Obstacles to Intercultural Communication

        

  The obstacles to intercultural communication are a problem that is really difficult to

solve. This is because of the differences in some moral and social values, as well as the

different ways of subconsciously interpreting body language and communication signals that

sometimes we don’t know of or we underestimate. However, there are some concepts and

behaviors to follow that could help us minimize the problem, those include being open-minded,

accept the differences and be flexible enough to adapt to those differences. This could allow us

to be more sensitive and less uncomfortable when interacting with a person from a foreign

country. 

  The moral differences between cultures are often the cause of many misunderstandings.

This is because of the ethnocentric attitude of the human mind, meaning that we are often

assuming that what we are used to do, see and think in our culture is right and that everything

different is wrong. For instance, every culture gives a different weight to punctuality. Some

people are used to be always punctual, while for others it’s totally ok to not worry about time in

certain occasions. There are also different levels of lateness, and all of these variables change

from culture to culture. That being said, it could happen that a person who has punctuality as a

moral value has an appointment with someone who doesn’t have that value and arrive late

without even apologizing. The message that the first person is going to take is that the second

one arrived late on purpose, and he’ll be mad at him. But this is only a misunderstanding

because the laggard does not conceive arriving late as a disrespectful thing. Another example is

that in some “contact” cultures, when a man is greeting a woman, it’s normal to friendly kiss

each other. This is an act that is considered outrageous from many cultures. This means that if

we think as an ethnocentric being, we’ll misunderstand each other’s actions.

  One of the first problems we encounter when communicating with a person from a

different culture from ours is body language. Naturally, spoken language itself can be a problem

but while with spoken language we could say something grammatically wrong, with no

repercussion on the content, body language can be very ambiguous and can be interpreted

differently from people from different cultures. As an example, people from southern Europe and

South America use hand gestures and facial expressions to convey a more precise and

effective feeling or attitude. As an Italian, I could make an entire conversation using just hands

and facial expressions, and I’ve done it many times, without even having to think about it. But

for this reason, I’ve found myself trying to do the same thing with people from other countries

and it came out something that was nothing but awkward. People who are not used to this kind

of non-verbal communication can think that someone who is that lively is angry or even mad,

and facial expressions could be interpreted as an attitude that was not meant to be transmitted.

On the other hand, someone who doesn’t use body language as much can be seen as shy or

unsympathetic. Looking at this problem from both perspectives is one of the keys to solve it. 

           The best thing to do to prevent cultural misunderstandings then is being aware of the

many differences that exist in the world. We should be curious about different ways of thinking

and maybe try to study them. It’s fundamental that we stop thinking that what’s ours is right and

what is foreign is wrong and that we put our ethnocentric instinct away. If we feel outraged by

someone else’s behavior, maybe we don’t know that in his mind he’s not doing anything wrong.

The way to know this is by facing the problem and to talk about it with the concerned person.

This way we can first of all acknowledge the cultural difference and we can find a good

compromise. Then, we have to be aware of the fact that we could do something that upset the

other person, too. Knowing this, we’ll be more aware of our actions and we’ll prevent some

misunderstanding. One more thing we can do to prevent is that if we know that we’ll have to

interact with someone from another culture we could try to study a little of their culture to

prepare ourselves to the differences, being careful not to rely on wrong stereotypes.
  There’s a big chance that when communicating with someone from another culture there

will be some misunderstandings, but we can solve this problem. If we really begin to be open-

minded and we are curious about other cultures we can understand some behaviors that could

be strange for us, but normal for someone else, believing that nearly nobody will want to upset

us. If we have faith in humanity we’ll be able to solve the intercultural communication problems.