Advantages and Disadvantages of Intercultural Communication - Book Report/Review Example

Advantages and Disadvantages of Intercultural Communication 1. Summarize and analyze chapter 10. The 10th chapter of the book focused on communications that take place in an intercultural environment or relationship. The authors noted that when communication takes place in such environments and relationships, it comes with its benefits and challenges. The most emphatic aspect of the chapter was the challenges associated with communication in intercultural relationships. The authors noted that the challenges do not necessarily refer to demerits or disadvantages of having intercultural communication. Rather, it focused on some of the key shortfalls in achieving effective intercultural communication. Some differences were noted to be variations in interest, beliefs, ambitions, philosophies, and goals. The approach taken by the authors will be analyzed as a step in the right direction, given that most people have failed to take advantage of the benefits that come with effective intercultural communication, only because they do not know the right approaches to take in getting their communications put across properly. 2. Summarize and analyze chapter 12 of the text. Chapter 12 is the part of the book where the authors bring readers close to ways and means by which they can engage in, and ensure effective communication in an intercultural context. This is done by emphasizing on areas of competence where people can learn to improve as part of effective intercultural communication. Analyzing the approach to the chapter, it can be said that the authors were very transcending with their discussion because they viewed competence from several perspectives, including social science, interpretive, and critical perspectives. Once this was done, it was possible to feed the reader with information on strategies for achieving effective communication as it pertains to each of these areas of competence. 3. Describe and analyze the interaction of context and intercultural communication. The book turned out to be a very useful source in understanding and appreciating the interaction of context and intercultural communication. From the knowledge developed from the book, it can be said that context refers to the premise and circumstance under which a person makes an analogy, speech or sends a message. Intercultural communication on the other hand is a form of communication that is taking place among people from different cultural background. The relationship that exists between these two is that people from different cultures have different contexts for the same ideas or messages that are put across. Consequently, while communicating, it is important to emphasize and focus on the need to presenting one’s message in a manner that can be understood and interpreted in the very context in which he seeks to communicate. This can be achieved by avoiding all forms of ambiguity in the course of communication and asking for frequent feedback. 4. Describe and analyze one major strategy or tactic to improve intercultural competence. As indicated earlier, feedback is an important strategy that can be used to improve intercultural competence. Very often, people from different cultural backgrounds tend to decode communicated messages very differently. As a result, using feedback helps both parties to ensure that their partners in the communication are receiving their messages in the very context in which the messages are meant to be disseminated. In this case, feedback can be defined as the practice of constantly asking the other party to report back how he or she understands and assimilates a piece of information that is being communicated. The importance of this feedback strategy is that it gives the speaker the opportunity to realize distortions in the communication very early, so that the distortions can be corrected before they turn into misconception. Once this is done, it can be assured that there will intercultural competence because all people work happily together in the intercultural setting. 5. What are the strong points of the textbook? Explain. Two major strong points of the textbook can be emphasized at this point. The first has to do with interactivity. The textbook is said to be interactive because the authors were not unnecessarily narrative in their presentation. Rather, they were very thorough with descriptions and presenting ideas in a manner that addresses the reader very personally. Once this happens, the reader is put in the shoes of the persona of the message being sent out in the book. Consequently, it becomes take the information of the book to be personal and thus act on it in good faith. Another strong point is that the book makes use of real life scenarios and examples, which make the book more of a revealing document that can be taken to be part of the everyday life of the reader. 6. What are the weak points of the textbook? Explain. As much as it is important to be descriptive and thorough, there are moments in the contents of the book that the authors seemed to be over elaborative. What this implies is that there were times that the authors failed to go straight to the point but wandered around with so much explanations, definitions and background information. Once such a thing happens, the weakness it brings to the reader is that the reader can possibly loss sight of the main point being emphasized by the author. This way, the meaning that ought to be developed can be lost all together. It would have been helpful therefore that for most of such instances, the authors went straight to the point, or failed to meander off the main points they were trying to build. 7. Summarize and analyze the “building coalitions” approach to intercultural competence. The need for building coalitions is seen as one of the dialectical perspectives suggested by the authors for improving relationship between people engaged in any communication context. Coalitions are generally important because there are differences in terms of identities that people possess. Building coalitions therefore refers to an instance where people put their differences together for the purpose of achieving a common goal. By doing this, intercultural competence also becomes well developed because the overall goal of the group that come together to form the coalition is what is taken into account rather than the individual satisfaction that people will get. There are a number of universal and international coalitions that have been built to ensure universal peace and development among people who were otherwise thought to be uncompromising parties. 8. Identify and give the significance of stereotypes. Stereotype refers to a kind of identification that is given to a group of people, normally putting a restriction on what they can do or are known to do. The book identifies that stereotype has always led to prejudice, using the Islamic stereotype in U.S. popular culture as an example. Stereotype can therefore be said to put a generalized and restricted identities to people, making it impossible for them to be who they can be as individuals. Certainly, stereotype leads to limitations in the possibility for people to attain personal growth. This notwithstanding, stereotype can be said to give opportunity to people to try and live above reproach, and above the limits that is often set for them. When viewed from this context, stereotype can be seen to be reinforcement for one to be the best he could be. Works Cited Martin J. N and Nakayama T. K. Intercultural Communication Studies in context. (Sixth Edition). Boston: McGraw Hill. 2010. Print. Read More