Fundementals of communication term papaer - Essay Example

My visits to Qatar however realign my communication approach. Group discussions, video-calling, online chatting, and email writing are some of the communication rituals that I engage in and their rules vary across cultural factors such as norms, values, and history. I, in this paper, explore the scope of cross-cultural communication along the rituals and rules. The communication rituals across cultures Group discussions Discussions in school and at work are some of the involved activities in cross-cultural communication and are significant to both interpersonal relations and in achieving discussions’ objectives.

Discussions in school are mostly academic and aim at completing assignments and expanding individuals’ knowledge base on a subject. Culture however forms a barrier to this communication when discussions involve students from different cultures. Significant obstacles emerge between students from the western culture, especially natives in the United States, and students from Asian countries because these two groups have conflicting cultures regarding communication. Communication in the western culture is for example simple and direct while people from the East prefer an explorative approach to communication in which meanings are explained for sufficient understanding.

Americans are also direct in their communication while some of the cultures from Asia prefer a developed interpersonal relationship before engaging in a communication’s subject matter. Other applicable barriers to cross cultural communication are culture-based ascent and respect for authority. People from the western culture offer an informal approach to communication and do not regard authority while individuals from most Asian cultures hold high regard for authority in their communication.

These differences emerge to hinder discursive communications in both academic and work environments (Zhu and Zhu n.d.; Crossman and Kite, 2007). Culture is therefore the basis of communication challenges in diversified set up and cultural awareness and cultural intelligence offer a solution. Cultural awareness defines knowledge of other people’s cultures and allows communicating parties to understand their partners in communication and be patient and tolerant, a factors that bridges developed barriers in cross cultural communication.

Cultural intelligence however defines sensitivity to other cultures that allows a person to predict behavior of people from other cultures and to respond appropriately towards underscoring possible effects of cultural differences. This means that encountered cultural differences to discursive communications can be managed to ensure successful communication (Zhu and Zhu n.d.; Crossman and Kite, 2007). Video calling The obstacles in face-to-face cross-cultural communication are encountered in video calling that is another form of direct communication.

This therefore means that video calling is subject to culture-based differences with respect to factors such as respect for authority, approach to communication, and cultural awareness and sensitivity among communicating parties are essential solutions. “Effects of local context and relations” are also significant to intercultural video calling (Lauring, 2011, p. 248). A person’s locality may suffer from technical and technological inefficiencies such as unavailability of the internet and a video camera or availability in poor quality, factors that hinder video calling (Crossman and