The Importance Of Intercultural Communication

In our world of expanding technology and shrinking geography, people of different cultures have increasing frequency of contact and need for effective communication on a daily basis. Whether through travel, immigration, or international business, having the ability to communicate across many different cultures is an advantage in and of itself. Speaking a different language is an obvious obstacle to intercultural communication, but a greater and more difficult hurdle is to “speak” a different culture. To understand and comprehend and even apply these tiniest

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2011). Experiencing intercultural communication. (4th ed., pp. 226-227). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

There are many people who come from different cultural backgrounds, and have different worldviews. Therefore, communication is the key to helping individuals understand the worldviews of other cultures. While, communicating with people from different cultures can be extremely complex, it can also have many advantages. Culture influence the way individuals think, learn and interpret worldviews. Therefore, to communicate with diverse cultures, individuals must have some knowledge of how they differ in worldviews.

Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) is the ability to take into account the difference in interpersonal communication among cultures when interacting with people from different cultures. This means being able to effectively and appropriately communicate in cross-cultural interactions. Communicating effectively refers to the ability to achieve a desired goal when interacting another person, without wasted effort. Being able communicate appropriately means having the ability to conduct oneself in a manner that does not offend the other person and reflects a sense of understanding of their culture (Shuang 2014). Technology and transportation services are allowing people to be more connected than ever. Thus, ICC is especially valuable

Belonging to a military family has granted me the opportunity to travel around the world and interconnect with diverse people. If the truth is told, all such experiences have contributed greatly in shaping my life in a myriad of remarkable ways. Having been born into an American father and Hong Konger mother, I myself belong to a mixed culture with a diverse ethnic background; learning about various cultures and languages from the U.S., Hong Kong, and Japan – my birth place. This exposure to cultural differentiation from an early age has made communication skills to be one of my greatest strengths. It is very beneficial for me since I developed the ability to engage with diverse people and initiate conversations easily even if we had just become familiar with each other. I am also very fortunate to be able to travel to different countries frequently.

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

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.

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.

Many intercultural communication specialists mention open-mindedness as an attribute necessary for the development of successful intercultural

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

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 first point in my theory is that you can better your skills as an interpersonal communicator by better understanding your own culture. DeVito states that there are. “several major cultural distinctions that are crucial for more effective communication” they are: individualism or collectivism, high or low context, high or low power distance, masculinity or femininity, high or low ambiguity tolerance, long or short term orientation, and indulgent or (p. 34). To be able to understand your or anyone else’s culture you must be able to understand the ways that these things affect communication. Once you understand the ways that you are oriented in these seven categories due to enculturation you can understand how you communicate and become a more effective

Cultural identities and our personalities affect our perceptions. There’s a tendency to favor others who exhibit cultural or personality traits that match up with our own. Effective communication with people of different cultures can be especially challenging. Intercultural communication occurs when a member from one culture produces a message that absorbed by a member of another culture. As stated by (Jandt, 2015), “human perception is usually thought of as a three-step process of selection, organization, and interpretation, each of these steps is affected by culture. The first step in the perception process is the selection. Within your substantial limitation, you are exposed to more stimuli than you could manage. The second step in the perception process is organization. Along with selecting stimuli from the environment, you must organize them in some meaningful way. The third step in the perception process is interpretation. This refers to attaching meaning to sense data and is synonymous with decoding”.

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.

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?