The English are All Cold Fish: The Reattribution Generator and the Creation of Alternative Models of Meaning

The aim of this paper is to show how limiting instinctive reactions to culture-bound behaviour can become progressively more reflective when guided through a 6-stage language-based Re-attribution Generator. Before discussing the Generator, Attribution Theory is explained, showing how ‘culture shock’ is a natural reaction to others’ behaviour judged to be different. The paper focuses on a real-life example involving a group of Italian students discussing a typical Birthday Party in the UK, based on watching a scene from a film. The student responses provide a template of the range of reactions that one might expect at each stage of the Re-attribution generator. The theory behind the Re-Attribution strategy and the techniques themselves are adapted mainly from the theory of Neuro-linguistic Programming. The Generator itself constitutes a framework for individuals to create more positive and conscious evaluations of perceived behaviour through guided disassociation and the generation of hypotheses to re-attribute meaning. At a later stage of intercultural development, individuals can become more autonomous in using the re-attribution language exercises themselves to disassociate not only from their own culture-bound model of the world, but also from immediate interpretation and evaluation of perceived behaviour.