Chapter 12 intercultural communication

1. 1. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION Week 3: Chapter 12

2. 2. 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.
3. 3. 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.
4. 4. 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.
5. 5. DEFINING CULTURE• Cultures are learned• Cultures are shared•
Cultures are multifaceted• Cultures are dynamic• Cultural identities are
overlapping
6. 6. CULTURAL UNIVERSALS Age grading Ethics Language Athletics
Etiquette LawBodily 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
7. 7. 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
8. 8. CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION • Interpretation of reality •
Understanding of role relations • Goal-oriented behaviour • Sense of self •
Message making
9. 9. 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
10. 10. CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION• Culture and goals – many
cultures are characterized by effort-optimism, others by social-position,
and some no reward at all.
11. 11. 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)
12. 12. 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.
13. 13. 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.
14. 14. 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.
15. 15. 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
16. 16. 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.
17. 17. 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.
18. 18. 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
19. 19. Homework DAY TASKMonday Notes for Objectives 1-5Tuesday Notes
for Objectives 6-10Wednesday Start Reading Log #2Thursday Finish
Reading Log #2Friday Key words from Chapter 12 Preview Chapter 3