Jürgen Bolten

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Jürgen Bolten (born June 8, 1955 in Düsseldorf ) is a German cultural and communication scientist. He works as a professor at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena , where he heads the intercultural business communication department .

Scientific career

Bolten studied German, philosophy and education at the Universities of Düsseldorf and Cologne and from 1978 initially worked as a research assistant for German literature and linguistics as well as for German as a foreign language at the Universities of Düsseldorf and Aachen. He received his doctorate in 1984 with a thesis on Friedrich Schiller. From the mid-eighties, his main research interests concentrated on linguistic issues, in particular on the areas of business communication and German as a foreign language. Following his habilitation in intercultural German studies / German as a foreign language, he worked as a private lecturer at the University of Düsseldorf from 1989 and was co-founder and managing director of the Institute for International Communication (IIK). In 1992 he founded the subject of intercultural business communication at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and accepted a professorship of the same name. In 1999 he founded Interculture eV, an institution for academic further education. a. Offers e-learning- based certificate studies for intercultural personnel and organizational development. Bolten has held short-term lectureships in over 20 countries around the world and has been Visiting Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University since 2007 .

Research priorities

In 1992 Bolten introduced the term “ interculture ” into German and supplemented the previously dominant cross-cultural approaches with interactive methods in intercultural training research. His studies focus on specific intercultural encounters between individual actors and the analysis of their relationship dynamics. This is mainly reflected in the following research fields:

Four components of communication

In expanding the communication terms according to David Crystal and Els Oksaar, Bolten systematizes four components of communication as follows:

  • Verbal component : lexical, syntactic, rhetorical means of texting (oral & written)
  • Non-verbal components : facial expressions, gestures, posture, eye contact (oral) & images, drawings, diagrams, format, color, layout (written)
  • Paraverbal component : volume, pitch, speech rhythm, etc. (oral) & typography, punctuation, spelling (written)
  • Extraverbal component : time, place, clothing, tactile aspects, etc. (oral) & time, space, paper quality, etc. (written)

Sandberg model

The Sandberg model.

Based on the iceberg model often cited in cultural studies , Bolten brings a sandberg metaphor ( dune ) into play for culture . Like a mountain of sand, culture has a relatively continuous and rigid foundation in the long run. In the case of culture, these are the traditional rules of interaction, which are mostly unquestioned and regarded as "normal" and plausible. In the middle or upper areas of the "sand mountain" (i.e. culture), however, there are always movements and drifts (in culture: new agreements, group-specific developments, trends, ...) that change the sand mountain and through filter and sedimentation processes can work in the foundation. Bolten points out, however, that the Sandberg metaphor can lead to the false assumption that cultures are sharply delineated from the outside. This would not correspond to his doctrine (see section Fuzzy Cultures ).

Fuzzy Cultures

Influenced by positions of sociological and cultural anthropological approaches based on relational and action theory (including by Klaus P. Hansen ), Bolten developed his understanding of culture “as a network of conventionalized reciprocity dynamics”. It does not matter whether a person is a member of a culture or not (either yes or no ), but rather the degree of their membership , i.e. the intensity with which mutual relationships take place between the person and the group of actors ( reciprocity ). For Bolten cultures are so vague, vague and nebulous (Engl. Fuzzy ), so he based on the fuzzy logic cultures as fuzzy Cultures designated.

Furthermore, cultures are defined as fields of actors, which, in the sense of Bruno Latour's actor-network theory, also include non-human actors such as nature, machines or artificial intelligence. His concept of "structural processuality" indicates that cultures are always characterized by both structure and processuality. The extent to which one or the other dominates depends on how preservation or change-oriented actors behave based on current contextual assessments and the degree of indeterminacy they are willing to accept.

Intercultural Competence

Bolten does not see intercultural competence as an independent action competence (in addition to personal, social, technical and methodological competence ), but as "successful holistic interaction of individual, social, professional and strategic action in intercultural contexts." Intercultural competence is therefore not only to be located in the area of soft skills , but takes into account methodical and technical sub-competencies that are applied in intercultural action contexts. In addition, according to Bolten, there is an "interdependence between cognitive, affective and conative (behavioral) competencies." Intercultural competence is therefore not the synthesis of these three sub-competencies, but their synergy. He does not locate intercultural competence in the area of ​​structural models , but as a process model .

Intercultural training - method map

Systematisation of different learning methods for intercultural learning
Each training course can have different learning objectives - these must be checked before each training session

Since Bolten sees culture as a construct that cannot be clearly delimited (see section Fuzzy Cultures ), he complains about classic intercultural trainings that they "initiate culturalizations and stereotyping" by reducing complexity, which should actually be broken down. Bolten specified the methods of intercultural training and further developed the typology proposed by Gudykunst / Hammer by designing a three-dimensional method map . Accordingly, training courses (components) differ in terms of their teaching and learning methods (" learning by distribution "; " learning by interaction "; " learning by intercultural collaboration "). Furthermore, they differ in terms of the training content ( culture-specific , cross-cultural , intercultural ). The levels of the third axis of the model contain the exercises, training types and training goals to be designed depending on the orientation of the training.

Bolten is particularly involved in the field of e-learning and in the development and dissemination of intercultural simulation games as (virtual) collaborative exercises.

Science organization

As the founding chairman of the Association of German as a Foreign Language (FaDaF), Bolten was involved between 1989 and 1992 with the merger of the DaF umbrella organizations from the FRG and the GDR. Since 2002 he has been chairman of the University Association for Intercultural Studies (IKS) and, together with Stefanie Rathje, publisher of the "Interculture Journal" which he initiated. He is an editorial board member for the magazines “Lingua ac Communicas” ( Poznań ) and “German as a Foreign Language” (Cambridge). He is also a scientific adviser to Sietar Germany and AFS Germany. One focus of his work is the implementation of intercultural teaching and learning in the form of e-learning scenarios: With the "Glocal Campus", Bolten has set up a digital learning platform that networks over 70 universities worldwide and enables collaborative teaching and research in the field of "Intercultural Studies" enables.

Awards

  • Prize for Intercultural Studies Academy for Intercultural Studies / Daimler Chrysler AG (2000);
  • Education Award of the German Employers' Association (2006);
  • Fellowship for innovative teaching as part of the “Excellence in Teaching” program of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft and the Joachim Herz Foundation (2011);
  • Teaching award from the University of Jena for e-learning (2015).

Publications (selection)

  • Introduction to intercultural business communication. 3rd edition, UTB, Göttingen, 2018.
  • Intercultural competence - a holistic perspective. In: Polylog, H. 36 (2016), 23-38.
  • Rethinking intercultural training. In: Interculture Journal 15 (2016), no. 26, 75-92.
  • Reciprocity, relationality and polyvalence. A plea for a holistic concept of culture. In: R.Eidukeviciene / A.Johänning (ed.), Intercultural Aspects of German-Lithuanian Business Communication. Iudicium, Munich 2014, 18–39.
  • Fuzzy Cultures: Consequences of an open and multi-valued concept of culture. In: Mondial - SIETAR-Journal for intercultural perspectives, annual edition 2013, 4–10.
  • Blurring and polyvalence: "Intercultural competence" against the background of an open concept of culture. In: U. Hoessler / W.Dreyer (ed.): Perspektiven intercultural competence. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingen 2011, 55–70.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Intercultural negotiation training . In: Wierlacher, Alois (Ed.): Yearbook German as a Foreign Language . Volume 18, 1992 edition. Iudicium, Munchen 1992, ISBN 3-89129-154-X .
  2. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Introduction to intercultural business communication . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8252-2922-1 , p. 23 .
  3. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Fuzzy Sandberg - or: (How) can cultures be described? In: AFS Intercultural Link . No. 5 , 2014 ( uni-jena.de [PDF] Original title: The Dune Model .).
  4. ^ Jürgen Bolten: Introduction to intercultural business communication. 2nd revised and expanded edition. UTB, 2017, ISBN 978-3-8252-4371-5 .
  5. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Blurring and polyvalence: "Intercultural competence" against the background of an open concept of culture . In: Ulrich Hoessler, Wilfried Dreyer (Hrsg.): Perspektiven intercultural competence . V & R, Göttingen 2011, p. 55–70 ( uni-jena.de [PDF]).
  6. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Fuzzy Cultures: Consequences of an open and multi-valued concept of culture for conceptualizations of intercultural personnel development measures . In: Mondial: Sietar Journal for Intercultural Perspectives . Annual edition, 2013, p. 4-10 .
  7. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Rethinking "Interculturality": Perspectives on Structural Processes. In: Hans W. Giessen, Christian Rink (eds.): Migration, Diversity and Cultural Identities: Perspectives on Social and Cultural Studies. Metzler, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-476-04371-9 .
  8. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: What does "intercultural competence" mean . In: Vera Künzer, Jutta Berninghausen (ed.): Economy as an intercultural challenge . IKO-Verlag, Berlin 2007, p. 21-42 .
  9. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Introduction to intercultural business communication . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8252-2922-1 , p. 214 .
  10. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Rethinking intercultural training . In: Interculture Journal . No. 15/26 , 2016, pp. 76 ( interculture-journal.com ).
  11. ↑ Jürgen Bolten: Rethinking intercultural training . In: Interculture Journal . No. 15/26 , 2016, pp. 84-87 ( interculture-journal.com ).
  12. ^ Jürgen Bolten: InterAct: the conception of an intercultural business training. In: Interculture Journal . No. 1/1 , 2002, p. 1-7 ( ssoar.info ).
  13. ^ Jürgen Bolten: Megacities . 2016.
  14. ↑ ICS. Retrieved December 20, 2018 .
  15. ^ Interculture Journal: Editor. Retrieved January 3, 2019 .
  16. ^ Lingua ac Communitas - Journal of philosophy, language and communication. Retrieved December 20, 2018 .
  17. ↑ ADVISORY BOARD. Retrieved December 20, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Intercultural Campus: Imprint. Retrieved January 3, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Jena scientist awarded prize for intercultural studies. Retrieved December 20, 2018 .
  20. ↑ Research & Development - Interculture.de eV Accessed December 20, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Jürgen Bolten from the University of Jena receives award. Retrieved December 20, 2018 .
  22. ↑ There is another way of teaching: Jena concepts are awarded the university teaching prize. Retrieved December 20, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Bolten, Jürgen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cultural and communication scientist
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf