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T HE E X P ER T ’S VOIC E ® IN OR AC L E

The Tech Professional’s Guide to Communicating in a Global Workplace Adapting Across Cultural and Gender Boundaries — April Wells

The Tech Professional’s Guide to Communicating in a Global Workplace Adapting Across Cultural and Gender Boundaries

April Wells

The Tech Professional’s Guide to Communicating in a Global Workplace April Wells Strongsville, Ohio, USA ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-3470-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3471-6

ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-3471-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934697

Copyright © 2018 by April Wells This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, logo, or image we use the names, logos, and images only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Managing Director, Apress Media LLC: Welmoed Spahr Acquisitions Editor: Jonathan Gennick Development Editor: Laura Berendson Coordinating Editor: Jill Balzano Cover designed by eStudioCalamar Cover image designed by Freepik (www.freepik.com) Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer Science+Business Media New York, 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax (201) 348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, or visit www.springeronline.com. Apress Media, LLC is a California LLC and the sole member (owner) is Springer Science + Business Media Finance Inc (SSBM Finance Inc). SSBM Finance Inc is a Delaware corporation. For information on translations, please e-mail rights@apress.com, or visit www.apress.com/ rights-permissions. Apress titles may be purchased in bulk for academic, corporate, or promotional use. eBook versions and licenses are also available for most titles. For more information, reference our Print and eBook Bulk Sales web page at www.apress.com/bulk-sales. Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s product page, located at www.apress.com/9781484234709. For more detailed information, please visit www.apress.com/source-code. Printed on acid-free paper

This book is dedicated to my husband, Larry Wells. Without his support and gentle prodding over the years, this book would never have been possible. He’s kept me going and kept me focused even when I wanted to give up. It is because of him that I have had the opportunity to learn about so many different cultures from all over the world, including right next door.

Table of Contents About the Author ��ix Acknowledgments ��xi Chapter 1: Communication Matters ��1 Terminology ��3 Communication ��3 Culture ��4 Building Trust ��7 Cultural Differences ��8 Why Communication Matters ��9 Learning Even a Few Words in a New Language Can Make a Difference ��9 Ask Questions to People Who You Trust Who Understand the Culture ��10 It’s Not Good, It’s Not Bad, It’s Just Different ��11 Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously ��12 Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned ��15 References for Further Reading ��16

Chapter 2: Communication Is Culture ��17 Going Global ��17 Isn’t Global What It’s All About Anyway? ��18 Geert Hofstede ��22 Traveling Abroad ��26 Understanding Holidays When Traveling ��27

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Use Technology To Help You With Language Differences ��28 Transportation ��28 But What to Do Every Day? ��29 Tech Professionals, Particularly ��30 Out and About ��31 Casual Contact ��32 Handy Places to Gather Information ��32 Closer to Home ��33 Management ��34 “The Business” ��34 Teammates ��35 Multigenerational Communication ��36 Differently Abled Communication ��37 Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned ��38 References for Further Reading ��39

Chapter 3: Women and Communication: Tales from the Trenches ��41 We Aren’t All That Different Really ��43 Women Are Different ��43 Don’t Take It Personally ��47 Leverage What You Are Good At ��48 Speak Up ��51 Don’t Question Suggestions ��57 Brand Yourself ��57 Talk Person to Person ��60 Showcase Your Accomplishments ��61 Don’t Hide Your Sparkle ��62

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Communicating with Women ��64 We Aren’t One of the Guys ��64 Women Communicating with Women ��65 Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned ��66 References for Further Reading ��66

Chapter 4: Electronic Communication ��69 E-mail ��69 Make a Plan ��70 Subject Line ��70 Keep It Professional ��72 Be Interested and Interesting ��72 Not Too Long, Not Too Short ��73 Take Your Time ��74 When in Doubt, Get a Proofreader ��74 Do Not E-mail the Way You Talk ��75 Do Not Co-opt an E-mail Thread ��77 Responding ��78 Be Careful What You Say ��79 To, CC, and Blind Copy ��80 Instant Messages ��81 Social Media ��83 Trouble Tickets ��84 Documentation ��85 Text Messages ��86 Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned ��86 References for Further Reading ��87

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Chapter 5: Slang, Jargon, and More ��89 Slang ��90 Idioms/Metaphors ��92 Colloquialisms ��95 Emojis, Acronyms, and Text Shortcuts ��96 Humor ��96 Stupid Dog ��97 Laughing at Our Own Mistakes ��98 Rough Language ��98 Jargon and Acronyms ��101 Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned ��104 References for Further Reading ��105

Chapter 6: Telephone and Face-to-Face Communication ��107 Phone ��108 Face to Face ��112 Meetings ��112 Time in Meetings ��115 Technology and Meetings ��116 Touch and Personal Space ��117 Outside of the Office ��120 Keep Your Fingers to Yourself ��121 Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned ��133 References for Further Reading ��133

Index ��135

viii

About the Author April Wells has been in IT for more than 20 years. She is an Oracle database administrator and applications DBA with experience in large companies, midsize companies, and startups. She has international experience in many regions of the world, including South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. April’s international work has brought her into contact with people from all levels of organization and all walks of life, impressing upon her the need to adapt to better facilitate effective communication across cultures, ages, and genders. She has made many mistakes and learned much the hard way so that you don’t have to.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to the people who helped make this book possible. No one is an island, and no one does anything without the support and input of many others. To family who have put up with my stupid hours and my inability to spend time with them even when they needed me the most…thank you. To my husband Larry... Thank you for pushing me when I needed pushed and being my cheerleader when I was feeling down. I finished because of you.. There were times you were certain that you would never live to see this published. I’m forever grateful to have you here beside me. To the people I’ve worked with in the variety of countries and cultures I’ve been sent to work…thank you. To the people who have gently, and not so gently, pointed out my mistakes and miss steps, thank you. To the ASL teacher in Round Rock, Texas, who taught me how to listen with my eyes and my heart when ears don’t always hear so well…thank you. To Jonathan, Laura, and Jill at Apress who have held my hand and kicked my behind and walked with me the entire way…thank you.

CHAPTER 1

Communication Matters Everyone communicates. By learning to communicate more effectively and efficiently, you can become a more valuable employee, improve your self-confidence, and increase your worth to your department and your company. As technologists, we are often better at communicating with the people who we see every day, but I know from experience (you know, those hits you take on your performance appraisals that suggest you could improve in your communication skills?) that we can improve in the way we interact with just about everyone we meet. We all communicate, and we all have from the day we took our first breath. We continue to communicate until we take our final breath. Any parent understands the difference between the “I’m wet” cry, the “I’m hungry” cry, and the “I’m bored” cry. You can glean from across distances at least some of the information that someone is trying to convey to you even without being able to hear them. You know when your boss is late for a meeting, and you know when your loved ones are in a bad mood. Communication happens on an almost continual basis. By learning to communicate in different situations in the most effective way, you can further your career and make your next performance appraisal better. Pay attention to the different communication situations you find yourself in and learn how to adapt your message and method to the current situation. © April Wells 2018 A. Wells, The Tech Professional’s Guide to Communicating in a Global Workplace, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3471-6_1

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I’ve been reminded of the criticality of communicating effectively in a business setting when I’ve gotten my annual performance appraisal and heard that communication was one of the places I needed to concentrate my efforts for the following year. I’ve read the appraisals and worked at improving in one or another place where I thought my communication has been lacking. It was hard to listen to that boss, however, tell me how much I was lacking in communication ability when he was the one who repeatedly called me into his office to look over his critical e-mails to make sure there weren’t any glaring factual, grammar, or other mistakes. If I was so abysmal at communication, I’m not sure I was the best person to do the proofreading and make suggestions. I was never quite sure what I was supposed to do with the mixed messages I was getting, but I helped with the emails to make my boss look good, and I worked hard to improve the preception that everyone had of my communication skills. I read books. I watched videos and Ted talks. I researched where I thought I might be lacking and I learned. And as I learned my performance appraisals improved and soon I no longer was getting told that it was a weakness I needed to improve upon. It became one of my strengths and selling points. This book contains a great deal of what I learned through all of those methods and through much trial and error. May you learn from my mistakes.

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Terminology When you are talking about any topic that you aren’t well versed in, you need to understand the vocabulary that is common to that topic. Ironically, the best place to start this conversation on communication is with the basic vocabulary that we will use in this book. This will set us off on a good common ground of using the same words and them meaning the same thing.

Communication Communication isn’t something that magically happened when we started our professional career. It has been going on all of our lives. We do it every minute of every day, and usually we do it without thinking about doing it. We simply communicate. When people think about communication, they typically think about the spoken word, be it face to face or across a telephone line. Communication isn’t merely speaking with others, though. It is more than that. A little better, but not complete. Lets look a little closer at communication in more of its forms. Communication can take many forms, one of which is of course the spoken word. But think about all of the ways that you exchange information every day. You wake up in the morning, you talk to your family over breakfast, you look at your text messages, you check e-mail, and you may look at social media. All of these things are communication. If you drive to work, you play the nonverbal communication game of navigating traffic. You merge onto the highway, you nod or motion to people crossing the street, and you yield the right of way or you don’t. Stopping for coffee or breakfast on your way to work? You communicate with the clerk who waits on you or with the counter attendant at the gas station. If you take a cab or public transportation to work, you flag down the transportation, you speak to the driver, and maybe you tell him where 3

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you need to go or you simply nod and smile to her when you climb the steps. You pull the cord when you need the bus to stop. You mumble “good morning” to your fellow passengers. At work, you check your voice mail, check your e-mail, IM your teammates, and start your day. You sit in meetings and listen or participate; you take notes. Going out at lunch for a walk? Did you notice the lone protestor in the park? What about the woman singing outside in the park with her guitar case open? Maybe the panhandler on the corner? They’re all communicating too. You communicate all of your waking hours all of your life in one way or another, sometimes one on one, sometimes in a small group, and sometimes with everyone you can possibly reach with your message. Books, newspapers, magazines, those annoying flyers that someone puts under the windshield wipers of cars when people are shopping…all of these things are communication. Think about the communication you experienced today and pay attention to what you experience tomorrow. Think about what is effective and what isn’t, what gets the point across, and what just leaves you feeling a bit wrong.

Culture So, if that is communication, what is culture? Culture is the particular set of customs, morals, codes, and traditions of a person or group. Frequently people think about culture as being “mine” or “theirs.” Often this is with the connotation that because “mine” is what the person is comfortable with, it has to inherently be better than “theirs.” But…if you are on the other side of the equation (the “theirs” side), you simply have a different “mine” perspective. Usually the “theirs” side is the people who live in another country. This, however, isn’t always the case.

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Think about the people you come into contact with every day. Are they just like you? None of them is just like me. Even identical twins have their own culture because they have their own set of experiences that make parts of them unique between themselves.

If I take stock of myself for just two minutes, here’s what I come up with: I am… A woman A writer Middle aged Middle class Sister, daughter, wife, mother of two Caucasian The youngest And the oldest (I was adopted by my grandparents... another unique culture... so I was my biological mother’s oldest and my adopted mother’s <biological grandmother’s> youngest) I was born… in Western Pennsylvania into a blue-collar family I grew up… In a small town On a farm 5

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As the youngest child As a tomboy I live… In a suburb In a single-family home that I own With my husband and our grown children With a dog and a cat 25 miles from where I work In a middle-class neighborhood In school I was… In the top 10 percent of my graduating class A nontraditional college student Awarded a BS in information science (with a math and computer science minor and almost an English minor) in two years and three months For my career… I work in IT I can program Cobol I’m an apps DBA These are pieces of my culture. I can no more change most of them than I can change who I fundamentally am. And even the ones that I can change, I still will be fundamentally me as long as I live.

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Where you were born and grew up are part of your culture. Your point of view on many things has been formed because you grew up in a big city or in a small town, in an affluent neighborhood or in abject poverty, as an only child or with siblings. The things you have been exposed to are part of your culture. The things that you have chosen to expose yourself to are as well. But what about the department you work in? What about the career path you are on and where on that path you find yourself? Those are part of your culture too, particularly when it comes to many facets of communication.

Building Trust Communication is essential to building trust, and trust is essential in creating relationships, business relationships, casual relationships, and any relationships. Think of a time when you have been working on a project and you have needed to rely on other people to help you get it done. Rarely are there projects in a business environment where we can do the entire project alone. We nearly always need to rely on someone else, often a large team, to accomplish the business goal. You likely learned early in the project that there were people who communicated better than others and some who rarely communicated at all. People who communicate rarely if ever unless prodded into it are usually the ones who you end up feeling can’t be trusted. You never know what their status is in a project, and you don’t know if their deliverables are running on schedule or if they are behind due to difficulties or need help from someone else on the team or from external expertise to complete milestone tasks. We all know people who are perpetually late for meetings, even the meetings that they scheduled. 7

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Without open communication, it’s easy to fall behind in project deliverables or to have to hurry and work long into the night because someone has forgotten to tell you what their requirements are. You might even end up looking bad because your requirements are dependent on someone else to deliver something to you and you must make that deliverable an emergency because timelines were not communicated to you in a timely manner. The trust someone has in you has faltered because you in turn were not able to trust the person on whom you relied for information.

Cultural Differences It’s important not to get caught up in thinking that cultural differences matter only if you are communicating with someone from a different country. While, particularly in IT, there are many different global cultures that work elbow to elbow, these are not the only ones you work with, meet with, and come into contact with every day. Learning how to communicate with different cultures makes a world of difference. For example, there are vast cultural differences between people who were born in the 1950’s and 60’s and lived through the early years of computers with thier punch cards, Apple IIe and storing your program on a casette tape (Baby Boomers into Generation X-ers) and people who are just now entering the workplace (Millennials). Those of us who have worked through different technologies and different programming methods and languages often speak different languages. For instance, Agile projects are very different from Waterfall projects. Java is, often, as foreign a language to someone who learned programming with Cobol or C++ as Portuguese is for someone who speaks only English. Bridging these cultural differences may not make any difference monetarily, but it can be a huge difference in making your workday easier and your work environment less stressful. People at different ends of their career path (those coming into the department versus those nearing retirement) have a different culture too. 8

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They have a different background, a different way to view their career, and a different set of priorities. Again, communicating across these cultural differences can make your daily life less stressful. Look for these differences. You will find yourself with the reputation for being able to communicate effectively, and people will seek you out as someone with whom they are comfortable working.

Why Communication Matters So, why does it matter, and why should it matter to you specifically? It matters because by stopping and thinking you can change the way you interact with your peers, the people who you report to, and the people who look to you for guidance. By thinking about cultural differences, you can change other people’s perceptions of you and can further your career on whatever path it is taking you. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve gotten to travel, with my family or for work, rather extensively. Through my travels, I’ve gotten to stop and look at the differences in people, and I’ve learned some valuable lessons about communication.

L earning Even a Few Words in a New Language Can Make a Difference People like to hear their native language, even if you don’t get it quite right. Non-native speakers sometimes believe that if they are not fluent in a language, there is no sense in trying to use anything they might know. If you know you are going to be traveling to a country where you are a non- native or nonfluent speaker, learn a few key words. Hello, good-bye, please, thank you, where is the bathroom? are good ones to know. People will make the extra effort to help you if they see that you are trying.

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When we went to France, we went to a global amusement park. We were advised that people love to hear their native language and that they are impressed if you can attempt to converse with them. When I went to talk to someone at one of the rides to ask a question, the woman was so impressed that I was polite and I was able to say hello to her and to struggle with some other words to ask the question. The smile on her face was astounding. She admitted she could speak fluent English but was impressed at my attempts. She gave me a rare pin from her own lanyard, free meal tickets for lunch, and a stuffed animal for my daughter, all because I had been polite and tried to speak to her in her native language.

sk Questions to People Who You Trust Who A Understand the Culture Sometimes it can be costly to not understand local language and even more so to not understand the local culture. There is the culture that applies to people who live in the country, and there is the culture that applies only to people visiting the country, and if you don’t have a basic understanding of what is expected of visitors, it can really affect your bottom line.

Think that communication and cultures aren’t important to your pocketbook? When we were visiting Vietnam, we again went exploring. My son, by this time, was an adult but looked older than he was. He decided to go out exploring in the morning before the group (again, a tour group) left the hotel. A cab driver flagged him over and motioned him (with a huge grin) into his cab (which was simply a black buggy on the back of the bike). Fees were not discussed, and there was nothing on his vehicle that would have led Adam to 10

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believe that he was anything other than someone working for the hotel for the guests to use. He had enough currency to tip the man well, and he was confident that the ride would be worth it. The driver then proceeded to take Adam on a tour of some of the interesting temples in the neighborhood. When Adam was delivered back to the front door of the hotel, the driver demanded what amounted to about $100 US and was trying to get Adam to understand that he needed to pay. The local guide assigned to our trip argued with the driver, and the fee was drastically reduced (by a bit more than half). The driver made $45 US for a 30-minute trip, and Adam learned a valuable lesson in communication and the difference in understanding when communication doesn’t happen.

It’s Not Good, It’s Not Bad, It’s Just Different People have a tendency to be a little judgmental of things that they don’t understand or to which they haven’t been exposed. Being obviously judgmental can affect your reputation if not your pocketbook, and sometimes a good reputation and goodwill value are more important than money. People can see when you are reluctant to engage in customs that you aren’t comfortable with and can hold that against you. Worse, if you are representing your company, they can hold it against the company you represent. The bad feelings that they hold because of what they see to be judgment of their culture could mean the difference between them doing business with your company or not doing business with it. More important, though, they are likely to share their opinions with other people they know (including business acquaintances), which can impact your reputation. South Africa taught me how hung up people in the United States can be on words and labels. One of our tour guides while there was Supa, a man who was honest and forthright. He taught me that no matter how

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dismal the townships might look to an outsider, they are much better than the places where the immigrants (who mostly make up the population of the townships) came from. From him I also learned that words can hold power, but they don’t have to. Words like black person, white person, or colored person might hold implications to someone in another culture or another country. In South Africa, a black person is the progeny of black parents, a white person is the progeny of white parents, and a colored person is simply someone of mixed heritage. Their parents and ancestors might be black, white, Asian, Indian, Japanese, or any other mixture of ethnic backgrounds. Again, it is easy to slight someone else’s culture by taking offense to words or attitudes that are different from your own.

Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously There are times when you deal with people of different cultures when everything has to be all business, and those times, by definition, need to happen. You go to a country on business, you go into the offices and discuss what needs to be discussed, and you make the business deals you need to make. You remember to use the words that make the best impression and respect the customs of the culture. But what happens at the end of the day, when the business day is done and you are invited to enjoy the local recreation? I’ve heard, often, that the best business deals are made on the golf course rather than in the boardroom. People like to spend time outside of the formal setting. If you can jump into the culture with both feet and not worry about being formal all of the time, you can make lasting connections with the people you are working with. Business people remember this. It’s part of the way they work every day. Oftentimes people in IT tend to immerse themselves in technology and aren’t always willing to spend time playing. But people who have different cultures (globally or otherwise) know things that you don’t, and being able to reach out to these people later can help you answer questions on things you don’t even know you don’t know yet. 12

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From England I learned that it is always a good thing to be true to yourself. The tour group we traveled with over several years brought the brighter, better, safer side to the people in the group. As a family, we are unique and a little on the adventuresome side. We found some of the most interesting places when we were on our own, and we never hesitated to share where we went or what we found there. This meant that when we asked the local guide where we could go on a free afternoon that wasn’t too far or too time-consuming to get to, he suggested that our family might enjoy Camden Town. It was awesome. It was a little unusual, and we completely understood the guide’s comment that he would not have suggested it to most of the people on the tour. If we would not have been willing to let our weird side show, we would have missed out on seeing some of the more interesting aspects of London’s suburbs. In addition, understanding how our words are heard is often key to our being able to build our network.

I got to travel to Brazil several times for work. I met some great people there. It was particularly awesome because early in the project when weekend work wasn’t a must, we got to do some company-organized activities exploring different places in Brazil. Who knew there really is a place called Ubatuba! In Brazil I learned that words really do hold power. The word ordinary, for example, is not a word to use lightly. Until talking to the people I worked closely with there, I never thought twice about telling someone that I live in an ordinary house or have just an ordinary life with my ordinary family. In the United States, ordinary doesn’t hold a derogatory connotation. In Brazil (and I learned later that the same 13

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is true in other Latin American countries) the word ordinary has the connotation that whatever is referred to as ordinary is somehow less than or of lower quality. By remembering this later, commenting on it with co-workers who were from other Latin American countries and listening to them, I was able to create the networks internally that mean I can connect with someone who remembers that I’m willing to listen, make mistakes, and learn from them. I also learned that it is important to talk to people in your host country, but it is just as important to listen to them. By listening, and really hearing them, I learned that you don’t have to be afraid to walk down the street in the bigger cities if you walk like you mean it and don’t walk like a tourist. I am happy to say that I didn’t heed the advice of our group leader on our business trips to Brazil. We were told often that you never ever left the hotel alone, you always traveled with a travel buddy and never frequent any of the stores around the hotel if at all possible. Rather than stricktly heeding the dire warnings, I took my room key, my phone and just a little spending money and went on small (only a few blocks in any direction) adventures. Not once was I mugged. If you walk like the people around you and you take care not to advertise that you are from elsewhere, people tend to leave you alone. In this particular instance, they also, unfortunately, assumed that I spoke Portuguese; however, a self-deprecating smile and a little quick Google Translate helped with that situation. If you keep your senses about you and your sense of humor, you can learn an amazing amount about wherever you are (foreign and domestic). Regardless of where you are, with what group you are communicating, or with what media you are communicating, it’s important to listen to hear and understand, not just to mark time until it’s your turn to talk. If you listen or read to understand, it is far easier to convey your ideas when the time comes to do so.

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Communication Matters

It’s important to understand the way other people perceive your listening and your attention. Know your audience. While I know that I can listen quite well in a meeting or a discussion while taking notes (I’ve been known to write entire programs in a meeting while following every word and injecting required input in the right places without having my actual attention wavering), I know that with certain people I am required to not take notes even on the discussion at hand because the person with whom I’m meeting sees that as disrespect. By understanding the needs of the people you’re talking with, you can leave them feeling better about the conversation. Think you don’t already tailor your communication to certain situations? Think about how you talk when you are out with friends. Is that the way you talk when you are around young kids? Do you talk to your boss the way you talk to an elderly neighbor? Do you talk to your children or the children you encounter in the same way that you talk to your boss? Everyone already has some level of cultural communication awareness. Now, we just need to expand how we think.

Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned In this chapter, you learned that differences between cultures are not only those that cross national or international borders. You saw examples of times when being able to communicate effectively (hearing as well as speaking) has a monetary impact. Other times it simply makes a difference to our reputation or our ability to reach out to the network of people who we have communicated effectively with in the past. By taking the time to learn a few key words or a few simple customs, we can prove ourselves as people who are good to work with. Building the trust that other people have in us, and that we can have in others, will make our work life more enjoyable and profitable.

Chapter 1

Communication Matters

References for Further Reading Meyer, Erin. The Culture Map (INTL ED): Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures. PublicAffairs, 2016. Molinsky, Andy. Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior Across Cultures without Losing Yourself in the Process. Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.

CHAPTER 2

Communication Is Culture Just as every culture has its own unwritten rules that govern it, inside every culture there are similar unwritten rules that govern the communication endemic to that culture. Some of the rules are obscure and difficult to understand or learn, while others (the ones that usually make the biggest impact) simply take paying attention and putting some effort into learning. In this chapter, you will learn how different global cultures view communication and how it differs from what you might be comfortable with. We will take what we learned in chapter 1 a bit further and more specific. While most of us have our own concept of what communication is, it is usually bigger than what we think. If you can expand your concept of what culture is, you can expand your idea of how to better to communicate with all of the people you come into contact with. Never let yourself box your brain in, whether it is in technology or communication.

G oing Global Businesses are becoming more and more global every day. Communicating in a global organization or with a global organization is as much an art as a science. In this chapter, we will look at some of the nuances of communicating globally, regardless of what country you are © April Wells 2018 A. Wells, The Tech Professional’s Guide to Communicating in a Global Workplace, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3471-6_2

Chapter 2

Communication Is Culture

from, what country the people you are communicating with are from or in, and what cultures are involved. Probably the most logical place to start talking about communicating across cultures is with what many people think of as the biggest cultural differences—There are those differences that exist between people who are from different geographical areas, for example France and Japan or the United States and Sweeden. It’s not necessarily the people you work with every day who may cause you angst but people who are physically and geographically dispersed. While these cultural differences are not necessarily bigger than the differences between people who live in the same city or even neighborhood. Language is likely the biggest hurdle in many people’s minds when dealing with communicating with these different cultures. If we remove l anguage difference from the equation it is easy to see that, while there are differnces, those differences aren’t nearly as huge as our minds make them.

Isn’t Global What It’s All About Anyway? Many people, when considering cultures and the idea of communicating across cultures, think primarily about living in one country and communicating with someone in another country. This is a valid view of the idea and one of the biggest places where people have issues with communication. It is particularly true when dealing with the differences in language. Without a bit of an understanding about a generalized way that people interact in different countries, it is easy to slip into talking to everyone you deal with in the same way you deal with people who you work with every day. Oftentimes this works well; however, there are times when this creates issues in communication.

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described; and the value of his work has been very differently appraised. Cuvier had small opinion of it. Camper and Saint-Hilaire considered the author the greatest naturalist of modern times, the French Aristotle. Topinard (1885, p. 33) thus describes the opinion of the public: “Le public, lui, n’hésita pas; dans l’Histoire naturelle des animaux il sentit un souffle nouveau, vit un pressentiment de l’avenir. La libre pensée était dans l’air, 89 approchait; l’œuvre de Buffon, comme l’Encyclopédie, Voltaire, Rousseau et Bougainville, contribua à la Révolution française.” The genius of Linnæus lay in classification. Order and method were with him a passion. In his Systema Naturæ he fixed the place of Man in Nature, arranging Homo sapiens as a distinct species in the order Primates,[14] together with the apes, the lemurs, and the bats. He went further and classified the varieties of man, distinguishing them by skin colour and other characters into four groups—a classification which holds an honourable place at the present day. 14. The tenth edition, 1758, is the first in which the order Primates occurs. Earlier editions have the order Anthropomorpha. See Bendyshe, p. 424.

All this was abominable in the eyes of Buffon. “Une vérité humiliante pour l’homme, c’est qu’il doit se ranger lui-même dans la classe des animaux”; and in another place he exclaims: “Les genres, les ordres, les classes, n’existent que dans notre imagination.... Ce ne sont que des idées de convention.... Il n’y a que des individus!” And again: “La nature ne connait pas nos definitions; elle n’a jamais rangé ses ouvrages par tas, ni les êtres par genres.” Nevertheless both rendered incalculable service to the science. Linnæus “found biology a chaos and left it a cosmos.” “L’anthropologie,” says Flourens, “surgit d’une grande pensée de Buffon; jusqu-là l’homme n’avait été étudié que comme individu, Buffon est le premier qui l’ait envisagé comme espèce.” But Buffon was no believer in the permanent stability of species. “Nature is far from subjecting herself to final causes in the formation of her creatures.” He went so far as to make a carefully veiled hint (the Sorbonne having eyes on him) of a possible common ancestor

for horse and ass, and of ape and man. At least, he says, so one should infer from their general resemblance; but, since the Bible affirms the contrary, “of course the thing cannot be.”[15] In 1751 the old naturalist was constrained by the Sorbonne to recant his geological heresies in these words: “I declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of Scripture; that I believe most firmly all therein related about the Creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact.” 15. Quoted from Clodd’s Pioneers of Evolution, 1897, p. 101.

J. F. Blumenbach Blumenbach.

It was fortunate for the nascent science that the next great name on its roll was that of a man of

very wide reading, endowed with remarkable reasoning powers, and with an exceptional perspicuity for sifting out the true from the false. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) was Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Göttingen, and early turned his attention to the special study of man. He was the first to place anthropology on a rational basis, and in his De generis humani varietate nativa (17751795) laid the foundations of race classification based on measurement. He noted the variations in the shape of the skull and of the face, and may therefore be regarded as the founder of craniology (see below, p. 28). Besides the services rendered by Blumenbach to the science of anthropology in classification and in laying the foundations of craniology, there was a third field in which his work was perhaps even more valuable to his contemporaries. Every successive age is astonished at the credulity of its predecessor; but when we remember the grave difficulties which beset the explorer in the eighteenth century, and the wild “travellers’ tales” which it was impossible either to verify or to disprove, it is easy to sympathise with the credence given to the beliefs in “Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” Tyson, in his Philological Essay, gives a list, chiefly derived from classical writers, of the “monstrous Productions,” belief in which had not altogether died out in the seventeenth century. In fact, it was not long before Tyson’s time that a distinguished naturalist had given a serious description of the mermen who lived in the sea and had their hinder parts covered with scales.[16] Tyson’s account of “Monstrous sorts of Men” is taken mainly from Strabo:— Monsters.

16. v. Cunningham, p. 24. Such are the Amukteres or Arrhines, that want Noses, and have only two holes above their Mouth; they eat all things, but they must be raw; they are short lived; the upper part of their Mouths is very prominent. The Enotokeitai, whose Ears reach down to their Heels, on which they lye and sleep. The Astomoi, that have no Mouths—a civil sort of People, that dwell about the Head of the Ganges; and live upon smelling to boil’d Meats and the Odours of Fruits and Flowers; they can bear no ill scent, and therefore can’t live in a Camp. The Monommatoi or Monophthalmoi,

that have but one Eye, and that in the middle of their Foreheads: they have Dogs’ Ears; their Hair stands on end, but smooth on the Breasts. The Sternophthalmoi, that have Eyes in their Breasts. The Panai sphenokephaloi with Heads like Wedges. The Makrokephaloi, with great Heads. The Huperboreoi, who live a Thousand years. The Okupodes, so swift that they will out-run a Horse. The Opisthodaktuloi, that go with their Heels forward, and their Toes backwards. The Makroskeleis, the Steganopodes, the Monoskeleis, who have one Leg, but will jump a great way, and are call’d Sciapodes, because when they lye on their Backs, with this Leg they can keep the Sun from their bodies.

Linnæus did not include these in his Homo Monstrosus; but various questionable creatures are inserted by his pupil Hoppius in the treatise Anthropomorpha of Linnæus, read in 1760.[17] Such were the Satyr of Vulpius, who, “when it went to bed, put its head on the pillow, and covered its shoulders with the counterpane, and lay quite quiet like a respectable woman”; Lucifer (Homo caudatus), the “dreadful foul animals—running about like cats,” who rowed in boats, attacked and killed a boatload of adventurers, cooking and eating their bodies; and the Troglodyta (Homo nocturnus), who in the East Indies “are caught and made use of in houses as servants to do the lighter domestic work—as to carry water, lay the table, and take away the plates.” But all these were classed among the Simiæ. Within the species Homo sapiens Linnæus included wild or natural man, Homo sapiens ferus, whose existence was widely believed in at the time. The most authentic case was that of “Wild Peter,” the naked brown boy discovered in 1724 in Hanover. He could not speak, and showed savage and brutish habits and only a feeble degree of intelligence. He was sent to London, and, under the charge of Dr. Arbuthnot, became a noted personage, and the subject of keen discussion among philosophers and naturalists. One of his admirers, more enthusiastic than the others, declared that his discovery was more important than that of Uranus, or the discovery of thirty thousand new stars. Wild Men.

17. Bendyshe, p. 447.

Blumenbach alone, apparently, took the trouble to investigate the origin of Wild Peter, and in the article he wrote on the subject disposed for all time of the belief in the existence of “natural man.” He pointed out that when Peter was first met he wore fastened round his neck the torn fragments of a shirt, and that the whiteness of his thighs, as compared with the brown of his legs, showed that he had been wearing breeches and no stockings. He finally proved that Peter was the dumb child of a widower, who had been thrust out of his home by a new step-mother.[18] 18. Cunningham, pp. 24-5.

Chapter II. THE SYSTEMATISERS OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Hitherto we have been dealing with the great pioneers in Anthropology, those who laid the foundations, brought order out of chaos, and suggested the outlines of future work. Henceforward Anthropology may claim the name of a science, and the work developed on definite lines. It will be more convenient to treat these separately, abandoning a strict chronological method. The first branch to attract workers was Somatology, the physical aspect of man, of which we have already noted the inception: not until the nineteenth century can Archæology, or Prehistoric Anthropology, be said to have developed into a science; while the scientific study of Ethnology, or Cultural Anthropology, is barely half a century old. Somatology had already been foreshadowed by Vesalius, Spigel, and Linnæus; but Blumenbach Norma Verticalis of Blumenbach. was the first to strike its keynote by recording the shape of the skull and of the face. He was the fortunate possessor of a large number of skulls—large, that is, for his time, and he published a description of them (1790-1820), Decas collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium illustrata, with 70 plates. He noted particularly the norma verticalis—i.e., the shape of the skull as seen from above, distinguishing by its means three types —the square shape of the Mongols, the narrow or “pressed in from the sides” shape of the Negroes, and the intermediate form which he Craniology.

recognised in the “Caucasians.” He was the first to popularise craniology, and “it became the fashion to visit the Blumenbachian Museum, to have the differences which distinguish the different cranial types pointed out, and to indulge in sentimental rhapsodies upon the beauty and symmetry of the young female Georgian skull, which was considered to represent the highest type of all.”[19] But Blumenbach does not seem to have taken advantage of his own discoveries. In choosing the norma verticalis as a racial criterion he made a valuable contribution to science, but he did not reproduce his normæ in his plates, nor did he base his classification on them. Indeed, his typical Caucasian skull is really squarer than his typical Mongolian. 19. Cunningham, p. 26.

Peter Camper (1722-1789) had already been studying head-form, though from a totally different standpoint, and his deductions were not published until after his death. His contributions to Anthropology were an essay on the Physical Education of the Child, a lecture on The Origin and Colour of the Negro, and a treatise on The Orang-outang and some other species of Apes; but only his work on the facial angle has attained permanent fame. His early inclinations were towards art, and he was carefully trained in drawing, painting, and architecture; and it was in the interests of Art, not of Anthropology, that the researches which resulted in his determination of the facial angle came to be undertaken. This he describes in his preface to his lectures:— At the age of eighteen, my instructor, Charles Moor the younger, to whose attention and care I am indebted for any subsequent progress I may have made in this art, set me to paint one of the beautiful pieces of Van Tempel, in which there was the figure of a negro, that by no means pleased me. In his colour he was a negro, but his features were those of a European. As I could neither please myself nor gain any proper directions, I desisted from the undertaking. By critically examining the prints taken from Guido Reni, C. Marat, Seb. Ricci, and P. P. Rubens, I observed that they, in painting the countenances of the Eastern Magi, had, like Van Tempel, painted black men, but they were not Negroes.

Upper and Side Views of Skulls of Men belonging to the Neolithic and Bronze Age Races; photographed by the Author from specimens in the Cambridge Anatomical Museum. A, Long Barrow, Dinnington, Rotherham. Length, 204 mm.; breadth, 143 mm.; cranial index, 70. 1.

B, Winterbourne Stoke. Length, 177 mm.; breadth, 156 mm.; cranial index, 88. 1. To obtain the necessary facial effects distinguishing the Negro from the European, Camper devised his system of measurements. He drew a line from the aperture of the ear to the base of the nose, and another from the line of the junction of the lips (or, in the case of a skull, from the front of the incisor teeth) to the most prominent part of the forehead. “If,” he said, “the projecting part of the forehead be made to exceed the 100th degree, the head becomes mis-shapen and assumes the appearance of hydrocephalus or watery head. It is very surprising that the artists of Ancient Greece should have chosen precisely the maximum, while the best Roman artists have limited themselves to the 95th degree, which is not so pleasing. The angle which the facial or characteristic line of the face makes,” he continued, “varies from 70 to 80 degrees in the human species. All above is resolved by the rules of art; all below bears resemblance to that of apes. If I make the facial line lean forward, I have an antique head; if backward, the head of a Negro. If I still more incline it, I have the head of an ape; and if more still, that of a dog, and then that of an idiot.” Facial Angle of Camper.

Camper’s facial angle may be of service to Art, but since the points from which the lines are drawn are all variable, owing to the disturbing influence of other factors, such as an increased length of face or an unusually prominent brow-ridge, it cannot form an accurate measurement for Anthropology. It was severely criticised by Blumenbach, Lawrence, and Prichard, but adopted in France, and by Morton in America. Dr. J. Aitken Meigs[20] pointed out that as early as 1553 the measurement of the head appears to have exercised the ingenuity of Albert Dürer, who, in his De Symmetriâ Partium in Rectis Formis Humanorum Corporum, has given such measurements in almost every view. These, however, are more artistic in their tendency and scope than scientific. A glance at some of the outline drawings of Dürer shows incontestably that the facial line and angle were not wholly unknown to him, and that Camper has rather elaborated than

invented this method of cranial measurement. The artist even seems to have entertained more philosophical views of cephalometry, or head measurement, than the professor. 20. North American Med.-Chir. Rev., 1861, p. 840.

The evolution of craniometrical measurements is of interest to the physical anthropologist, but even a brief recital of this progress would weary the non-specialist. A history of Anthropology would, however, not be complete if it ignored the general trend of such investigations. Various Early Craniologists.

Some of the early workers, such as Daubenton (1716-99) and Mulder, Walther, Barclay, and Serres in the first half of the nineteenth century, attempted to express the relation between the brain-case and the face by some simple measurement or method of comparison in their endeavour to formulate not only the differences between the races of mankind, but also those which obtain between men and the lower animals. Others during the same period investigated the relations and proportions of portions of the skull to the whole by means of lines. Spix (1815) adopted five lines. Herder employed a series of lines radiating from the atlas (the uppermost bone of the vertebral column); but, more generally, the meatus auditorius (ear-hole) was the starting-point (Doornik, 1815). The internal capacity of the skull first received attention from Tiedemann (1836), who determined it by filling the skull with millet seed and then ascertaining the weight of the seed. Morton first used white pepper seed, which he discarded later for No. 8 shot, while Volkoff employed water. Modifications in the use of these three media—seeds, shot, and water—are still employed by craniologists. The most noteworthy names among the earlier workers in craniology are those of Retzius and Grattan. Anders Retzius (17961860) correlated the schemes of Blumenbach and Camper, and so arrived at the methods of craniological measurements which are almost universally in use at the present day.

In 1840 he introduced his theory regarding cranial shapes to the Academy of Science at Stockholm, and two years later gave a course of lectures on the same subject. He criticised the results attained by Blumenbach, showing that his group contains varying types of skull form; and he invented the cephalic index, or length-breadth index—i.e., the ratio of the breadth of a skull to its length, expressed as a per-centage. The narrower skulls he termed dolichocephalic, the broader ones brachycephalic. By this method Retzius designed rather to arrange the forms of crania than to classify thereby the races of mankind, though he tried to group the European peoples more or less according to their head-form. While thus elaborating the suggestion of Blumenbach, he also recorded the degree of the projection of the jaws, demonstrated by Camper, and he added the measurements of the face, height, and jugular breadth. Thus was Craniology established on its present lines. Cephalic Index of Retzius.

John Grattan (1800-1871), the Belfast apothecary, has never received the recognition that was his due. Having undertaken to describe the numerous ancient Irish skulls collected by his friend Edmund Getty, he soon became impressed by the absence of Grattan.

that uniformity of method and that numerical precision without which no scientific investigation requiring the co-operation of numerous observers can be successfully prosecuted. The mode of procedure hitherto adopted furnishes to the mind nothing but vague generalities ... until we can record with something approaching towards accuracy the proportional development of the great subdivisions of the brain, as indicated by its bony covering, and by our figures convey to the mind determinate ideas of the relation they bear towards each other, we shall not be in a position to do justice to our materials.... No single cranium can per se be taken to represent the true average characteristics of the variety from which it may be derived. It is only from a large deduction that the ethnologist can venture to pronounce with confidence upon the normal type of any race. [21]

21. J. Grattan, Ulster Journal of Arch., 1858.

Grattan devised a series of radial measurements from the meatus auditorius, and constructed an ingenious craniometer. As Professor

J. Symington points out, “Grattan’s work was almost cotemporaneous with that of Anders Retzius, and nearly all of it was done before the German and French Schools had elaborated their schemes of skull measurements.”[22] He adopted the most useful of the measurements then existing, and added new ones of his own devising. 22. Proc. Belfast Nat. Hist. and Phil. Soc., 1903-4; and Journ. Anat. and Phys.

The distinguished American physician and physiologist Dr. J. Aitken Meigs laid down the principles that “Cranial measurements to be of practical use should be both absolute and relative. Absolute measurements are necessary to demonstrate those anatomical differences between the crania of different races which assume a great zoological significance in proportion to their constancy. By relative measurements of the head we obtain an approximate idea of the peculiar physiological character of the enclosed brain ... the craniographer, in fact, becomes the cranioscopist” (1861, p. 857). In this paper Meigs gives craniometrical directions, some of which were designed to give measurements for portions of the brain. In France the greatest names are those of Broca, Topinard, and de Quatrefages. Pierre Paul Broca (1824-1880) was first destined for the army, but when the death of his sister left him the only child he was unwilling to leave his parents, and resolved to study medicine and share the work of his father, an eminent physician. He soon distinguished himself, especially in surgery, not only in practical work, but also in his writings. With regard to the latter, Dr. Pozzi, in a memoir, says of him: “There is hardly one of the subjects in which he did not at the first stroke make a discovery, great or small; there is not one on which he has not left the mark of his originality.”[23] Broca.

23. J.A.I., x., 1881, p. 243.

Paul Broca.

In 1847 he was appointed to serve on a Commission to report on some excavations in the cemetery of the Celestins, and this led him to study craniology, and thence to ethnology, in which his interest, once aroused, never flagged. The story of the formation of the Société d’anthropologie de Paris (1859) and of l’École d’anthropologie (1876), of both of which Broca was the moving spirit, affords a curious commentary on the suspicion in which Anthropology was held. To the success of the School he devoted all his energies, and during many years of anxiety he met and overcame all obstacles, surmounted all difficulties, wore down all opposition, and finally placed it in a secure position. He invented several instruments for the more accurate study of craniology, such as the occipital crochet, goniometer, and stereograph, and also standardised methods; but, dissatisfied with the inconclusiveness of mere cranial comparisons, he turned towards the end of his life to the study of the brain. He was an indefatigable worker, and his sudden death in his fifty-sixth year is attributed to cerebral exhaustion. “Broca was a man,” said Dr. Beddoe, “who positively radiated science and the love of science; no one could associate with him without catching a portion of the sacred flame. Topinard has been the Elisha of this Elijah.”[24] 24. Anniversary Address, Anth. Inst., 1891.

Paul Topinard, pupil, colleague, and friend of Broca, made valuable investigations on the living population of France, besides devoting much time to anthropometrical studies; but his greatest service has been the preparation and publication of l’Anthropologie (1876), a guide for students and a manual of reference for travellers and others, voicing the idea of Broca and his school, and “elucidating in a single volume a series of vast dimensions, in process of rapid development.” In 1885 he published his classic Eléments d’anthropologie générale,[25] which aimed at creating a new atmosphere for the science, breaking free from the traditions of the monogenists and polygenists, and incorporating the new ideas spread by Darwin and Haeckel. Topinard.

25. General Anthropology, according to Topinard’s classification, is concerned merely with man as an animal, and deals with anatomy and physiology, pathology, and psychology.

Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (1810-92) was not only a distinguished zoologist, occupying himself mainly with certain groups of marine animals, but also Professor of Anthropology at the Paris Museum of Natural History, and undertook several voyages along the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in search of information. In 1867 he published Rapport sur le progrès de l’Anthropologie, “which reduces to a complete and intelligible system the abstruse and difficult, and, to many, the incomprehensible science of anthropology, embracing during his investigations a wide range of topics, and arranging disjointed facts in due order, so as at once to evince their bearing upon the subject.”[26] He published many other works, among them Les Pygmées (1887), L’espèce humaine (1877), Histoire générale des races humaines (1889), and, together with E. T. Hamy, the famous Crania ethnica (1875-79). Professor F. Starr, in the preface to his translation of The Pygmies (1895), says:— De Quatrefages.

26. Anth. Rev., 1869, p. 231. A man of strong convictions and very conservative, de Quatrefages was ever ready to hear the other side, and ever candid and kindly in argument. He was one of the first to support the Society of Anthropology. Those who know the story of the early days of that great association understand what that means. When the claim for man’s antiquity was generally derided, de Quatrefages championed the cause. A monogenist [p. 53], a believer in the extreme antiquity of our race, he was never won over by any of the proposed theories of evolution.... To the very end of a long life our author lived happily and busily active among his books and specimens.

In Germany the greatest name is that of Virchow. Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (1821-1902) had already gained fame in the medical world, especially with regard to histology, pathology, and the study of epidemics, and was the prime leader in the “Medizinische Reform” movement before he began his valuable contributions to the science of Anthropology. Virchow.

His first anthropological writings were some papers on cretinism (1851 and 1852), and from this date onwards his services to the science can scarcely be over-estimated. Much of his energy was also given to somatic anthropology, and in 1866 he started his investigations into prehistoric archæology, combining scientific method with spade-work. In a notice of his work by Oscar Israel[27] (p. 656) we read:— 27. Smithsonian Report, 1902. Translated from the Deutsche Rundschau of Dec., 1902. Virchow devoted himself to ethnographic studies no less than to other branches of anthropology, and here he became a center to which the material streamed from all sides, and from which went forth suggestion, criticism, and energetic assistance. This never-idle man did not disdain to teach travelers schooled in other lines of investigation the anthropometric methods; and, indeed, he found time for everything, and never left a piece of work to others that he could possibly do himself. Thus, for example, for ten years following its inception by him in 1876, he worked up alone the data recorded in German schools as to the color of the eyes, the hair, and the skin which has proved of such value for the knowledge of the different branches of the German race.

Professor Sergi at one time proposed to banish measurements from craniology, and to rely solely on observational methods. He has later modified his extreme position, while, as a result of his crusade, he has induced most anthropologists to pay more attention to the configuration of the skull, and some of his descriptive terms have come into common use. Sergi.

Hagen’s Criticism of Craniometry.

Dr. Hagen relates the extreme specialisation into which craniologists were led:—

A rage for skull measurements, vast, vigorous, and heedless, set in on all sides, especially after Lucae had discovered and perfected a method of accurately representing the irregular form of the object studied. “More skulls” was henceforth the war-cry; the trunk, extremities, soft tissues, skin and hair, might all go by the board, being counted of no scientific value whatever. Anthropologists, or those who aspired to the title, measured and delineated skulls; museums became

veritable cities of skulls, and the reputation of a scientific traveller almost stood or fell with the number of crania which he brought back with him. After two decades of measuring and collecting ever greater quantities of material from foreign lands, and from the so-called primitive or aboriginal races, the inadequacy of Retzius’s method became apparent. Far too many intermediate forms were met with, which it was found absolutely impossible to classify by its means. In accordance with the suggestion of the French anthropologist Broca, and of Welcker, Professor of Anatomy at Halle, a third type, the so-called Mesocephalic form, was interposed between the two forms recognised by Retzius. Even this did not suffice, however. In the face of the infinite variety of form of the crania now massed together, a variety only comparable to that of leaves in a forest, this primitively simple scheme, with its four and finally six types, failed through lack of elasticity. Then began complication extending ever further and further. Attention was no longer confined to the length and breadth, but also to the height of the cranium, high and low (or flat) skulls —i.e., hypsicephalic and chamaecephalic varieties being recognised. The facial part of the skull was examined not only from the side, with a view to recording the straightness or obliquity of the profile, but also from the front; and there were thus distinguished long, medium, and short faces, and also broad and narrow facial types. The nasal skeleton, the palate, the orbit, the teeth, and the mandible were investigated in turn, and at last all the individual bones of the cranium and face, their irregularities of outline, and their relations to one another, were subjected to the closest examination and most subtle measurements, with instruments of extreme delicacy of construction and ingenuity of design, till, finally, the trifling number of five thousand measurements for every skull found an advocate in the person of the Hungarian Professor V. Török (whereby the wealth of detail obscured the main objects of study); while, on the other hand, observers deviated into scientific jugglery, like that of the Italian Professor Sergi, who contrived to recognise within the limits of a single small archipelago, the D’Entrecasteaux group of islets near New Guinea, as many as eleven cranial varieties, which were all distinguished by highsounding descriptive names, such as Lophocephalus brachyclitometopus, etc. Macalister’s Criticism of Craniometry.

The misuse of Craniometry is also described by Professor Alexander Macalister[28]:— 28. Presidential Address to Section H., Brit. Ass., 1892.

Despite all the labour that has been bestowed on the subject, craniometric literature is at present as unsatisfactory as it is dull. Hitherto observations have been concentrated on cranial measurements as methods for the discrimination of the skulls of different races. Scores of lines, arcs, chords, and indexes have been devised for this purpose, and the diagnosis of skulls has been attempted by a process as mechanical as that whereby we identify certain issues of postage-stamps by counting the nicks in the margin. But there is underlying all these no unifying hypothesis; so that when we, in our sesquipedalian jargon, describe an Australian skull as microcephalic, phænozygous, tapeino-dolichocephalic, prognathic, platyrhine, hypselopalatine, leptostaphyline, dolichuranic, chamaeprosopic, and microseme, we are no nearer to the formulation of any philosophic concept of the general principles which have led to the assumption of these characters by the cranium in question, and we are forced to echo the apostrophe of Von Török, “Vanity, thy name is Craniology.”

It is significant that so many of the earlier craniologists recognised that the really important problem before them was to gain a knowledge of the size and relative proportions of the various regions of the brain, this being a direct result of the phrenological studies then so much in vogue. When phrenology became discredited, this aspect of craniometry was largely neglected; but recently it has exhibited signs of a healthy revival, and the inner surface of the cranium is now regarded as more instructive than the outer. Though for a time craniology was hailed as the magic formula by which alone all ethnological tangles could be unravelled, measurements of other parts of the body were not ignored by those who recognised that no one measurement was sufficient to determine racial affinities. Thus Anthropometry began to map out definite lines of research, and detailed studies were made of arms and legs, hands and feet, curves and angles, brains and viscera; while, shorn of its extravagant claims, craniology took its legitimate place as one in a series of bodily measurements. One of the earliest workers in measurements other than that of the skull was Charles White (1728-1813). Anthropometry.