Lacuna model

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The lacuna model is a tool for unlocking culture differences or missing "gaps" in text (in the further meaning). The lacuna model was established as a theory by Jurij Sorokin and Irina Markovina (Russia), further developed by Astrid Ertelt-Vieth and Hartmut Schröder (Germany) and practical research tested in ethnopsycholinguistics (Igor Panasiuk 2000 and 2005), Russian studies (Vladimir Zhelvis 2002; Astrid Ertelt-Vieth 1987; 2005), American studies (Iosif Sternin and Marina Sternina 2001), Arabic studies (Sherine Elsayed 2005), Germanics studies (Elena Denisova-Schmidt 2005), Finnish studies (Pirkko Muikku-Werner 2005), literature studies (Irina Markovina 2005), foreign language acquisition (Natalia Turunen 2005), film studies (Hannah Sard 2005), journalism (B. Dellinger 1995; Myles Ludwig and Erika Grodzki 2005), translation studies (Susanne Becker 2005), cultural studies (Gwenn Gundula Hiller 2005), advertising research (Erika Grodzki 2003), human resource management, transcultural studies (Elena Denisova-Schmidt 2015), and cross-cultural and intercultural management (Olena Kryzhko 2015).

There are a few classifications of lacunas in existence. Astrid Ertelt-Vieth (2005) labels the first dimension (three major categories as: mental lacunas, activity lacunas and object lacunas) and the second dimension (axiological lacunas) of all lacunas.

• Mental lacunas are differences in cognitive and affective states.
• Lacunas of activity recognize different ways of processing information, talking, moving, as well as other activities.
• Object lacunas are the differences in objects, the human body, and the environment.
• Axiological lacunas are cultural based meaning/understanding of all mentioned above lacunas.

All lacunas could be confrontative, contrastive, implicit, explicit, relative, profound, absolute, relational and structural.

The Lacuna model is utilized to analyze cultural differences on a micro-level, i.e. it is looking at individual interactions and potential gaps caused by these interactions. It can be used both as stand-alone tool (e.g. Elena Denisova-Schmidt 2005, Gwenn Gundula Hiller 2005, Erika Grodzki 2003) or in combination with established frameworks in cross-cultural communication such as Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, Trompenaars' model of national culture differences, Schwarz’ framework and the GLOBE Study (Olena Kryzhko 2015).