative is going to display its dominant CDs, but I may expect it to do so. What the odds are in more precise terms will require further investigation. Similar expectations may be held with respect to the societylevel potential of dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings of an audience. In conclusion, a study of CDs, like any other study, must account for interpretation. Indeed, meaning emerges only when there is an interaction between a subject and an object (or sign). That subject may either be the analyst or any other member of the real audience whose reception one is empirically studying, for two different viewers may interpret the same textual features in similar and dissimilar ways. For example, regarding Outsourced (2006), whoever is accustomed to wearing cheesehead hats at sports events may take the narrator’s presentation of the Indian call center at face value and not think more about it. However, to the viewer who is not familiar with this kind of objects, and certainly to this viewer, the real authors’ or narrator’s ‘choice’ of particularly inane kitsch, — as opposed to a socially relevant service or product for example -, may suggest ironic criticism of the ludicrous proportions neo-liberal consumerism has reached in the West. In that 24. There are obviously many reasons for an audience to continue or stop watching. For practical reasons, I focus only on the narrative here.


case, the narrative’s overall presentation of the Americanized call center aiming to bring down its MPI under six minutes can be read as an exposure of the ridicule and pointlessness of the Western universalist, specific, achievement status based cultures. However, whether real viewers watching these scenes actually read irony between the lines represents a question that text analysis alone cannot answer. To do so, an empirical study of ad hoc audiences is required (see below). Due to the fact that we are dealing with the narrative representation of behavior, ethical models, and values more in general, may be interpreted in a direct and in an indirect way. On the one hand, they may be seen as models for good behavior to be emulated, and on the other hand, audiences may interpret them as representations of bad behavior to be avoided. For example, some critics25 read characters such as Jack Bauer (24), Dexter, Walter White (Breaking Bad) or Francis Underwood (House of Cards) as ‘direct’ models that may convince the audience that in the world of today, survival is the ultimate virtue, to be attained at any cost. A moral compass or a conscience are a luxury the survivor can no longer afford, lest s/he wants to be killed. Conversely, other critics may read these narratives as warnings, i.e. as representations of how the world may evolve back into a jungle if humanity does not take appropriate measures in time. Generally speaking, direct reading is likely to be more common than indirect reading, since psychologists agree that learning-by-imitation is one of the oldest if not the oldest way of learning among primates and mammals more in general. Indirect reading implies an intellectual distance vis-à-vis the represented some more intuitive viewers may not be capable of assuming. That is why censors tend to presuppose direct reading rather than indirect reading when prescribing censorship rules. Depending on the ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’ reading and the endoxa upheld by an audience, one may assume, once more, that dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings will vary across individuals and across cultures, and consequently condition empathy, counter-empathy and audience involvement more in general. If and how this happens represents an interesting topic for further research into narrative and cross-cultural audience involvement.

25. See, e.g., Brandon Smith (2015) on “A Moral Code for the Post-Collapse World”, available online: http://alt-market.com/articles/2513-a-moral-code-for-the-post-collapse-world; visited on 06-01-2016.


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Author’s address Patrick Cattrysse Raamlolaan 3 B-3120 Tremelo Belgium [email protected]