Intercultural Communication And Cultural Development

Furthermore, it was noticeable that cultural traditions and religion determined how groups drifted apart. According to Ting-Toomey and Chung (2012), “communication adaptability refers to the ability to change interaction behaviors and goals to meet the specific needs of the situation. It implies behavioral flexibility in dealing with intercultural miscommunication episodes” (pg.30). For instance, employees not being sensitive towards language barriers and nationality implies lack of willingness to adapt. According to Neely (2015), the situation has gotten to the extreme that “some people did not even know from which country their teammates came and just incorporated them into broad categories” (pg. 4).

Washington, Okoro and Thomas (2012) have written an analysis of the benefits and challenges of improving intercultural communication in international business. Their article functions as an overview of some key issues, and is fairly well-researched, but ultimately treads no new ground. The article first outlines the case for improved intercultural communication, noting that business is becoming increasingly globalized. As nations come together, there is the risk that ventures and deals could fail as the result of errors in intercultural communication. The authors note, however, that "as businesses begin to appreciate and respect cultural differences, they develop a better understanding of why people act in certain ways, and give them a better understanding on how they should be act while conducting business."

This text is a good reference point. This text is used to understanding communication within culture. This source also gave a better understanding

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.

As each group processes distinct characteristics, a constant exchange happens and the original cultural beliefs and make up of the culture begins to be changed for one or both groups. The impact, either negative or positive for both cultural groups will result in a congruent blending of each culture or a cultural breakdown or confusion of one’s culture. A person may have to choose whether he or she want to or not and the expectations of his or her own culture may cause identity crisis (Shvoong, 2010).

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

With the growing of globalization, opportunities of intercultural communication become more common to individuals’ everyday life. Thus, it is of vital importance that people understand linguistic relativity and language ideologies in order to avoid misunderstandings and achieve effective intercultural communication.

I feel the ability to communicate with people across different cultural backgrounds is a strength that I have developed over time. Intercultural communication is the term given to communication that takes place between people whose cultural beliefs values and behaviours differ from one another (Buchanan 2015, p. 44). Cultural knowledge that is developed through socialisation and transferred from one generation to the next, shapes the way people communicate both verbally and nonverbally. It influences an individual’s perception of the world which in turn impacts intrapersonal communication; self-talk, and interpersonal communication; expressing meaning in a variety of settings (Buchanan 2015, p. 34; Kreunus et al. 2011, p. 48). When a person constructs meaning from a message, they attempt to understand what is spoken, how it is spoken and the context of the communication (Kreunus et al. 2011, p. 48). Semantic barriers can occur during when people interpret a messages by associating the meaning to their own cultural understanding and knowledge in order for it to make sense to them (ibid; Tylor, Kossen & Charmaine 2005, p. 271). The following principles can be applied to improve intercultural communication and increase cultural sensitivity; remove cultural barriers; decrease ethnocentrism, challenge biases and stereotypes, avoiding over-attribution bias, be aware of cultural differences to adjust communication (Buchanan 2015, p. 43; Tylor, Kossen & Charmaine 2005, p. 269).

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.

The rapid technological evolution and the growth in the population around the world are playing considerable role in creating new levels of intercultural communicate both locally and globally. People now can get the information from any spots on the planets easily through many televisions channels. Also, gaining huge amount of knowledge from every part around the world is provided by computer networks. Computer networks facilitate the communications as well. Beside create new opportunities, technological and demographic evolutions provide significant challenges to the people. Communicating successfully in another language depends on shifting the frames of reference, norms, and assumptions (Kinzer, 2003). In other words, when

Recently, I had the opportunity to interview someone I knew who had come to the United States from a foreign country, to better understand intercultural communication. Intercultural communication is defined as “Communication between people from different cultural backgrounds.” Pg. (187). As I like to put it, this means to “bridge the culture gap”. Quite a few years ago, I had an experience with communicating outside of my culture when my family received a foreign exchange student named Guilherme, or as we called him, “Gui.” Gui, is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. As one might imagine, it was a difficult relationship to begin with, because of a language barrier, but over time it became easier and easier. Now, Gui and I are the best of friends, which allowed me to conduct a very fun and pleasant interview with him.

Disruptions in intercultural communication regarding the law are subject to no limitations. Whether the issue lies between defendant and plaintiff, or the problem arises between lawyer and jury, lawyer and judge, and even lawyer and client, the disconnects are plenty. Effective communication is essential for the judicial system to work properly, and without proper and mindful correspondence, the system inevitably fails. Intercultural communication refers to the exchanging of information between people from different cultures; according to a study conducted by two anthropologists in the 1950’s, there were greater than 164 definitions of the word ‘culture,’ making the act of Intercultural Communication an ambiguous one. With many participants in the courtroom from different foreign cultural sectors, several challenges arise in the proceedings of daily practice, so by having a strength in intercultural competence, the person in question has an obvious edge. By recalling one’s own cultural heritage and addressing the theoretical foundations of intercultural communication, competence is significantly increased. Without this increased form of competence, it is difficult to maintain an unbiased outlook in between the barristers. Some strategies that are used to ensure that the misunderstandings are minimal include the destruction of language barriers, empathy towards other cultures and customs, and increasing the commonalities between

Sensitivity towards other cultures is essential when living in such a vast and diverse world. It is important to note that cultures are rarely the same, and the differences between cultures should be celebrated. Milton Bennett divided intercultural sensitivity into 6 distinct stages. These stages can be identified as: denial of differences, defense against differences, minimization of difference, acceptance of difference, adaptation to difference, and finally, integration of difference.

In today’s society, our culture is made up of many different types of people from all different backgrounds. Over time, intercultural communications have become essential not only in the business world, but everyday life as well. Intercultural communications can best be defined as the study of communication throughout a variety of social groups/cultures, and how these differences effect the way we interact with one another. Our nation is made up of individuals with very dissimilar religious, educational, social, and ethnic backgrounds, so naturally a wide range of opinions and beliefs are formed and expressed, and the need to understand these differences arises. Although we mostly experience intercultural communications in the US, there is also international communications to consider, which is more associated with government and business concerns on the global level.

People communicate every day through different means, including speech and writing, and the use of languages such as English for both local and global interaction is becoming popular among those of different cultural backgrounds. The high demand in the use of English in the fields of international politics, science and technology has led to the global spread of the language. Due to this, English is currently seen as an international language, and its ownership is considered to be denationalised and renationalised. The understanding of this ownership status is crucial in establishing a successful and effective practice or study of intercultural communication, by acknowledging the variations of English, as well as cultural differences in communication styles within classroom and business contexts.