Communication Across Cultures - Essay Example

25 November Communication across Cultures Cultures are learned systems of meaning, communicated by means of natural language and other symbol systems capable of creating cultural entities and particular senses of reality. Through these systems of meaning, groups of people adapt to their environment and structure interpersonal activities that form their culture. Communication is the activity of conveying information that allows access between persons or places. According to Ting-Toomey (3), both culture and communication reciprocally influence one another, it is essential to distinguish the characteristics of the two concepts for the purpose of understanding the complex relationship between them. There are many reasons for studying communication across cultures that include global diversity trends, domestic diversity trends and interpersonal learning opportunities. Global trends signify the importance of intercultural communication through understanding the world political, cultural and business environment, developing multiple cultural perspectives, being skillful in diverse cultural environment, adapting to living in different cultures and learning to interact with international colleagues. Apart from this, an increased number of individuals are employed in overseas assignments such as government service, humanitarian service, peace-corps service, and international education for which cross cultural communication is critical to success (Ting-Toomey 4). In domestic perspective, there are two sets of dimensions that contribute to the ways groups of people communicate intercultural. One set, the primary dimensions of diversity, refers to those human differences that are inborn and that exert an important impact on our early socialization and an ongoing impact throughout our lives, for example, ethnicity, gender, age, social class, physical abilities, and sexual orientation. The secondary dimensions of diversity, refers to conditions that can be changed more easily than the primary dimensions, including mutable differences that we acquire, discard, and modify throughout our lives, are less salient than those of the core, for example, educational level, work experience, and income (Ting-Toomey 5). Each intercultural contact can bring about identity dissonance or stress because of attributes such as an unfamiliar accent, way of speaking, way of doing things, and way of nonverbal expression. In a global workplace, people bring with them different work habits and cultural practices that present interpersonal learning opportunities (Ting-Toomey 7). Therefore, I am motivated to carrying out a research on this topic about communication across cultures. Although communicating across cultures has been referred as by some people, this is an additional motivation to establish the identified barriers as well as different methods to overcoming this problems and difficulties. Moreover, I do belief that the presence of many cultures in the modern society through modernization and globalization are sharing most of the human being necessities directly or indirectly. Thus, with cross cultural communication strategies, realization of their needs and wants becomes much easier. In the recent days the world has become a global village. This means that diverse cultures are now doing business, living, working and actively intermingling together in their daily lives. It is also evident that the rates of intermarriages have increased, translating to intercultural diversification. All this comes as a result of good communication skills and methods between the cultures involves which increases my morale to studying and researching on this topic. Communication across cultures is widely covered and therefore, my interests are on how and their means of communication. ASPECTS OF CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION When individuals from two different cultures communicate, they both exhibit some similarities and differences. These varying degrees of similarities or differences consciously or unconsciously affect the intercultural communication. The differences may include traditions, belief, values and application of norms, rules and interaction in a particular condition. We need to understand the differences that exist and recognize the similarities for an effective communication (Ting-Toomey 22). Ting-Toomey (22) states that there is an encoding and decoding of both verbal and nonverbal messages in parallel during cross cultural communication. Considering the transactional model viewpoint, both cultures that communicate are viewed as sender and receiver. The effectiveness of encoding and decoding process determines its meanings. Ineffectiveness in one of the cultural transceiver can lead to incorrect encoding or decoding and thus potential misunderstanding. Apart from encoding and decoding at messages at identity level, there is a need to develop awareness and understanding at multiple levels. This would help in developing a precise understanding with which we can acknowledge and choose words and behaviors that include dissimilarities of other culture felt and affirmed. Ting-Toomey (23) is of the view that intercultural meetings often lead to clashes because people from different cultures have learnt different methods of conversational opening, maintenance, and termination. They use their own methods and judge the correctness of others by their own gauge which leads to many well-meaning misunderstandings. Well-meaning misunderstanding and clashes are those when both parties are still behaving properly and socially according to norms of their own culture but still it leads to conflict. Major reason for this is the consideration and understanding of one behavior as appropriate in one culture and inappropriate in another. For example, a direct eye contact is sign of respect in US culture while it is sign of disrespect in Asian cultures. Individuals try to be well mannered or pleasant in accordance with the politeness norms of their own culture but forget the unconscious automatic actions that may be considered inappropriate in another culture. Conscious monitoring of our reactive emotions in negatively judging or evaluating communication differences due to cultural communication may help deal with this aspect. Ting-Toomey (23) stresses that communication across cultures is always based on some context and just does not happen in a vacuum. From contextual point of view, understanding of influence of cultural value in communication exchange, role of communicators, objectives, scripts and situation is important. At the end, knowledge and experience of other cultures and application of effective communication skills is also vital. Ting-Toomey (23) believes that our cultural socialization process is a subset of our own culture. In broader perspective, we learn from our family, educational systems, religious and political systems, and government and socioeconomic systems, as well as the media in our routine life. In micro level perspective, we interact with individuals who portray similar ideologies, values, norms, and expectations. Thus we act as recipients and preservers of our culture through daily communication. The culture is not static rather it is dynamic and under evolutionary process affecting its own individuals. CROSS CULTURAL PRAGMATICS In this section we would study the use of normative pragmatic language in cross cultural communications. In first study, we would compare the apologizing behavior of native Japanese and native English speakers. The second study deals with comparison of compliment responses of western cultures and Asian cultures. The third study aims in comparing the preferences of Greek and German cultures in attending to the relationship aspects of communication. In most cultures, people believe that an apology is needed when an offence has taken place or a social norm has been violated. However, different cultures may have differing opinion about apologize as to when and how we should apologize to satisfy components of adequate apology. Both Japanese and Westerners have stereotypical misconceptions of apologizing behavior in each other’s cultures like Japanese apologize more frequently than Westerners and their apology does not necessarily mean that the person is really at fault and is sorry. In Australia, if you buy something and when reaching home you notice that it is broken. You go back so that you can exchange it, the salesperson would simply refuse. But this idea of customer responsibility would differ greatly from that of Japan where in similar situation the person at the desk will apologize profusely and exchange the article. Similarly in Japan, parents feel responsible for actions of their children and would apologize for desire of a harmonious atmosphere. While is Australia, parents attitude would be totally indifferent as they regard their children as adults responsible for their own deeds (Spencer-Oatey 73). Compliments are aimed to impart positive effects on interpersonal relations as they are social lubricants to create or maintain rapport. Compliments may be interpreted negatively if untrue, or imply envy or otherwise unwarranted degree of intimacy. Similarly, addressee’s response also needs to be positive to evaluate the overall compliment exchange as positive. However, different cultures exhibit different compliment behaviors which may lead to situations exerting pressure on complimentee to agree with the compliment and avoid the self-praise at the same time. For example, if a professor in US compliments his student that say her English is improving. In response students from different cultures would behave differently. A French student would simply accept the compliment with thanks while a Thai student evaluates the compliment through a different response. He or she may not accept the compliment and refuse that her English is not improving and instead would praise the professor through compliment that he is a good professor. Now the US professor may be surprised why the student refused the compliment and is praising him and wonders if he should stops giving compliments (Spencer-Oatey 95). Similarly there could be social consequences when interactants from different cultures have diverging communicative expectations and use varying strategies for participation and discourse. Conflict activities are of special interest as they demand techniques of conversational cooperation as well as strategies of confrontation such as signaling disagreement, coherence, giving accounts for ones arguments, defending ones position and doing face-work. One of indispensible element of everyday life is telephone conversation. Due to lack of visual information, at least in the normal use of this medium, linguistic information is made prominent, and the pragmatic aspect of language becomes more significant. Thus, telephone conversation is a challenge to anybody learning a foreign language and remains a sensitive area in intercultural encounters, even for those who have mastered the basics of a foreign language and culture. For example, in a Greek-German telephone conversation different expectations / orientations may enter the telephone conversational space. Greek would expect to get some attention as partners in the conversation before taking care of the reason for calling. On the other hand, the German would expect not to be held on the phone unduly long, that is, beyond what it basically takes to handle the reason for phone call. Both mean well, but in different ways (Spencer-Oatey 118). INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCIES According to Ting-Toomey (103), our families, peer groups, educational institutions, mass media, political systems, and religious institutions are some of the forces that shape and mold our cultural and personal values. Our learned values and norms are, in turn, expressed through the way we communicate. From the study of above cultural pragmatics we see that individuals coming from two different cultures bring with them different value assumptions, expectations, verbal and nonverbal habits, and interaction scripts that influence the conflict process (Spencer-Oatey 131). Thus intercultural miscommunication and misattributions often lead to intercultural conflict. Intercultural conflict is defined as the perceived or actual incompatibility of values, norms, processes, or goals between a minimum of two cultural parties over content, identity, relational, and procedural issues. Intercultural conflict often begins with different expectations concerning appropriate or inappropriate behavior in an interaction. The violations of these expectations influence the effectiveness of intercultural communication and goals of both parties in a conflict situation. If continued engaging in in inappropriate or ineffective negotiation, the miscommunication may result in complex and polarized conflict situation (Ting-Toomey 192). Every day intercultural conflicts are often based on cultural ignorance or misunderstanding but few are based on deep hatred and historical grievances. However, a majority of everyday conflicts that we encounter can be traced to cultural miscommunication or ignorance. Intercultural communication conflicts could be either constructive or destructive. Constructive intercultural conflict management is defined as using skills to manage conflict productively and reach common objectives amicably while in destructive conflict management both parties engage in inflexible thinking and conflict patterns that lead to escalation or stalemate. One of the key factors is the ability to apply flexible communication skills in managing both culture-based and individual-based differences. Ting-Toomey (219) stresses that best resolution is achieved when both parties are mindful of culture based factors that contribute to different approached to the dispute. Following are some skills that when applied can lead to conflict resolution. Mindful Listening. In an intercultural conflict situation, disagreeing parties have to learn to listen attentively to the cultural assumptions that are being expressed in the interaction. They have to learn to listen responsively to the sounds, tones,. gestures, movements, nonverbal nuances, pauses, and silence in the context (Ting-Toomey 221). Mindful Reframing. According to Ting-Toomey (221), mindful reframing means learning how to "translate" the others verbal and nonverbal messages from the context of the others cultural viewpoint. After reframing both parties may like to reprioritize their view points and expectations so lead a conclusion more amicably. Face-Management. Ting-Toomey (222) is of the view that intercultural parties should learn face management skills to communicate more effectively in a conflict situation. Face management skills address the primary core issue of self-esteem to be respected and approved. It simply means adopting “give-face’ behavior so not to humiliate opponents especially in public based on cultural misunderstandings. Trust-Building. Ting-Toomey (222) asserts that trust is viewed as the single most important element of a successful communication. If two parties from different cultural backgrounds do not trust each other either due to stereotype thinking or historical experiences then good working relationships cannot develop and they tend to move away cognitively, mentally and physically. Engaging in trustworthy behavior may lead supportive and trusting climate of interaction in the conflicting cross cultural communications. CONCLUSION Communication can be thought of in terms of same cognitive mechanisms as other cultural categories. Main distinguishing feature is its informative behavior which is aimed to provide worth having information and requirement of least or no mental processing to interpret this information. Thus successful communication largely depends on communicator’s ability to assess contextual assumptions and addressee’s ability to process the communication in context intended by the communicator. Such assessment and processing is not easy unless both the communicator and addressee have enough confidence to share certain believes. When this communication occurs across cultures then it is difficult for the participants to develop confident as to what believes they might share since the set of shared cultural believes is limited. The underlying goal in any intercultural or interethnic situation is to manage content, process, relational and group membership identity issues appropriately, effectively, and satisfactorily (Spencer-Oatey 262). Intercultural communication involves varying degrees of cultural differences which include cultural traditions, beliefs, and values, norms, rules, and interaction scripts and their application in particular situations. To engage in effective communication across cultures, one has to acquire in-depth knowledge, heightened mindfulness, and competent communication skills-and, most critically, applying them ethically in a diverse range of intercultural situations. Work Cited Ting-Ting-Toomey, Stella. Communicating Across Cultures. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2002. Print. Spencer-Spencer-Oatey, Helen. Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory. 2nd ed. London: Continuum, 2008. Print. Read More