Essay about Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication happens when people from different cultures communicate and interact with one another (Koester & Lustig, 2015).

Humans have thrived in their outlined structure of society and communicate with different cultures in a variety levels, ways, and ideas. Communication between cultures is shaped its values, beliefs, and behaviors. These components characterize an array of individuals, with determinate factors that affect how they communicate. The United States cultural components of values, beliefs, and behavior, affect how I communicate with unfamiliar cultures in a variety of ways.

The second chapter includes several interesting concepts, one of which being the differences between intercultural and interpersonal communication. Intercultural communication is defined as “the process that occurs when members of two or more cultures or co-cultures exchange messages in a manner that is influenced by their different cultural perceptions and symbol systems, both verbal and nonverbal” (Adler et al., 2015, pg. 40). While most interactions seem to have some sense of intercultural aspect due to the great diversity not only in race but in backgrounds today, not all interactions have this effect. Intercultural interactions only occur when there is a difference between the two people in contact that is noticeable and creates a different dynamic in the interaction. The book uses the term “salience” in order “to describe how much weight we attach to a particular person or phenomenon” (Adler et al., 2015, pg. 41). The book gives several examples, such as different ethnicities on the same basketball team striving toward a common goal don’t place much emphasis in their cultural discrepancies, just as young children from different countries playing together don’t experience intercultural communication until they reach an age when they can understand what makes them different from each other. (Adler et al., 2015, pg. 41) In my own life, and can look back and see how I have played football with guys from a very different culture, and found it easy to spend time around them

My site of investigation is a dance studio, namely Fit Dance Studio, in Kowloon Bay. It has been, without a second thought, chosen for my ethnographic research because I have been an active participant over there recurrently for five years on a regular basis. I have been going to the dance classes and joining regular parties with other participants, including dance tutors and students of different ages and backgrounds from time to time. In this regard, my ethnographic data may sound and accurate with my understanding about the community. I acquire the data through observational techniques and participation in the practice. Since my participation is a long process of approximately five years, I believe I am a competent member and

My communal identity is that of the Inland Northwest. The Inland Northwest is a diverse area of America, where both migrants from other countries and migrants from other states settle down to live. Regardless of that, those who grow up here quickly acclimate to the region.

CIP Skill: Good intercultural communication ability needs the willingness to accept differences and adapt to them. Intercultural communication also requires an understanding that different cultures have different customs, standards, social mores, and even thought patterns.

The example of poor intercultural communication between the United States of America and Mexico is how the communication significantly affected foreign policy and international commerce between the two countries. Mexico is a country of intercultural significance and neighbors the United States of America. The United States of America is traditional and within the country, many cultures exist. The work ethic and language, within intercultural communication in Mexico and the United States of America, are similar.

Communication can be performed through the utilisation of languages, such as English. Presently, English has become a favourable and prominent tool for interaction among people of different cultural backgrounds. The high demand in acquiring English for fields such as international politics, science and technology has led to the global spread of the language. Consequently, English is recognised as an international language, and its ownership is considered to be denationalised and renationalised. The understanding of this ownership status is crucial in establishing an effective practice of intercultural communication, by acknowledging the variations of English and cultural differences in communication styles within classroom and business contexts.

While all of these sources are great and well accredited, the more direct questions were not able to be asked on this end. A personal interview will be conducted with Mr. Jim Whorley, a divorce lawyer who received his M.B.A. (1987) and his Juris Doctorate with Honors (1990) at The University of Texas located in Austin, Texas. Mr. Whorley is Board Certified in Family Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (1997), and has been practicing law for 27 years in the greater Central Texas area. Questions that are focused on how intercultural communication is emphasized in between the barristers will be asked through an exclusive interview. Hopefully he can give adequate insight into the educational purposes of intercultural communication in the legal communities.

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.

Anytime I went to arts class my brain automatically shut down because of my Italian professor's witty and facetious answers he gave to every question Because I couldn't stand it and hated. Coming from a stern African background, I appreciate the use of ungregarious and straightforward responses that is going straight to the point and not beating about the bush; hitting the nail on its head. But in this situation I fell victim to the difference in cultural background that existed between us that is him being Italian hence his witty answers to questions and me being African. Intercultural communication hinders the smooth interaction between members of different cultural backgrounds due to norms such as individualism vs collectivism where some people choose to take care of themselves and their immediate loved ones like children and the latter being a way of life which people tend to care about people on a larger scale an example is the extended family system, low context VS high context, low context cultures rely primarily on words to express their thoughts which contrasts the use of nonverbal cues to express thoughts in the high context culture, also is the high and low power distance, societies with low power distance tend to challenge authority and question their actions but in high context cultures they accept the distance that lies between the people and their leaders and finally achievement vs nurturing, achievement minded societies are more focused on attaining material

During our intercultural communications field trip we went to five different locations. At first the other girls in the groups were very stressed about visiting so many places and had a very set agenda. As the driver I just asked for the addresses and said, “Alright, where to?”.

Intercultural communication occurs when culturally diverse people interact with each other, and providing quality care to everyone is the reason many individuals enter the health care profession - to make life better for others. Intercultural communication is a barrier that the health care industry is facing as a whole, and our society must work to uncover biases and cultural blind spots, improve and be prepared to lead in a diverse environment. In February, 2013, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, noted the “overall health of the American population has improved over the past few decades, but not all Americans have benefitted equally from these improvements. Minority populations, in particular, continue to lag behind whites in a number of areas, including quality of care, access to care, timeliness and outcomes. Other health-care problems that disproportionately affect minorities include provider biases, poor provider-patient communication and health literacy issues”. Awareness of diverse cultures and subcultures, and management of barriers to intercultural communications would improve the sharing of good practices and innovation spread within the healthcare industry.

In today’s interview, I learned how natives of their own state may perceive intercultural communication being no different domestically than internationally in terms of social exchange. Based on the interview with Dr. Lloyd Williams, he believes that a person’s host culture may be preferred over their home culture. A person who has lived 90% or the majority of their life in their home state, may view their sense of belonging from a negative aspect. Being privileged, well-educated, versatile in language, and/or multi-cultural may not be sufficient enough, even when it pertains to receiving equal treatment in today’s society. While raising the question, if a person’s treated differently as a native rather than being a transplant or tourist regardless of a person’s success, cultural relations, or privilege. A native’s ethnicity, international experiences, and unjust treatment may create an emotional disconnect in their own home state based on not receiving cultural respect as being a person’s outlook from one’s own worldview perspective.

Communication exists of both verbal and nonverbal messages with the objective to achieve shared meanings, for example, both parties understand equally. However, in intercultural communication, the chance of really understanding each other is quite low. Intercultural, includes that at least two parties from different cultural backgrounds are involved. The way we interpret, verbal and nonverbal messages are based on our culture and this is the major difficulty in intercultural encounters. There are no cultures which are similar, it means that each culture interprets gestures, nonverbal signs, cues and symbols in a differently way, not to mention the language itself. Thus, the greater the difference between the two cultures involved, the more difficult it is for the parties to understand each other (Samovar et al., 2014).