INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONWeek 3: Chapter 12

OBJECTIVES

• List and explain the five characteristics of cultures.

• Explain why it is important to learn to communicate cross-culturally.

• Give examples of ways in which culture affects perception, role relationships, motivations and goals, attitudes towards self, and message making.

OBJECTIVES

• List rules that collectivists should follow when interacting with individualists and rules individualists should follow when interacting with collectivists.

• Explain how stereotypes and prejudices can impede intercultural communication.

• Discuss how blanket assumptions of similarity can create problems in intercultural communication.

OBJECTIVES

• Explain culture shock and the draw-back-to-leap model.

• Give examples of ethnocentrism and its effects on communication.

• Identify factors that affect one’s ability to adapt to new cultures.

• Discuss ways to become more open and accepting of cultural differences.

DEFINING CULTURE

• Cultures are learned

• Cultures are shared

• Cultures are multifaceted

• Cultures are dynamic

• Cultural identities are overlapping

CULTURAL UNIVERSALSAge grading Ethics Language

Athletics Etiquette Law

Bodily adornment Family Magic

Calendar Folklore Marriage

Cleanliness Funeral rites Numbers

Cooking Gestures Puberty customs

Cosmology Greetings Rituals

Courtship Hairstyles Sex restrictions

Dancing Hygiene Surgery

Education Kinship Tool-making

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

• Nowadays intercultural communication cannot be avoided

• Advances in telecommunication and transportation technology have created a global village

• Intercultural identity is a sense of belonging to an original and a new culture at the same time

CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION

• Interpretation of reality

• Understanding of role relations

• Goal-oriented behaviour

• Sense of self

• Message making

CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION

• Culture and perception – not knowing the values of another country can result in momentary embarrassment

• Culture and role identities – being a good communicator means understanding role distinctions and adapting one’s communication accordingly

CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION

• Culture and goals – many cultures are characterized by effort-optimism, others by social-position, and some no reward at all.

CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION

• Culture and images of self – beliefs about the self are central to all other values as they affect every aspect of behaviour. (rationality premise, perfectibility premise, mutability premise)

COLLECTIVISM VS INDIVIDUALISM

• Collectivism: subordinate personal goals for the good of others; shared identity is more important than personal identity; comfortable in vertical relationships; value harmony, face-saving, duty to parents, modesty moderation, thrift, equality in reward distribution, and fulfillment of other’s needs.

• Individualism: values freedom, honesty, social recognition, comfort, hedonism, and reward-distribution based on individual performance.

CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION

• Culture and language style – everything that can be said in one language cannot be said in another, meanings are not directly translatable. Speech forms such as teasing, charm, flattery, lying, effusiveness or directness have different values in different cultures.

STEREOTYPES AND PREJUDICES

• Stereotypes: generalized 2nd-hand beliefs that provide conceptual biases from which we ‘make sense’ out of what goes on around us, whether they are accurate or fit the circumstances.

• Prejudice: a negative social attitude held by members of one group toward members of another group.

CULTURE SHOCK

• The anxiety that results from losing all of our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse.

• Signs: feelings of helplessness, lowered self-esteem, desire to return home, insomnia, depression, physical illness, withdrawl and hostility toward host culture.

• Draw-back-to-leap model

ETHNOCENTRISM

• The belief that one’s own culture is superior to all others and the tendency to judge all cultures by one’s own criteria.

ADAPTING TO NEW CULTURES

• Host social communication and ethnic social communication are two important determinants of intercultural success.

• Those interested in acculturation should expose themselves as much as possible to host social communication.

BECOMING AN OPEN COMMUNICATOR

• Open yourself to new contacts• Learn about the history and experiences of

people from diverse cultures• Examine yourself for possible stereotypes• Responsible and open communicators are

willing and able to role-take• Each of us should work on becoming more

self-confident

Homework

DAY TASK

Monday Notes for Objectives 1-5

Tuesday Notes for Objectives 6-10

Wednesday Start Reading Log #2

Thursday Finish Reading Log #2

Friday Key words from Chapter 12Preview Chapter 3