The Importance Of Intercultural Relationship

The intercultural challenges I am currently facing is my CQ knowledge. I am having challenges because I cannot find common ground when working with a variety of cultures. For example, I work as a customer service representative in a call center and I’m around a variety of cultures. I find it very hard to understand everyone’s triggers, their dislikes, and likes, and why they behave or act a certain way with different situations. I try to ask questions to grasp an understanding of their behaviors, and still find it quite challenging to reach common ground. I try to be very open-minded, however, it always causes me to become frustrated.

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

When you are in an intercultural relationship you can learn exactly what there communicative behaviors are. Everyone has their different ways they communicate with other people, whether it is family or friends. Communication is by far one of the most important keys to have when you are in a relationship. Without communication there would be no relationship. One of the unique aspects of an intercultural relationship is to learn how and why that individual communicates in a different way compared to you. Having an intercultural relationship is all about learning someone else’s culture and communication is by far the most important aspect.

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

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.

Therefore, just like the coming together stages of a relationship there are five stages to coming apart. The first sign of a relationship coming to an end is Differentiating, meaning the couple’s commonalities and differences are affecting them. In the course of this stage, the impetus of “working together” stance instantly move from “couple” to “individualistic”. Temporary estrangement become a solution. For that reason, the relationship shifts rapidly from differences to setting boundaries on the couple’s interaction. This is called the Circumscribing stage, which means to know everything you need to know about your partner but you avoid it by going around the problem. It is like saying your partner isn’t sincere so you avoid the problem and not sort it out which includes less communication.

Mark Knapp developed a theoretical model to which identifies the stages of interpersonal relationships which explains how relationships begin and grow, as well as how they deteriorate and end. This model defines ten separate stages of relational development under three different interrelating categories; Coming Together, Relational Maintenance, and Coming Apart. An analysis of a personal relationship through the use of Knapp’s stages of relational development leads to a better understanding of that relationship and our role within it. In this essay I will be analyzing a personal relationship of my own using Knapp’s stages as a guide. However, these stages are subjective to each individual’s unique situation. Therefore, I will only be examining my relationship in the “coming together” stages. Furthermore, it is possible to pass over or amalgamate stages, as these stages are closer to a guide rather than set rules. For this analysis I will be breaking the “coming together” stages into initiating, experimentation and intensifying, integration, and bonding.

Breaking stereotypes: we live to be different and at the same time, attempt to fit in with the way society dictates. Usually a few people out of certain groups of people who live and do things differently than our standard perspective, we put those groups of people, (after judging only a few), in the proverbial nutshell known as stereotype. Stereotyping is an indication of one group of people exhibiting superiority over another group of people usually by some sort of negative connotation that undermines their values. Intercultural relationships helps to break down these type of negative actions allowing for a different perspective and a better understanding. (Trulymadly, 2014)

Many of us individuals face conflicts almost everyday in our lives. People of all culture have challenging in their lives that they come across a certain incident and get confused in what decision to be made. These conflicts could be a conflict between oneself and another person, an inner-conflict, a conflict between oneself and nature, one and society, or oneself and God. There are positive and negative intercultural conflicts that occurs every day. An example of a positive conflict could be two different cultures compliment one another on the way they dress or how good their food is in the way they prepare it in their culture, or just communicating and respecting one another with the issue that needs to be addressed openly. A negative conflict is when someone has a lack of communication and unwilling to compromise. According to lecture 6, “intercultural conflict occurs when differences in goals, expectations, and values stem from broader cultural differences” (COM-263 Lecture 6, 2017). This paper will describe an incident that happened in France with a Muslim women on how the conflict arose, the best way to handle the conflict, and one recommendation that comes from a Christian Worldview.

Communication within one cultural group sharing traditions and national or regional identity is often effortless. The social and cultural meanings between the same cultures in regard to communication are understood the way they are intended. When discourse happens within members of the same social groups; they will communicate, talk, discuss in similar places that all members of that culture attend or visit like bars, schools, shopping malls, community meetings, party events, the office, etc. The meaning arrived at or the knowledge and accepted truth toward an issue is more or less the consensus of a

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.

The developmental model that I will be using is Bennett’s developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (DMIS). Bennett’s model “…provides a framework for understanding individual development and awareness along a continuum from high ethnocentric to highly ethnorelative, and this framework can help us better understand some of the dynamics that might occur” (Bennett, 135). According to the model, there are two groups ethnocentric, which has three sub stages, and ethnorelative, which also has three sub stages. In the first category, ethnocentric, the three sub stages are denial, defense and minimization, while, the second category, ethnorelative, the three sub stages are acceptance, adaption and integration. “Denial is the inability to see cultural differences and is evident when individuals isolate or separate themselves in homogenous groups” (Bennett, 135). Defense is similar to denial; however, they are able to recognize cultural differences but have a negative outlook about other’s cultures (Bennett, 137). The last one in the ethnocentric category is minimization which when people can recognize and accept superficial cultural differences; however, they still view everyone as the same (Bennett, 138). The first one in the ethnorelative category is acceptance, which is when the individual is able to identify and appreciate one’s cultural differences such as values and behaviors (Bennett, 140). The next stage is adaption which is when individuals start to see “cultural

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

Intercultural communication is commonly explained as an interaction between people of 'different cultures whether defined in terms of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic differences.' Human communication consists of verbal and nonverbal messages (language and gestures) which are shaped by gender, social class or culture. Thus, what perimeters define the intercultural exchange and what primary messages do we need or try to convey?

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.