Cultural Differences In Interpersonal Communication

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

Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/ or interpret communication methods in different ways

To me interpersonal communication describes the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between two different people. Joseph DeVito states that “interpersonal communication is inevitable, irreversible, and unrepeatable” due to these things effective communication is a necessary skill for us to function in our day to day lives (p. 20). Therefore, I have created a theory for interpersonal communication that goes as follows; To experience effective communication you must understand: your culture, the other person’s culture, and how to listen effectively. By knowing these three things you can consistently avoid misunderstandings and promote understanding in your interpersonal and intercultural relationships.

You know that feeling of home whether it’s with family members or even your loved ones? I don’t think that home is something that is automatically there, I believe that it is something that’s created. I learned that lesson through the eyes of one of my older friends who came from India with his brother when he was 16 in order to make a living. My friend Vikas, told me everything he had to do and the struggles he conquered in order to make his own successful business here in the U.S. Some things he told be reminded me of interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and intracultural communication. He had to have a lot of communication with his friend who also happened to be from India and some new friends and colleagues he met through his journey. Of course there was homesickness and the occasional depression, but that didn’t stop him from creating his now successful business.

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.

I felt confident going into it. I did not make any script, so we were basically doing it “off the cuff.” I thought it might feel more natural that way. I feel good about coming to a compromise toward the end of the video when Mrs. Lee stated that she would be willing to give Lia her medications if a Shaman and doctor worked together to come up with a treatment plan for Lia.

The organization I have chosen is NEA (National Education Association) that deals with communicating cross-cultural and what teachers should know about diversity. The Website address is http://iteslj.org/Articles/Pratt-Johnson-CrossCultural.html which is found in the NEA link. The article explains the need for educators in terms of culturally responsive and competent as schools and classrooms become increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse. The article highlights five important points of cultural difference with which all teachers should be aware when teaching students of diverse backgrounds. These five points are ways of knowing, ways of solving problems, ways of communicating nonverbally, ways of learning, and ways of dealing

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

Humans have been communicating since four million years. On the other hand, the birth of culture is estimated to have taken place about 35,000 years ago. Today, both culture and communication have evolved considerably and have become interdependent of one another, to the point that communication is considered to be a product of culture. Thus, our own culture has a deep impact on our thoughts and behaviors. Since each culture has its distinct aspects, intercultural communication can be the cause of conflict and disorder. There are three main issues which are at the root of the problem of intercultural miscommunication : language as a barrier, cultural diversity and ethnocentrism. I will analyze

¡°The moon is a rocky physical sphere that orbits the Earth; yet when looking at this object, many Americans often see a man in the moon, many Native Americans perceive a rabbit, Chinese claim a lady is fleeing her husband, and Samoans report a woman weaving¡±(Samovar 56). For Americans, a ¡°V¡± sign made with two fingers usually represents victory. Australians equate this gesture with a rude American gesture usually made with the middle finger. Most Asians respond negatively to white flowers because white is associated with death. For Peruvians, Iranians, and Mexicans, yellow flowers often invoke the same reaction. In these three examples, the external objects (moons, hands, flowers) were

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.

Doing business in a foreign country is not easy, because many people do not know how to communicate effectively with others of different cultures and background. Statistics show that more than half of international joint ventures fail within two to three years because of a lack of cultural Intelligence. Cultural differences became the main barriers of cross-cultural communication, and therefore overcoming cross-cultural communication barriers has become the common problems in the business world today. Most of the foreigners still cannot fit into a different culture when they have to transfer to another country to work with different people, even they were international business major or have learned the basic concept of international management in their colleges. Therefore, it is better to have someone who are familiar with the culture.

As Jeane Kirkpatrick once said, “Cross cultural experience and communication teaches us not simply that people have different beliefs, but that people seek meaning and understand themselves and others in some sense as members of a universe ruled by God.” Effective cross cultural communication with people of different cultures can be especially challenging. Culture itself provides human beings with different ways of thinking and responding, which includes a variety of different ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world. While there are ways of translating the language of other cultures in order to have the ability to effectively use cross cultural communication (most specifically for collaborative purposes), the same words can mean different things to different people from different cultures, even when they speak the same language. In fact, when languages are diverse, and translation has to be used to communicate (cross cultural), the potential for misunderstandings and difficulty rises. In the case of “Strategies for Smooth and Effective Cross-Cultural Online Collaborative Learning” written by Junfeng Yang, Kinshuk Huiju, Sue-Jen Chen, and Ronghuai Huang, describes the difficulties with cross cultural communication and the findings of a study done by Hangzhou Normal University (China), Athabasca University (Canada), and University of North Caroline (United States) about this difficult subject and its gravity

A single thread cannot become a cord, and a single tree does not make a forest. This Cheng Yu is about cooperation and being part of a larger whole. Its roots stem from Confucian beliefs of organized society through togetherness. This is in stark contrast to the emphasis placed on individualism in some Western countries.

Cross-cultural communication varies depending on the cultures. Although students have a high level of proficiency, second language learners still find difficulties while being understood that cross-cultural differences appear in speaking their second language. This concern makes learners consider that pronunciation might be the cause of the misunderstanding. However, fluency and accuracy elements are very important for effective conversation, learners of English as a second language may find themselves in a difficult position when they have to speak with native speakers of English, because they have received enough knowledge in areas such