Features of Intercultural Communication

Features of Intercultural CommunicationIntercultural converse is about how mass from varied refinings communicate. It is a face to face chat between people from dissimilar cultures and backgrounds (Lewis, Slade 2000). In University, the mixing of different cultures is a good grammatical case of intercultural communications. E precise day, we win different things about different cultures. This is serious as it allows the world to grow and become closer allowing countries to attain relations with individually different and to learn and respect the different beliefs of near other cultures. There lead be problems faced along the way to achieving these oddments b bely there be always ways to sweep over these problems. Problems such(prenominal) as language bars, traditionalbeliefs , Gender with regards religion atomic number 18 the main issues which present difficulties towards discipline about different cultures.One of the problems that can affect the movement of int ercultural communications is traditional beliefs. For example, Koreans traditionally as a sign of ac familiarityment and respect, realise one another with a bow. If a westerner goes to Korea and greets a Korean with a wave, it may be disrespectful towards the Korean. This can be overcome by education and the tick intoance of multiculturalism within each soil. A country cannot set forth if it does not except multiculturalism. Storey Douglas said in his word that international communications including the flow of popular culture and news, as strong as educational, economic, and professional exchange, be shown to make water profound influences on how people develop images of other nations and how perceptions and misperceptions affect inter treat at the national take aim (Douglas 1988).Language is the key to a someones self-identity. It enables the person to posit emotions,sh atomic number 18 feelings, tell stories, and convey complex messages and knowledge. Language is ourg reatest intercessor that allows us to relate and understand each other (Imberti, 2007). It can be defined as a system of conceptual symbols that allows us to communicate. It besides provides us with a significant frame of reference and a relational context that sustains our identities (Imberti, 2007). An example of how language can be a barrier towards intercultural communication is when a Chinese man is unable to communicate to a Western man because of his lack of knowledge of the English language delinquency versa. Aki Uchida mentioned in her article about understanding the need to learn English, she dictum it as an all-important(a) means of relating to people of different cultures and constructing sh ard knowledge and understanding (Uchida 1997). Understanding the need to learn another language is important for over approach the language barrier to enable communications between cultures helping us relate to different cultures and sharing our knowledge and understanding of ou r cultures to them.Some cultures reckon that women are inferior to men. It is a barrier preventing us to achieve intercultural communication. For example if a successful Australian woman goes to the middle east where women are permitted to work and their job were to simply stay at home and musical note after the kids, Middle eastern men may find that very intimidating and offensive therefore avoiding any stool of communication with the Australian woman. Aki Uchida suggested in her article that emphasizing the possibility that the beliefs and practices that constitute gender are salient cultural resources and attri exactlyes that participants may reject, accept, or integrate in the tendency of cultural building (Uchida 1997). To build obtain intercultural communications people have to learn to accept and respect their dogmata of another culture for communication to transpire. In respects to the example I gave, Middle eastern men should accept and respect the culture of Australian society and not be terrified to approach the Australian woman with respect and benevolence. Like-wise the Australian woman should witness their culture and be more respectful towards the men not in an inferior way but a restrained manner (not coming across as too aggressive).These are ways that we can form bridges to further improve our drive towards obtaining intercultural communication with different cultures. moreover there are still people in the world who are ethnocentric. Ethnocentric is having the idea that your particular belief or culture is split up than other cultures and beliefs. Having this mind set leave alone only set us back in hopes of obtaining multiculturalism and cross cultural communication. Ethnocentrism is dual-lane into three stages, denial, defense force and minimization are the three ways to define an ethnocentric person (Chu 2014). The person is in denial which means he or she is on the whole not interested in transaction with people of different c ultures (Chu 2014). They are comfortable in their culture and usually do not requirement to step out and accept a different culture. Some are in Defence and take action towards people of different cultures (Chu 2014). Their actions are usually caused by fear of an secret belief or action and therefore in defence, they retaliate against the person in other quarrel categorising them as minorities. Minimization is when they recognise a different culture but at a very superficial and minimal kind of take aim (Chu 2014).Our aim should be to try and help those who are ethnocentric to easily move towards universe ethnorelative. Naomi Ludemen Smith described in her article that to be ethnorelative is to adopt a position that dismantles any notion that there is a set of universal standards by which we can rightfully judge or confront the good and the bad of how a people group, religion, and society lives (Smith 2013). ethno relativism is divided into three stages, acceptance, adaptatio n and integration. Acceptance is to tolerate different cultures, Adaptation is to consume emphathy towards a different culture and integration is not regarding that there is a dominant culture (Chu 2014). To move from ethnocentrism to ethnorelativism, according to Deardorff, the attitudes move from top to bottom. Firstly, when dealing with another culture, the ethnocentric individual will have to show respect, desolation and curiosity discovery (Chu 2014). This is the basic requirement before moving on to the next stage of gaining knowledge and skills to adaptation. Individual has to show cultural self- cognisance which is acknowledging that his or her culture is not perfect. After realising this, you will accept another culture and gain an understanding of it and slowly being open o listen, look on and show respect to a different culture (Chu 2014). After which, a desired internal outcome will be obtained. The individual will gain an ethnorelative mindset and will be able to em pathise with other cultures. Lastly, the individual will obtain the desired external outcome being able to behave and communicate affectively and appropriately to achieve his or her goals to some degree with another culture (Chu 2014).Our ultimate goal is to achieve intercultural competency in todays globalised society. All these technical tools on how to become more ethnorelative will be completely useless if the individual does not possess the counterbalance morals. we need to have ethics when it comes to competence of intercultural communication. In order to target ethics in communication, we must recognise them as an extension of own(prenominal) convictions or we condemn ourselves to study them as idealistic, theoractical constructs (Casmir 2013). We have to gain these ethics ourselves, gaining knowledge of the norms within other cultures and show respect towards these norms, show cordial reception to people from other cultures for others to display respect to our culture t herefore displaying the awareness of different cultures respectable responses (Chu 2014). At the end of the day, it is people who communicate with each other and not cultures that communicate with each other. If we look at the remnants between cultures from our perspective, there are many differences however if you look at it from a individual human to human perspective, There is not much difference in the way people react to things (Chu 2014).We have to put ourselves into unknown territory for us to change and appreciate different cultures and to display ethics. The tuition process or acculturation which is the process of the meeting of cultures and the changes which result from such meetings (Chu 2014). How we acculturate is the same as how we learn about things in our cursory lives such as university or our work step forward, we expose ourselves to unknown situations and learn from it by excepting it. Intercultural empathy is shown when we place ourselves in the shoes of som eone from a different cultures perspective and try to understand what it is like from their eyes (Chu 2014). It is like background knowledge a goal for ourselves in the future and working backwards from that goal that way guide us and sets a focus into attaining our goal. Intercultural competence is important to communications because it helps us bridge cultural differences within and among nations (Chu 2014). Multiculturalism is spreading well-nigh the world due to globalization with counties helping each other expand through trades and multi national operations. Therefore, migration is high and individuals from different cultures are made to act with one another which is why it is necessary for us to have an ethical response to the social reality of cultural tension. Why not get along to help make the world a better place to live in.