Intercultural Communication

(noun)

Intercultural communication is a form of global communication. It is used to describe the wide range of communication problems that naturally appear within an organization made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. Intercultural communication is sometimes used synonymously with cross-cultural communication. In this sense it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and perceive the world around them.

Related Terms

Examples of Intercultural Communication in the following topics:

  • Considering Cultural and Interpersonal Differences

    • Intercultural competence is an individual's ability to communicate with, and adapt to, the cultural norms and expectations of each employee or customer.
    • Perspectives vary as to what constitutes intercultural understanding.
    • The following figure highlights the three building blocks of one intercultural approach: cross-cultural competence, language proficiency, and regional expertise.
    • Immersion is best achieved through interacting and communicating with people from other cultures often enough to face and overcome the intrinsic obstacles that may present themselves.
    • To attain a high level of cultural awareness, along with intercultural communication skills, requires thinking about and understanding different people and their respective cultures.

  • Culture Bias

    • How we communicated with one another in spite of and in support of our diverse backgrounds is at the heart of intercultural communication.
    • Unfortunately, more often than not our cultural backgrounds serve as reminders of the ways in which we differ from one another and that our bias can serve as barriers to communication.

  • Gender and Diversity

    • Barriers to effective communication can distort a message and its intention, which may result in failure of the communication process or damage to a relationship.
    • The most effective way to ensure proper communicative efficiency in diverse teams is to improve intercultural competence.
    • Intercultural competence is simply the ability to communicate with different groups and cultures effectively and appropriately—"effectively" meaning that shared goals are being accomplished, and "appropriately" meaning doing so without violating the values, norms, relationships, or expectations of others.
    • Intercultural competence is a widely studied area of organizational communications and behavior.
    • Of course, intercultural considerations are only some of the issues that arise in diverse teams.

  • Cultural Transmission

    • Cultural learning is dependent on innovation or the ability to create new responses to the environment and the ability to communicate or imitate the behavior of others.
    • Intercultural competence is the ability to communicate successfully with people of other cultures.
    • In interactions with people from foreign cultures, a person who is interculturally competent understands culture-specific concepts in perception, thinking, feeling, and acting.
    • The interculturally competent person considers earlier experiences free from prejudices, and has an interest in, and motivation towards, continued learning.
    • The development of intercultural competence is mostly based on the individual's experiences while communicating with different cultures.

  • Movement and Gesture

    • The movement of the body conveys many specific meanings to an audience but can be misinterpreted in an intercultural setting.
    • You can use your body to communicate positively with the audience.
    • A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages such as the open gesture of Desmond Tutu .
    • This form of nonverbal communication is used to emphasize the message.

  • The Challenge of Globalization

    • Globalization is the international integration of intercultural ideas, perspectives, products/services, culture, and technology.
    • In general terms, globalization is the international integration of intercultural ideas, perspectives, products/services, culture, and technology.
    • The ease of modern globalization is often attributed to rapid technological developments in transportation and communication.
    • Intercultural marketplaces allow for differing demographics, larger market potential, a more diverse customer base (and therefore more diverse product offering) and a highly valuable human resource potential.

  • Cultural Intelligence

    • Cultural intelligence is the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
    • The concept of cultural intelligence is exactly what it sounds like—the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
    • An interesting perspective on cultural intelligence is well represented in the intercultural-competence diagram, which highlights the way that each segment of cultural knowledge can create synergy when applied to the whole of cultural intelligence, where overlapping generates the highest potential CQ.
    • This diagram illustrates the three factors that constitute an effectively intercultural understanding for management: Regional Expertise, Language Proficiency, and Cross-Cultural Competence.

  • References

    • Jonassen (Ed. ), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology (pp. 984-1016).
    • Training police for intercultural sensitivity: A critical review and discussion of the research.

  • The Challenge of Diversity

    • This evolving outlook on a diverse workplace has ultimately resulted in the recognition and implementation of diversity management and intercultural understandings within organizations, creating stronger and more ethical business practices.
    • Despite this successful trajectory, challenges to diversity naturally occur as a result of communication (languages and values), majority hegemony, and groupthink.
    • Communication is at the heart of diversity management, but not necessarily for obvious reasons.
    • The more difficult challenge is the intangibles in communication that arise not from literal words but from cultural expectations.
    • The most substantial threat these communicative barriers and homogeneous tendencies create could loosely be defined as groupthink.

  • Cultural Differences in Approaching Criticism

    • Different cultural groups have different ways of communicating both verbally and non-verbally.
    • In the United States, students believe that it is up to the professor to communicate the material to the students.
    • However, in an intercultural situation involving collectivist cultures, the speaker should not only be concerned with maintaining his or her own face, but also that of the listeners.
    • Additionally, in many African American and Latin American communities, it is considered respectful for a child not to look directly at an adult who is speaking to them.
    • The attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the attendees shape the communication inside and outside the conference.