Negotiating Adaptation: Perceptions of Culture and Communication Among Cultural Sojourners

Abstract

This study examines how cultural sojourners who have adapted to their host culture and then returned to their original culture describe their adaptive communication. These descriptions were collected using an open-ended survey method which was designed to reveal communication experiences in 3 adaptive areas, (a) deculturation, (b) reentry, and (c) psychological adjustment. Results reveal that this group of cultural sojourners did not experience significant deculturation upon reentry into their home culture, but instead had very strong views about the integration of “extracultural” knowledge into overall cultural values regarding their communication.