Use of communication

Two primary reasons to communicate with others are to inform and persuade. People inform and
influence others within a variety of circumstances involving exchange among one-to-one, to a few
or to many.

Interviews

Negotiate

Sale

The present

To convince

To express feelings

Intercultural Communication
Intercultural communication is the study and practice of communication
across cultural contexts. It applies equally to domestic cultural differences
such as ethnicity and gender and to international differences such as those
associated with nationality or world region. Intercultural communication is an
approach to relations among members of these groups that focuses on the
recognition and respect of cultural differences, seeks the goal of mutual
adaptation leading to biculturalism rather than simple assimilation, and
supports the development of intercultural sensitivity on the part of
individuals and organizations to enable empathic understanding and
competent coordination of action across cultural differences.
The following paragraphs expand on the definitions of “communication” and
“cultural context”
based on principles of constructivism [See the section on “Constructivism” for
a definition and discussion of that term], and then summarize the
development of intercultural sensitivity as the basis for exercising competent
intercultural communication.

Communication
Communication is much more than a simple transmission of information: it is
the mutual creation of meaning. Information is not, in itself, meaningful; it is
only when information is intended and interpreted in some way that it
attains significance. For instance, if you are telling me about a movie you just
saw, you probably intend for me to understand what the movie is about and
also something about your experience and evaluation of it. You pose the
information in a language I know, use references to concepts and other films
I might know, and in conveying your feeling you assume that I am able and
willing to access your experience. For my part, I try to interpret the
information in the way you intended it by using common meanings for words
and concepts and by recognizing both our common experience of similar
events and the uniqueness of your personal experience in this particular
event.
Of course, the exchange described above is an ideal that is seldom achieved
in one pass (or many). What usually happens is that my interpretation is both
more and less than what you intended. It is less in my probable failure to
assign exactly similar meaning to words and concepts that you use, and it is
more in that I probably project many of my own feelings about similar events
onto your description. In my response (feedback) to your message, you may
recognize some of my discrepant interpretation and correct it. Assuming that
this is not your first communication with someone like me, you may have
already anticipated some of my likely misinterpretation by tailoring your
message to me in the first place. So both your intention and my
interpretation are in play as we attempt to negotiate a mutually acceptable
match. The final meaning of the communication event is neither just your
intention nor simply my interpretation; it is our mutual creation of an
agreeable position.

Culture
The sense of “culture” used in intercultural communication is that of
“worldview.” Culture is a generalization about how a group of people
coordinate meaning and action among themselves. One way they do that is
through institutions such as religious, political, and economic systems, and
family and other social structures. But underlying these institutions is a
habitual organization of how the world is perceived, and thus how it is
experienced. These habits are often referred to as cultural assumptions and
values, and they occur in all groups, not just national societies. In general,
intercultural communication focuses on this worldview aspect of culture and
not so much on the institutions of culture. Human communication is
conducted by people, not institutions. The concern of any study of
communication is therefore with the way that human beings organize
meaning. We all are influenced by the institutional structures that we
internalize as part of socialization, and understanding those institutions may
give insight into how we habitually organize our perception, but in the end it
is our human worldview that generates meaning, not institutional structure.
An essential element of culture is the boundary that distinguishes “us” from
“them.” Every human being belongs to groups defined by boundaries. Typical
boundaries are those formed by nation- states (e.g. US Americans, Japanese,
Nigerians) or by ethnic groups composed of people with a particular tribal,
national, or regional heritage (e.g. Kurdish, Jewish, Russian, European,
African). Within a boundary, people communicate with each other differently
than with people outside the boundary. The difference may or may not
involve using a different language or jargon, but it always includes different
kinds of agreements on meaning and action. A cultural boundary indicates a
greater amount of interaction and need for coordination among those
enclosed by it.
In the case of some ethnic heritage, family interaction may be primarily
responsible for preserving the cultural agreements, but for many ethnicities
there is also likely to be greater interaction with other members of the ethnic
group (e.g. Chinese Americans). This is particularly true if color (race) is
involved, since people naturally distinguish themselves by color and thus may
group more easily with people who are physically similar. Color
discrimination is not necessarily associated with prejudice, but it certainly can
be used for that purpose, as can other distinctions among groups. Color is a
particularly complex boundary, since in many societies it does represent a
particular type of social experience vis a vis prejudice or privilege, and that
common experience may produce certain agreements on meaning (e.g. an
understanding of “driving while black”). Yet color is not necessarily associated
with any particular ethnicity (e.g. black people of African vs. Caribbean
heritage, white people of Anglo vs Teutonic vs Latin heritage). The ethnic
boundary is a much more powerful cultural indicator than the color
boundary, since it rests on a deeper set of institutions. So for instance, black
Caribbean Americans may experience prejudice similarly to black African
Americans, but that fact does not obviate the significant cultural differences
between those two groups.
In multicultural societies, national and ethic boundaries are often combined
to indicate membership in both groups (e.g. African American, European
American, Malay Singaporean, Russian Kazakhstani). In addition to these
common distinctions, boundaries are also formed by geographical regions
within or across national boundaries (e.g. Southern Italians, Pacific Northwest
Americans, Western Europeans, Sub-Saharan Africans) Also importantly, the
boundaries of organizations often indicate very strong and distinct cultural
worldviews (e.g. corporate cultures, police culture, armed services culture,
peace corps culture). Within organizations, different functional groups such
as accountants, service people, engineers, detectives, etc. are likely to share a
culture. Within societies, cultural boundaries may also include gender, sexual
orientation, generation (age), and other grouping. In these and other cases,
the culture is generated not by any particular belief or behavior of the group,
but by the need to coordinate meaning and action among more frequently
interacting people. So, for instance, gay culture is not about homosexuality
per se; it is about how people communicate with other people with whom
they are more likely to be in contact due to shared sexuality. In this same
way, some religious or political groups can generate culture, not because of
their particular beliefs, but because people in the groups are spending more
time with others who agree with them.
When an intercultural approach is used in domestic multicultural situations,
it commonly generates some controversy. The argument against the
assumption of domestic cultures generally goes like this: cultural differences,
if they exist among different ethnic and racial groups, are not nearly so
important as differences in power, privilege, and access to sources of wealth
and well-being. So even if they exist, a focus on cultural differences is just a
distraction from the more pressing concerns of social and institutional
equity. Roughly this same argument is used against focusing on the
intercultural communication aspects of gender relations.
One counter-argument is to note the “humanizing” effect of worldview.
Focusing on the unique experience of a cultural worldview is a direct antidote
to an objectification and exploitation of people that is based simply on their
color, gender, or heritage. Intercultural communication necessitates
understanding the unique experience of others as the key to coordinating
meaning and action towards some common goal. Another argument in favor
of intercultural communication is that culture must be understood relative to
its own context. Culture cannot be judged against an absolute standard of
civilization, and therefore people of one culture are not intrinsically superior
or inferior to people of another culture. They are just different.

Intercultural Communication
Since “communication” is the mutual creation of meaning and “culture” is the
coordination of meaning and action in a group, it follows that “intercultural
communication” is the mutual creation of meaning across cultures. This
means that intercultural communication is the mechanism whereby people
of different groups perceive and try to make sense of one another. While
there is no guarantee that people will be respectful of the differences they
encounter in this process, it is certainly a criterion of good communication
that people seek to understand the intentions of each other in non-evaluative
ways. For that reason, intercultural communication incorporates particular
strategies that encourage us to attribute equal humanity and complexity to
people who are not part of our own group.
The most common tactical goal of intercultural communication is to inform
one-way cross- cultural adaptations in situations such as teaching in
multicultural classrooms, providing social services (including policing) in
multicultural communities, traveling for business or pleasure, and some
kinds of international study. In those cases, sojourners need to recognize
cultural differences that are relevant to short-term communication, to predict
misunderstanding that may arise from those differences, and to adapt their
behavior as necessary to participate appropriately in the cross-cultural
encounter. Central to this application is having a good system for identifying
cultural differences that are relevant to communication. Several of those
systems are included in the Further Reading following this entry. Whatever
system is used, the outcome of employing tactical intercultural
communication is generally to decrease stereotyping of the cultures
encountered, increase knowledge of cultural differences, and broaden the
behavioral repertoire of the adapters.
A more substantial practical goal of intercultural communication is to
contribute to the success of cross-cultural projects such as transferring
knowledge, conducting long-term business, or effecting change through
community development projects. In these cases, more people involved in
the cross- cultural encounter need to make adaptations toward one another
in order to coordinate meaning and action adequately. When intercultural
adaptation is two-way, or mutual, it tends to create “third cultures” in which
two or more cultural patterns of coordination are themselves coordinated.
Third cultures are virtual conditions that come into existence for the purpose
of intercultural communication and then dissolve when that communication
is not active. Third cultures may become longer lasting when they constantly
employed in multicultural groups or communities, but, by definition, third
cultures do not supplant the original cultural patterns that they coordinate.
The most strategic application of intercultural communication is to derive the
value of cultural diversity. This has long been the goal of multicultural
societies, and it more recently is being touted by global corporations. After
some mistaken hope that diversity in itself generates value, it is now
accepted that cultural diversity creates the potential but not the actuality of
added value. The potential of diversity is to offer alternative perspectives and
approaches to tasks, thus contributing to innovation and creativity. However,
the actuality is that diversity is frequently suppressed or eliminated in the
name of unified action: “my way or the highway.” This is particularly notable
in immigration policies and in corporate mergers and acquisitions, where the
rhetoric of added value is generally at direct odds with the practice of
demanding assimilation to the stronger culture. Assimilation destroys the
potential for added value from diversity. One-way adaptation preserves the
potential of added value, but it does not actualize it. Only mutual adaptation
can generate third cultures that support the coordination of
cultural differences, and it is from those coordinated differences that value is
added.