Competence And Intercultural Communication

Competent interpersonal communication is a worthy and often elusive goal. Interpersonal

competence in intercultural interactions is an even more difficult objective to achieve, because
cultural differences create dissimilar meanings and expectations that require even greater levels of
communication skill. We base our understanding of intercultural competence on the work of scholars
who have studied communicative competence from a primarily intracultural perspective and on the
conclusions of other scholars who have studied intercultural competence.
The study of intercultural competence has been motivated primarily by practical concerns.
Businesses, government agencies, and educational institutions want to select people for intercultural
assignments who will be successful. Lack of intercultural competence means failed business
ventures, government projects that have not achieved their objectives, and unsuccessful learning
experiences for students.

Intracultural Communication Competence

Although there is still some disagreement among communication scholars about how best to
conceptualize and measure communication competence, there is increasing agreement about
certain of its fundamental characteristics.3 In our discussion we draw heavily on the work of Brian
Spitzberg and his colleagues. The following definition of communication competence illustrates the
key components of their approach:
Competent communication is interaction that is perceived as effective in fulfilling certain rewarding
objectives in a way that is also appropriate to the context in which the interaction occurs.4

This definition provides guidance for understanding communicative and intercultural competence
in several ways. A key word is perceived because it means that competence is best determined by
the people who are interacting with each other. In other words, communicative competence is a
social judgment about how well a person interacts with others. That competence involves a social
perception suggests that it will always be specific to the context and interpersonal relationship within
which it occurs. Therefore, whereas judgments of competence are influenced by an assessment of
an individual's personal characteristics, they cannot be wholly determined by them, becau-

I fell in love with the ministers son the winter I turned 14. He was not Chinese, but as white as Mary in
the manger. For Christmas I prayed for this blond-haired boy, Robert and a slim new American nose.
When I found out that my parents had invited the minister's family over for Christmas Eve dinner, I
cried. What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas? What would he think of our noisy
Chinese relatives who lacked proper American manners? What terrible disappointment would he feel
upon seeing not a roast turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food?
On Christmas Eve I saw that my mother had outdone herself in creating a strange menu. She was
pulling black veins out of the backs of prawns. The kitchen was littered with appalling mounds of raw
food: a slimy rock cod with bulging fish eyes that pleaded not to be thrown in a pan of hot oil. Tofu, which
looked like stacked wedges of rubber white sponges. A bowl soaking dried fungus back to life. A plate of
squid, their backs crisscrossed with knife markings so they resembled bicycle tires.
And then they arrived—the minister's family and all my relatives in a clamor of doorbells and rumpled
Christmas packages. Robert grunted hello, and I pretended he was not worthy of existence.
Dinner threw me deeper in despair. My relatives licked the ends of their chopsticks and reached
across the table, dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food. Robert and his family waited patiently
for platters to be passed to them. My relatives murmured with pleasure when my mother brought out the
whole steamed fish. Robert grimaced. Then my father poked his chopsticks just below the fish eye and
plucked out the soft meat. “Amy, your favorite,” he said, offering me the tender fish cheek. I wanted to
disappear.
At the end of the meal my father leaned back and belched loudly, thanking my mother for her fine
cooking. "It's a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied,” explained my father to our astonished
guests. Robert was looking down at his plate with a reddened face. The minister managed to muster up a
quiet burp. I was stunned into silence for the rest of the night.
After everyone had gone, my mother said to me. “You want to be the same as American girl on the
outside.” She handed me an early gift. It was a miniskirt in beige tweed. "But inside you must always be
Chinese. You must be proud to be different. Your only shame is to have shame."
 And even though I didn't agree with her then, I knew that she understood how much I had suffered
during the evening's dinner. It wasn't until many years later—long after I had gotten over my crush on
Robert—that I was able to appreciate fully her lesson and the true purpose behind our particular menu.
For Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods.
Source: Amy Tan, "Fish Cheeks."

se competence involves an interaction between people.

Competent interpersonal communication results in behaviors that are regarded as appropriate.
That is, the actions of the communicators fit the expectations and demands of the situation.
Appropriate communication means that people use the symbols they are expected to use in a given
context.
Competent interpersonal communication also results in behaviors that are effective in achieving
desired personal outcomes. Satisfaction in a relationship or the accomplishment of a specific task-
related goal is an example of an outcome people might want to achieve through their communication
with others.
Thus, communication competence is a social judgment that people make about others. The
judgment depends on the context, the relationship between the interactants, the goals or objectives
that the interactants want to achieve, and the specific verbal and nonverbal messages that are used
to accomplish those goals.

Approaches to the Study of Intercultural Competence

Four approaches have been used to investigate intercultural competence: the trait approach, the
perceptual approach, the behavioral approach, and the culture-specific approach. Each of them
adds to our understanding of intercultural competence.
The trait approach to intercultural competence attempts to identify the kinds of personality
characteristics and individual traits that allow a person to avoid failure and achieve success in
intercultural encounters. Those who have explored this approach

I took a drink from every bottle held out to me. The man leaned over and slapped my knee—I was a
good chap, I did not get drunk and fall on the floor. They laughed. I smiled to show I was cheerful and
friendly, but I couldn't laugh because I didn't know what they were laughing at
This, I thought is what being a foreigner is really all about. It is not wandering through a strange
country seeing unfamiliar people: it's when all the unfamiliar people stare at you, and find you strange;
when you can't fit anonymously into a crowd; when your passing is an uncommon event. It's when you
don't understand the joke: and the joke may very well be you.
Source: Liza Cody. Rift (New York: Scribner, 1988) 79.

have examined such characteristics as flexibility, thinking, "world-mindedness" (which is a positive

attitude toward people of other cultures), psychological and social adjustment in one's own culture,
and relativistic values (which means not being too rigid about the "correctness” of one's values).
Researchers have occasionally succeeded in matching the characteristics of individuals to
successful intercultural communication, but in many instances their efforts to do so have failed. It is
easy to understand why the trait approach has been so compelling. If the traits and attributes of
people who are already competent intercultural communicators could be identified, those individuals
could be selected as the intercultural representatives of businesses and governments. However,
intercultural competence is far more complex than the simple absence or presence of particular
personality and social characteristics. For example, a particular individual (whose personality
attributes do not change from one encounter to the next) might behave very competently in some
circumstances but not in others. Nevertheless, individual characteristics and attitudes must be taken
into account when trying to understand intercultural competence.5
The perceptual approach to intercultural competence attempts to identify clusters of cognitions or
perceptions that are related to intercultural competence: the ability to deal with psychological stress,
to communicate effectively, and to establish interpersonal relationships.6 The perceptual approach
underscores the importance of the emotional or motivational dimension in the skillful enactment of
competent behaviors.
The behavioral approach suggests that it is necessary to go beyond what people think they will
do in intercultural interactions and observe what they actually do. Intercultural competence, from this
perspective, is best studied by looking at specific communication behaviors during intercultural
interactions.7
These approaches are all culture-general explanations because they assume that regardless of
the cultures represented in an interaction, generic characteristics or skills associated with
intercultural competence will apply. An alternative is to identify culture-specific perceptions and
behaviors that are unique to particular interactants. One can then determine how well a particular
person adapts her or his communication behaviors to the specific rules of interaction of a particular
culture. Harry Triandis is among those who favor a culture-specific approach.8 Triandis's approach
emphasizes a person’s knowledge of particular cultures and what behaviors are considered
appropriate within them.
The four approaches to intercultural competence, taken together, suggest that inter-
cultural communication is a complex phenomenon. More importantly, they also suggest that to
achieve interpersonal competence in interactions with people from different cultures, a variety of
personal and interpersonal components must be considered.

The Components of Intercultural Competence

Our central concern in this book is improving your intercultural competence, and the ideas
presented here are the key to doing so. In the remaining chapters, we will return to the concepts that
follow to suggest ways to improve your ability.
A word of caution is necessary before we begin, however. We cannot write a prescription
guaranteed to ensure competence in intercultural communication. The complexity of human
communication in general, and intercultural communication in particular, denies the possibility of a
quick fix. There is not necessarily only one way to be competent in your intercultural interactions.
Even within the context of a specific person and specific setting, there may be several paths to
competent interaction. The goal here is to understand the many ways that a person can behave in
an interculturally competent manner.
The remaining portion of this chapter provides a description of the characteristics of people, what
they bring to the intercultural communication situation, and the nature of the communication itself, all
of which increase the possibility of competence in intercultural communication. Subsequent chapters
build on this discussion by offering guidelines for achieving competence. The summary of previous
research suggests that competent intercultural communication is contextual; it produces behaviors
that are both appropriate and effective; and it requires sufficient knowledge, suitable motivations,
and skilled actions. Let's examine each of these components.
Context Intercultural competence is contextual. An impression or judgment that a person is
interculturally competent is made with respect to both a specific relational context and a particular
situational context. Competence is not independent of the relationships and situations within which
communication occurs.
Thus, competence is not an individual attribute; rather, it is a characteristic of the association
between individuals.9 It is possible, therefore, for someone to be perceived as highly competent in
one set of intercultural interactions and only moderately competent in another. For example, a
Canadian woman living with a family in India might establish competent relationships with the female
family members but be unable to relate well to the male members.
Judgments of intercultural competence also depend on cultural expectations about the permitted
behaviors that characterize the settings or situations within which people communicate. The settings
help to define and limit the range of behaviors that are regarded as acceptable. Consequently, the
same set of behaviors may be perceived as very competent in one cultural setting and much less
competent in another. As an obvious example that competence is situationally determined, consider
what might happen when two people who come from very different cultural backgrounds are
involved in a close business relationship. Whereas one person might want to use highly
personalized nicknames and touching behaviors in public, the other person might regard such visible
displays as unwarranted and therefore incompetent.
Many previous attempts to describe intercultural competence have erroneously focused on the
traits or individual characteristics that make a person competent. Thus in the past, individuals have
been selected for particular intercultural assignments based solely on such personality attributes as
authoritarianism, empathy, self-esteem, and world-mindedness. Because intercultural competence is
contextual, these trait approaches have been unsuccessful in identifying competent intercultural
communicators. Although specific personality traits might allow a person to be more or less
competent on particular occasions, there is no prescriptive set of characteristics that inevitably
guarantees competence in all intercultural relationships and situations.
 Appropriateness and Effectiveness Both interpersonal competence and intercultural
competence require behaviors that are appropriate and effective. By appropriate we mean those
behaviors that are regarded as proper and suitable given the expectations generated by a given
culture, the constraints of the specific situation, and the nature of the relationship between the
interactants. By effective we mean those behaviors that lead to the achievement of desired
outcomes. The following example illustrates this important distinction between appropriateness and
effectiveness.

Brian Holtz is a U.S. businessperson assigned by his company to manage its office in Thailand. Mr.
Thani, a valued assistant manager in the Bangkok office, has recently been arriving late for work. Holtz
has to decide what to do about

This summer I was one of 20 teens who spent five weeks at the University of Wisconsin at Superior
studying acid rain with a National Science Foundation

Young Scholars program….. It was amazing, given the variety of backgrounds, to see the ignorance of
some of the smartest young scholars on the subject of other religions.

On the first day, one girl mentioned that she had nine brothers and sisters. "Oh, are you Mormon?"
asked another girl, who I knew was a Mormon herself. The first girl, shocked, replied, "No, I dress
normal!" She thought Mormon was the same as Mennonite, and the only thing she knew about either
religion was that Mennonites don't, in her opinion, "dress normal."

My friends, ever curious about (my) Judaism, asked me about everything from our basic theology to
food preferences....

Nobody was deliberately rude or anti-Semitic, but I got the feeling that I was representing the entire
Jewish people through my actions. I realized that many of my friends would go back to their small towns
thinking that all Jews like Dairy Queen Blizzards and grilled cheese sandwiches. After all, that was true of
all the Jews they knew (in most cases, me and the only other Jewish young scholar, period)....

Ignorance was the problem I faced this summer. By itself, ignorance is not always a problem, but it
leads to misunderstandings, prejudice, and hatred. Many of today's problems involve hatred. If there
weren't so much ignorance about other people's backgrounds, would people still hate others as badly as
they do now? Maybe so, but at least that hatred would be based on facts and not flawed beliefs.

Source: Chana Schoenberger, "Getting to Know About You and Me," Newsweek, September 20,1993:8.

this problem. After carefully thinking about his options, he decides there are four possible strategies:

1. Go privately to Mr. Thani, ask him why he has been arriving late, and tell him that he needs to come
to work on time.
2. Ignore the problem.
3. Publicly reprimand Mr. Thani the next time he is late.
4. In a private discussion, suggest that he is seeking Mr. Thani's assistance in dealing with employees
in the company who regularly arrive late for work, and solicit his suggestions about what should be done.

Holtz's first strategy would be effective, as it would probably accomplish his objective of getting
Mr. Thani to arrive at work more promptly. However, given the expectations of the Thai culture,
which are that one person never directly criticizes another, such behavior would be very
inappropriate. Conversely, Holtz's second strategy would be appropriate but not effective, as there
would probably be no change in Mr. Thani's behavior. The third option would be neither appropriate
nor effective because public humiliation might force Mr. Thani, a valuable employee, to resign. The
fourth option, which is the best choice, is both appropriate and effective. By using an indirect means
to communicate his concerns, Mr. Thani will be able to "save face" while Holtz accomplishes his
strategic goals.
 Knowledge, Motivations, and Actions Intercultural competence requires sufficient knowledge,
suitable motivations, and skilled actions. Each of these components alone is insufficient to achieve
intercultural competence

Knowledge Knowledge refers to the cognitive information you need to have about the people,
the context, and the norms of appropriateness that operate in a specific culture. Without such
knowledge, it is unlikely that you will interpret correctly the meanings of other people's messages,
nor will you be able to select behaviors that are appropriate and that allow you to achieve your
objectives. Consequently, you will not be able to determine what the, appropriate and effective
behaviors are in a particular context.
The kinds of knowledge that are important include culture-general and culture-specific
information. The former provides insights into the intercultural communication process abstractly and
can therefore be a very powerful tool in making sense of cultural practices, regardless of the cultures
involved. For example, the knowledge that cultures differ widely in their preferred patterns (or rules)
of interaction should help to sensitize you to the need to be aware of these important
differences.This book is an excellent ex- ample of a source for culture-general knowledge.

Ambiguity is the warp of life, not something to be eliminated. Learning to savor the vertigo of doing
without answers or making do with fragmentary ones opens up the pleasures of recognizing and playing
with pattern, finding coherence within complexity, sharing within multiplicity. Improvisation and new
learning are not private processes; they are shared with others at every age. The multiple layers of
attention involved cannot safely be brushed aside or subordinated to the completion of tasks. We are
called to join in a dance whose steps must be learned along the way, so it is important to attend and
respond. Even in uncertainty, we are responsible for our steps.
Source Mary Catherine Bateson. Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way (Hew York. HarperCollins, 1994). 9-10.

Knowledge about interpersonal communication and the many ways in which culture influences
the communication process is very useful in understanding actual intercultural interactions.
Intercultural competence also depends on culture-specific information, which is used to
understand a particular culture. Such knowledge should include information about the forces that
maintain the culture's uniqueness (see Chapter 2) and facts about the cultural patterns that
predominate (see Chapters 4 and 5). The type of intercultural encounter will also suggest other kinds
of culture-specific information that might be useful. Exchange students might want to seek out
information about the educational system in the host country. Businesspeople may need essential
information about the cultural dynamics of doing business in a specific country or with people from
their own country who are members of different cultural groups. Tourists would benefit from
guidebooks that provide information about obtaining lodging, transportation, food, shopping, and
entertainment.
An additional—and crucial—form of culture-specific knowledge involves information about the
specific customs that govern interpersonal communication in the culture. For example, before
traveling to Southeast Asia, it would be very useful to know that many Southeast Asian cultures
regard a display of the soles of the feet as very offensive. This small bit of information can be filed
away for later recall when travelers visit temples and attempt to remove their shoes. The imperative
to learn about other cultures is equally strong for those cultures with which you interact on a daily
basis. Culture-specific knowledge about the rules and customs of the multiple cultures that make up
the cultural landscape of the United States is essential information if you are to be interculturally
competent.
Often overlooked is knowledge of one's own cultural system. Yet the ability to attain intercultural
competence may be very closely linked to this kind of knowledge. Knowledge about your own culture
will help you to understand another culture. Fathi Yousef has even suggested that the best way to
train businesspeople who must deal with cultural differences might be to teach them about the
characteristics of their own culture rather than those of others.9The idea behind this admonition is
that if people are able to understand how and why they interpret events and experiences, it is more
likely that they would be able to select alternative interpretations and behaviors that are more
appropriate and effective when interacting in another culture.
 Motivations Motivations include the overall set of emotional associations that people have as
they anticipate and actually communicate interculturally. As with knowledge, different aspects of the
emotional terrain contribute to the achievement of intercultural competence. Human emotional
reactions include both feelings and intentions.
Feelings refer to the emotional or affective states that you experience when communicating with
someone from a different culture. Feelings are not thoughts, though people often confuse the two;
rather, feelings are your emotional and physiological reactions to thoughts and experiences.
Feelings of happiness, sadness, eagerness, anger, tension, surprise, confusion, relaxation, and joy
are among the many emotions that can accompany the intercultural communication experience.
Feelings involve your general sensitivity to other cultures and your attitudes toward the specific
culture and individuals with whom you must interact. How would you characterize your general
motivation toward other cultures? Are you excited by the thought of talking with someone from a
culture that is different from yours? Or are you anxious at the prospect? Do you think your culture is
superior to other cultures? Are you even willing to entertain the idea that another culture's ways of
doing various life activities might be as good as, or even better than, your culture's ways? Some
people simply do not want to be confronted with things that differ from what they are used to. The
different sights, sounds, and smells of another culture are often enough to send them running back
to the safety of a hotel room. Eagerness and a willingness to experience some uncertainty is a
necessary part of your motivation to achieve intercultural competence.
Intentions are what guide your choices in a particular intercultural interaction. Your intentions are
the goals, plans, objectives, and desires that focus and direct your behavior. Intentions are often
affected by the stereotypes you have of people from other cultures because stereotypes reduce the
number of choices and interpretations you are willing to consider. For instance, if you begin an
intercultural interaction having already formed a negative judgment of the other person's culture, it
will be very difficult for you to develop accurate interpretations of the behaviors that you observe.
Intentions toward the specific interaction partner also must be positive. If your intentions are positive,
accurate, and reciprocated by the people with whom you are interacting, your intercultural
competence will likely be enhanced.

Actions Finally, actions refer to the actual performance of those behaviors that are regarded as
appropriate and effective. Thus, you can have the necessary information, be motivated by the
appropriate feelings and intentions, and still lack the behavioral skills necessary to achieve
competence. For example, students from other cultures who enroll in basic public speaking classes
often have an excellent understanding of the theory of speech construction. Additionally, they have a
positive attitude toward learning U.S. speaking skills; they want to do well and are willing to work
hard in preparation. Unfortunately, their speaking skills sometimes make it difficult for them to
execute the delivery of a speech with the level of skill and precision that they would like.10
Jolene Koester and Margaret Olebe examine eight specific types of communication behaviors
that are linked to judgments of intercultural communication competence.11 These behaviors, which
are important in all cultures, are described at the culture-general level. For example, actions that
show respect for others and the ability to maintain conversations and manage communicative
interactions are necessary in all cultures for someone to be judged as competent. However, the way
each culture teaches its members to exhibit these actions is culture-specific. Even among the
various cultural groups that live in the United States, the rules for taking turns in a conversation vary
widely. The eight types of communication behaviors are summarized in Table 3.1.

Table 4.1 BEHAVIORAL DIMENSIONS OF INTERCLJLTURAL COMPETENCE

Display of Respect The ability to show respect and positive

regard for another person.

The terms people use to explain themselves

Orientation to Knowledge and the world around them
 The capacity To behave as though you
understand the world as others do.
Empathy

Behaviors that involve the initiation of ideas

related to group problem-solving activities.

Task Role Behavior

Behaviors associated with interpersonal

harmony and
mediation.
Relational Role Behavior

Skill in regulating conversations.

The ability to react to new and ambiguous

Interaction Management situations with little visible discomfort.

Tolerance for Ambiguity The ability to respond to others in

descriptive, nonevaluative, and
nonjudgniental ways.

Interaction Posture

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2. For a more detailed discussion of the relationships among these terms, see Molefi Kete
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