Cross- Cultural Communication

Cross-cultural communication involves an understanding of how people from different cultures speak, communicate, and perceive the world around them. This type of communication has become fundamental to companies as well as entrepreneurs looking to grow their business, in addition to being fundamental as the workplace has become more diverse. In this line is important to highligh the concept of high- and low-context culture.

Different social, professional and cultural contexts may affect relationships and the way people communicate due to of a lack of understanding or knowledge of one another’s background and culture. This could be through their race, religion, ethnicity or where they come from. Each one of these can have similar or very different ways to communicate. For example

ASSIGNMENT: Achieving competence as an interpersonal communicator in a diverse society is necessary to your personal and professional success. One way to enhance our understanding of interpersonal communication as a relationship-building activity is to engage in first hand dialogue with people from cultures other than your own. This assignment gives you the opportunity to engage in the dual perspective – honoring the perspective of the person with whom you are communicating as well as honoring your own perspective. You are also able to contrast your worldview with the perspective of someone with a different life experience than your

My research is focused on the problems associated with cross-cultural communication and how awareness of culture, language, tradition, and business practices can increase the advantages to globalization. This report will be field specific in

Talking and listening are essential life skills. The ability to talk in order to communicate and exchange ideas and information, to negotiate with others, to express feelings and emotions, allows human beings to function well in the world and to be full and active members of society. Communication, to be effective, requires the ability to listen, to understand and to make sense of what is heard. On the personal level, when we listen, we give attention to the other person in such a way as to allow them to feel heard, understood and therefore respected. In that way, listening is more than

Today, we live in a culturally diverse society due to globalization. As our world grows, expands and become increasingly more interconnected, the need for effective interpersonal communication among differing cultures has become apparent. When people from different cultures interact with one another there is intercultural communication because different cultures create different interpretation and expectations about what is seen as competent behaviors that will enable the construction of shared meanings.

The ability to speak and listen effectively can mean the difference between succeeding and failing in a job.

Listening is to coherent speaking as reading is to effective writing. English and all other language irrespective of nation or dialect is a totality of four skills: Listening, reading, writing, speaking. Underwood (1989) simplified the definition of listening to "the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear" (p. 1). Mendelsohn (1994) defines listening comprehension as ―the ability to understand the spoken language of native speakers.''

Previous researchers have found that for a person to achieve better and more effective communication competence, it is necessary to develop skills that allow an appropriate participation in specific situations. The ability to listen, ask questions, and express concepts or ideas effectively is an important part of communication competence. Intercultural communication presents an unexplored and challenging field that needs to be understood for a better development in communication. (Dillon and McKenzie, 1998). The variables of listening depend on the different perceptions that a person obtains through their cultural background. Furthermore, culture often affects the structure of consciousness in the act of listening. When a person seeks to

Listening is a vital element of communication and it is very much different from hearing sense of human. A meaningful communication requires both a good listener and a speaker. However, the effect of a listening style may vary depending on the occasions and situations a listener is in. Sometimes, speaker exhibit ineffective style such as defensiveness, ambushing, pseudo-listening, stage hogging and selective listening in their communication tracks.

Intercultural communication: A discourse approach attempts to explain the discourse approach and points to the authors ' distinction between cross-cultural communication and intercultural communication. The chapter underlines the authors ' approach and theory to intercultural communication. It covers several explanations and the distinction between cross-cultural communication and intercultural communication. The chapter discusses the many varieties of culture that exist. It also clarifies that intercultural communication can occur in conversations not necessarily when two people are from different countries.

Intercultural communication competence refers to the ability of an individual to adapt and communicate appropriately and effectively across a wide array of cultural contexts. That is to say, for an individual to be considered an intercultural communicator they must understand other’s cultures as well as they understand their own, and apply this understanding to communication (Chen 1-2). With the increasing diversity at the workplace, school and other social settings, it has become increasingly important to learn how to communicate with people from a diverse array of cultures. More importantly, adapting to a more effective intercultural communication competence model provides us with learning opportunities occasioned by the interaction with people from other backgrounds. The intercultural communication competence model comes with some key components including tolerance for uncertainty, self-knowledge, and motivation. The greatest and most important of these aspects is motivation. An individual must be willing to foster relationships with people from a different cultural background. If an individual lacks the willingness to promote intercultural relationships, then other aspects of the intercultural communication model become moot.

Listening is a very important skill in language learning, as it is the receptive skill that students use at the very beginning of the learning. According to Trinkle (2008), students acquire listening skill before reading skill. They can understand the complex stories by listening to what other read for them before they can read by themselves. Moreover, they rely on this skill in order to build other skills for communication. Without listening skill in oral communication, the communication breakdown can easily occur as the speaker might be misunderstood.

Moreover, although all these factors are influential in effective communication there is another very important factor to bear in mind, namely, your own culture. As people learn more and more about new cultures, they try to adapt to them. Often they might find themselves emerging in new cultures and begin disregarding their own unique culture. However, people should always strive to promote intercultural communication by representing their culture. They can demonstrate that, by always remembering the values, traditions and the uncommon things that make their culture so

1. From an economic imperative perspective, why is it important to be able to communicate interculturally?