intercultural communication topic ideas

102 Intercultural Communication Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best intercultural communication topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on intercultural communication, 📌 most interesting intercultural communication topics to write about, ❓ questions about intercultural communication.

• 6 Barriers of Intercultural Communication Essay Cross cultural or intercultural communication is a part of the interaction of different people from different backgrounds and heritages. In this way, prejudice is inevitable blockage of cross-cultural communication as it is a source to […]
• Intercultural Communication Essay: Differences in Cultural, Religious, and Ethnic Backgrounds Identity management theories are also a form of intercultural communication theory developed to explain the cross-cultural aspect of communication where intercultural communication under this theory is seen to originate from the intercultural and intracultural types […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Diverse Contexts and Intercultural Communication at Work As the world moves to the global environment, the modern workplace becomes more and more diverse. When individuals are educated about intercultural differences are more likely to alter their communication styles to suit the needs […]
• The Role of Ethnocentrism in Intercultural Communication The only way to control ethnocentrism is to avoid biases as we find better ways to understand other people’s point of view.
• Reasons for Not Appreciating Different Cultural Point of View One of the reasons why people may not appreciate the cultural point of view of others is because of the differences in cultural values.
• Fundamentals of Intercultural Communication This education is one that derived from the cultural point of view of the society and hence the early childhood education strove to inculcate this sense in the young minds.
• Efficient Intercultural Interaction and Communication This way, they will be able to learn the different languages and this is important for communication and good co-existence in the societies. The kind or number of affiliations that a person may have with […]
• Intercultural Communication Perspectives These include the definition of intercultural communication and an overview of the contents involved in teaching it; it also provides a brief overview of personal experience as a teacher in an intercultural learning institution.
• Ways to Improve Intercultural Communication There may be lack of understanding between the two parties because information may be misunderstood because of the preconceived beliefs about members of one’s cultural background which may not apply to the individual involved in […]
• The Effect of Global Technology on Intercultural Communication Global technology allows for open access to a wealth of information, resources, and influence that can encourage change in cultures and societies.
• Intercultural Communication Patterns in the U.S. and UK Additionally, the concept of equality is notable in the American culture. Contrastingly, in the American culture, people are more casual and less formal compared to Britons.
• Effects of the Language Barrier on Intercultural Communication This paper will argue for some of the major problems of language barriers in the context of intercultural communication, highlighting the severity of the issue and its effect on the practice.
• Intercultural Communication: Self-Awareness’ Importance However, to understand it, a person must be able to connect to the lives of others and to observe these processes in other people.
• Intercultural Communication in Contexts: Chapters Review As it is clear in this chapter, one of the ways by which the two differ from each other is that; nonverbal communication which includes the use of facial expressions, gestures, and proxemics among other […]
• Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication in the UAE Since the business and cultural links established between the UAE and other states are crucial for the process of the states’ development, it is highly required that the root causes of intercultural and intracultural conflicts […]
• Intercultural Communication in Business For an organization to be successful in the global market, leaders must conduct extensive research and fully understand the cultural and social values of the foreign country.
• Intercultural Communication Barriers There is absolutely no way through which one is able to learn all the norms of every culture and their sub-culture all in a bid to understand the various barriers to intercultural communication.
• Intercultural Communication Led by UNESCO The organization aspires to achieve universal respect for justice, the rule of law, human rights, and freedom for all the communities in the world.
• The Importance of Intercultural Communication Engaging in dual perspectives is among the concepts I would apply to improve communication of my ideas and needs to the Chinese friend.
• Intercultural Interaction and Communication Plan: Merced, CA The documents help to inform the school and students about the changes in education and ensure communities and parents participate in the process of learning.
• Intercultural Communication Principles In other words, if good interpersonal and international relationships are not managed through intercultural communication, there is no possibility of gaining benefits from all other areas.
• Australian Education and Intercultural Communication Australian education is among the best globally, offering quality education that has led to the growth and development of the nation socially, culturally, and economically.
• Religion in Intercultural Communication The main political message in the scripture explains God’s role as the creator and master of everything in the universe. The excerpt is generally acknowledged as one of the most important verses in the sacred […]
• The Engagement of Christian Intercultural Communication Therefore, the text generally provides the comparison between the Christian Intercultural Communication in the missionaries and theologians concerning the intercultural Communication and its impact on the fulfillment of the great commission.
• Understanding Intercultural Communication by Ting-Toomey and Leeva Christianity in the North American and European tradition has a hard-hitting history of Christian colonialism, when the faith was imposed on the inhabitants of the territories of the occupied countries, with the belittling of the […]
• Intercultural Communication in Chinese Business Despite the accelerating processes of globalization, the diversity of cultures still obliges people to be familiar with values and customs in advance to create the best and most delicate communication channel.
• Importance of Understanding Intercultural Communication Therefore, understanding the customs and culture of the people you engage with is crucial for effective communication. In conclusion, it is vital to learn the customs of other nations because it ensures effective communication.
• Local Community and Intercultural Communication: Helping Immigrants I will organize community events and invite both local members of the church and the immigrants in order to create a safe environment for them to meet.
• Limitations in Intercultural Communication The main barriers that reduce the effectiveness of interactions are the differences in cognitive schemes used by representatives of different cultures 1.
• Personal Worldview and Intercultural Communications God sacrificed Jesus to wash the sins of people and get rid of the iniquities and curses on the earth. From a Christian worldview, I could easily identify topics and teachings of the Christian religion […]
• Intercultural Communication and Healthcare Delivery: Cranford Population The racial composition of the Cranford population shows that it comprises of different races, which implies that cultural communication is essential in the delivery of healthcare services.
• Relationship Between Ethnocentrism and Intercultural Communication The scaling for the questions administered ranged from 1 to 5; a score with a mean of 1 showed a low level of ethnocentrism, while a score with a mean of 5 showed a higher […]
• Intercultural Communication Campaign: Asian Students’ Reticence Issues The given communication campaign will primarily focus on the issues of reticence among Asian international students through the socio-centric and non-argumentative approaches.
• Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication It examines Agar’s specific approach to the notion of culture, the preconditions for intercultural breakdowns, and the appropriate solution to prevent them.
• Effective Intercultural Communication Culture is collective programming, a system of meanings and notions, which are shared between the members of one culture group and are used to construe the world around them.
• Intercultural Communication, Culture Shock and Immigration in Literature Westerners on the other hand believe in individualism so much that they forget that harmonious living is important for personal and society’s development.
• Intercultural Communication Attitudes It’s important to take into account cultural differences to make intercultural teams effective. It’s also necessary to pay attention to gender, age, and socioeconomic status.
• Intercultural Communication: Aspects In order to fulfill my interests, I always ensure that I make good use of every opportunity I get by interacting a lot with the people I meet.
• Intercultural Communication in the Workplace For this to happen, both men and women do not have to be in a relationship as it happens in many cases. In business matters, it is very significant to appreciate the morals and customs […]
• Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace This intercultural communication can be defined as the process which involves a combination of various skills, knowledge plus the combination of theoretical insights in trying to exchange meaningful and unambiguous information across the cultural boundaries […]
• Franco-Italian Intercultural Communication As a result, collective approaches to the problems created by their uprooting and by the necessity of adjusting to the new society tend to be organized along village lines, or at best on the basis […]
• Personal Worldview and Intercultural Communication Since I believe that living according to the word is the only right thing to do, I tend to disregard other people’s cultures because, in my view, my culture is right and other people’s cultures […]
• Reducing Intercultural Communication Barriers To reduce the above challenges, I must be aware of the barriers, be empathetic, pay careful attention to communication cues, and always verify with the receiver that I have understood his or her response. Academically, […]
• Intercultural Communication as Practiced in the US There are certain patterns of nonverbal behavior disclosing a particular communicative idea, but there are cases when it is impossible to display those patterns successfully. Therefore, it is much harder to conceal nonverbal signals that […]
• Intercultural Communication in the Arabian Gulf Region The concept of intercultural communication is particularly important to the countries in the Arabian Gulf where the rate of cultural diversity is at an all time high.
• Intercultural Communication Sensitivity Against Ethnocentrism While examining the ethnocentric limitations of the humanistic theory, it is necessary to consider the theoretical concept of ethnocentrism in detail.
• Intercultural Communication in the Series “Tyrant” Caught up in the middle of a revolt against the ruling family, he loses his father, who died during the coup, and is forced to help his brother and the new president to overcome the […]
• Intercultural Business Communication Approaches This section assesses Hofstede’s research and arguments in support of the validity and reliability of his research. Hofstede’s research on culture is the most extensive and widely referenced.
• Business and Intercultural Communication The ability to communicate in a business environment might be hindered by the following factors that are not typical for less formal communication: workforce diversity, the pervasiveness of technology, the complexity of the organizational structures, […]
• Culture Shock and Intercultural Communication The challenges of mistreatment of women and religious orientations can be addressed by conducting workshops and trainings aimed at assisting expatriate employees to develop adequate cultural competence on how to deal with culturally diverse others […]
• Intercultural Communication in Contexts: Fifth Edition Review Another aspect of language to consider is the evolvement of technology in the digital age and the emergence of online communication.
• Intercultural Communication: Identity and Relationships The other position is the relativist, which provides that the language, which a person speaks, determines the perception of that particular person on different issues in life.
• Intercultural Communication in the Business World In the context of the case study, one of the mistakes Clyde made was the failure to take time to learn about the culture of Senseyans before interacting with them.
• Intercultural Communication in “Gran Torino” Movie However, it is also quite peculiar that the scene in question allows viewing the issue of the culture clash on so many different levels; specifically, the fact that the conflict occurs not only between an […]
• Intercultural Communication: Different Aspects Discussing the main aspects of the inter-cultural communication, Carol Myers-Scotton focuses on the role of globalisation in the process, on differences between collectivistic and individualistic cultures which influence the particular features of the representatives’ communication, […]
• Intercultural Communication: Workers From Diverse Backgrounds Verderber and Verderber allege that communication is quite intricate in multinational organizations due to a diverse body of workers with distinct educational, cultural, and social backgrounds.
• Computer Mediated Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication Despite the fact that social media clearly poses a tangible threat to the culture of live communication and, therefore, will contribute to the shriveling of people’s social skills, computer mediated interpersonal and intercultural communication will […]
• Intercultural Communication: Stereotypes and Perspectives Finally, it is possible to say that being a rather complicated issue; communication also has a great number of different prejudices connected with the culture of people and their behavior.
• International and Intercultural Communication On the masculinity and femininity dimension, the scores of the two countries are 62 for the United States and 40 for Tanzania.
• Intercultural Communication and Success at Work Such people have limited abilities to consider alternative behaviours in processes of interpersonal communications that involve different cultures. Such forms of cross-cultural communications are difficult and may lead to interpersonal conflicts in communications.
• Intercultural Communication in Management The managers should, therefore, ensure that the process of communication satisfies these different needs to ensure that they are all aware of their role in the organization and in the implementation of the new strategy.
• Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication at the Workplace The interview was explained to the reasons of the interview and the need for the specific information being searched for. The key concept to retain in communication, is that no one component of communication – […]
• Face Concept in Chinese Culture: A Complication to Intercultural Communication One of the concepts of face in Chinese culture is that of losing face. This paper set out to argue that the concept of face in Chinese culture complicates intercultural communication.
• Kinesics and Proxemics in Intercultural Negotiations There are a myriad of kinesics and it will be hard for the US Company to learn all of the applicable kinesics when relating to the Japanese people.
• Intercultural Communication in Society Unlike other people in New Jersey, Alexander Mathew has a friendly attitude towards tourists, as he likes sharing his cultural beliefs and traditions with different people.
• Intercultural Communication Experiences: Interview With an Immigrant Sheik Omar is an immigrant to the United States and lives in the Atlantic City, New Jersey. The writer thought that Sheik Omar has adopted American culture since he has lived in the United States […]
• Intercultural and International Differences in Professional Communication On the other hand, the Americans communication culture is comprised of verbal communication. In this case, the Taiwanese culture is the high context culture while Americans is the low context culture.
• Language and Culture: Language Acquisition The process of the first language acquisition is considered to be a psycholinguistic process, while the second language acquisition is the area for study for linguists.
• Martin and Nakayama: Intercultural Communication in Contexts In their book, the authors reveal to the readers that there are two types of nonverbal communication. To this end, they state that motivation, knowledge, attitude and behavior are the major components for facilitating intercultural […]
• Intercultural Communication in Various Contexts Code switching practices have led countries to declare the official languages in a country in order to promote the assimilation of the people in the country.
• Fundamentals of Intercultural Communication Unlike other minority groups in Europe, the Jews face more segregation owing to the stereotype created about them in reference to the past association with the communities there, particularly, Germany and Austria, countries that were […]
• “Intercultural Communication in Business Ventures” Article Study Upon determining the market potential in the international market, it is critical for firms’ management teams to evaluate the various factors that would be necessary in the exploitation of the market opportunities.
• Islamic Living: Effective Cross-Cultural Communication It is not possible to separate Islam as a religion and the way one who professes the faith lives because it has been said to be a way of life.
• Intercultural Business and Legal Communication Additionally, the scholarly critique shall attempt to identify the goals of the article and the key theories and concepts used and whether are not these theories and concepts achieved the goals of the article. The […]
• Cross Cultural Communications in the Globalized World Among the cultures that have always been in conflict are the Islamic culture and the American culture. Assimilation in the American and Islamic cultures is desirable if effective communication is to occur between adherents of […]
• Inter-Cultural Communication Skills in Career Goal at the Contemporary Workplace It will be necessary for me to use emotional intelligence, for example in a scenario where the customer was mean or rude to one of my graphic designers’ due to dissatisfaction, it will be imperative […]
• Challenges of Effective Intercultural Communication Inter-cultural communications professionals work with global firms to play down the aforementioned results of poor inter-cultural understanding. Lingual acquaintance serves to bridge the cultural bridges and evening lines of communication.
• What Are Some Examples of Intercultural Communication?
• How Can Barriers to Intercultural Communication Be Overcome?
• What Are the Types of Intercultural Communication?
• How Does Poor Intercultural Communication Affect International Commerce and Foreign Policy?
• How Do We Deal With Intercultural Communication?
• What Are Some Intercultural Communication Problems?
• What Are Intercultural Communication Skills?
• What Is Intercultural Communication and Examples?
• What Makes Intercultural Communication Essential in the Process of Globalization?
• What Is Intercultural Communication, and Why Is It Important?
• Why Is It Important to Think Beyond Ourselves as Individuals in Intercultural Interaction?
• How Does Poor Intercultural Communication Affects International?
• What Are the Four Forms of Intercultural Communication?
• What Is the Other Name for Intercultural Communication?
• What Is the Role of Intercultural Communication in Work-Life?
• What Are the Three Challenges of Intercultural Communication?
• Why Do We Need to Understand Intercultural Communication?
• How Important Is Intercultural Communication to Our Society?
• What Makes for Good Intercultural Communication?
• What Are the Four Elements of Intercultural Communication?
• What Role Does Intercultural Communication Play in Achieving Effective Communication?
• What Is the Difference Between Cultural and Intercultural?
• What Are the Six Dichotomies of Intercultural Communication?
• What Are the Challenges of Intercultural Communication?
• What Is the Meaning of Intercultural?
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IvyPanda. (2024, February 28). 102 Intercultural Communication Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/intercultural-communication-essay-topics/

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IvyPanda . "102 Intercultural Communication Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." February 28, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/intercultural-communication-essay-topics/.

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113 Intercultural Communication Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on intercultural communication, 👍 good intercultural communication research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting intercultural communication research titles, 💡 simple intercultural communication essay ideas, ❓ intercultural communication questions.

• Importance of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Relationships and Communication
• Barna’s Intercultural Communication Stumbling Blocks: Summary and Response
• A Review of “Understanding Intercultural Communication”
• Improving Intercultural Communication Skills
• Intercultural Communication in TV Shows
• Exploring Intercultural Communication by Grothe
• Intercultural Communication: Interfaith Marriages Nowadays rapidly changing the world sets new opportunities and challenges in the field of intercultural communication. One of them is a growing number of interfaith marriages.
• The U-Curve Model of Intercultural Communication The U-Curve Model provides a fast and effective way of channeling the intercultural communication process toward reconciliation and collaboration.
• Intercultural Communication in Business, Education, and Healthcare The rules of communication vary depending on different contexts; that’s why this paper aims to discuss intercultural communication in business, education, and healthcare.
• Intercultural Communication: Dimensions of Bengali Culture Culture represents a common framework through which people organize their emotions, thoughts, and behavior concerning the world around them.
• Intercultural Communication in the Workplace A good understanding of the cultural difference in an area of operation and correct utilization of the available human capital aids the company to perform better
• Intercultural Communication Competence The characteristics of people’s personalities have a beneficial effect on the development of intercultural communication.
• Intercultural Communication: Problems and Benefits In the article, the author examines the issues of intercultural communication and briefly discusses the problems that may arise in this case.
• Intercultural Business Communication in Brazil This study is designed to explore the particularities of intercultural business communication for proper company product selling in Brazil.
• Indian Greeting Traditions: Intercultural Communication Study in India Different countries have different traditions and customs when it comes to greeting or addressing others. Many nuances depend on the culture of a nation and its history.
• Verbal Processes in Intercultural Communication Proficiency in more than one language is necessary because of where people live. In addition to culture, the context of communication depends on the relationship between individuals
• Intercultural Communication: Autoethnographic Reflection The basic tenets of intercultural communication competence constitute attitudes, knowledge, and skills and are complemented by personal values held as part of a social group.
• Appropriate and Effective Christian Intercultural Communication The current paper can help people understand the ability to communicate even with different views on life and different cultural customs.
• Digital Media and Intercultural Communication The role of digital media in globalization’s growing speed could not be underestimated as it made people in all countries immensely interconnected.
• Intercultural Communication in Business Understanding the cultural perspectives of staff is critical to developing successful business interactions as the wide cultural differences affect how a company does business.
• Barriers to Intercultural Communications Grothe (2020) identifies individual and institutional levels. Still, overall, this article presents a superficial review of the possible barrier.
• Stereotypes and Prejudices in Intercultural Communication The aim is to study modern contacts between representatives of different cultures, arising within the same and different states, and whether they carry problems in communication.
• The U-Curve Model: Managing Intercultural Communication The U-Curve Model can be used as a framework for managing intercultural communication and minimizing the threat and impact of cross-cultural conflicts.
• Intercultural Communication in Real Life Situations Intercultural communication is essential in the era of globalization, as it strengthens society and ensures acceptance for each individual.
• Deep Dive Reading and Intercultural Communication The paper suggests a textual analysis of some of the most crucial intercultural communication papers over the last five years.
• Intercultural Conflict Communication Style There are various approaches to characterize conflict resolution styles, and one of them is the Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory.
• Diversity and Intercultural Communication in the Workplace The article argues society must ensure comfortable and humane coexistence for all individuals, regardless of their belonging to other social or cultural groups.
• Diversity and Intercultural Communication in Business The paper explores some literature regarding the benefits of integration of diversity in the workplace and its importance.
• The Problems and Rules of Intercultural Communication Communication with people is a complex and multi-layered task to engage in for people because interaction or comes as second nature or presents a significant challenge.
• Workplace Diversity and Intercultural Communication The research mainly focuses on intercultural communication experiences between non-native English-speaking women and native English speakers.
• Intercultural Communication in Traditional Educational Setting Intercultural education should not be limited only to school subjects since more direct contact with other cultures is crucial.
• Intercultural Communication thru Literature Customs and traditions become a law of social order determining communication patterns and interaction between people, their destinies and life paths.
• Vision Bank’s Intercultural Communication: Problems and Recommendations The selected company for this report is Vision Bank. It provides banking, loans, financial advice, and consultancy services to customers in different regions.
• Intercultural Communication: Cultural Relativity Principles This paper considers the intercultural communication question, exploring Vicki Marie’s essay about Samoan culture, Davidson’s essay on Australian aborigines, and some photographs.
• Intercultural Encounter and Communication Barriers The experience involved interaction with an African American person. The purpose of the interaction was to enquire direction to a certain place.
• Intercultural Communication: the Product Names and Logos When doing business globally, it is crucial to take into consideration the meanings and sounding of the product names and logos into the languages of the cultures a product target.
• Intercultural Business Communication in Japan The purpose of this paper is to introduce readers to Japan, a country steeped in cultural tradition which has influenced the development of its business culture to a considerable degree.
• Intercultural Business Communication in China The purpose of this paper is to introduce you, the reader, to the business culture, customs and tradition that comes with working in China.
• American and Chinese Intercultural Communication
• Poor Intercultural Communication That Significantly Affected International Commerce or Foreign Policy
• Business and Intercultural Communication Issues: Three Contributions to Various Aspects of Business Communication
• Intercultural Communication and How to Develop It
• Effective Intercultural Communication and Cultural Values
• The Power for Successful Business: Intercultural Communication and Competence
• Intercultural Communication Among Black/African American Women
• How Poor Intercultural Communication Affects International Commerce and Foreign Policy
• Intercultural Communication Between People From Different Cultures
• Inarritu’s “Babel” and the Exploration of Intercultural Communication Barriers
• Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” and Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication and Cross-Cultural Man
• Joel Zwick’s “Big Fat Greek Wedding”: A Look at the Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication and Identity in Health Care
• Major Issues and Ways of Preventing Intercultural Communication Problems
• Intercultural Communication Between China and America
• Problematic Issues Arising With Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication and Negotiation in Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam)
• Meaning, Causes, and Consequences of Racist Communication in Malaysia: How Not to Be Racist in Intercultural Communication in Malaysia
• Intercultural Communication Challenges for an American Company That Moves Production
• Peace, Economic, Technological and Demographic Imperatives of Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication: How Danone Adapted Its Products
• Cultural Differences and Intercultural Communication
• Improving Intercultural Communication Skills by Learning
• Men-Women and Japanese-American Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication and Business Practice
• Non-Verbal and Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication and the Contemporary World
• Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication Bridges the Gap Between Global Performance and National Interests
• Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication: Advantages and Disadvantages
• The Importance of Intercultural Communication Training to the Global Workforce
• Internet: Bridging Intercultural Communication
• Understanding Intercultural Communication in Business
• Intercultural Communication and International Business
• The Benefits and Problems of the Intercultural Communication at Campus
• Intercultural Communication Business Practices of Italy
• Physical and Cultural Context of Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication: Comparing Sydney Suburbs Double Bay and Auburn
• Understanding the Intercultural Communication Gap
• Intercultural Communication: Cultures That Lead to Miscommunication
• The Cultural Differences and Their Impact on Intercultural Communication in the Film and Literature
• Intercultural Communication: Probing Cultural Stereotypes
• What Are the Barriers to Effective Intercultural Communication?
• How Can Intercultural Communication Cause Disruption in the Workplace?
• What Is the Essence of Intercultural Communication?
• How Are Intercultural Communication and Intracultural Communication Similar?
• How Does Identity Influence Intercultural Communication?
• What Is the Purpose of Intercultural Communication?
• What Is Intercultural Communication Apprehension?
• What Are the Most Critical Elements of Intercultural Communication Competence?
• Why Does Intercultural Communication Have the Potential for Increased Noise?
• Does Globalization Affect Intercultural Communication?
• What Role Might Religion Play in an Intercultural Communication Encounter?
• What Are the Basic Components of Intercultural Communication Competence?
• What Are the Problems in Intercultural Communication?
• How Do Board Games Improve Intercultural Communication Skills?
• What Skills Are Most Important for the Development of Intercultural Communication?
• What Are Cultural Spaces in Intercultural Communications?
• What Is Perception in Intercultural Communication?
• How Do Stereotypes Affect Intercultural Communication?
• How Does Gender Affect Intercultural Communication?
• How Do Commercials Influence Intercultural Communication?
• What Links Are There Between Intercultural Communication and Interpersonal Communication?
• What Are the Advantages of Intercultural Communication?
• How Is Intercultural Communication Important in Business?
• What Is the Importance of Cultural Intelligence for Intercultural Communication?
• Why Should We Learn Intercultural Communication?
• What Role Do Non-verbal Behaviors Have In Intercultural Communication?
• What Is the Role of Values in Intercultural Communication?
• How Does Social Media Affect Intercultural Communication?
• Why Is Symbolic Convergence Theory Important to Intercultural Communication?
• How Important Is Intercultural Communication in Our Society?

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StudyCorgi. (2022, October 26). 113 Intercultural Communication Essay Topics. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/intercultural-communication-essay-topics/

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StudyCorgi . 2022. "113 Intercultural Communication Essay Topics." October 26, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/intercultural-communication-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Intercultural Communication were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 8, 2024 .

Intercultural Communication Essay Topics Examples?

Delve into the engaging world of Intercultural Communication Essay Topics & Examples . This comprehensive guide, enriched with enlightening Intercultural Communication Examples , is your gateway to understanding and exploring the multifaceted aspects of intercultural interactions. Whether you’re a student crafting an essay, a teacher seeking topic inspiration, or a curious learner, these examples and topics will ignite your creativity and deepen your insight into the complexities and beauty of intercultural communication.

What are Intercultural Communication Essay Topics, Examples?

Intercultural communication essay topics and examples refer to ideas and scenarios that are used to write essays about how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate and interact with each other. These topics often explore the challenges, strategies, and importance of understanding and respecting different cultures in communication. Examples might include real-life situations, like how businesses from different countries negotiate deals, or theoretical discussions, like the role of language in bridging cultural gaps. These topics and examples help students and writers understand and analyze the ways in which our cultural backgrounds influence the way we communicate and interact with others in a diverse world.

20 Intercultural Communication Essay Topics, Examples

Discover a diverse range of Intercultural Communication Essay Topics & Examples , ideal for deepening your understanding of global communication. These topics, rich in cultural insights, are perfect for exploring the nuances of cross-cultural interactions. From business negotiations to personal relationships, these examples illustrate the complexity and beauty of communicating across cultures. Whether for academic essays or personal growth, these topics and examples provide a thorough understanding of the challenges and strategies in intercultural communication.

1. Cross-Cultural Business Negotiations : Explore how businesses from different cultural backgrounds negotiate deals. Understand the importance of cultural sensitivity, non-verbal cues, and the role of hierarchy in business discussions.

2. Language Barriers in Healthcare : Analyze the impact of language barriers in healthcare settings and the importance of interpreters. Discuss the challenges faced by healthcare providers and patients in understanding each other’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

3. Intercultural Marriage Dynamics : Examine communication in intercultural marriages. Focus on the importance of mutual cultural understanding, respecting differences, and adapting communication styles.

4. Global Team Management : Discuss the challenges of managing a culturally diverse team. Highlight strategies for effective communication, conflict resolution, and leveraging cultural diversity to enhance team performance.

5. Intercultural Education in Schools : Evaluate the role of schools in fostering intercultural communication among students. Discuss initiatives like exchange programs and multicultural events that promote cultural understanding.

6. Cultural Adaptation in Expatriate Assignments : Explore the experiences of expatriates adapting to a new culture. Discuss the importance of cultural immersion, coping strategies, and the role of cross-cultural training.

7. Media’s Role in Shaping Cultural Perceptions : Analyze how media influences perceptions of different cultures. Discuss the impact of stereotypes, cultural representation, and the need for culturally sensitive media content.

8. Tourism and Cultural Sensitivity : Examine the role of cultural sensitivity in tourism. Discuss how tourists can respect local customs and traditions while exploring new cultures.

9. Diplomatic Communication Challenges : Explore communication challenges in international diplomacy. Discuss the importance of cultural intelligence, protocol understanding, and maintaining international relations.

10. Cultural Stereotypes and Miscommunication : Investigate how cultural stereotypes lead to miscommunication. Discuss ways to overcome stereotypes and promote understanding.

11. Language Learning and Cultural Immersion : Discuss the role of language learning in cultural immersion. Highlight the importance of language in understanding a culture and effective communication.

12. Cultural Shock and Adaptation : Explore the concept of cultural shock and strategies for adaptation. Discuss personal experiences and coping mechanisms in a new cultural environment.

13. Intercultural Competence in Global Business : Evaluate the importance of intercultural competence in global business. Discuss strategies for developing cultural awareness and sensitivity in a business context.

14. Social Media’s Impact on Intercultural Communication : Analyze the role of social media in bridging or widening cultural gaps. Discuss the opportunities and challenges social media presents in understanding different cultures.

15. Non-verbal Communication Across Cultures : Examine the role of non-verbal communication in different cultures. Discuss how gestures, eye contact, and body language vary and affect communication.

16. Intercultural Communication in Conflict Resolution : Explore the role of intercultural communication in resolving conflicts. Discuss strategies for mediating and understanding different cultural perspectives in conflicts.

17. Cultural Exchange Programs and Their Impact : Analyze the impact of cultural exchange programs on students and professionals. Discuss how these programs enhance cultural understanding and communication skills.

18. Intercultural Communication in Marketing : Explore how marketing strategies are adapted for different cultural audiences. Discuss the importance of understanding cultural nuances in creating effective marketing campaigns.

19. Multicultural Workforce and Corporate Culture : Examine the influence of a multicultural workforce on corporate culture. Discuss strategies for creating an inclusive workplace that respects cultural differences.

20. Cultural Norms and Their Influence on Communication Styles : Investigate how cultural norms influence communication styles. Discuss the importance of understanding these norms for effective intercultural interaction.

Intercultural Communication Essay Discussion Topics

Embark on a journey of cultural discovery with these Intercultural Communication Essay Discussion Topics . Perfect for fostering insightful debates and deep analysis, these topics are designed to engage students and enthusiasts in the complexities of intercultural dialogue. From exploring the role of technology in bridging cultural divides to understanding the impact of cultural identity on communication, these topics offer a rich ground for exploration and discussion, enhancing one’s intercultural awareness and skills.

1. Impact of Globalization on Cultural Identities : Discuss how globalization affects cultural identities and communication. Consider both positive and negative impacts on cultural preservation and exchange.

2. Cultural Intelligence in Leadership : Explore the role of cultural intelligence in effective leadership. Discuss how leaders can cultivate this skill to manage diverse teams.

3. Role of Intercultural Communication in Conflict Zones : Analyze the importance of intercultural communication in resolving conflicts in multicultural regions. Discuss techniques and strategies used.

4. Digital Platforms as Tools for Intercultural Understanding : Evaluate how digital platforms can foster intercultural understanding. Discuss both the opportunities and challenges they present.

5. Intercultural Communication Barriers in Online Education : Explore the barriers faced in online education settings. Discuss strategies to overcome these challenges for a more inclusive learning environment.

6. The Influence of Culture on Consumer Behavior : Discuss how culture influences consumer behavior. Explore implications for international marketing and advertising strategies.

7. Intercultural Misunderstandings in the Workplace : Examine common intercultural misunderstandings in the workplace. Discuss strategies for prevention and resolution.

8. Ethical Considerations in Intercultural Communication : Analyze the ethical dimensions of intercultural communication. Discuss the balance between cultural respect and freedom of expression.

9. The Role of Language in Cultural Identity : Explore the relationship between language and cultural identity. Discuss the impact of language loss on cultural heritage.

10. Cultural Adaptation vs. Cultural Assimilation : Discuss the difference between adaptation and assimilation in intercultural contexts. Consider the implications for individual identity and cultural preservation.

Intercultural Communication Examples in Everyday Life

Intercultural Communication Examples in Everyday Life illustrate how cultural diversity enriches our daily interactions. These examples showcase real-life scenarios where understanding and adapting to different cultural contexts enhance communication and relationships. They offer insightful glimpses into the practical application of intercultural communication skills, proving invaluable for those looking to navigate our diverse world with greater empathy and effectiveness.

1. Ordering Food in a Multicultural Restaurant : Navigating menu choices and communicating dietary preferences in a multicultural restaurant. Understanding and respecting culinary traditions and practices.

2. Participating in a Cultural Festival : Engaging in a local cultural festival, learning about traditional customs, and communicating respectfully with participants from different cultural backgrounds.

3. Multilingual Signage in Public Spaces : Observing and understanding multilingual signage in airports or public transport. Appreciating linguistic diversity in communal areas.

4. Cultural Norms in Public Greetings : Adapting to different greeting customs in public interactions. Understanding varying norms for handshakes, bows, or verbal greetings.

5. Intercultural Dynamics in Sports Teams : Playing in or supporting multicultural sports teams. Communicating and collaborating with team members from diverse cultural backgrounds.

6. Shopping in Ethnic Markets : Shopping in ethnic markets, understanding cultural significance of products, and interacting respectfully with vendors.

7. Cultural Nuances in Neighbourhood Gatherings : Participating in neighbourhood gatherings with residents from diverse cultures. Sharing and respecting different cultural perspectives and traditions.

8. Watching Foreign Language Films with Subtitles : Watching and understanding foreign language films with subtitles. Gaining insights into different cultural narratives and expressions.

9. Intercultural Exchanges in Language Learning Classes : Engaging in language learning classes with students from various cultures. Sharing cultural insights and learning from each other.

10. Cultural Representation in Art Exhibitions : Visiting art exhibitions showcasing works from different cultures. Appreciating the diversity in artistic expressions and cultural stories.

In conclusion, this comprehensive guide on Intercultural Communication Essay Topics, Examples, How to Write & Tips provides invaluable insights and practical examples for anyone keen to explore the rich tapestry of intercultural communication. It serves as an essential resource, offering guidance, inspiration, and a deeper understanding of how to navigate and articulate the complexities of communicating across diverse cultural landscapes.

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10 Intercultural Communication Essay Topics, Examples

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50 Professional Intercultural Communication Topics 

Writing an intercultural communication paper won’t be easy. However, you will not find the most trouble from the article, but the research involved.

Intercultural communication research topics play a significant role in easing this burden. With a manageable and exciting problem, you will be able to take less time on research. That implies that the time for completing your assignment will also be shorter. Isn’t that perfect? Let me show you how to develop such topics.

What is Intercultural Communication Paper?

It is a research paper that aims to understand the influence of culture on people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. The goal of this is to reduce misunderstandings resulting from cultural variations.

The vast nature of culture globally makes it easy to have a massive collection of intercultural communication topic ideas. It is because of the acceleration of globalization in the world.

Such a paper follows the general outline of an argumentative essay, namely.

• Introduction

With people all over the world, interacting regularly, different cultural backgrounds come into contact.

Here are examples of expert intercultural communication topics for a research paper:

Intercultural Speech Topics on Interpersonal Communication

• Discuss how culture has influenced interpersonal dialogue
• What are the working methods of stimulating an interpersonal dialogue
• How interpersonal dialogue can improve the professional and personal success
• Challenges facing interpersonal communication in different media campaigns
• How context affects the quality of interpersonal dialogue
• The impact of Computer-mediated interaction
• The applicability of Competence concept to interpersonal dialogue
• An analytical approach to the Dysfunctional interpersonal communication concept
• The role of the medium in interpersonal communication
• Persuasion techniques in interpersonal communication

Topics of Communication on Culture

• Different ways of dealing with intercultural information exchange
• Productive intercultural dialogue with practical strategies
• How to teach intercultural communication and culture
• The role of artifacts in intercultural communication
• Why studying abroad leads to intercultural dialogue competence.
• Problems that arise between healthcare providers and patients from ethnic-minority groups
• How do students from other countries adapt to a new campus abroad
• Assessing the effectiveness of intercultural communication
• Critically analyze how translation is a form of intercultural dialogue.
• Compare and contrast how high and low-context cultures have an intercultural perspective.

Easy Intercultural Communication Topics on Media

• How media influences the perception of a culture
• Impact of language apps in breaking cultural communication barriers
• How journalistic communication has changed in the newly emerged spaces
• Participatory reporting and intercultural communication
• How citizenship of journalists has evolved in the new globalization context
• The role of media in creating intercultural peace
• Is science journalism a barrier to intercultural communication?
• How has networked journalism improved with intercultural dialogue?
• The development of journalism ethics in the globalized world
• How technology has shaped intercultural communication in journalism

Bonus Communication Topic Ideas

• Main imperatives of business intercultural communication
• Negotiation as a practice with the different cultural dialogues
• How culture affects how the young and old interact
• The impact of different cultural norms surrounding non-verbal communication and body language
• How to face the month of Ramadan in an office
• Expository essay on manners and courtesy in different cultures
• Impact of profiling on intercultural communication
• How assimilation and integration have developed from intercultural communication
• The different dimensions of culture
• Should there be diverse aspects of identities between cultures?
• How intercultural dialogue affects virtual dialogue
• How to enact social change in line with the cultural identity spectrum
• Is writing in global contexts compelling with diverse audiences from different cultures?
• Intercultural communication in the workplace
• How culture and non-verbal behavior relate
• The growth of international negotiation with intercultural communication
• Intercultural Communication: How to create a better understanding and learning
• How to deal with bias intercultural communication and leadership
• Training in a diverse environment: A case study
• The role played by intercultural communication barriers.

Help With Intercultural Communication Topics

We hope that you now know how to come up with exciting intercultural communication topic ideas. Note that if you can still use our professional writing if you have to fit into a strict deadline. For those students experiencing difficulties in the process of writing, you are alone. Our expert writers with decades of experience are ready to help.

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8.3 Intercultural Communication

Learning objectives.

• Define intercultural communication.
• List and summarize the six dialectics of intercultural communication.
• Discuss how intercultural communication affects interpersonal relationships.

It is through intercultural communication that we come to create, understand, and transform culture and identity. Intercultural communication is communication between people with differing cultural identities. One reason we should study intercultural communication is to foster greater self-awareness (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Our thought process regarding culture is often “other focused,” meaning that the culture of the other person or group is what stands out in our perception. However, the old adage “know thyself” is appropriate, as we become more aware of our own culture by better understanding other cultures and perspectives. Intercultural communication can allow us to step outside of our comfortable, usual frame of reference and see our culture through a different lens. Additionally, as we become more self-aware, we may also become more ethical communicators as we challenge our ethnocentrism , or our tendency to view our own culture as superior to other cultures.

As was noted earlier, difference matters, and studying intercultural communication can help us better negotiate our changing world. Changing economies and technologies intersect with culture in meaningful ways (Martin & Nakayama). As was noted earlier, technology has created for some a global village where vast distances are now much shorter due to new technology that make travel and communication more accessible and convenient (McLuhan, 1967). However, as the following “Getting Plugged In” box indicates, there is also a digital divide , which refers to the unequal access to technology and related skills that exists in much of the world. People in most fields will be more successful if they are prepared to work in a globalized world. Obviously, the global market sets up the need to have intercultural competence for employees who travel between locations of a multinational corporation. Perhaps less obvious may be the need for teachers to work with students who do not speak English as their first language and for police officers, lawyers, managers, and medical personnel to be able to work with people who have various cultural identities.

“Getting Plugged In”

The Digital Divide

Many people who are now college age struggle to imagine a time without cell phones and the Internet. As “digital natives” it is probably also surprising to realize the number of people who do not have access to certain technologies. The digital divide was a term that initially referred to gaps in access to computers. The term expanded to include access to the Internet since it exploded onto the technology scene and is now connected to virtually all computing (van Deursen & van Dijk, 2010). Approximately two billion people around the world now access the Internet regularly, and those who don’t face several disadvantages (Smith, 2011). Discussions of the digital divide are now turning more specifically to high-speed Internet access, and the discussion is moving beyond the physical access divide to include the skills divide, the economic opportunity divide, and the democratic divide. This divide doesn’t just exist in developing countries; it has become an increasing concern in the United States. This is relevant to cultural identities because there are already inequalities in terms of access to technology based on age, race, and class (Sylvester & McGlynn, 2010). Scholars argue that these continued gaps will only serve to exacerbate existing cultural and social inequalities. From an international perspective, the United States is falling behind other countries in terms of access to high-speed Internet. South Korea, Japan, Sweden, and Germany now all have faster average connection speeds than the United States (Smith, 2011). And Finland in 2010 became the first country in the world to declare that all its citizens have a legal right to broadband Internet access (ben-Aaron, 2010). People in rural areas in the United States are especially disconnected from broadband service, with about 11 million rural Americans unable to get the service at home. As so much of our daily lives go online, it puts those who aren’t connected at a disadvantage. From paying bills online, to interacting with government services, to applying for jobs, to taking online college classes, to researching and participating in political and social causes, the Internet connects to education, money, and politics.

• What do you think of Finland’s inclusion of broadband access as a legal right? Is this something that should be done in other countries? Why or why not?
• How does the digital divide affect the notion of the global village?
• How might limited access to technology negatively affect various nondominant groups?

Intercultural Communication: A Dialectical Approach

Intercultural communication is complicated, messy, and at times contradictory. Therefore it is not always easy to conceptualize or study. Taking a dialectical approach allows us to capture the dynamism of intercultural communication. A dialectic is a relationship between two opposing concepts that constantly push and pull one another (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). To put it another way, thinking dialectically helps us realize that our experiences often occur in between two different phenomena. This perspective is especially useful for interpersonal and intercultural communication, because when we think dialectically, we think relationally. This means we look at the relationship between aspects of intercultural communication rather than viewing them in isolation. Intercultural communication occurs as a dynamic in-betweenness that, while connected to the individuals in an encounter, goes beyond the individuals, creating something unique. Holding a dialectical perspective may be challenging for some Westerners, as it asks us to hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously, which goes against much of what we are taught in our formal education. Thinking dialectically helps us see the complexity in culture and identity because it doesn’t allow for dichotomies. Dichotomies are dualistic ways of thinking that highlight opposites, reducing the ability to see gradations that exist in between concepts. Dichotomies such as good/evil, wrong/right, objective/subjective, male/female, in-group/out-group, black/white, and so on form the basis of much of our thoughts on ethics, culture, and general philosophy, but this isn’t the only way of thinking (Marin & Nakayama, 1999). Many Eastern cultures acknowledge that the world isn’t dualistic. Rather, they accept as part of their reality that things that seem opposite are actually interdependent and complement each other. I argue that a dialectical approach is useful in studying intercultural communication because it gets us out of our comfortable and familiar ways of thinking. Since so much of understanding culture and identity is understanding ourselves, having an unfamiliar lens through which to view culture can offer us insights that our familiar lenses will not. Specifically, we can better understand intercultural communication by examining six dialectics (see Figure 8.1 “Dialectics of Intercultural Communication” ) (Martin & Nakayama, 1999).

Figure 8.1 Dialectics of Intercultural Communication

Source: Adapted from Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama, “Thinking Dialectically about Culture and Communication,” Communication Theory 9, no. 1 (1999): 1–25.

The cultural-individual dialectic captures the interplay between patterned behaviors learned from a cultural group and individual behaviors that may be variations on or counter to those of the larger culture. This dialectic is useful because it helps us account for exceptions to cultural norms. For example, earlier we learned that the United States is said to be a low-context culture, which means that we value verbal communication as our primary, meaning-rich form of communication. Conversely, Japan is said to be a high-context culture, which means they often look for nonverbal clues like tone, silence, or what is not said for meaning. However, you can find people in the United States who intentionally put much meaning into how they say things, perhaps because they are not as comfortable speaking directly what’s on their mind. We often do this in situations where we may hurt someone’s feelings or damage a relationship. Does that mean we come from a high-context culture? Does the Japanese man who speaks more than is socially acceptable come from a low-context culture? The answer to both questions is no. Neither the behaviors of a small percentage of individuals nor occasional situational choices constitute a cultural pattern.

The personal-contextual dialectic highlights the connection between our personal patterns of and preferences for communicating and how various contexts influence the personal. In some cases, our communication patterns and preferences will stay the same across many contexts. In other cases, a context shift may lead us to alter our communication and adapt. For example, an American businesswoman may prefer to communicate with her employees in an informal and laid-back manner. When she is promoted to manage a department in her company’s office in Malaysia, she may again prefer to communicate with her new Malaysian employees the same way she did with those in the United States. In the United States, we know that there are some accepted norms that communication in work contexts is more formal than in personal contexts. However, we also know that individual managers often adapt these expectations to suit their own personal tastes. This type of managerial discretion would likely not go over as well in Malaysia where there is a greater emphasis put on power distance (Hofstede, 1991). So while the American manager may not know to adapt to the new context unless she has a high degree of intercultural communication competence, Malaysian managers would realize that this is an instance where the context likely influences communication more than personal preferences.

The differences-similarities dialectic allows us to examine how we are simultaneously similar to and different from others. As was noted earlier, it’s easy to fall into a view of intercultural communication as “other oriented” and set up dichotomies between “us” and “them.” When we overfocus on differences, we can end up polarizing groups that actually have things in common. When we overfocus on similarities, we essentialize , or reduce/overlook important variations within a group. This tendency is evident in most of the popular, and some of the academic, conversations regarding “gender differences.” The book Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus makes it seem like men and women aren’t even species that hail from the same planet. The media is quick to include a blurb from a research study indicating again how men and women are “wired” to communicate differently. However, the overwhelming majority of current research on gender and communication finds that while there are differences between how men and women communicate, there are far more similarities (Allen, 2011). Even the language we use to describe the genders sets up dichotomies. That’s why I suggest that my students use the term other gender instead of the commonly used opposite sex . I have a mom, a sister, and plenty of female friends, and I don’t feel like any of them are the opposite of me. Perhaps a better title for a book would be Women and Men Are Both from Earth .

The static-dynamic dialectic suggests that culture and communication change over time yet often appear to be and are experienced as stable. Although it is true that our cultural beliefs and practices are rooted in the past, we have already discussed how cultural categories that most of us assume to be stable, like race and gender, have changed dramatically in just the past fifty years. Some cultural values remain relatively consistent over time, which allows us to make some generalizations about a culture. For example, cultures have different orientations to time. The Chinese have a longer-term orientation to time than do Europeans (Lustig & Koester, 2006). This is evidenced in something that dates back as far as astrology. The Chinese zodiac is done annually (The Year of the Monkey, etc.), while European astrology was organized by month (Taurus, etc.). While this cultural orientation to time has been around for generations, as China becomes more Westernized in terms of technology, business, and commerce, it could also adopt some views on time that are more short term.

The history/past-present/future dialectic reminds us to understand that while current cultural conditions are important and that our actions now will inevitably affect our future, those conditions are not without a history. We always view history through the lens of the present. Perhaps no example is more entrenched in our past and avoided in our present as the history of slavery in the United States. Where I grew up in the Southern United States, race was something that came up frequently. The high school I attended was 30 percent minorities (mostly African American) and also had a noticeable number of white teens (mostly male) who proudly displayed Confederate flags on their clothing or vehicles.

There has been controversy over whether the Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred or a historical symbol that acknowledges the time of the Civil War.

Jim Surkamp – Confederate Rebel Flag – CC BY-NC 2.0.

I remember an instance in a history class where we were discussing slavery and the subject of repatriation, or compensation for descendants of slaves, came up. A white male student in the class proclaimed, “I’ve never owned slaves. Why should I have to care about this now?” While his statement about not owning slaves is valid, it doesn’t acknowledge that effects of slavery still linger today and that the repercussions of such a long and unjust period of our history don’t disappear over the course of a few generations.

The privileges-disadvantages dialectic captures the complex interrelation of unearned, systemic advantages and disadvantages that operate among our various identities. As was discussed earlier, our society consists of dominant and nondominant groups. Our cultures and identities have certain privileges and/or disadvantages. To understand this dialectic, we must view culture and identity through a lens of intersectionality , which asks us to acknowledge that we each have multiple cultures and identities that intersect with each other. Because our identities are complex, no one is completely privileged and no one is completely disadvantaged. For example, while we may think of a white, heterosexual male as being very privileged, he may also have a disability that leaves him without the able-bodied privilege that a Latina woman has. This is often a difficult dialectic for my students to understand, because they are quick to point out exceptions that they think challenge this notion. For example, many people like to point out Oprah Winfrey as a powerful African American woman. While she is definitely now quite privileged despite her disadvantaged identities, her trajectory isn’t the norm. When we view privilege and disadvantage at the cultural level, we cannot let individual exceptions distract from the systemic and institutionalized ways in which some people in our society are disadvantaged while others are privileged.

As these dialectics reiterate, culture and communication are complex systems that intersect with and diverge from many contexts. A better understanding of all these dialectics helps us be more critical thinkers and competent communicators in a changing world.

“Getting Critical”

Immigration, Laws, and Religion

France, like the United States, has a constitutional separation between church and state. As many countries in Europe, including France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, have experienced influxes of immigrants, many of them Muslim, there have been growing tensions among immigration, laws, and religion. In 2011, France passed a law banning the wearing of a niqab (pronounced knee-cobb ), which is an Islamic facial covering worn by some women that only exposes the eyes. This law was aimed at “assimilating its Muslim population” of more than five million people and “defending French values and women’s rights” (De La Baume & Goodman, 2011). Women found wearing the veil can now be cited and fined $150 euros. Although the law went into effect in April of 2011, the first fines were issued in late September of 2011. Hind Ahmas, a woman who was fined, says she welcomes the punishment because she wants to challenge the law in the European Court of Human Rights. She also stated that she respects French laws but cannot abide by this one. Her choice to wear the veil has been met with more than a fine. She recounts how she has been denied access to banks and other public buildings and was verbally harassed by a woman on the street and then punched in the face by the woman’s husband. Another Muslim woman named Kenza Drider, who can be seen in Video Clip 8.2, announced that she will run for the presidency of France in order to challenge the law. The bill that contained the law was broadly supported by politicians and the public in France, and similar laws are already in place in Belgium and are being proposed in Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland (Fraser, 2011).

• Some people who support the law argue that part of integrating into Western society is showing your face. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
• Part of the argument for the law is to aid in the assimilation of Muslim immigrants into French society. What are some positives and negatives of this type of assimilation?
• Identify which of the previously discussed dialectics can be seen in this case. How do these dialectics capture the tensions involved?

Video Clip 8.2

Veiled Woman Eyes French Presidency

(click to see video)

Intercultural Communication and Relationships

Intercultural relationships are formed between people with different cultural identities and include friends, romantic partners, family, and coworkers. Intercultural relationships have benefits and drawbacks. Some of the benefits include increasing cultural knowledge, challenging previously held stereotypes, and learning new skills (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). For example, I learned about the Vietnamese New Year celebration Tet from a friend I made in graduate school. This same friend also taught me how to make some delicious Vietnamese foods that I continue to cook today. I likely would not have gained this cultural knowledge or skill without the benefits of my intercultural friendship. Intercultural relationships also present challenges, however.

The dialectics discussed earlier affect our intercultural relationships. The similarities-differences dialectic in particular may present challenges to relationship formation (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). While differences between people’s cultural identities may be obvious, it takes some effort to uncover commonalities that can form the basis of a relationship. Perceived differences in general also create anxiety and uncertainty that is not as present in intracultural relationships. Once some similarities are found, the tension within the dialectic begins to balance out and uncertainty and anxiety lessen. Negative stereotypes may also hinder progress toward relational development, especially if the individuals are not open to adjusting their preexisting beliefs. Intercultural relationships may also take more work to nurture and maintain. The benefit of increased cultural awareness is often achieved, because the relational partners explain their cultures to each other. This type of explaining requires time, effort, and patience and may be an extra burden that some are not willing to carry. Last, engaging in intercultural relationships can lead to questioning or even backlash from one’s own group. I experienced this type of backlash from my white classmates in middle school who teased me for hanging out with the African American kids on my bus. While these challenges range from mild inconveniences to more serious repercussions, they are important to be aware of. As noted earlier, intercultural relationships can take many forms. The focus of this section is on friendships and romantic relationships, but much of the following discussion can be extended to other relationship types.

Intercultural Friendships

Even within the United States, views of friendship vary based on cultural identities. Research on friendship has shown that Latinos/as value relational support and positive feedback, Asian Americans emphasize exchanges of ideas like offering feedback or asking for guidance, African Americans value respect and mutual acceptance, and European Americans value recognition of each other as individuals (Coller, 1996). Despite the differences in emphasis, research also shows that the overall definition of a close friend is similar across cultures. A close friend is thought of as someone who is helpful and nonjudgmental, who you enjoy spending time with but can also be independent, and who shares similar interests and personality traits (Lee, 2006).

Intercultural friendship formation may face challenges that other friendships do not. Prior intercultural experience and overcoming language barriers increase the likelihood of intercultural friendship formation (Sias et al., 2008). In some cases, previous intercultural experience, like studying abroad in college or living in a diverse place, may motivate someone to pursue intercultural friendships once they are no longer in that context. When friendships cross nationality, it may be necessary to invest more time in common understanding, due to language barriers. With sufficient motivation and language skills, communication exchanges through self-disclosure can then further relational formation. Research has shown that individuals from different countries in intercultural friendships differ in terms of the topics and depth of self-disclosure, but that as the friendship progresses, self-disclosure increases in depth and breadth (Chen & Nakazawa, 2009). Further, as people overcome initial challenges to initiating an intercultural friendship and move toward mutual self-disclosure, the relationship becomes more intimate, which helps friends work through and move beyond their cultural differences to focus on maintaining their relationship. In this sense, intercultural friendships can be just as strong and enduring as other friendships (Lee, 2006).

The potential for broadening one’s perspective and learning more about cultural identities is not always balanced, however. In some instances, members of a dominant culture may be more interested in sharing their culture with their intercultural friend than they are in learning about their friend’s culture, which illustrates how context and power influence friendships (Lee, 2006). A research study found a similar power dynamic, as European Americans in intercultural friendships stated they were open to exploring everyone’s culture but also communicated that culture wasn’t a big part of their intercultural friendships, as they just saw their friends as people. As the researcher states, “These types of responses may demonstrate that it is easiest for the group with the most socioeconomic and socio-cultural power to ignore the rules, assume they have the power as individuals to change the rules, or assume that no rules exist, since others are adapting to them rather than vice versa” (Collier, 1996). Again, intercultural friendships illustrate the complexity of culture and the importance of remaining mindful of your communication and the contexts in which it occurs.

Culture and Romantic Relationships

Romantic relationships are influenced by society and culture, and still today some people face discrimination based on who they love. Specifically, sexual orientation and race affect societal views of romantic relationships. Although the United States, as a whole, is becoming more accepting of gay and lesbian relationships, there is still a climate of prejudice and discrimination that individuals in same-gender romantic relationships must face. Despite some physical and virtual meeting places for gay and lesbian people, there are challenges for meeting and starting romantic relationships that are not experienced for most heterosexual people (Peplau & Spalding, 2000).

As we’ve already discussed, romantic relationships are likely to begin due to merely being exposed to another person at work, through a friend, and so on. But some gay and lesbian people may feel pressured into or just feel more comfortable not disclosing or displaying their sexual orientation at work or perhaps even to some family and friends, which closes off important social networks through which most romantic relationships begin. This pressure to refrain from disclosing one’s gay or lesbian sexual orientation in the workplace is not unfounded, as it is still legal in twenty-nine states (as of November 2012) to fire someone for being gay or lesbian (Human Rights Campaign, 2012). There are also some challenges faced by gay and lesbian partners regarding relationship termination. Gay and lesbian couples do not have the same legal and societal resources to manage their relationships as heterosexual couples; for example, gay and lesbian relationships are not legally recognized in most states, it is more difficult for a gay or lesbian couple to jointly own property or share custody of children than heterosexual couples, and there is little public funding for relationship counseling or couples therapy for gay and lesbian couples.

While this lack of barriers may make it easier for gay and lesbian partners to break out of an unhappy or unhealthy relationship, it could also lead couples to termination who may have been helped by the sociolegal support systems available to heterosexuals (Peplau & Spalding, 2000).

Despite these challenges, relationships between gay and lesbian people are similar in other ways to those between heterosexuals. Gay, lesbian, and heterosexual people seek similar qualities in a potential mate, and once relationships are established, all these groups experience similar degrees of relational satisfaction (Peplau & Spalding, 2000). Despite the myth that one person plays the man and one plays the woman in a relationship, gay and lesbian partners do not have set preferences in terms of gender role. In fact, research shows that while women in heterosexual relationships tend to do more of the housework, gay and lesbian couples were more likely to divide tasks so that each person has an equal share of responsibility (Peplau & Spalding, 2000). A gay or lesbian couple doesn’t necessarily constitute an intercultural relationship, but as we have already discussed, sexuality is an important part of an individual’s identity and connects to larger social and cultural systems. Keeping in mind that identity and culture are complex, we can see that gay and lesbian relationships can also be intercultural if the partners are of different racial or ethnic backgrounds.

While interracial relationships have occurred throughout history, there have been more historical taboos in the United States regarding relationships between African Americans and white people than other racial groups. Antimiscegenation laws were common in states and made it illegal for people of different racial/ethnic groups to marry. It wasn’t until 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Loving versus Virginia , declaring these laws to be unconstitutional (Pratt, 1995). It wasn’t until 1998 and 2000, however, that South Carolina and Alabama removed such language from their state constitutions (Lovingday.org, 2011). The organization and website lovingday.org commemorates the landmark case and works to end racial prejudice through education.

Even after these changes, there were more Asian-white and Latino/a-white relationships than there were African American–white relationships (Gaines Jr. & Brennan, 2011). Having already discussed the importance of similarity in attraction to mates, it’s important to note that partners in an interracial relationship, although culturally different, tend to be similar in occupation and income. This can likely be explained by the situational influences on our relationship formation we discussed earlier—namely, that work tends to be a starting ground for many of our relationships, and we usually work with people who have similar backgrounds to us.

There has been much research on interracial couples that counters the popular notion that partners may be less satisfied in their relationships due to cultural differences. In fact, relational satisfaction isn’t significantly different for interracial partners, although the challenges they may face in finding acceptance from other people could lead to stressors that are not as strong for intracultural partners (Gaines Jr. & Brennan, 2011). Although partners in interracial relationships certainly face challenges, there are positives. For example, some mention that they’ve experienced personal growth by learning about their partner’s cultural background, which helps them gain alternative perspectives. Specifically, white people in interracial relationships have cited an awareness of and empathy for racism that still exists, which they may not have been aware of before (Gaines Jr. & Liu, 2000).

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case that states could not enforce laws banning interracial marriages.

Bahai.us – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Key Takeaways

• Studying intercultural communication, communication between people with differing cultural identities, can help us gain more self-awareness and be better able to communicate in a world with changing demographics and technologies.
• A dialectical approach to studying intercultural communication is useful because it allows us to think about culture and identity in complex ways, avoiding dichotomies and acknowledging the tensions that must be negotiated.
• Intercultural relationships face some challenges in negotiating the dialectic between similarities and differences but can also produce rewards in terms of fostering self- and other awareness.
• Why is the phrase “Know thyself” relevant to the study of intercultural communication?
• Apply at least one of the six dialectics to a recent intercultural interaction that you had. How does this dialectic help you understand or analyze the situation?
• Do some research on your state’s laws by answering the following questions: Did your state have antimiscegenation laws? If so, when were they repealed? Does your state legally recognize gay and lesbian relationships? If so, how?

Allen, B. J., Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity , 2nd ed. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2011), 55.

ben-Aaron, D., “Bringing Broadband to Finland’s Bookdocks,” Bloomberg Businessweek , July 19, 2010, 42.

Chen, Y. and Masato Nakazawa, “Influences of Culture on Self-Disclosure as Relationally Situated in Intercultural and Interracial Friendships from a Social Penetration Perspective,” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 38, no. 2 (2009): 94. doi:10.1080/17475750903395408.

Coller, M. J., “Communication Competence Problematics in Ethnic Friendships,” Communication Monographs 63, no. 4 (1996): 324–25.

De La Baume, M. and J. David Goodman, “First Fines over Wearing Veils in France,” The New York Times ( The Lede: Blogging the News ), September 22, 2011, accessed October 10, 2011, http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/first-fines-over -wearing-full-veils-in-france .

Fraser, C., “The Women Defying France’s Fall-Face Veil Ban,” BBC News , September 22, 2011, accessed October 10, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15023308 .

Gaines Jr. S. O., and Kelly A. Brennan, “Establishing and Maintaining Satisfaction in Multicultural Relationships,” in Close Romantic Relationships: Maintenance and Enhancement , eds. John Harvey and Amy Wenzel (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2011), 239.

Stanley O. Gaines Jr., S. O., and James H. Liu, “Multicultural/Multiracial Relationships,” in Close Relationships: A Sourcebook , eds. Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000), 105.

Hofstede, G., Cultures and Organizations: Softwares of the Mind (London: McGraw-Hill, 1991), 26.

Human Rights Campaign, “Pass ENDA NOW”, accessed November 5, 2012, http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/employment-non-discrimination-act .

Lee, P., “Bridging Cultures: Understanding the Construction of Relational Identity in Intercultural Friendships,” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 35, no. 1 (2006): 11. doi:10.1080/17475740600739156.

Loving Day, “The Last Laws to Go,” Lovingday.org , accessed October 11, 2011, http://lovingday.org/last-laws-to-go .

Lustig, M. W., and Jolene Koester, Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication across Cultures , 2nd ed. (Boston, MA: Pearson, 2006), 128–29.

Martin, J. N., and Thomas K. Nakayama, Intercultural Communication in Contexts , 5th ed. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2010), 4.

Martin, J. N., and Thomas K. Nakayama, “Thinking Dialectically about Culture and Communication,” Communication Theory 9, no. 1 (1999): 14.

McLuhan, M., The Medium Is the Message (New York: Bantam Books, 1967).

Peplau, L. A. and Leah R. Spalding, “The Close Relationships of Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals,” in Close Relationships: A Sourcebook , eds. Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000), 113.

Pratt, R. A., “Crossing the Color Line: A Historical Assessment and Personal Narrative of Loving v. Virginia ,” Howard Law Journal 41, no. 2 (1995): 229–36.

Sias, P. M., Jolanta A. Drzewiecka, Mary Meares, Rhiannon Bent, Yoko Konomi, Maria Ortega, and Colene White, “Intercultural Friendship Development,” Communication Reports 21, no. 1 (2008): 9. doi:10.1080/08934210701643750.

Smith, P., “The Digital Divide,” New York Times Upfront , May 9, 2011, 6.

Sylvester, D. E., and Adam J. McGlynn, “The Digital Divide, Political Participation, and Place,” Social Science Computer Review 28, no. 1 (2010): 64–65. doi:10.1177/0894439309335148.

van Deursen, A. and Jan van Dijk, “Internet Skills and the Digital Divide,” New Media and Society 13, no. 6 (2010): 893. doi:10.1177/1461444810386774.

Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Intercultural Communication

(14 reviews)

Shannon Ahrndt, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Copyright Year: 2020

Publisher: University of Missouri - St. Louis

Language: English

Formats Available

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Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Christi Masters, Clinical Associate Professor, Purdue University on 12/19/23

This covers a fairly wide range of topics in regard to intercultural learning. For an introductory course (especially geared towards freshmen), this will provide a nice overview of topics. Given the title, I was expecting to see more comprehensive... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This covers a fairly wide range of topics in regard to intercultural learning. For an introductory course (especially geared towards freshmen), this will provide a nice overview of topics. Given the title, I was expecting to see more comprehensive information about culture and communication (e.g., how to communicate more effectively). Chapter 1 covered this more comprehensively than the remaining chapters.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Overall the information is accurate and sources are cited. Writing about this topic can be tricky as we often view this from our own experiences in life, but the author appropriately references material discussed.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The overall topic and broad information is quite relevant. While there are a few examples that are recent, many of the examples (including video clips) were often quite old (and not clearly related to how it is relevant to current times).

Clarity rating: 5

The clarity is excellent. I appreciated how each chapter provides clear learning objectives before getting started. The key terms at the start of each chapter (and being able to click on them for more information) was helpful, especially when thinking of the student perspective.

Consistency rating: 4

Consistency with terminology throughout the text was noted. The consistent start of each chapter with learning objectives and key terminology was helpful. All of the chapters ended with "key takeaways", but two chapters did not include "exercises" at the end of the chapter.

Modularity rating: 5

Although chapter 1 was long and contained more information than others, there were still clear sections and subheadings that aided modularity. Although some of the information builds off previous content/chapters, it would still be feasible to assign a chapter or section and still make sense to the reader and allow for learning based on that specific assignment/chapter.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The text was organized and flowed well while reading. As mentioned previously, the organization of each chapter was helpful (starting with learning objectives and key terms, and ending with key takeaways and exercises).

Interface rating: 5

The images and charts were clear. The key terms and videos were easy to click on and find. There were no distracting features noted.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

A few minor errors but nothing that hindered content or readability.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Given this is the focus of the text, it covers a range of cultural topics. Again, some of the information/examples are older and it would benefit from more recent examples.

There were many things I appreciated about this text. For example, noting the importance of reflection and reflective practice when it comes to intercultural learning. I wish there was more focus and an explicit statement about intercultural communication competence being a life-long journey - you don't just one day become "competent". While I am sure the author knows that, I think an undergraduate student could read the section on ICC and think there is an "endpoint" where you are finally competent.

Reviewed by Kay L. Colley, Professor of Mass Communication, Texas Wesleyan University on 7/31/23

This book is a comprehensive yet concise read allowing students to really understand the basics of intercultural communication. The glossary provides a great resource for students and anyone who wants to understand how to more effectively... read more

This book is a comprehensive yet concise read allowing students to really understand the basics of intercultural communication. The glossary provides a great resource for students and anyone who wants to understand how to more effectively communicate across cultures.

Most intercultural communication texts are written through a lens, so examples veer toward a focus on one area, usually the area of specialization of the author. This text provides a good depth of examples that seem to go beyond your traditional examples in such a text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The basic theories and concepts of intercultural communication are tackled effectively in this text, and content is fairly up-to-date. As this topic changes so quickly, it is difficult to keep intercultural communications up-to-date, but examples and issues are relevant to today.

This text is well-written and more accessible to students than several other texts I have reviewed. A limit on jargon and clear explanations of complicated topics make the text one that students will use.

Consistency rating: 5

Consistent use of terminology and phrasing is clear throughout the book.

Modularity rating: 4

The first two chapters are a bit long, especially chapter 1. Breaking the chapter into a bite-sized portion would be helpful.

Clear flow and logic are present in this text.

I was impressed by how the text looked. It is clear, attractive and written in a font that makes reading easier.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

There are a few grammatical errors, which is common in most texts today. Nothing is glaring, in terms of grammar, but there are some S-V agreement issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The topics that this textbook covers are sometimes hot button. There are some graphics that may be jarring, but that is the nature of intercultural communications. In studying how to communicate effectively across cultures, there are times when issues must be addressed that are uncomfortable.

This textbook is far more accessible to my students than the previous textbook in terms of writing, tone and style. I really believe my students will understand the subject better as they use this text, which is integral to understanding how to communication effectively across cultures.

Reviewed by Marc Pinheiro-Cadd, Associate Professor, Drake University on 12/15/22

While each chapter is of interest and potentially useful for an introductory course to intercultural communication, there is no index and no glossary. This could be addressed using ancillary materials, but it would not suffice as a stand-alone... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

While each chapter is of interest and potentially useful for an introductory course to intercultural communication, there is no index and no glossary. This could be addressed using ancillary materials, but it would not suffice as a stand-alone textbook.

The content is unbiased, taking a "neutral" stance on the various topics. The content is consistent with current research in the field, although there are some missing content that would be useful.

My primary motivation for reviewing the text was to find a better presentation of the chapter on gendered communication, i.e., something that addresses more the interaction between males and females. While the text discusses the LGBTQ+ movement and community, it lacks a thorough discussion of communication within the community and with other communities. While the research in this area has not been largely forthcoming, most instructors will want a text (or replacement chapter) that is more current. A chapter devoted to acculturation might be a useful addition.

The text is very clearly written and 100% appropriate for an introductory course. Studnets who wish for or need material that can be applied directly to their lives without difficult jargon, this would be an appropriate selection.

Assessing this is a little difficult given that there is no index or glossary, but based on my reading, it is consistent. The framework remains consistent in that it is a very user-friendly text.

I believe this is one of the strengths of the text. Individual chapters could be used to supplement or replace chapters of other texts. Alternatively, chapters of this text could be omitted and replaced by others more suitable to the instructor and their students. The divisions internally within each chapter have been well chosen.

The first three chapters of the text are the more "theoretical," although they are easily processed by a reader unfamiliar with the field. The remainder of the chapter address various aspects of human society that face some of the issues addressed in the first three chapters.

There were no interface issues to note. Every chart and image were clearly displayed and easily understood.

No grammatical errors were found.

Race, class, and gender were addressed in individual chapters. A discussion of communication between non-binary and binary/cis individuals would be an appropriate addition. No offensive material was detected.

Having known little about OER prior to the search that led me to this text, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover this text. It will be useful for future iterations of my courses.

Reviewed by Elissa Mitchell, Associate Professor, University of Southern Indiana on 11/18/22

This book covers many areas (e.g., stereotyping, beliefs and values, race and ethnicity, social class, gender and sexuality) so it's diverse enough to be used in a broad course, likely as a supplemental text/reading. Each chapter has a good... read more

This book covers many areas (e.g., stereotyping, beliefs and values, race and ethnicity, social class, gender and sexuality) so it's diverse enough to be used in a broad course, likely as a supplemental text/reading. Each chapter has a good overview of the topic. It doesn't not go in depth on any one topic, so would be best for an introductory course.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

While I am not expert in this field, it appears as though the information in this book is based on the appropriate literature and is supported by in-text citations and linked in the references.

This is an up-to-date discussion of intercultural communication, although I would have liked to have seen more of a discussion on nonverbal communication (an important factor). While language or preferred terms may evolve over time, this could easily be updated to reflect those changes. A list of key terms would be a nice addition to each chapter, perhaps included at the end with the key takeaways.

I found this to be a very well-written text. It is fairly informal, not including a lot of unnecessary jargon, and makes the text accessible (ideal for undergraduates). Personal examples and stories are included which engages the reader.

The text is consistent in terms of formatting, style of writing, and additional content (key takeaways, student exercises) throughout

This is a highly modular text and chapters could easily be used independently without assigning the whole text. Chapters on race or gender, for example, could be used as supplemental readings in courses addressing those topics. The chapters can be a bit long so one might even consider breaking up chapters into subsections.

The text is well-organized and flows well. While some chapters start differently than others, I think that helps break up the monotony of some texts. The book starts with an overview of the topic and then each subsequent chapter talks about a specific aspect of culture or identity.

The text is free of significant interface issues or navigation problems. The images/charts are clear and cited & I appreciate the linked in-text citations.

This is a well-written text with few grammatical issues. Those that are present do not detract from the topic or information being presented.

This is an appropriate book for intercultural communication from an American perspective. Those from other nations would likely have a different view. That being said, the U.S. has many cultures and subcultures and this book does a nice job of discussing potential issues and considerations.

Reviewed by Reslie Cortés, Assistnat Professor, James Madison University on 11/9/22

The information provided and the chapter organization is interesting and good but overall, I think this book is more about identity than culture. It covers very little ground to the extent that I would not be able to keep it as my main book and... read more

The information provided and the chapter organization is interesting and good but overall, I think this book is more about identity than culture. It covers very little ground to the extent that I would not be able to keep it as my main book and would only be able to use it to supplement a different text. It is also quite short at only 100 pages. So while it could be used as a helpful reference it’s not a stand-alone text.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

While the book often brings in widely accepted concepts regarding prejudice, there is insufficient/inaccurate discussion of how these function through colonialism. For example, in discussion of social class the author points to overpopulation in the global south. This is a myth borne out of colonial discourse which erases exploitation of these countries and has been widely disproven. We have also moved beyond considering oppression as an individual experience and much more structurally.

Does not extensively use “current events” to explain concepts so it feels very anachronistic. This could increase its longevity but also detaches it from everyday experiences.

Writing style is very clear, accessible, and personable. The author refers to themselves in the third person which I think student would like. Most students should be able to easily digest the reading.

The terminology is consistent, however there is an imbalance in paradigmatic coverage. There seems to be an implied assumption that all intercultural communication research has this critical approach which I feel is very inaccurate and limits the coverage on social scientific or interpretive perspectives in the field. In other words, presenting critical perspectives as the umbrella instead of one approach. I myself am I critical scholar, however in a survey course we must address the other paradigms as well.

Chapters are 25 pages or less with plenty of subsections

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The chapters are divided by different identities and while this contributes to a good flow, there is more to intercultural communication than identity. I fear this organization has excluded some important themes such as cultural space, identity performance, globalization and modern-day imperialism, the role of media, cultural practices, language, etc. Furthermore, while intersectionality is discussed, this organization hampers readers ability to see how these functions because the identities are all discussed separately.

Well placed headers, images, charts. Links work correctly.

None detected

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

There seems to be a hesitance address modern-day colonization and imperialism in this book. Additionally, I think it could be updated by using “enslavement” rather than “slavery”. It discusses important social inequalities at length but mostly at an individual level, leaving out explorations of more structural oppressions. There are also some red flags throughout that reveal internalized oppressive discourse of the author. For example the chapter on social class (only 10pgs or so) talks about criminal justice and uses a photograph of a black man being arrested with no contextualization or discussion of rates of arrest in different communities or police brutality. Literally choosing to include this without drawing its relevance to culture. What was their goal for discussing this topic? Out of touch and completely unacceptable.

Reviewed by Caleb Lamont, Adjunct Faculty in Communication Studies, Eastern Oregon University on 9/9/22

Various topics and theories are explored in the text and present them in a fun and engaging way. Everything is easy to understand throughout and students are able to see how one topic connects to another one. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Various topics and theories are explored in the text and present them in a fun and engaging way. Everything is easy to understand throughout and students are able to see how one topic connects to another one.

Everything was accurate and relatable to the students.

Everything is very relevant and up-to-date. Granted, some things might need to be revised down the road in future editions to make things more relatable and current but as of today, everything was fine and relevant.

Everything was very easy to understand and flowed clearly from chapter to chapter.

The author was consistent throughout.

Overall, everything is easy to understand throughout and is a solid text the way it is today. Everything flows and builds off of previous chapters/topics.

The text is very well organized and everything flows from the first chapter to the last chapter.

No issues with this, no broken links were found.

While not a major issue, there were several typos and other grammatical errors in the text. Not a major issue at all though, and it did not take away from the material being presented to students.

The examples used were all current and relatable to students but it was more geared toward North American culture it seemed. Expanding the cultural examples being used is suggested for future revisions.

Overall, this is a solid text and does a great job presenting information to students.

Reviewed by Andrea (Ané) Pearman, Assistant Professor, Tidewater Community College on 7/28/22

Although the text covers a vast amount of content, there are foundational aspects of ICC that are not addressed as well as I would prefer. There appears to be a more sociological or cultural anthropology focus to this text and less of a focus on... read more

Although the text covers a vast amount of content, there are foundational aspects of ICC that are not addressed as well as I would prefer. There appears to be a more sociological or cultural anthropology focus to this text and less of a focus on the field of communication. For example, nonverbal communication was barely addressed yet it plays such a significant role in ICC.

I appreciate the listing of key terms at the beginning of each chapter as well as the direct links between the listing and the content within the chapter. I would recommend a well-structured glossary as an addition to this text or a detailed index to the entire text for reference; this would make content even more accessible for students. I appreciate the inclusion (which is not rather standard process) of learning objectives for each chapter but I do not always see the connection within the chapters.

Content, without copiously scrutinizing each chapters’ content and fact checking each and every single reference, appears to be accurate. The author cites sources at the end of each chapter and within the content of the chapters. Links to source citations are added within each chapter’s content for credibility and to enhance further research. I appreciated the links within the "References" section for each chapter to easily access original source content.

Overall, the language of the writing does not tend to “date” the content as the author has written with “timeless” language. The author includes both historical and current examples which may impact the long-term relevance of the text. The inclusion of incredibly current content (text written in 2020 with sources from 2020) may help this text stand the test of time. The language is current and there is a good inclusion of up-to-date examples of some concepts discussed within some of the content (particularly in the Ch. 7 Socialization and Human Sexuality). These examples could easily be updated to keep the content as current as possible.

Clarity rating: 4

The chapters are clearly written with the author’s writing style being very “readable” and I feel that this puts the readers at ease regarding the content. The author’s language is written at a level easily accessible for both higher and lower-level undergraduate course students. The author uses anecdotes and personal examples to make the content more “relatable” and the author tries to create connections with students, overall, with the language style of the writing. However, the somewhat heavy reliance on personal examples by the author can take away from the overall research value- for me, as a reader.

The chapters’ language, formatting and content follow a consistent pattern. I appreciate the use of key terms, learning objectives, photo boxes, “getting real” and “getting plugged in “sections, key takeaways, examples, video links and one level of sub-heading throughout each chapter. I would even value a further level of sub-heading, if possible, in future editions. The flow of content is logical and consistent, but some chapters are significantly longer or include more content than others which requires the professor to break down into addition reading sections for students.

In the text’s current organization, the chapters seem to flow logically into each other or lead logically to the next chapter’s content. Having said this, the chapters are structured in a manner that they can easily be rearranged for teaching style and timing. The subdivision of content with secondary headers within the chapters makes it easier to “pick and choose” if necessary, content to be addressed.

As previously noted, some chapters contain considerably more content than others and this could be modified with either adding more chapters OR more content to other chapters. The flow of content is logical and well-structured. There is consistency in the content included with the exception of some chapters including more pedagogical aids than others.

Interface rating: 4

Basic but, overall, easy to use. Downloadable pdf with links (but it’s easy to lose your original place of reading when using links). Although I appreciate the links for key words and source information, the “open in another tab” option is not available, but it would make the process easier to return to prior reading place.

I did not review the text as an editor nor run through editing software, but I did notice a few slight grammatical issues present; the errors were nominal and none that would impact the author’s credibility.

The examples were very current as well as relevant and, overall, would relate to, or at least interest, students. I found the book to be sensitive to a variety of aspects of culture but found it to be somewhat “American-centric” meaning it was more relevant to North America than subcultures of other geographic areas (like Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe).

I found the text to be an enjoyable read and I think students would find value in the content included. I appreciated the key term links and exercises for students as well as the personal anecdotes of the author. While the coverage of intercultural communication from a sociological perspective was quite thorough, I would not be able to use this as a “stand alone” source for my Intercultural Communication courses but would need to supplement with additional content regarding communication theories as well as more content from cultures outside of the United States.

Reviewed by Sweta Baniya, Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech on 4/1/22

The book is less comprehensive than I thought. Though it covers a variety of important topics, I wanted some comprehensive historical grounding of IC and its importance. read more

The book is less comprehensive than I thought. Though it covers a variety of important topics, I wanted some comprehensive historical grounding of IC and its importance.

All content seems accurate.

Content is very relevant

The language is really clear.

Information is very consistent. However, I think the history of IC is missing.

I think so! I like the format.

It seems like there are so many items within one page but those are easily identifiable.

No issues that I can think of

None that I can see.

I think the book is really good. However, I think I wanted a comprehensive history of intercultural communication that will help the students to understand the grounding of IC. I do think the book is really good. However, I am not so confident in using only this text as my major text for my class. The chapter on Race and Ethnicity is really important. I will definitely assign some chapters from the book to my future IC class because the book has important topics.

Reviewed by Gloria Wenman, Adjunct Instructor, English Language Acquisition, Kirkwood Community College on 12/15/21

The textbook covers a wide range of the American cultural landscape. It explains the history of certain issues with tact while also conveying the good and bad of historical figures and impactful decisions (historical as in the past few to many... read more

The textbook covers a wide range of the American cultural landscape. It explains the history of certain issues with tact while also conveying the good and bad of historical figures and impactful decisions (historical as in the past few to many years ago). Explanations are placed with the initiation of a concept. This is convenient as it alleviates the need to grab another book to find the meaning. At times, explanations are tied back to previous concepts to help with understanding, e.g., “the socializing institutions we discussed earlier…” The table of contents could be revised to include headings within each chapter. This would help the reader to see at a glance all that a chapter focuses on, rather than just the chapter's main thesis.

While most of the content consists of statements of fact, the author's opinions are obvious in the words used to examine different concepts. It is usually clear when the author's own viewpoint is being expressed. The content is well referenced with a discussion of the sourced information. In-text citations are linked to the reference page. Most of the references are linked to the originating document. This makes it easy to fact-check a discussed concept or approach. A random sampling showed that the author stayed true to the represented ideas of the linked articles.

Very few ‘currently trending’ words or phrases are used thus lessening the need for interpretation. This lends to the relevance of the material as it prevents ‘dating’ of the material. Much of the textbook is tied to the historical beginnings of certain outcomes. While the interpretation of these may change, hopefully, the facts won’t. When combined with common use words, this will keep the textbook from being outdated within the next decade (as is the case with many printed books).

The author's style of writing helps the reader understand the different approaches used. The contained concepts are well defined and considered from several perspectives. It is also written with good sentence structure and paragraph placement making for a clearer understanding of theories, opinions, and explanations. Headers, sub-headers, and highlighting help to simplify content and connections.

The style of writing is consistent throughout the textbook. Words, phrases, and concepts of the same level of proficiency are conveyed in a similar manner throughout. Chapters are laid out in the same pattern making it easy to pinpoint references, suggested learning outcomes, key terms, key takeaways, and student exercises. The flow of the chapters is similar without any jarring (or chaotic) changes. The call-backs to previous chapters or discussions help to connect the entirety of the communication concept between and within different American ideals, beliefs, and systems.

Moving through the book in a linear fashion allows certain aspects to bloom in a particular way. However, the author’s way of developing the textbook does allow for segmentation. Chapters could be subdivided with the extractions combined in different ways. This helps home in on certain facets that may be at the forefront of common thought, the news of the day, or the planned focus of a class. This makes it easier to pick and choose which portions to use in classroom discussions. While each chapter has a set focus, some of the concepts do overlap. This helps with flow and understanding but may make it more difficult to subdivide without seeming fragmentary.

The textbook is organized into overall categories then subdivided into specific areas of focus. This continuity of structure helps the reader move from one aspect, or focus, of the chapter to another. However, some chapters begin with a story of a recent event, others start with consideration of different research, and yet others begin with an expressed opinion. While this might lend an interesting diversity, it impacts the flow between chapters. This keeps the textbook from being as useful of a classroom tool as it could be. Some chapters have questions after the opening foray, but most do not. The questions are useful because they make the reader immediately question their own biases. They also provide a great starting point for discussion-based classes.

Interface rating: 3

Links within the document help with understanding. The links allow you to click on a keyword or reference and be taken to the definition or usage within the textbook. Getting back to your starting point is not as easy due to the necessity of scrolling back. Clicking on a picture byline or reference did not result in the same issue. Hitting the back button returns you to the exact place in the textbook you left. Perhaps the issue is only true of links within the document rather than those linked to outside sources. While this aspect is probably true of many online documents, having a link that goes backward and forwards could alleviate this.

There are some dropped words, such as indirect articles, and some awkward word usage. However, I didn’t read it with the intent of proofreading, and the meaning and intent appear clear.

The dynamics and inter-connectedness of the different aspects of American culture are well explored. The textbook is somewhat limited to those already in or wishing to integrate into, the existing stratified American culture or to better understand their place(s) in it. For those coming to this country with the wish to understand the culture, and not change their own, this is a great overall introduction. However, while there may be commonalities between cultures, the book doesn’t consider outside backgrounds and cultures.

The textbook is focused on the intersectionality within American culture. It is more intracultural than intercultural. I had looked at this textbook for possible use in an English Language Acquisitions’ Culture and Communication class. This is a high-level class, and in the next lowest (in a progression-based system) we discuss a person’s culture of familiarity in comparison with the American culture. When I first looked at this book, it seemed to be a possibility. After more in-depth consideration though, I don’t think it will work for helping students to understand the American culture as it relates to their own. Thanks to the decent modularity, there are many facets that I can use. I just can’t use it as a whole class. I think this textbook is great, and I certainly like it for its inclusivity of American’s varied cultures.

Reviewed by Kristen Livingston, Associate Instructional Professor, Pittsburg State University on 6/3/21

Very dense- all encompassing and dare I even say "loaded" with all of the connecting ideologies to sociological foundations. I worry that it is not effective in communication practices but may be helpful understanding people which is how... read more

Very dense- all encompassing and dare I even say "loaded" with all of the connecting ideologies to sociological foundations. I worry that it is not effective in communication practices but may be helpful understanding people which is how connections in communication may be made. I would reduce the overwhelming focus on descriptions and focus on what intercultural means in terms of communication. Intercultural communication can be an overwhelming subject and this may encourage more anxiety with the topic. The key terms would benefit including definitions at the beginning or the end of the chapters to help reiterate the importance of those in relation to intercultural communication. The exercises are helpful to generate discussion/reiteration of content.

The content, in accordance with best practices, theoretical framing, and academic acknowledgments, is referenced adequately. The citations at the end of each chapter clarify anything within the text that may encourage questioning. Intercultural communication is heavily reliant on experience as much as academics- I know this may not be a popular "opinion. Thus, this text does a good job collecting information to help further a classroom discussion.

Since intercultural is tangible and reliant on those individuals communicating, this book is relatively up to date but will not adjusted often. It is helpful to have the historical timelines, case studies, and the author's references to aid in the exploration of content. It will be up to the instructor to guide students through the text and engage them with approaches to understanding the content. It helps to know where we have come from to know where the discussion will allocate further in the classroom.

The seven chapters are clearly written, organized, and offer context for the terminology used throughout the text. It is easy to read, navigate, and connects the subject matter from chapter to chapter. I would appreciate a bit more connectivity to student learning and an understanding that this can be very overwhelming (which at times I felt was without during my reading).

The text is consistent, has a clear identity in reading, and flows from one subject to the next. Some chapters don't have the abundance of student inclusion (exercises) but that may be due to the subject matter in question. It does a good job in framing ideologies, given how the text pulls from a variety of resources, and condenses into a relatively unified voice.

The chapters can be divided easily throughout a semester or a summer course. Given the lengths of chapters, some information may need to be reduced by the instructor through picking and choosing the most important content (due to how much content there is overall). How each chapter is divided into sections is helpful to for discussions and assignments.

The textbook is organized in an easy "map" formation that will lend to understanding one topic to the next. The subject builds upon itself to help set tone, standards, and understanding before moving on.

Everything worked, links were not broken, and imagery was clear without pixelation.

There were some typos that I caught during my brief experience with the text (however, due to how dense the material is, I am not surprise).

This text is HIGHLY relevant and is inclusive by default of subject matter. However, all examples, case studies, and references help to monitor and recognize all aspects of intercultural exploration.

This is a well-written book that just needs some minor considerations as an adoption in class. I think an instructor can cherry pick the materials from this text OR ultimately will choose to create content themselves from OER resources. Overall, I would recommend but each instructor should recognize how much material is embodied in the text, the scope of the text in seven chapters, and what they would like their students to learn most importantly.

Reviewed by Noel Neptune, Lecturer/Clinical Education Coordinator, University of Southern Maine on 3/31/21

Covers the content expected. I appreciate all the works cited sections at the end of the chapters as well to see their references. I think a section at the beginning of each chapter defining key terms would be beneficial. I also like the... read more

Covers the content expected. I appreciate all the works cited sections at the end of the chapters as well to see their references. I think a section at the beginning of each chapter defining key terms would be beneficial. I also like the explanation of some of the exercises that have been used when looking at cultural awareness. It provides a lot of resources to look into to use for courses.

I believe the content is accurate and free of bias, but there are several points in the book that the author tells their own story. I think these would make better boxed out discussion or authors thoughts rather than in the middle of the text. The author also lists all of their references.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The content is up to date but I think many of the sections and references will seem poorly written as time goes on (refers to things in recent history, etc...). I do like the historic timelines of important dates and those will be easy to update. But the in-text references will be harder to update.

Fairly clear but I think a chapter in the beginning that clearly defined key words, or having tabs off of the text to do so would be helpful. Some of the definitions of terms you had to read the whole section to decipher the authors definition. Also, lots of first person story telling. I like the stories, but think they should be separated from the researched information.

The author is consistent throughout the entire book.

The text is obviously divided but I think it may even be more beneficial to break into even smaller segments. I like books that make it easy to break up the reading into small segments with clear places you can stop and resume at later dates. This does have several subsections you can do this with in some chapters but others it doesn't work as well. Chapter 1 is a bit too long and reads dry.

Topics are all introduced but I find the flow of the book a bit choppy for some reason. It might be because the book jumps from personal story to research, then to definitions and back and forth.

I did not have any issues with interface with the online text.

No issues that I noticed but I will admit, this is not my strong point.

It is a book about Intercultural Communications. It can't get much more culturally relevant than that. The examples the text used are all relevant to evaluating cultural awareness and competence.

I like the exercises at the end of the chapters. I also enjoy the authors personal notes, just wish they were introduced outside of the chapter reading. I would also add a list of terms and definitions at the beginning of the chapter for quick reference. Overall a good text. My biggest concern is the amount of timely references made in the book and how they will hold up and read with time.

Reviewed by Cory Geraths, Visiting Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Wabash College on 2/28/21

This book, unfortunately, is not comprehensive. The textbook proposes a focus on intercultural communication and, while this is a recurring theme throughout (particularly in the opening chapter), much of the content focuses more on the... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

This book, unfortunately, is not comprehensive. The textbook proposes a focus on intercultural communication and, while this is a recurring theme throughout (particularly in the opening chapter), much of the content focuses more on the "intercultural" side of "intercultural communication." The selections compiled by the editor into this text stem largely from Sociology and, while this is helpful to a degree from the perspective of interdisciplinarity, Communication teachers looking to use this book in an Intercultural Communication course will find the book quite light in terms of explicit focus on communication theories, practices, and situations. The text does not include an index, though it does include highlighted key terms throughout. Such terms are also noted at the outset of each chapter alongside core learning objectives. Each chapter also ends with a bulleted summary of key themes and most chapters (there is an inconsistency here) also include some exercises for students. Unfortunately, the learning objectives and summaries are often quite lengthy; a more refined list of student goals and key takeaways would be helpful.

The book does not contain, to my eye, significant issues in accuracy of content. The primary issue, as noted elsewhere in this review, stems from the need for a richer focus on Communication Studies as a discipline, broadly, and Intercultural Communication as a rich subfield of that discipline, specifically. Of particular concern, in my view, is that multiple chapters (namely, Ch. 5 on class and Ch. 7 on sexuality) lack a rich engagement with scholarship and other evidence. Rather than drawing upon work by academics and others, these chapters rely primarily on Wiki sources. And, while such sources can be useful as sites for general information, they lack a needed rigor and richness in the context of a textbook to be assigned to students.

This textbook is inconsistent in terms of relevance. At times, examples are up-to-date (as in parts of Ch. 7 on sexuality). More often than not, however, the data marshaled and the examples proffered in this book lack a necessary recency. There are, for instance, multiple occasions where data is marshaled from the 1990s or 2000s. Such data is not explicitly connected to the present moment or even a more recent moment. It is, instead, used without sufficient context in a way that is troubling and would, in my view, lead a faculty member assigning this textbook to have to fill in the gaps on her own.

The seven chapters compiled by the editor into this text are, by and large, clearly written. Terms are clearly defined and highlighted, and the book appears as one would expect a textbook to appear. The prose is accessible was easy to follow. At times, however, I would have appreciated more explicit engagement with the student audience. It is not always clear that these chapters conceive of students as the primary audience; for instance, this is more common in Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 and much less so in later chapters.

By and large, the textbook has a clear flow and is consistent in terms of terminology and framework. Because the chapters are taken from a variety of original open-access sources, however, there are occasional repeats in key terms and the style of language/prose is not always as consistent as one would like. Moreover, as noted elsewhere in this review, there are a few chapters that lack exercises for students at the end.

The textbook can certainly be divided into modules over the arc of a semester, quarter, or other class. I wish, though, that the chapters were more even in length. Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 are quite dense, and would likely need to be split up over a few days (depending on the level of the course and one's students). The latter chapters, on the other hand, were quite short and, at times, led to me desiring more information, content, and examples. That said, chapters all contain helpful subheadings and would be easily assigned to students in this regard.

Yes. The textbook, as compiled, moves from overarching theory in the beginning chapters to more specific subject areas. This makes sense at a logical level.

Yes. I found no significant issues with the interface. Links (at least those I clicked, worked) and images, charts, and figures were clear on the pages.

There are a handful of grammatical errors in this text. I noticed a few typos, words missing or out of order, and so forth. By and large, however, this is not a distracting issue.

I found no significant issues here. The textbook works purposefully to cite examples across identity categories and life experiences.

I went into my reading of this text hopeful that I could assign it in a forthcoming upper-division Intercultural Communication course. I am, however, disappointed with the end product due to the reasons that I have noted above. And, for those reasons, I will look elsewhere for an open-access text on intercultural communication.

Reviewed by Kerric Harvey, Associate Professor, The George Washington University on 1/15/21

This is not just a comprehensive assemblage of material about the topic, but it actually stretches the conventional boundaries of "intercultural communications" in the best way possible -- and in a way that is long overdue. Intercultural... read more

This is not just a comprehensive assemblage of material about the topic, but it actually stretches the conventional boundaries of "intercultural communications" in the best way possible -- and in a way that is long overdue. Intercultural communication, as a field, has always been one of those subjects best approached as a "praxis," a vibrant, supple, dynamic combination of theory and practice that must react to changes in the "real world" just as nimbly as it responds to the development of new concepts and hypotheses. As such, any textbook in this discipline must be sensitive to shifting social values and cultural conventions to a degree that isn’t necessarily the case with other dimensions of communications studies, per se. Ahrndt’s text fulfils this requirement at the Olympic level. She not only covers the best and most enduring of the legacy material, but expands what “intercultural” means to include sub-divisions within the American “body cultural,” including LGBTQ+ populations, hearing impaired, differently-abled, gender fluid, religious, and other affinity groups not usually addressed in a text of this sort. She also addresses the “intercultural” communication dynamics among African-American, Native American, and Latinex, and several types of Asian, Arab, and Indian sub-continent populations whose immigrants and American-born descendants interact with Americans of European descent.

Interpreting the word “accuracy” to mean the degree to which the text presents without error the theories, concepts, specialized vocabularies, relevant canonical literatures, and real-world case studies used to create a teaching instrument, this text is remarkably accurate across a wide range of core and cognate fields and sub-fields of intercultural communication. The author also does an excellent job with the photograph captions that pepper the text, providing clear, concise, but comprehensive commentary for these illustrations that accurately capture the political context of the events, issues, and objects they depict without overt editorializing or, at the other extreme, falling back on such vapid, "pro forma" descriptions that the captions rob the photos of their cultural vibrancy. Not being able to fact-check the entire text, I can’t guarantee that single piece of information it contains is correct in all ways, but I didn’t see any conspicuous errors, or even anything that suggested less than scrupulous attention to factual detail.

This is an extra-ordinarily relevant text. It’s really the model for understanding what “culture” means in the 21st century, especially in pluralistic societies and taking into account the meta-societies created by the emerging acceptance of multiple identities on many dimensions. Even the case studies are contemporary to the moment (this review is being written in January 2021), including as they do references to the Marriage Equality Act, the Summer of Ferguson, Take Back the Night, the Parks 51 controversy, and on-going tensions about Confederate flags and statues. Although as time progresses and events continue to unfold, these “teaching examples” might diminish in terms of their immediacy, they will still provide emotionally accessible insights into tensions, topics, and events that will retain salience for a very long time to come. The text can also be easily amended to augment the current material with anecdotes and information that “brings it up to speed” in subsequent editions.

One of the real joys of reviewing this text was how easy it was to read. The author moves along at a lively rate without short-changing important concepts or down-grading important theories into superficial versions of themselves. Instead, she condenses material without diminishing it, and does so using clear, approachable language that is deftly crafted and judiciously punctuated. Ideas are presented in digestible form and linked concepts are explored without falling into cumbersome, complicated grammatical constructions. Every chapter begins with a list of “key words” and any technical language or specialty vocabulary is explained organically within the text as it flows from point to point.

This book is very consistent in terms of tone and authorial approach as well as structure and organization. Each chapter is organized the same way, utilizing the same elements, and the informational content itself is recognizably the same authorial “voice” all throughout the work. Terminology remains consistent throughout the entire text, as well.

This book would be very easy to use as a course text. It’s broken up into subject-specific chapters that make intuitive sense, and each chapter is well-organized in a way that would translate easily to classroom presentation. Chapters build on each other as the book unfolds, but not to the extent that would prohibit instructors from re-arranging the chapters according to a different course organization, or using some and not others. This useful modularity continues within each chapter itself, in that instructors can avail themselves of all that each chapter offers, or can extract chapter sub-sections that can still stand on their own as teaching tools.

This book is very well-organized, in a way that leverages its modularity while simultaneously making it easy to use as a fully intact text, in its entirety. Specifically, each chapter begins with information about the source of the material within it, followed by a list of keywords and the learning objectives for that chapter. This is followed by the central material, augmented along the way with exercises, illustrations, relevant tables and graphs, and magazine-style “sidebars” in which the author raises pertinent questions or provides a more granulated look at the chapter’s main issues through a short “case study-like” story. Each chapter concludes with an executive summary of “key takeaways,” a chapter bibliography, and more structured and elaborate student exercises.

As far as I can tell, there are no serious problems with the technological interfaces or the various links associated with this book. It’s an especially nice feature to be able to click on citations to add immediate texture and enhancement to what’s being covered in the text at hand.

I didn’t find any grammatical issues in the text. There were a few instances of odd spacing and of double-words, although I strongly suspect that’s a casualty of my own computer clunky “reading” of the pdf rather than something that’s actually there in the text itself. I did notice that the word “Dutch” was not capitalized in the caption for the photo of Tiger Woods.

This book is absolutely culturally sensitive – in fact, I’d call it an exemplary model of how to do that well and gracefully. It’s also wonderfully diverse in the author’s attention to breaking up monolithic labels for what are rightfully heterogeneous populations. For example, she writes eloquently and sensitively about the diverse as well as the shared immigration experiences of the variety of Spanish-speaking peoples in the United States today, noting contrasts among Mexican, Puerto Rican, Central American, and other Latino and Latina groups. She repeats this useful approach several times, even when discussing the social biographies and the residual communication environments for different types of European immigrants. In subsequent editions, I’d love to see her complexify her discussion of the Native American experience a little more, focusing perhaps on the meaningful linguistic differences as well as cultural norms among different tribal groups and addressing the special situations faced by reservations in the Far North, as well as those on which casinos are located, a challenging setting for intercultural communication if ever there was one. Another place where what she’s already doing well could be expanded would be a bit more material on the escalating presence of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, especially the women who are making such remarkable contributions to American science and medicine.

This is a highly readable, deeply sensitive, excitingly contemporary text. It preserves the best of the field’s canon while simultaneously introducing culturally salient, socially relevant, and intellectually invigorating new material that is highly relatable for today’s students and easily adaptable to a wide range of courses. I’m so taken with it that I’m already trying to figure out how I can use it in the courses I already teach, or use it as a springboard into ones I’ve yet to develop.

Reviewed by Jackie Mosley, Associate Professor, University of Arkansas on 1/6/21, updated 2/2/21

I have yet to find a textbook that fits with my Cultural Competence course, and this might just be the one! This text covers various theories of cultural competence, without going into a "boring theories section", which is difficult to find. The... read more

I have yet to find a textbook that fits with my Cultural Competence course, and this might just be the one! This text covers various theories of cultural competence, without going into a "boring theories section", which is difficult to find. The material is presented in an easy way for my undergraduate students to comprehend with tangible examples, rather than larger concepts and ideas that are often boring or more difficult to understand.

Content is timely and accurate.

This book is super relevant right now, and could be utilized in so many different types of social sciences courses. This text was written in 2020, which is imperative, given the current climate in the United States and has timely topics related to cultural events.

Text is very easy to comprehend, especially for undergraduate students in introductory courses related to cultural competence.

Consistent terms and material.

I love that the Learning Objectives are very clear and then what major terms will be focused on in the module - very helpful for readers (students) and faculty who want to organize for their own class. I also enjoy the Takeaways at the end of the module that are bulleted - easier to read quickly vs. a large paragraph of a summary. I think students would enjoy this too.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

I feel that the material (especially in the 1st module) jumps around and covers a lot of material, that I'm not quite sure how I would adapt in my own classroom. It will make it difficult to specify which pages to read (or sections), but it is do-able. Just wish introductory terms were focused on first, and then go into more of the contextual issues later. But I also recognize, each curricula is organized by an Instructor's own preferences; and I may try to use the organization of this text for my class, is possible.

I enjoyed being able to click on citations or other images to discover more; very useful for an online textbook. I do wish there was a way to "highlight" specific things you like in the text that students can see, basically the Instructor telling students what is most important to read (I've seen this in other platforms and really enjoyed that).

No grammar issues.

Inclusive book to all types of identities and communities related to cultural competence in the United States in today's modern age.

Overall, this book is perfect for any course on cultural competence or diversity, equity and inclusion. It covers all the major groups/communities in the US; however, it could use more research and discussion on other diversity issues: ageism, body size issues and neuro-diversity.

Table of Contents

• CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Intercultural Communication
• CHAPTER 2: Social Categorization, Stereotyping, and Discrimination
• CHAPTER 3: Beliefs, Values, and Cultural Universals
• CHAPTER 4: Introduction to Race and Ethnicity
• CHAPTER 5: The Impacts of Social Class
• CHAPTER 6: Gender and Gender Inequality
• CHAPTER 7: Socialization and Human Sexuality

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Intercultural Communication examines culture as a variable in interpersonal and collective communication. It explores the opportunities and problems arising from similarities and differences in communication patterns, processes, and codes among various cultural groups. It explores cultural universals, social categorization, stereotyping and discrimination, with a focus on topics including race, ethnicity, social class, religion, gender and sexuality as they relate to communication.

About the Contributors

Shannon Ahrndt , University of Missouri-St. Louis

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Education Related Topics

Intercultural Communication Research Topics

Intercultural communication research explores how people from different cultural backgrounds interact, communicate, and understand each other. It’s a rich field with many fascinating research topics. Here are some intercultural communication research topics to consider:

• Analyzing how Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism, high vs. low uncertainty avoidance) influence communication styles.
• Investigating the challenges and strategies individuals use when adapting to a new culture.
• The impact of acculturation on identity and communication patterns.
• The role of language proficiency in intercultural communication.
• Code-switching and its implications for effective cross-cultural communication.
• Analyzing how cultural differences in body language, gestures, and facial expressions affect communication.
• The role of eye contact in different cultures and its impact on interpersonal relationships.
• Managing diversity and fostering inclusivity in multicultural work environments.
• Communication challenges in global teams and strategies for effective collaboration.
• Analyzing the portrayal of cultures in the media and its impact on stereotypes and perceptions.
• The role of social media in promoting intercultural understanding and dialogue.
• Examining culturally sensitive conflict resolution strategies.
• The role of third-party mediators in resolving intercultural conflicts.
• Strategies for effective communication between teachers and culturally diverse students.
• The impact of culturally relevant curriculum on student engagement and success.
• The role of cultural competence in healthcare delivery.
• Communication challenges in doctor-patient interactions with culturally diverse patients.
• Analyzing diplomatic communication and negotiation processes in international relations.
• Cross-cultural diplomacy and the role of cultural understanding in international conflict resolution.
• Investigating communication challenges and strategies in intercultural romantic relationships.
• The role of intercultural communication in fostering successful marriages.
• Examining how individuals negotiate their cultural identities through communication.
• The role of heritage language and culture in shaping identity.
• Analyzing communication challenges and strategies in the tourism industry.
• The impact of cultural sensitivity on tourist experiences and satisfaction.
• The role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping intercultural interactions.
• Interfaith dialogue and its contribution to peace and understanding.
• Evaluating the effectiveness of intercultural communication training programs.
• Best practices in teaching intercultural communication skills.

When choosing an intercultural communication research topic, consider your interests, access to relevant data and resources, and the potential for contributing to the field of intercultural communication studies. Additionally, be sure to review any specific guidelines or requirements provided by your academic institution or research publication outlet.

Steve George is Blogger, a marketer and content writer. He has B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington. Read more about Mzuri Mag .

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Intercultural communication

An Internet search on the topic of intercultural communication or cross-cultural communication yields over three million results. In recent years practitioners in a wide variety of fields — scientific cooperation, academic research, business, management, education, health, culture, politics, diplomacy, development, and others — have realised just how important intercultural communication is for their everyday work.

Fast travel, international media, and the Internet have made it easy for us to communicate with people all over the world. The process of economic globalisation means that we cannot function in isolation but must interact with the rest of the world for survival. The global nature of many widely diverse modern problems and issues such as the environment, governance of the Internet, poverty and international terrorism call for cooperation between nations. Intercultural communication is no longer an option, but a necessity.

At the same time, lack of knowledge of another culture can lead, at the best, to embarrassing or amusing mistakes in communication. At the worst, such mistakes may confuse or even offend the people we wish to communicate with, making the conclusion of business deals or international agreements difficult or impossible. Donnell King of the Pellissippi State Technical Community College provides examples: A General Motors auto ad with ‘Body by Fisher’ became ‘Corpse by Fisher’ in Flemish. Pepsi Cola’s 1960s ‘Come Alive With Pepsi’ campaign, when it was translated for the Taiwanese market, conveyed the unsettling news that ‘Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave’.

Because important decisions in business, politics, education, health, and culture effect citizens of more than one nation , the question of whether communication between people of different nations is effective and whether all parties emerge with the same understanding is of crucial importance. Individuals who deal with people from other cultures want to learn how to improve their performance through improving their communication skills. Numerous resources are now available. We invite you to explore our portals, and to get in touch with feedback. Related pages: Language and Diplomacy

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Categorising cultures

Just what are the differences between cultures? Is it useful to look for patterns or categories to make it easier for us to understand these differences?

Kishan Rana, former Indian ambassador to Germany, points out that categorising cultures offers both advantages and disadvantages. Looking for categories is a useful tool for analysis and the training of diplomats, and can be used as initial device in preparing for cross cultural encounters. However, we should beware of creating and reinforcing stereotypes. Creating categories ignores fact that within any cultural are sub-groups which may have different traits, and also that individuals within a culture may not follow the norm. Rigid adherence to categories may lead to false assumptions.

Lewis categorisation

Richard D. Lewis, author of When Cultures Collide: Managing Successfully Across Cultures (London: Nicholas Brealey, 1993), divides cultural characteristics into three groups: “linear active”, “multiactive” and “reactive”. He argues that people of different nations exhibit characteristics from each of these groups to different degrees. For example, some linear active traits are: introvert, plans ahead methodically, works fixed hours, follows procedure, limited body language; some multiactive traits are: extrovert, plans grand design but impatient with detail; works any hours, does several things at once, interrupts frequently, interweaves personal and professional; and some reactive traits are: introvert, sees whole picture, plans slowly, subtle body language.

Lewis categorises nations by determining which of the groups their characteristics tend to fall within. The nations with the most linear active traits are the Germans and the Swiss. Typical examples of multiactive nations are Latin Americans, Arabs, Africans, Indians and Pakistanis. Nations showing reactive traits are the Japanese, and to a lesser degree the Chinese.

High context and low context

Raymond Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ( Negotiating Across Cultures: International Communication in an Interdependent World , revised ed., Washington DC: USIP Press, 1997) offers a system for analysing national negotiating styles in terms of the importance which negotiators attach to the broad cultural context in which they operate. Cultures fall into various places on a continuum from high to low context. Arab culture, for example, is high context as Arab negotiators attach great importance to context, for example history, and make a sharp distinction between the way matters of state should be conducted and matters of commerce. The first is the realm of principle and morals, and the second, the realm of haggling. Arab negotiators attach high importance to creating bonds of friendship and trust between negotiators, and respect for the honour and dignity of negotiating partners. Less developed, traditional societies tend to give rise to a high context approach.

American society is typical of the low context approach of more developed countries. These cultures view negotiation as an exercise in collective problem solving: knowledge and expertise are applied to find mutually acceptable solutions to problems, and partners expect to adopt a give-and-take approach. Low context cultures subordinate history, personal honour and personal relationships for the purpose of agreement. These cultural differences can lead to serious misunderstandings not only about the topic of negotiations, but about what it actually means to negotiate.

Professor Paul Sharp, head of political science at the University of Minnesota, points out that although Cohen’s approach is useful as a point of departure, it has some weaknesses:

…[the categorisation] misses the extent to which there exist variations within cultures which are themselves brought forth by different contexts…there are times and circumstances in which US negotiations are very high context, even on the proverbial second hand car lot. In Minnesota alone books have been written (and, more importantly, money has been made) providing outsiders with the context they need to make sense of what is, or may be, being communicated in the sparse conversations and non-verbal exchanges which participants in the culture instantly recognise.

In everyday life at least, Americans sometimes negotiate in a low context manner and sometimes they do not. The question to be asked is what kind of contexts give rise to which kinds of approaches to negotiating, and I have already suggested that an analysis of the balance of resources between those involved might be a starting point for an answer to this question. Syrians in their dealings with Americans and Israelis may take a high context approach, but Syrians in their dealings with the Lebanese or the Kurds, one suspects, may take a low context approach.

The second problem with the high context-low context approach resides in its characterisation of what is meant by low context. While Cohen and others are at pains to suggest that the low-context, American approach involves only one way of looking at the world which is not necessarily superior to others, they do tend to accept it on its own terms, namely that it is sparse or thin not only in its presentation but also in fact. By so doing, an opportunity is missed to put the use of language by Americans under the microscope. A closer examination reveals, of course, an implied universe of assumptions about what is important, how the world works, and America’s proper place within it, not to mention the place of others. ( Talking to Americans: Problems of Language and Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Are there cultural differences in the use of ambiguity? Drazen Pehar, researcher on language and diplomacy, offers these reflections:

Measured by the use of ambiguities in peace agreements, there is no significant difference between so-called “low-context” and “high-context” cultures. Both low- and high-context cultures use ambiguous language to bridge the gap between negotiating parties. We have Wilson’s 14 Points side by side with the Oslo Accords; Chinese cross-textual ambiguities in the Shanghai Communiqué together with American referential ambiguities in the very same document. We have both the Dayton Accords and the Rambouillet draft agreement drafted by American negotiators. We have the Yalta Declaration drafted jointly by representatives of high- and low-context cultures… In other words, there is no direct and positive correlation between the use of ambiguous provisions, on the one hand, and types, or kinds of culture, on the other. For me, this is good news for diplomacy. Negotiators from different cultures rely on similar means to arrive at the text of an agreement. This means that, at least when it comes to the use of ambiguities, there may be a common diplomatic culture, a common culture of drafting an agreement. In other words, there is no pre-determined cultural barrier to hugely affect one’s attitude towards an ambiguous proposal. (“ Use of Ambiguities in Peace Agreements ,” Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

However, Norman Scott, director of diplomatic training programs at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva suggests:

It is possible (even probable) that different languages, emerging from and reflecting distinct cultures, offer varying scope for ambiguity, intended or unintended. Some maintain, for example, that the Chinese are predisposed to underspecification and ambiguity as a culture-conditioned stance in interpersonal communications; while the opposite holds true of United States citizens…

If this is true, differences in the grasp of the language used in negotiations could conceivably confer a distinct advantage on diplomats seeking to introduce ambiguities in negotiated texts in order to serve their own purposes. ( Ambiguity Versus Precision: The Changing Role of Terminology in Conference Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Read more: Ambiguity in Diplomacy

Other categorisations

Steven A. Beebe, Susan J. Beebe, and Mark V. Redmond ( Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others , Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 1996) propose several other categories of differences between cultures:

• Masculine versus feminine approaches to interaction: masculine cultures value achievement, assertiveness, heroism, and material wealth. Feminine cultures value relationships, caring for the less fortunate, and overall quality of life.
• Tolerance of uncertainty versus avoidance of uncertainty: cultures in which people need certainty to feel secure are more likely to have and enforce rigid rules for behavior and develop more elaborate codes of conduct, either formal or informal.
• Concentrated versus decentralized power: some cultures value equality and distribution of power more. Others expect a hierarchy and that some people will have more power than others.
• Individual versus group achievement: Some cultures put more emphasis on individualism; some place most emphasis on the good of the group.

Improving intercultural communication

How can diplomats improve their intercultural communication? Amb. Kishan Rana believes that the key lies in formal training for diplomats in cross cultural communication.

‘Cross-cultural skills cannot be taken for granted, as qualities that diplomats master intuitively.’ He writes that in the past the dominance of Western diplomacy and the fairly homogenous nature of the discourse of diplomacy made such training largely unnecessary. But the reality today is different: ‘Today, the addition of many layers of diversity demands explicit training in this area, but as before, the practitioner must integrate theory with practical needs, and adapt his learning on the basis of experience.’ However, Rana makes the important point that “to be adept at cultural understanding is not to adopt the cultural style of others, or abandon one’s own cultural characteristics. The aim is to reduce the distance from the “other”, and to gain insight.’

Rana further suggests that more directness in communication on the part of diplomats may reduce the incidence of misunderstanding between cultures: ‘diversity of cultures and languages suggests for diplomacy practitioners more directness and less resort to indirect signaling in dealing with non-homogenous interlocutors.’ ( Cross-Cultural Sensitivity and Language, Signaling and Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Raymond Cohen’s efforts to improve communication between negotiators from different cultures included the development of a lexicon of negotiating terminology in Middle Eastern languages and English as a guide for conducting or following negotiations in these languages. He writes: “Behind the preparation of the lexicon lay the conviction that differences between languages matter deeply. Living and working in two languages, English and Hebrew, I was struck by how each language seemed to manifest a different outlook on the world. Things that could be said easily and elegantly in one tongue lent themselves to laborious expression in the other. Where one called for understatement, the other required hyperbole. Ostensibly slight nuances of tone and nice distinctions evoked quite far-reaching differences of association and meaning.” The lexicon takes a variety of words and concepts related to negotiation, examining them for differences in distinctions drawn, historical associations, contrasting values and differences in emphasis. For more information about Cohen’s lexicon of Middle Eastern negotiation, read his paper Language and Negotiation, a Middle East Lexicon ( Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001).

Paul Sharp provides advice for negotiators in dealing with American mediators. He notes that most literature on negotiation is written to advise Americans and other Westerners about negotiating with foreigners. However, ‘for the diplomatic profession…how to talk to Americans is a much larger shared problem than how the Americans talk to everybody else.’ Sharp points out that many of the problems other nations encounter when dealing with Americans are not cultural at all, but common problems any nation faces when dealing with a richer and more powerful nation. As advice, he suggests the same rules that are given to American diplomats for dealing with others: show respect for other cultures and make necessary adjustments to avoid offence:

On the big question of the relationship between language and the ‘out there’…I would suggest showing respect for American claims to a privileged access. Respect here can mean several things. As a Briton who has lived in the US for fifteen years and before that was congenitally disposed against even visiting the place, let alone living there, I am happy to concede that, as civilizational models go, they, the Americans, have got a lot of things right and, more importantly, they have got a lot of things right in the judgment of many less privileged than ourselves around the world. …Taking Americans seriously, however, can also mean simply acknowledging their power and wealth. ( Talking to Americans: Problems of Language and Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Finally, Donnell King suggests some general guidelines for bridging the gap between different cultures:

• Seek information about the culture. Knowledge is power. Prejudice stems from ignorance…do your homework, don’t make assumptions.
• Be other-oriented. As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, we’re not in Kansas anymore. You can no longer rely on the assumptions of your own cultural heritage. This is not to tear down the value of your own culture; it is to make you aware of the richness that is available to you in other viewpoints. This also does not mean to try to be something you are not. It does mean allowing the other to be whomever s/he is rather than who you think that person should be.
• Ask questions. Be prepared to share information about yourself, and be sensitive in the way you ask (you don’t want to be perceived as prying). But open communication helps in reducing the uncertainty that is present in any relationship.
• Develop mindfulness. This is another way of saying “be aware.” Acknowledge that there is a connection between thoughts and deeds, and become aware of your own thinking and assumptions. Be conscious. Be active, not reactive. Be aware of your own self-talk.
• Develop flexibility.
• Tolerate ambiguity. Communicating with someone from another culture produces uncertainty, which can be uncomfortable. Learn to tolerate the discomfort until you come out on the other side.
• Avoid negative judgments. Resist thinking that your culture has all the answers. It has its strengths; so do other cultures.

Cultural diplomacy

So why has intercultural communication become such an important issue in diplomacy in recent years? Kishan Rana points out that for several reasons, differences between nations are now more significant than in the past:

First, the breadth of diversities is far greater than what confronted the earlier generations of professionals, in a global community of some 189 UN member-states. Second, we live in an age when diversity is celebrated, and burnished with pride more than ever earlier. Third, within countries, there are sub-state diversities that have gained new impetus around the world, and this adds to the cultural management challenge. We see this in differences, between regions, communities and religious and ethnic groups. For instance, the same Europe that is witness to the world’s most intensive political unification process via the EU, now enjoys greater diversity at subsidiary levels. Fourth, the professional diplomat is less homogenous in background and training, and his/her values are no longer cast in the same template as could be assumed even a few decades in the past. Further, this diplomat has dealings with a far wider range of government officials and those outside the government, especially the civil society representatives, academia, and other constituencies, at home and aboard.

Paul Sharp agrees that cultural differences are increasingly significant for diplomacy due to globalisation, but expresses some doubt that that they did not play a role in diplomacy in the past:

…the separateness of cultures has been historically presented as a raison d’être for diplomacy as a cosmopolitan caste of privileged professionals. They served their Princes and Peace, not only by pursuing interests, but also by keeping affairs of state properly insulated from passions, morals, and cultural peculiarities of those whom they were increasingly forced to represent, the peoples of their respective countries. A shared diplomatic culture distinguished by a common language and acquired by similar patterns of socialisation, it was argued by writers on diplomacy from de Callières and de Wiquefort to Satow and Nicolson, was the key to preserving this insulation.

However, the historical record of classical diplomacy provides grounds for treating these writers’ confidence in this regard with scepticism. Either the diplomats of 1914 did not share a common understanding of what was happening, or they were unable to get their respective leaders to accept that understanding. Clearly, the professionals were not as good at finessing the culture problem as their defenders thought they were simply because they could not. As libraries of philological, philosophical, and sociological inquiry in the twentieth century made clear, a direct correspondence between language and the material reality it purported to describe could not be taken for granted. The lingua franca of the day, be it Latin, French or English, was steeped in its own peculiarities of understanding and ways of seeing the world, and even professionals who acquired fluency in it did so with their habits of thought and understanding firmly structured by their own cultures mediated by their own languages.

If one adds to this the great irony of globalisation as far as diplomacy is concerned, namely that it is bringing together more and more people steeped in their own cultures and languages (politicians, business people, advocates and lobbyists for public transnational causes, and individuals), one begins to sense the scale of the contemporary problems posed to diplomacy by questions of language and culture.

…Nevertheless, faith (or so it must seem at times) leads them to believe that some shared understanding is, in principle, always attainable for if it were not, there would be no point in having diplomats trying to find what it was. ( Talking to Americans: Problems of Language and Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Raymond Cohen discusses the effect of cultural differences on the language of negotiation, particularly in a Middle Eastern context:

By definition, negotiation is an exercise in language and communication, an attempt to create shared understanding where previously there have been contested understandings. When negotiation takes place across languages and cultures the scope for misunderstanding increases. So much of negotiation involves arguments about words and concepts that it cannot be assumed that language is secondary and all that ‘really’ counts is the ‘objective’ issues at stake. Can one ever speak of purely objective issues? When those issues include emotive, intangible concepts such as ‘honor’, ‘standing’, ‘national identity’, ‘security’, and ‘justice’ can we really take it for granted that the parties understand each other perfectly? And if not, what can be done to overcome language barriers?

The case for the importance of language and culture rests on the view that semantic distinctions reflect different interpretations of reality and normative modes of behavior. Words and their translations are not just interchangeable labels denoting some given, immutable feature of the world but keys opening the door onto different configurations of the world. A stone is an object that speakers of all languages can recognize and respond to at a non-linguistic level. They can kick it, throw it in a pond, or use it to crack a nut. The moment language is used and the object is named, culture enters the picture. As opposed to the thing itself, the word ‘stone’ or its equivalents is a cultural notion. As such it is steeped in the culturally-grounded meanings of the given language community in the light of its history, religion, customs, and environment.

The word is therefore a shorthand symbol capable of evoking a unique range of specialized references, uses, and associations. Words are polysemic , that is, they have multiple clusters of meaning and usage. Across languages these spreads of meaning occupy different semantic fields , though they may well coincide and overlap in certain places. Speakers of Hebrew and English may talk of ‘peace’, using the word in appropriate contexts, and referring to the same legal precedents. But what they mean by peace are subtly different phenomena. ‘Peace’ refers in English to a relationship established by treaty between states concluding war, an ideal prophetic vision of harmony, and tranquility. Shalom shares in the Biblical vision of universal accord but lacks the legal features that ‘peace’ acquired in the European state system from centuries of diplomatic practice. Moreover, deriving from an ancient Semitic root referring to wholeness or completeness, shalom importantly connotes ‘health, welfare, greetings, and safety’. Hence the common Israeli army bulletin broadcast after a military operation: ‘All our planes returned b’shalom to base.’ Here b’shalom means ‘safe and sound’, not ‘in peace’. ( Language and Negotiation: A Middle East Lexicon , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Translation and interpretation

In the last few decades contact between nations has increased, as more and more countries take an active — and interactive — role in international affairs. Both of these processes have led to an awareness of linguistic rights as human rights. At the same time as English has gained currency as an international language and as the most commonly used diplomatic language, international organisations are recognising the various languages of member states as official or working languages for  their proceedings, both oral and written. In diplomacy, now more than ever before, interpreters and translators are of vital importance.

The 1996 Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights is one of the results of increased awareness of linguistic rights.

Professor Dietrich Kappeler, former director of the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies, describes the history of language use in diplomacy:

Documents exchanged between countries in the past were written in the single vehicular language then in use in Europe: Latin. In the 18th century French had become the generally accepted diplomatic language, so much so that even diplomatic notes addressed to the British Foreign Office by the Legation of the USA were written in that language. The 20th century saw a gradual emergence of English as a second and later even dominant diplomatic language. At the same time, a growing number of countries insisted on the use of their own language in diplomatic correspondence and joint diplomatic documents. As a result the United Nations admitted to five languages at its inception (Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish), to which Arabic has later been added by informal agreement. In the European Union, all twelve languages of the members are currently in use and their number is bound to grow as new members will be admitted. Translation and interpretation have therefore become a major element in present-day diplomatic life. ( Texts in Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Dr Stanko Nick, Croatian Ambassador to Hungary, makes the point that although it has frequently been argued that one language or another is more suitable for diplomacy as it is clearer, more flexible, more expressive, or more eloquent, the “mere fact that historically such a role has been taken in turns by so many languages (Acadian, literary Chinese, Greek “koin`e”, mediaeval Greek, Latin, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Dutch, German, French, and English) proves that linguistic or semantic reasons are not decisive. On the contrary, it can be said that the dominant role of one language or another in diplomacy has resulted from the political, strategic, economic, cultural or other domination of one power or another in international relations.” ( Use of Language in Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Translation

Roger Chriss, a professional translator, describes the role of the translator:

Translators are language professionals. They are applied linguists, competent writers, diplomats, and educated amateurs. Like linguists, translators have to be capable of discerning subtleties and nuances in their languages, researching terminology and colloquialisms, and handling new developments in their languages. Like writers, translators have to be accustomed to working long hours alone on a subject which interests few people and with a language that few people around them know. Like diplomats, translators have to be sensitive to the cultural and social differences which exist in their languages and be capable of addressing these issues when translating. And like educated amateurs, translators have to know the basics and some of the details about the subjects they deal with. (“Translation as a Profession,” on Roger Chriss’s website The Language Realm – a Website about Translation and Language )

In diplomacy one of the main drawbacks of the growing need for translation is cost. Nick points out that although most organisations and conferences try to limit the number of languages used by selecting several official or working languages, the cost of interpretation and translation is astronomical. “Several years ago it was calculated that the translation of one single page to all official languages of the UN amounted to the value necessary to cover the cost of living for one person in India for a whole year! When one takes into account the number of international organisations, and the thousands of pages translated almost daily it is easy to subscribe to the proposal of introducing Esperanto as the language for international communication.” (“ Use of Language in Diplomacy ,” Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Another drawback to the use of translation in multilateral diplomacy is the complexity of the task of producing equivalent documents in different languages. Kappeler writes:

Versions in working languages are based on the records of simultaneous interpretation. Versions in other languages have to be prepared separately. All have to go before the drafting committee which therefore needs at least one member for each language. Preferably however members of a drafting committee should master two or more of the languages used so as to ensure proper concordance of texts. The drafts submitted to the committee are prepared by the secretariat of the negotiating body, which must check recordings of simultaneous interpretation and produce versions in languages which were not used as working languages. The complexity of the task of a drafting committee explains why, in some cases, it will re-convene after the treaty has already been authenticated, with the express competence of making linguistic adjustments between the various versions. (“ Texts in Diplomacy ,” Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Interpretation

Vicky Cremona and Helena Mallia, professional conference interpreters, explain the difference between the work of a translator and that of an interpreter:

Translators work alone, facing a white sheet of paper and a text. They recreate the text by becoming its second author, understanding and recreating the author’s writing skills… The interpreter’s work is not a solitary one. The interpreter works directly with an orator, who possibly elaborates his text as the topic unfolds, expressing his thoughts directly without any time for re-elaboration or rewording. The interpreter also works directly with a public, the floor, who is listening simultaneously to him and to the orator. (“ Interpretation and Diplomacy ,” Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Types of interpretation

There are two main types of interpretation: consecutive and simultaneous.

In consecutive interpretation, the interpreter listens to the speaker and takes notes, and when the speaker chooses (at intervals of anything from a few minutes to half an hour), renders the speech into the target language.

In simultaneous translation, the interpreter sits in a booth and listens to the speaker through headphones, then instantly renders the speech into the target language, a few seconds to a minute behind the speaker. Although quality and accuracy are not as high as in consecutive interpretation, speed and intensity are higher.

Cremona and Mallia describe some of the techniques they use as conference interpreters, which center on identifying key words for the conference topic before the conference and listening carefully for those words during the speeches:

Interpreters are chameleons, they have to lend themselves to the topic under discussion, and blend themselves with the general decor… Certain interpreters choose to specialise in particular areas, in order to be able to handle the language peculiarities of a particular field. 

…an interpreter must seek other sources of information beforehand. It is important for an interpreter working in the diplomatic field to follow closely world political, social and cultural events. Sources for these may include local and foreign newspapers, journals dealing with current affairs, news broadcasts, as well as a very good knowledge of history and geography.

Interpreting for diplomatic conferences takes some particular skills, according to Cremona and Mallia:

In diplomatic conferences, confidence in the interpreters is essential. The underlying tensions which may arise between delegates or country representatives can worsen if the interpreters are not trusted. In fact, in certain cases of great tension, delegates prefer to speak in or translate into a language they do not really master rather than passing through an interpreter. This is why it is important to ensure that the interpreters chosen are of the calibre and have experience in dealing with situations where tact and savior-faire are an asset. (“ Interpretation and Diplomacy ,” Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Interpretation — and translation — pose some difficulties in diplomacy, for example, cost, lack of accuracy, and the difficulty of translating exactly the same concepts to a different language. However, so far, interpretation is the best option we have. Stanko Nick examines the various ways diplomats speaking different languages can communicate with each other, and the drawbacks of each method:

One solution, obviously, is that one of the interlocutors speaks the language of the other. Problems may arise: the knowledge of the language may not be adequate, one side is making a concession and the other has an immediate and significant advantage, there are possible political implications, it may be difficult to apply in multilateral diplomacy, etc. A second possibility is that both sides use a third, neutral, language. A potential problem may be that neither side possesses full linguistic knowledge and control, leading to possible bad misunderstandings. Nevertheless, this method is frequently applied in international practice because of its political advantages. A third formula, using interpreters, is also very widely used, particularly in multilateral diplomacy or for negotiations at a very high political level — not only for reasons of equity, but because politicians and statesmen often do not speak foreign languages. This method also has disadvantages: it is time consuming, costly, and sometimes inadequate or straightforwardly incorrect (even if the translator has a good knowledge of both languages, he/she may not be familiar with the particular subject which can be extremely specific — from the protection of the ozone layer to the homologisation of sports records; it was not without reason that the slogan traduttore-traditore, translator = traitor, could be found in mediaeval Italy). Finally, there is the possibility of using one international synthetic, artificial language, such as Esperanto; this solution would have many advantages, but unfortunately is not likely to be implemented soon, mostly because of the opposition of factors that dominate in the international political — and therefore also cultural and linguistic — scene. ( Use of Language in Diplomacy , Language and Diplomacy , Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Database on International Communication

The following are excerpts from Diplo’s Database on Intercultural Communication.

Diplomats and Intercultural Communication

A core part of a diplomat’s work is easing communication among different national and professional cultures. For example, a diplomat must, on the one hand, understand local culture and cultural patterns in the country of assignment, in order to comprehend and influence local developments. On the other hand, the diplomat has to ‘translate’ local cultural developments and present them in a lanuguage clear to decision-makers back at home. Another cultural transition managed by the diplomat is between professional cultures. For example, with negotiations on the environment, the diplomat must translate the language and logic of the environmentalists into language understable to politicians, and vice versa. This task is sometimes more difficult than communication between different nations. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Shift from Euro-Centric to Global Diplomacy

‘Classical diplomacy consisted only of interactants who belonged to the same JudeoChristian family of cultures. But as the European-centered structure of Classical Diplomacy weakened after WWI, cultural anthropological perspectives began to be accorded serious consideration in diplomatic policymaking.’

Source: Getinet Belay, ‘7 Ethics in International Interaction: Perspectives on Diplomacy and Negotiation,’ Communication and International and Intercultural Ethics, ed. Fred L. Casmir (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997) 241. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Function of Language

‘In the straightforward style of American culture, language has primarily the instrumental function of transmitting information. For the members of the face-salient societies, however, it performs the important role of social lubricant, easing and harmonizing personal relations.’ Raymond Cohen (1997). Negotiating Across Cultures. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 112-113. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Intercultural Misunderstanding (USA-Japan)

‘On Prime Minister Sato’s 1969 trip to Washington, President Nixon insisted that Japan exercise export restrain. Mr Sato’s classic reply, delivered with a heavenward glance, was, “Zensho shimasu”. Literally translated as, “I will do my best”, the expression really means, “No way”. Nixon naturally understood it to mean that he had his guest’s agreement. When there was no practical follow-up he denounced Sato as a liar. But unlike Americans, who expect yes or no answers, Japanese are quite happy with the gray areas. “They hate no, and they hate “yes”.’ Raymond Cohen (1997). Negotiating Across Cultures. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 113. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Vocabulary of Negotiations

Raymond Cohen identifies a difference between high and low context cultures in the vocabulary of negotiating: ‘In the Anglo-Saxon tradition great stress is laid on creating the conditions for an equitable contest. A whole vocabulary, redolent with approvals, exists to describe this state of affairs: fair play, level playing field, rules of the game, due process, and so on. Face salient cultures in contrast, are less enthusiastic about competition, with its potential for affront and painful confrotation, than about ensuring a result that will protect their cherished dignity.’ Raymond Cohen (1997). Negotiating Across Cultures. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 62. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

‘I’ and ‘we’ in Thai language

‘In Siam there are eight different ways of saying “I” and “we”, depending on whether the master speaks to the servant or the servant to the master… Each one of these synonimies is linked to the custom, character, and origin of the people…’ Anna Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, 10. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Be careful with literal translations!

You should be cautious interpreting signs, instructions, and conversational idioms literally, as the following humorously suggests: In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable… and more at this address. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Language Networks on the Internet

This article by Clay Shirky looks at new geographic networks being created over the Internet by langauge proximity. He writes ‘the internet is creating an American version of the British Empire, with the English language playing the role of the Royal Navy… in an information economy the vital protocol is language, written and spoken language… two countries border one another if and only if they have a language they can use in common.’ The implications reach into economics: ‘the degree to which a country can plug into a “language network”, especially the English network, will have much to do with its place in the 21st century economy… And as we would expect of networks with different standards, gateways will arise; places where multi-lingual populations will smooth the transition between language networks.’ Shirky makes the interesting point that 19th century imperialism, and the accompanying export of languages, will reshape the map of the 21st century. Contribution by: Yasmeen Ariff

Promoting Multilingualism on the Internet

In this paper, presented at the Second International Congress on Ethical, Legal and Societal Challenges of Cyberspace, 1-3 October 1998, Taik-Sup Auh of Korea University makes the claim that ‘Multilingualism on the Internet is a necessary, if not the sufficient, condition for transforming an ephemeral cybersociety into a robust one.’ The terms are defined by Jim Falk: ‘Relationships within an ephemeral community, whether emotional or intellectual, are likely to be partial, satisfying only one or a few of the members’ needs.’ In contrast, a robust community is one in which ‘the members have not only a sense of interrelatedness and shared experience, but also share common ideals and believe that through by virtue of belonging to their community they can make great progress towards achieving their objectives than through belonging to other communities. Members will invest personal resources, energy and commitment into it because they consider it stable, growing, supportive and effective.’ Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Liberty vs. Tyranny

Bernard Lewis ( What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 54) on 18th and 19th century Ottoman political thought: ‘Westerners have become accustomed to think of good and bad government in terms of tyranny versus liberty. In Middle-Eastern usage, liberty or freedom was a legal not a political term. It meant one who was not a slave, and unlike the West, Muslims did not use slavery and freedom as political metaphors. For traditional Muslims, the converse of tyranny was not liberty by justice. Justice in this context meant essentially two things, that the ruler was there by right and not by usurpation, and that he governed according to God’s law, or at least according to recognizable moral and legal principles.’ Contribution by: Hannah Slavik

‘Young’ Ottomans and Turks

In the mid-1860s a new movement was launched — the Young Ottomans. Even the use of the word ‘Young’ is interesting. We have now become accustomed in the Western world to using ‘young’ as a positive political term. In the Middle East in the nineteenth century this was new and strange. The connotation of “young” was inexperienced and immature, and no group would have thought of putting themselves forward for any kind of office on the basis of being young. On the contrary, all the terms of respect mean old, senior. The primary meaning of the Arabic shaykh and of the Persian pir is “old.” Both carry a connotation of political or religious authority. The Turkish aga has the primary meaning of “elder brother.” In some Turkic languages it means “father,” “uncle,” and even “elder sister.” In Ottoman usage it connoted command or authority, military or other. The Aga of the Janissaries commanded that corps; the Aga of the Girls ( Kizlar agasi ), the chief black eunuch of the imperial harem, maintained order in that institution. A similar respect for age — for seniority — appears in Western languages, in the common use of such words as “elder” and “alderman,” “Senate,” “Senator,” and “senior.” In is interesting that both the Young Ottomans and their later successors, the Young Turks, avoided using the normal Turkish word for “young” in their nomenclature. The Young Ottomans called themselves Yeni , which literally means “new.” The Young Turks called themselves Jöntürk , simply transliterating their French designation.” (Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 58). Contribution by: Hannah Slavik

Problems in the Study of Intercultural Communication

‘Suggesting that intercultural communication is above and beyond all else a matter of colliding cultures, of culture clashes and culture gaps, of uncertainty, stress and loss of confidence, often contributes to the construction of problems. It often generates stress, anxiety and so on, by presenting it as something strange, weird, unusual, in short by abnormalizing it. The abnormalization of intercultural communication is based on a gross hypostasis of ‘culture’ as the all-eclipsing contextual factor, and a massive overestimation of the degree and the nature of differences in speech styles.’ This paper by Prof. Dr. Jan Blommaert analyses problems with the study of intercultural communication and proposed a better analytical methodology. Contribution by: Hannah Slavik

Meaning of the word ‘sustainable’

‘… the word “sustainable” as used in the Brundtland Reports refers nowadays to radically different approaches to development, which result in diametrically opposed economic practices. Increasingly, the word is used by North Americans to mean that development is sustainable for as long as there is a steady supply of resoruces to sustain it (which implies that resources may be destroyed if deposits of unexploited resources are identified). According to the European approach, on the other hand, development is sustainable only if the known enviornmental capital is preserved intact.’ (Louise Lassonde, Coping with Population Challenges , London: Earthscan Publications Limited, 1996, 9.) Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

The Concept of Linguistic Imperialism

Language constitutes one building block of a nation’s cultural identity. In interactions with other nations, each nation should acknowledge respect for each others’ languages. Only then, intercultural communication turns into a dialogue between equals regardless of the nation’s size and power. However, the proponents of linguistic dominance claim that every language has its period of longevity (emergence, development, maturity, decay). Some languages which are culturally potent have a chance for sustained life. Others recede into oblivion through assimilation or/and integration into the dominant linguistic environment which overtakes them. In a Mail and Guardian article on 22 Novmeber, 2002, John Crace writes: ‘There are about 6 000 languages in the world, yet 95% of the population speaks just 15 of them. Economic imperialism has gone hand-in-glove with linguistic imperialism, as people abandon their mother tongues in favour of the globally dominant English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian. As a result hundreds of languages have disappeared in the past 50 years, and experts predict there will be fewer than 3 000 languages left by the turn of the next century.’ This is a dangerous tread that needs to be reversed if we do not wish to have a whole set of langauges — and perhaps the cultures that accompany them — completely obliterated. Contribution by: Valentin Katrandzhiev

Cultural Barriers in US-Iraq Relations

This article pubished by the Diversity Training University International in their weekly newsletter of 25 September, 2002, identifies and discusses the Top Ten Cultural Barriers in US-Iraq Relations: Ethnocentrism, Symbol Systems, Formulation of the Problem, Differences in a Sense of Fairness, Sense of History, Dehumanization, Morality, Avoiding Identification of Cultural Barriers, Unwillingness to Deal with Obvious Cultural Barriers, and Power. Contribution by: Hannah Slavik

Language or Culture? – German and English

In this International Herald Tribune article of January 8, 2003, Emma Burrows points out that some words, for example “understatement,” do not exist in German for the simple reason that the concept does not exist. Germans tend to express themselves directly, which can be seen as rude by Americans, while Americans tend to use more polite formulations which may be considered false by Germans. Contribution by: Jovan Kurbalija

Book: Intercultural Communication and Diplomacy

Topics covered include basic theory, intercultural communication in practice in diplomacy, negotiation and conflict resolution, professional and organisational cultures, and training for diplomats. The papers in this volume approach the topic of intercultural communication and diplomacy from a wide range of cultural perspectives, as the authors originate from 17 different countries and a variety of professional sectors, including foreign services, universities, businesses, and non-governmental organisations. Read the chapters below.

• Introduction – Hannah Slavik
• Diplomats as Cultural Bridge Builders – Geert Hofstede
• Lessons from Two Fields: A Diplomat and an Interculturalist Converse – Lewis R. Macfarlane and Heather Robinson
• Language, Culture and the Globalisation of Discourse – Diana M. Lewis
• Portraying the Religions of the Mediterranean – Peter Serracino Inglott
• The Impact of Cultural Diversity on Multilateral Diplomacy and Relations – Dietrich Kappeler
• On the Importance and Essence of Foreign Cultural Policy of States: The Interplay between Diplomacy and Intercultural Communication – Heinrich Reimann
• Cultural Content on the Websites of Diplomatic Systems – Valentin Katrandzhiev
• Diplomacy on a South-South Dimension: The Legacy of Mao’s Three-Worlds Theory and the Evolution of Sino-African Relations – Sandra Gillespie
• Asymmetry of Cultural Styles and the Unintended Consequences of Crisis Public Diplomacy – R. S. Zaharna
• Multiculturalism for the Masses: Social Advertising and Public Diplomacy Post-9/11 – Biljana Scott
• Making the “Other” Human: The Role of Personal Stories to Bridge Deep Differences – Nike Carstarphen
• Intercultural Communication in Macedonia: Different People, Different Stories – Marina Tuneva-Jovanovska
• Communication Barriers to Negotiation: Encountering Chinese in Cross-Cultural Business Meetings – Yunxia Zhu and Sun Zhu
• Jargon, Protocols and Uniforms as Barriers to Effective Communication – Stefano Baldi and Eduardo Gelbstein
• Organisational Culture of UN Agencies: The Need for Diplomats to Manage Porous Boundary Phenomena – Raymond Saner and Lichia Yiu
• Challenges Facing Women in Overseas Diplomatic Positions – Caroline Linse
• Roma Rights Activists and the Political Establishment: Communication Problems and Barriers – Valeriu Nicolae
• A Clash of Professional Cultures: The David Kelly Affair – Biljana Scott
• Misunderstood: The IT Manager’s Lament – A Case Study in Inter-Professional Miscommunication – Eduardo Gelbstein
• Diplomacy, International Intervention and Post-War Reconstruction: Interactions between States, International Organisations and Local Authorities in the Implementation of the Dayton Accords for Bosnia and Herzegovina – Nadia Boyadjieva and Kostadin Grozev
• The Birth and Evolution of a Diplomatic Culture – Dietrich Kappeler
• The Idea of Diplomatic Culture and its Sources – Paul Sharp
• Diplomatic Culture and its Domestic Context – Kishan S. Rana
• ‘Control Yourself, Sir!’: A Call For Research into Emotion Cultures in Diplomacy – Wynne Elizabeth Russell
• On Intercultural Training of Diplomats – Alena Korshuk
• An Intercultural Model for Diplomacy Training in New Zealand – Yunxia Zhu
• Intercultural Competence and its Relevance for International Diplomacy – Daniel J. Kealey, Doug MacDonald and Thomas Vulpe
• European Challenges to Cross Cultural Borders – Elena A. A. Garcea

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Diplomats are people who are on the fringe somewhere, because they are either permanently living in or at least dealing with alien cultures, cultures with different values. The success of a diplomat depends on this brinkmanship because, on the one hand, they must remai... Read more...

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548 Communication Essay Topics & Ideas for Presentation, Research, & More

Communication is an essential aspect of human life that is often taken for granted. Expressing thoughts, ideas, and emotions is necessary for building and maintaining relationships. We need communication to accomplish goals, resolve conflicts, and create meaningful connections with others.

In this article, our expert team has collected a list of interesting communication topics to write about. Read till the end to find writing prompts and a step-by-step guide for a paper about communication.

⭐ Top 12 Communication Essay Topics

✏️ prompts for communication essays, 📋 communication titles for essays, 🗣️ communication speech topics, 🔎 communication research paper topics, 🗨️ communication topics for presentation, 📌 communication essays: how to write, 🔗 references.

• Communication breakdowns in the age of social media.
• The power of silence: nonverbal communication in relationships.
• The language of color: how it affects communication.
• Communicating with animals: body language and vocalizations.
• Communicating with the deceased: exploring mediums and spiritual practices.
• The role of humor in effective communication.
• The challenges of communication in space.
• How does active listening improve communication?
• The impact of mental illness on communication.
• The symbolism of dreams and nightmares.
• The importance of logic in effective communication.
• The role of scent in communication and attraction.

Do you need to write a communication essay but don’t know where to start? Below, you’ll find writing prompts for the most popular communication topics for research. Read on to get inspired!

Importance of Communication in Nursing: Essay Prompt

Communication is an essential component of nursing practice. It is critical to building strong relationships between nurses, patients, and healthcare teams.

You can write an essay exploring the importance of effective communication in nursing. Consider addressing the following points in your paper:

• Describe the roles of verbal and nonverbal communication. Analyze how these types of communication can be adapted for different patient populations and cultural backgrounds.
• Examine the role of technology in nursing communication, including electronic health records and telehealth.
• Reflect on the impact of effective communication on patient outcomes.
• Suggest how nurses can continue to improve their communication skills to provide high-quality patient care.

Prompt for Intercultural Communication Essays

In today’s globalized world, intercultural communication has become essential for people and organizations. In your essay on this topic, you can do the following:

• Discuss the importance of intercultural communication in business. Identify the key challenges and strategies for effective intercultural communication in the workplace.
• Provide examples of how cultural differences can impact communication. You can base your discussion on several communication theories, including critical, dialectical , interpretive, and social science approaches.
• Discuss the main barriers and challenges of international communication. Describe how effective communication strategies can help overcome these issues.
• Reflect on the significance of intercultural communication. Explain how individuals and organizations can continue to develop and improve their intercultural communication skills.

Prompt for Essays on Effective Communication

Effective communication is a critical skill in personal and professional settings. It is essential for building strong relationships, achieving goals, and resolving conflicts.

You can write an essay that studies the characteristics and strategies of effective communication:

• Analyze and discuss different types of communication. Examine the factors affecting communication effectiveness, such as culture, context, and individual differences.
• Explain the role of active listening, empathy, and feedback in effective communication. Describe how to develop and practice these skills.
• Highlight the importance of effective communication in different domains. You can choose education, healthcare, or business.
• Suggest how to improve communication skills to be successful.

Prompt for Essays on Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication is an indispensable aspect of human interaction. It encompasses a wide range of cues and signals beyond spoken words.

In your essay, you can explore the significance of nonverbal communication in various contexts, such as personal relationships, professional settings, and cultural backgrounds. Consider including the following points:

• Analyze and discuss different types of nonverbal communication, including body language , facial expressions, and gestures.
• Consider how cultural differences impact nonverbal communication and how people can develop cross-cultural communication skills.
• Reflect on the role of nonverbal communication in social perception and identity formation.
• Describe how individuals can use nonverbal communication to enhance communication effectiveness and build stronger relationships.

Are you looking for catchy communication titles for your paper? In the sections below, you’ll find engaging communication topics for discussion.

Political Communication Topics

Political communication refers to the exchange of ideas between public officials, citizens, political institutions, and other relevant entities like the media. If you wish to write a paper on it, here are some research topics about communication for you to consider:

• The role of effective communication in the political process.
• The peculiarities of political communication in the American government .
• What are the cognitive effects of political communication?
• The impact of social movement communication on political and social progress.
• Regulation of Social Media Platforms as Public Utilities.
• Presidential communication: unpackaging the advertising campaign.
• Why does political communication continue to be dominated by the rhetoric of power?
• The resurgence of white supremacy rhetoric in mainstream political discourse.
• Effective political communication: steps and strategies.
• Business Communications in Public Relations.
• Why does debate play a significant role in politics?
• Strengthening of the political self by selective exposure to political messaging.
• The impact of political news coverage on perceptions of public sentiment.
• Kern County Board of Supervisors Meeting Overview.
• Political messaging as the most powerful method of manipulation .
• What implications does Twitter’s political ad ban have for platform governance?
• Political Parties’ Platforms.
• The burgeoning use of social media in political campaigns.
• Political advertisements: effectiveness and impact on voters.
• Candidate debates as a centerpiece of democracy.
• Internet and Politics Relations.
• How does media bias affect voter preferences?
• The use of propaganda in political campaigns: possible consequences.
• How has political communication changed during times of crisis?
• Non-verbal communication in political debates and its importance.
• Mass Media and Propagation of Political Rhetoric.
• George Washington: the peculiarities of the shortest speech in the world.
• The role of political satire in the criticism of the government.
• How can fact-checks aid in combating misinformation in political discourse?
• Rhetorical Analysis of President Barack Obama’s Speech.
• The efficiency of political cartoons in presidential campaigns.
• Political language: features, context , and structure.
• Winston Churchill as the greatest political orator of the 20th century.
• How effective is propaganda as a social reform tool?
• Communication in American Military Practice.
• The role of political communication in international diplomacy.
• Political communication: ways to communicate the message to the public.
• What propaganda techniques do politicians use?
• Fear as a key method of manipulation in political messaging.
• The Constitution in Famous American Speeches.
• How is advertising used in politics?
• How does fake news affect democratic processes?
• Why is freedom of speech needed for a nation to grow?
• The role of tweets in the relationship between political leaders and the public.
• Cold War – Importance of Communication Ethics During the Conflict.

Workplace Communication Topics

Workplace communication involves the exchange of information among employees within an organization. It can be formal and informal and plays a vital role in a company’s success. If you want to explore this subject in detail, consider the following business communication topics for college students:

• Why does effective communication matter in the workplace?
• The peculiarities of communication between employees and managers.
• How has COVID-19 affected communication at work?
• Effective communication in the workplace: key strategies.
• Team-building as an essential part of work communication.
• Resolving Conflict Through Effective Communication Techniques.
• Zoom: the role of the online platform in work communication during the pandemic.
• The importance of face-to-face meetings at work.
• Remote work and its negative impact on communication between team members.
• Networking as a key strategy to success in the 21st century.
• Interpersonal Communication Skills.
• Why is email a bad way of communicating with your employees?
• The heavy use of jargon as a number one problem in workplace communication.
• Taboo topics at work: politics, religion, money.
• Effective Communication and Training in Implementing a Performance Management System.
• Why is non-verbal communication less effective in big corporations?
• Email overload and its possible consequences for employees.
• How can people overcome communication barriers on their first day at work?
• Management feedback as a way of communication with the team.
• The impact of cultural differences on workplace communication.
• Interpersonal Conflict within the Workplace.
• Why does passive listening kill the connection between workers?
• Lowered productivity as the leading consequence of poor work communication.
• The impact of digital communication tools on workplace dynamics.
• Good storytelling skills and their contribution to success at work.
• Business Communications: The Diversity in the Workplace.
• Why choosing the right time is vital for communicating with staff?
• Instagram as a way to promote internal communications at work.
• What causes communication problems in the workplace?
• Open communication as a way to build trust and transparency at work.
• The role of effective workplace communication in conflict resolution.
• Resolution of Interpersonal Conflicts in a Workplace.
• Language barriers in diverse workplace environments: methods to overcome.
• What are the ways to fix communication issues at work?
• Stress and fear as key barriers to effective workplace communication.
• The value of communication in preventing burnout and managing stress at work.
• How do communication issues in the workplace affect managers?
• Messages and video calls as the most popular means of work communication.
• Organizational Effectiveness and Team Communication.
• One-way communication at work and its severe consequences.
• The impact of leadership communication on staff motivation and engagement.
• How can we avoid miscommunication in the workplace?

Essay Topics about Social Media

Social media is an indispensable part of modern communication. According to Statista , internet users worldwide spend an average of 151 minutes daily on social networking websites. Given the high popularity of social media, it can be interesting to explore its implications for today’s communication. Here are some topics you can write about:

• The contribution of social media to visual communication.
• Social Media Effects on How Society Communicates.
• Targeted communication via social media and its benefits for small businesses.
• How can social media promote relationship building ?
• The involvement of social media in government crisis communications.
• Internet as Social Media: Connectivity and Immediacy.
• Social media etiquette: norms of communication in online communities.
• Social media as a vital tool for daily social interaction.
• The role of emoji in communication in the 21st century.
• Social Media Dramatically Influences Social Identity.
• Cross-cultural communication on the Internet: exchange of ideas and traditions.
• Social media as a platform for instant feedback in big corporations.
• How does social media cause communication overload?
• Social Media Effect on Communication Development.
• The challenges and opportunities of social media communication.
• Why do social networks decrease the quality of meaningful conversations?
• The abbreviated language in social media as a new norm of verbal communication .
• Social Media and Dubai Public Sector Communication.
• Why should parents teach kids how to communicate properly online?
• The role of influencers in promoting social media communication.
• How does social media communication influence brand awareness?
• What are the positive impacts of social media on communication skills?
• What Effect Does Social Media Have on Real-Life Communication?
• Social media as a leading cause of superficial connections.
• The convenience of online communication for relatives in different countries.
• Cyberbullying : the possible consequences of online communication.
• Internet slang as a distinct communication style for teenagers.
• Why are face-to-face interactions more crucial than online communication?
• Virgin Atlantic Ltd.’s Social Media Communication.
• Social media communication addiction: methods to overcome.
• How has social media improved social communication?
• Social media as a powerful communication channel for worldwide brands.
• Social Media and Digital Communities.
• The role of social media in political communication.
• Social media communication in organizations: key challenges.
• The effects of social media communication on mental health .
• Social Media Effect on Communication.
• How to avoid toxic communication on social media platforms.
• The importance of social media in crisis communication and emergency response.
• Social media communication: modern trends of online interactions.
• Why Social Media Severely Impacts the Society?
• The efficiency of social media communication in increasing brand awareness .
• The influence of social media on the field of strategic communications.
• Media Communication Analysis Billboard.
• Possible dangers of expanding social network communication.
• What are the social media strategies for corporate communication today?

Intercultural communication is a discipline studying communication across different cultural groups and investigating how culture affects communication. If you’re interested in this subject, here is a list of intercultural communication topic ideas for you to consider:

Intercultural Communication Essay Topics

• What are the peculiarities of intercultural communication?
• Cultural barriers in communication with international students.
• The Benefits of Intercultural Relationships.
• Cultural identity and its value in cross-cultural interactions.
• The drawbacks of intercultural communication in cyberspace.
• Intercultural Team Communication in the Workplace.
• Why is studying intercultural communication crucial?
• Self-awareness as a key to effective intercultural communication.
• How does intercultural communication aid in cross-cultural adaptation?
• Effective intercultural workgroup communication: methods and strategies.
• Identity and Intercultural Communication.
• The impact of intercultural communication on public relations and media events.
• How can people improve intercultural communication skills ?
• Multicultural families: fundamental aspects of communication.
• Saudi Arabia: Intercultural Willingness to Communicate.
• Which values are crucial to communicating with people from other countries?
• The etiquette of communication with people around the world.
• Common traps and problems of intercultural communication .
• Intercultural Communication and Autonomous Learning.
• The peculiarities of communication with people from China.
• Why a handshake may not be an appropriate greeting in some cultures.
• Understanding the difference as a key aspect of effective intercultural communication.
• Challenges of intercultural communication: ethnocentrism and anxiety.
• Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication Research.
• How do stereotypes and biases influence intercultural interactions?
• The role of intercultural communication in the educational field.
• The impact of communication on a cross-border romantic relationship.
• Culturally Responsive Teaching and Communication.
• Why is developing sensitivity and competence crucial for intercultural communication?
• The role of communication in cultural adaptation.
• Effective communication as a way of solving intercultural conflicts.
• Communication challenges for immigrants and ways to overcome them.
• Culture, Globalization, and Intercultural Adaptation.
• What is the purpose of intercultural communication?
• Intercultural communication for business cooperation : methods and strategies.
• The importance of interpreters in international business negotiations.
• Gamification and Cross-Cultural Communication in Dubai.
• What are the primary forms of intercultural communication?
• The role of language barriers in intercultural dialogues.
• Cultural nuances in nonverbal communication with people from different countries.
• Linguistic differences as a key challenge for global companies.
• Human Relations and Communication in Organizations.
• The importance of punctuality in communication in some cultures.
• How can language aid in intercultural marketing?
• Intercultural communication: patterns, features, and types.

Below, we’ve prepared a list of communication topics for speech. Check them out:

• How to talk effectively about global warming ?
• Methods to improve communication skills.
• What are the key challenges in communication with peers?
• Face-to-Face Communication.
• The beauty and strength of mixed languages.
• Video calls as a way of reigniting creativity and communication.
• What do all languages have in common?
• Augmentative Communication in Education.
• The impact of daily interactions on your future.
• The art of apology : methods and strategies.
• Why are good listening skills crucial in communication?
• The importance of small talk with your boss.
• Public speaking: tips for success.
• Steve Jobs’s Leadership Style and Telecommunication.
• Open communication as a way of connecting parents and kids.
• What can you learn from those who criticize you?
• The role of body language in communication.
• The generational communication gap as a key problem of the 21st century .
• How can social networks help foster connection?
• Constructive conversations: ways to improve social interactions.
• The Public Speaking Anxiety Analysis.
• Persuasive speaking and its key benefits for the speaker.
• Why do introverts lack communication skills?
• Ineffective methods of communication with teenagers.
• The advantages of being a multilingual person.
• Communication and Decision-Making in Organisation.
• Fear of talking in front of an audience and possible solutions to it.
• How to kickstart honest conversations at work.
• The secrets of learning a new language.
• How can you win an argument in any conversation?
• Technological Influence on Student Communication and Learning.
• The role of empathy in the process of communication.
• Lack of communication: possible consequences.
• The efficiency of humor in improving communication skills.
• How does your body language influence who you are?
• Passive type of communication and its drawbacks.
• Customer Service in the Telecommunications Industry.
• The peculiarities of communication among teenagers.
• The importance of trust in communication.
• How can intercultural communication answer moral questions?
• The mental health advantages of storytelling for health care workers.
• Team Communication and Leadership.
• The norms and ethics of communication in the modern world.

Are you planning to write a research paper about communication? Check out our communication research questions and topics on interpersonal, business, digital, health, and mass communication .

Mass Communication Research Topics

Mass communication refers to disseminating information to large audiences. In the US, it is controlled by large companies like CBS, Comcast, Fox News, and other media conglomerates . If you’re interested in this subject, consider the following research topics on communication:

• The role of mass communication in improving awareness and education.
• Attention span as a key problem of mass communication.
• What role does mass communication play in ending global humanitarian crises?
• Media Psychology as a Discipline.
• The influence of social media on modern journalism practices in Europe.
• How does media ownership impact journalistic content?
• The negative impact of television on children’s behavior.
• Impacts of Social Media on Democracy.
• Communication with the public through advertising: strategies.
• The influence of new media on the digital education process.
• How did radio technology change communication?
• The efficiency of online ads in increasing e-commerce sales revenue.
• Impact of Social Media on Tourism Sector.
• Podcasts as a new way of mass communication.
• The impact of Instagram ads on audience preferences.
• The issue of politically driven or biased journalism.
• Social Media Building Blocks in Marketing.
• Relevant media disasters: ways to cope with them.
• How do Instagram brand strategies influence the youth?
• Social Media Tools in the Healthcare Industry.
• The peculiarities of mass communication laws in the US.
• The influence of AI technology on journalism.
• Propaganda as the strongest method of manipulation in mass communication.
• How does fear impact journalism decisions?
• The Representation of African Americans in Modern Media.
• The function of social media platforms in today’s digitalized world.
• The use of mass communication to raise people’s awareness of global warming.
• How Does Social Media Influence Sports Brands Marketing?
• How can digital marketing boost future and current fashion sales?
• The impact of the Telecommunication Act on radio and television.
• Public and Media Pressure on Serial Murders Investigation.
• How does global advertising influence brand value ?
• The peculiarities of new trends in digital journalism.
• Street art and its contribution to the expression of social and political messages.
• Nurses’ Professionalism and Social Media.
• The role of newspapers in preserving community identity and local culture.
• The significance of photography for documenting historical events.
• Internet as a new approach to freedom of speech.
• Social Networks and Digital Communication.
• What impact does mass communication have on public opinion ?
• The ethics of data privacy in mass communication.
• The Role of Social Media in Globalization.
• Music as a modern form of mass communication.
• The evolution of billboard advertising: from traditional to digital.
• What challenges do print magazines face in the digital age?
• Social Media Usage for Advertising.
• The role of mass media in creating gender roles and stereotypes.

Interpersonal Communication Research Topics

Interpersonal communication means exchanging ideas and feelings between two or more people. It can be verbal and non-verbal. If you want to explore this topic, consider the following interpersonal communication essay topics:

• The fundamental principles of the interpersonal communication process.
• What role does social exchange theory play in marriage?
• Interpersonal Communication in Family Relationships.
• The impact of emotions on communication.
• What factors impact interpersonal communication?
• Communication and Conflict: Personal Experience.
• Blindness as a major barrier to interpersonal communication.
• Interpersonal communication: conflicts and possible solutions.
• The importance of nonverbal skills in interpersonal communication.
• Interpersonal Communication Strategies.
• How does passive listening affect communication?
• The role of interpersonal communication in romantic relationships.
• Interpersonal Communication for Good Leadership.
• Body language and eye contact: essential elements of interpersonal communication.
• Communication accommodation theory: peculiarities and benefits.
• Emerging trends in interpersonal communication and their possible consequences.
• Interpersonal Communication.
• Why does interpersonal communication depend on cultural and linguistic backgrounds?
• The challenges of face-to-face communication among teenagers.
• How does the lack of interpersonal communication impact mental health ?
• Barriers to Effective Intercultural Communication.
• The importance of communication skills in self-development.
• Nonviolent communication as a method to increase empathy among interlocutors.
• The role of I-message in interpersonal communication.
• Interpersonal relationship: communication features and importance.
• Interpersonal Relationships: Dealing with Grief.
• Constructive criticism and its positive impact on communication.
• Interruption as a key barrier to effective communication.
• The efficiency of the right communication method in creating trustful relationships.
• Interpersonal Communication and Technology.
• The context of communication and its impact on social interactions.
• How does effective interpersonal communication influence self-esteem?
• The efficiency of interpersonal communication in persuasion.
• Interpersonal Communication in South Korean Business Culture.
• The role of language in socialization : positive and negative consequences.
• The limitations of using verbal communication for entrepreneurs.
• The value of handshaking for a good first impression.
• Interpersonal Conflict: Approaches to Understanding.
• How do facial expressions affect interpersonal communication?
• Impression and its importance in interpersonal communication.
• How to build a strong friendship through non-verbal communication.
• Interpersonal Communication, Self-Concept, and Perception.
• The consequences of toxic communication on mental health.
• Gestures as the first step in starting up a conversation.
• The limitations of communication with the opposite sex.
• The Role of Technology in Interpersonal Communication in Business.
• The influence of offensive language on a person’s well-being.

Business Communication Topics for Research Paper

Business communication encompasses the exchange of information between the members of a company and between the organization and outside parties. Here are some exciting business communication essay topics to research:

• The efficiency of a win-win strategy at business meetings.
• How can small talk aid a company in business development?
• Integrated Marketing Communication and Its Benefits.
• Internal business communication and its peculiarities.
• How do businesses overcome the language barriers of their employees?
• Transparent communication and its role in corporate governance.
• Integrated Marketing Communication in the UK.
• How to manage negative news at work: methods and strategies.
• The efficiency of good communication skills in business success.
• The role of nonverbal communication in business negotiations.
• How do communication issues impact business growth in the international market ?
• Crisis communication in business: methods and strategies.
• Marketing Communication Analysis: The Case of IKEA.
• The effectiveness of communication technology in business collaboration.
• How does social media influence business communication?
• Open communication as a way to improve the business environment.
• Personality qualities and their impact on negotiation techniques.
• The effect of corporate communication on employee productivity .
• Apple Communication Strategy: Apple IMC, Apple Direct Marketing, and Marketing Strategy Analysis.
• What role does corporate communication play in a business’s reputation?
• The importance of horizontal and downward communication development in a company.
• Ways to avoid communication issues in the business industry.
• The connection between organizational communication and workplace culture.
• Business Communication Problems and Objectives.
• Video calls as an effective business communication tool.
• The role of public relations in successful business development.
• Virtual communication business strategies and their effectiveness during COVID-19.
• Modes of Communication in Business.
• What role does nonverbal communication have in the formation of professional relationships ?
• The influence of the manager’s language on employee motivation.
• Networking as a key strategy in business development.
• Marketing Communications Models Comparison.
• Why are communication skills essential in marketing?
• The art of persuasion in marketing and its importance.
• The impact of language and tone on customer service communication.
• The use of AI technology in improving business communication.
• Effective Business Communication.
• Feedback: the role of empathy in communication.
• How do internal communications improve knowledge-sharing best practices?
• Practical communication skills as a way to increase company profits.
• Job Performance and Business Communication.
• The use of humor in business communication : advantages and disadvantages.
• How does effective business communication eliminate email overload?
• Compromise as an essential business negotiation strategy.

Digital Communication Research Topics

Digital communication means using online tools like social media messaging or email to reach a person or a specific audience. Check out some ideas to research this topic:

• The peculiarities of communication in virtual reality .
• How does digital addiction impact communication in real life?
• The ethics and norms of media and visual literacy.
• Twitter as the best platform for thought sharing.
• Global Virtual Team and Business Communication.
• What are the indirect impacts of the virtual macrosystem on the way we communicate?
• The importance of virtual dialogue about mental health problems.
• Virtual classrooms as a new method of studying in the 21st century.
• What is the connection between virtual reality and the future of communication?
• The use of digital communication tools in the workplace.
• Counselor Communications and Web Technology.
• File sharing: the possible consequences and dangers.
• The role of digital communication in driving visitors to the theater.
• How does AI technology improve communication in the modern world?
• The use of modern technology in researching linguistic issues.
• The language peculiarities of developer’s terminology.
• Analog vs. Digital Telecommunication Networks.
• The value of critical thinking in consuming digital news.
• The digital distance: features and importance.
• The key privacy principles in social media and their significance.
• Digital Media and Its Impact on Communities.
• The ignorance of social media as a way of avoiding unwanted acquaintances.
• Working messengers as a way of sharing ideas and creativity.
• How digital tools help journalists report from remote locations and conflict zones.
• Landmark Court Cases Impact on Digital Communication.
• Emojis as a way of expressing feelings in communication.
• The role of digital technology in studying foreign languages.
• Digital Marketing, Its Opportunities and Challenges.
• Translation transformations and their study with the help of AI.
• Digital design as a way of self-expression among teenagers.
• Digital Marketing Strategy of Amazon.
• The effectiveness of AI in new word formation.
• The impact of false information spread through digital platforms.
• The rise of podcasts as platforms for interviews and news.
• How can journalists make their digital work more appealing to a larger audience?
• The Digital Professionalism and Communication Policy.
• The use of interactive graphics to assist in the explanation of complicated historical events and facts.
• The ethical implications and consequences of employing AI for creating articles for news.
• The contribution of crowdfunding sites to the support of independent journalists.
• The Value of Digital Privacy in an Information Technology Age.
• The influence of automated tools and artificial intelligence on content creation.
• Speculating as a way of shaping news reporting and consumption .
• The ethical challenges of accuracy and privacy on online platforms.
• Digital Media and Addiction in Children.
• How do news organizations evaluate audience engagement with the help of data analytics?

Health Communication Research Topics

Health communication refers to verbal and written strategies for motivating people to make healthier choices. Here are some interesting health communication topics for you to consider:

• The efficiency of health communication in raising people’s awareness of global issues.
• How does face-to-face communication impact the mental health of the patients?
• Lack of Communication in Healthcare.
• The importance of diffusion of health information to the masses.
• The role of a person’s belief or perception of an illness in adopting a health-related behavior.
• The effectiveness of doctors’ persuasion in preventing abortions .
• Clinical Concierge Services: Communication Problems.
• Health communication: areas of study and key concepts.
• How does social circle impact the physical health of people?
• Positive communication as a way to reduce stress and anxiety.
• Therapeutic Communication Between Nurses and Dementia Patients.
• The peculiarities of medical slang and jargon in the 21st century.
• Why are social interactions more beneficial for health than physical exercises?
• Effective Training Methods for Doctors’ Communication.
• Placebo effect and its value in showing the power of the mind.
• The influence of subconscious biases on decision-making processes .
• How does being bilingual impact people’s brains?
• Social Media Addiction and Self-Esteem.
• The negative consequences of offensive language on well-being.
• The significance of reducing medical jargon to make it more understandable for patients.
• What is the role of language in treating depression?
• Social Media and Mental Health.
• The impact of thoughts on physical processes in our body.
• How to reduce the negative impact of social media comments on psychological well-being.
• The positive affirmation as a key to fast recovery after illness.
• Learning Disabilities and Communication Disorders.
• The efficacy of health programs and public service announcements in raising awareness on health issues.
• Ways to improve mental health by communicating with nature.
• Professionalism and Social Media in Nursing.
• The use of digital platforms and websites for health information dissemination.
• How do patient advocacy groups use communication to support individuals with specific health conditions?
• The methods of communicating about physical and mental sexual problems.
• Social Media: The Rise of Depression and Anxiety.
• The ethical challenges of transparency and sensitivity while providing health information.
• How do media depictions of health topics impact public views?
• The promotion of evidence-based information in the health industry and its value.
• The role of health education in schools: advantages and disadvantages.
• Nursing Career Enhancement Through Social Media.
• Trauma and crisis: effective communication strategies for providing support.
• The role of communication in motivating people to adopt healthier behaviors.
• Healthcare consultations as a way to help people learn more about their health.
• Ineffective Communication During Transitional Nursing.
• The importance of clear and non-judgmental communication about sexual health .
• How does open communication help people manage chronic diseases?
• Appropriate Social Media Use in Health Care.
• The importance of integrating health education and communication into the school curriculum.
• The role of communication in building strong patient-physician relationships.
• The use of social media in marketing strategies.
• Which propaganda models are the most spread on TV?
• The challenges women journalists face in the modern world.
• How to recognize internet trolls on social media.
• Effective Communications and Soft Skills.
• The psychological techniques and strategies used to influence consumer behavior.
• The role of mass media in establishing a country’s image.
• How to predict future trends on social media.
• The efficiency of media in reducing domestic violence cases.
• Visual elements in advertisements and their value.
• Chinese Culture and Cross-Cultural Communication.
• Mass media as an effective method of combating inequality in the world.
• How to use social media safely and effectively.
• The evolution of advertising: from traditional media to digital platforms.
• Communication, Ethics, and a Command Decision.
• The efficiency of storytelling techniques in creating emotional connections with customers.
• The overload of misinformation: possible solutions.
• The impact of advertisements on children’s preferences.
• Tesla’s Green Marketing & Environmental Communication.
• How do social networks influence mental health?
• The rise of biased journalism and its negative consequences.
• The types of bullying in social media and how to protect yourself.
• How do digital communities influence social interactions?
• Brands’ involvement in global advertising campaigns.
• Military Leadership: The Role of Communication.
• The importance of intercultural dialogue for maintaining peace in the world.
• Purchase patterns and how they affect consumer choices.
• How does social media affect news consumption in different communities?
• The impotence of intercultural communities in TV shows.
• Communication Network for a Library System.
• Instagram as the main reason for low self-esteem among teenagers.
• How does negative news influence people’s well-being?
• The drawbacks of cigarette and alcohol advertising.
• Parent-Child Communication and Family-Based Assessment.
• How does television contribute to stereotyping?
• The effective methods of avoiding suspicious people on the Internet.
• Why should violent comments be restricted on social networks?
• McLuhan’s Theory and Communication.
• Television as an outdated way of receiving information.
• How is binge-watching TV related to obesity?
• Radio as an important platform for news sharing in conflict zones.
• How to make wireless communication safer?
• Elements of Effective Communication.
• Freedom of the press: importance and ways to achieve.
• How does communication impact global economic relationships?
• What effects do the ads on billboards have on the human brain?
• The importance of personalization in ads and how it works.
• What prints and colors are the most attractive to the consumers in the ads?
• Technical Communication: Ethical Codes Report.
• The use of television in the educational system: pros and cons.
• The role of social media in social movements and activism.
• The value of media literacy education for teenagers.
• Using humor to make ads more attractive.
• Technological Impact on Communication and Society.
• The influence of mass media on body and beauty perception.
• Mass media bias and its role in coverage of international conflicts.
• How can media content lead to the erosion of unique cultural identities ?
• Graffiti as a new way of thought expression among teenagers.
• Why is binge-watching TV a new form of addiction?
• Satellites Communication: Military Application.
• Mass media and its contribution to the global flow of information.
• The consequence of misinformation on social media.
• The ethics and norms of journalism in the modern world.
• External Communication Strategy.
• The power of hashtags on Instagram and Twitter.
• The role of clickbait in newspapers in attracting more readers.
• Cyberbullying and online harassment: ways to protect yourself.
• Tesla Motors Brand and Marketing Communications.
• How can AI technology substitute journalists in the near future?
• The efficiency of TikTok in brand promotion .
• How to protect personal information on social media?
• Ways and strategies of building brand awareness on social media.
• Gender Differences in Non- and Verbal Communication.
• What are the trends in native advertising?
• The freedom of the press and methods to protect it.
• How does social media isolate people in the modern world?
• The opportunities and challenges of photojournalism.
• Non-Verbal Communication Skills in Law Enforcement.
• The influence of television on political discourse .
• Digital disruption in mass media: newspapers vs. online news.
• The power of visuals in mass media: pros and cons.
• Ways to control your viewing habits to avoid social media addiction.
• Ad blocking and its impact on online advertising.
• Social Media Influence on Communication.
• The rise of long-form journalism in the digital age.
• How can social media perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce biases?
• The impact of television on language evolution and slang.

Are you wondering how to write a communication essay? Check out our short guide to understand how to structure your paper.

Communication Essay Introduction

An introduction is the first paragraph of an essay. It should grab the reader’s attention, provide clarifying details, and present the main argument. The three main components of an introduction are a hook, background information, and thesis statement .

• A hook is usually the first sentence of an introduction. Its purpose is to capture the readers’ attention and engage them. It can be a question, a surprising fact, a quote, or a provocative statement.
• Background information provides context for the central argument. It should give enough knowledge to help the reader understand the topic and its significance.
• A thesis statement is the main point of the essay. It explains what the paper will argue or explore. Your thesis should be specific, debatable, and focused.

Look at the example:

Hook : Did you know that people spend more time communicating now than ever before in human history? Thesis statement : Effective communication is essential for building and maintaining relationships, achieving common goals, and resolving conflicts, and it can be achieved through clear and concise language, active listening, and nonverbal cues.

Body Paragraphs about Communication

The main body of an essay presents and develops the arguments or ideas in detail. It is vital to have a clear structure, including topic sentences, supporting evidence, and analysis .

• Topic sentences should state the main idea of each paragraph and relate to the thesis statement.
• Supporting evidence should back up the topic sentence and be relevant and credible.
• The analysis explains how the evidence supports the topic sentence and the thesis statement.

Topic sentence : Effective communication requires active listening skills. Supporting evidence : According to a study by communication experts, active listening involves giving full attention to the speaker, maintaining eye contact, and asking clarifying questions (Smith & Jones, 2018).

Essays on Communication: Conclusion

The conclusion of an essay should include the main points and arguments, restated thesis statement, and some final thoughts.

To write a conclusion, summarize the key arguments mentioned in the essay. Next, present the thesis statement in a new way. Don’t copy it word for word. Provide some reflections or a call to action related to the topic.

Restated thesis : Effective communication is crucial and can be achieved through active listening, clear and concise language, and nonverbal cues. It is necessary for building and maintaining relationships, accomplishing common goals, and finding resolutions to conflicts.

You don’t always have to be full of ideas to create something interesting. Use our free topic generator to make essay titles for any kind of paper. Now it’s time to write and receive a straight A for your homework!

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Intercultural and Intergroup Communication Research Paper Topics

Origins of the Theories ICC has been studied for over 50 years (see Leeds- Hurwitz 1990) and developed to focus on how different cultures are distinguished from one another through their management of behaviors such as personal space and gestures. Particular attention has been devoted to understanding the cultural values that underpin different cultures’ communicative practices, including individualism– collectivism, high–low contexts, and so forth (Watson 2012). From the ICC perspective, when an individual recognizes that he is engaged in an intercultural interaction, the focus remains on competent interpersonal communication.

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• Acculturation Processes and Communication
• African Communication Modes
• Anxiety Uncertainty Management Theory
• Asian Communication Modes
• Bi- and Multilingualism
• Collective Action and Communication
• Cultural Patterns and Communication
• Disability and Communication
• Diversity in the Workplace
• Ethnic Media and their Influence
• Ethnographic Perspectives on Culture and Communication
• Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Communication
• Hate Speech and Ethnophaulisms
• Hispanic Communication Modes
• Intercultural Communication in Health-Care
• Intercultural Communication Training
• Intercultural Conflict Styles and Facework
• Intercultural Norms
• Interethnic Relationships in Families
• Intergroup Accommodative Processes
• Intergroup Communication and Discursive Psychology
• Intergroup Contact and Communication
• Intergroup Dimensions of Organizational Life
• Language Attitudes in Intergroup Contexts
• Marginality, Stigma, and Communication
• Media and Group Representations
• Migration and Immigration
• Muslim Communication Modes
• Nonverbal Communication and Culture
• Power in Intergroup Settings
• Prejudiced and Discriminatory Communication
• Social Stereotyping and Communication
• Western Communication Modes

In contrast to ICC, the IGC approach came out of social identity theory (SIT: Tajfel 1978) which states that individuals categorize themselves and others into social groups and have a need to compare themselves with others, as a way of attaining a positive self-concept. We seek to favor our own groups (ingroups) compared to groups to which we do not belong (outgroups) and, communicatively act in accord with these social identities (Giles & Giles 2012). To join an outgroup, as, for instance, with immigrants wishing to acculturate into a host community, we communicate with members in ways akin to them so that we may gain membership to that group (Giles et al. 2012). SIT is not a communication theory but, rather, represents a theory of intergroup behavior and cognitions. Communication theories such as communication accommodation theory explain how and why individuals engage in specific communication strategies when they interact with representatives of salient ingroups and outgroups.

Intercultural and Intergroup Communication Applications

Wiseman (2002) detailed the applications of ICC competence to assist individuals from differing cultures to communicate effectively with one another. The ICC literature embraces a skills training approach, the premises of which are that individuals must have knowledge of the culture with which they engage, the motivation to effectively communicate (including intercultural sensitivity and empathy), and appropriate communication skills. Interactions are viewed as activities that occur at the interpersonal level.

In contrast, the main focus in IGC is on interactants implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) taking on the role of being representatives of their respective cultures. This explicit acknowledgment that at times our intergroup identities take precedence has important implications for any interaction. Individuals who perceive that their personal identity is salient may engage in different communications strategies from those who believe they are representative of a particular group. Whether individual or group identities, or both, are made salient will shape the communication process in different ways which, in turn, can reconstruct the very nature of those identities (Dragojevic & Giles in press).

The way a group or culture expresses its unique identity through a dialect, specialized jargon, or nonverbal demeanor, is fundamental to a healthy social identity, and to one (under differing conditions) that group members can vigorously and creatively sustain and proliferate. Intercultural communication is not subsumed under, or even a special case of, intergroup communication, but rather the two are parallel traditions capable of significant coalescence (Gudykunst 2002).

Assumptions of Both Theories

There are assumptions within ICC theories that are not held in IGC (Brabant et al. 2007). These are: that strangers to a new culture will take on an ethno-relativist position; they need to be educated in the new culture’s values and norms; and when strangers possess knowledge of the culture and use expedient communication skills, effective communication will prevail. However, there is no extension within ICC theories to predict and explain when misunderstanding could in some cases be inevitable, despite any one individual’s excellent skills and cultural knowledge. Sociopsychological theories that emphasize the intergroup nature of intercultural communication, rather than only its interpersonal aspects, directly address miscommunication and related issues of prejudice and intercultural tensions.

IGC is highly cognizant of how status and power differentials impact communication behavior. Power is, arguably, not a key consideration in ICC and the implicit overarching assumption is that competent communication is the main communication goal. However, when two individuals from different cultures with a history of power differentials and consequent perceived injustices come together, effective and competent communication may not be their mutual goal. A training and skills focus on achieving effective communication does not take account of the fact that culturally-salient power differentials may dictate what is appropriate communication for any particular encounter.

ICC as well as IGC – beyond the study of national and ethnic groups – can truly embrace an array of different categories including older people, homosexuals, bisexuals, or academicians from different disciplines, as well as those embedded in for example, religious, or organizational cultures (Giles 2012). Importantly, their members may view themselves as belonging to a group that owns specific characteristics and traits that set them apart from others. IGC theories distinguish between “me” in an interaction as an individual and “us” as a virtual representative of a group. While intercultural as well as intergroup perspectives have sometimes been infused into studies in such contexts, there is much more room for invoking each other’s positions. The challenge is to move toward bringing these two theoretical viewpoints together in order to explain and predict the variables that determine effective and ineffective interactions (Kim, forthcoming).

References:

• Brabant, M., Watson, B. M., & Gallois, C. (2007). Psychological perspectives: Social psychology, language and intercultural communication. In H. Kotthoff & H. Spencer-Oatey (eds.), Handbook of intercultural communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 55–75.
• Dragojevic, M. & Giles, H. (in press). Language and interpersonal communication: Their intergroup dynamics. In C. R. Berger (ed.), Handbook of interpersonal communication. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
• Giles, H. (ed.) (2012). The handbook of intergroup communication. London: Routledge.
• Giles, H., Bonilla, D., & Speer, R. (2012). Acculturating intergroup vitalities, accommodation and contact. In J. Jackson (ed.), Routledge handbook of intercultural communication. London: Routledge, pp. 244–259.
• Giles, H. & Giles, J. L. (2012). Ingroups and outgroups communicating. In A. Kuyulo (ed.), Inter/cultural communication: Representation and construction of culture in everyday interaction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 141–162.
• Gudykunst, W. B. (2002). Intercultural communication theories. In W. B. Gudykunst & B. Mody (eds.), Handbook of international and intercultural communication, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 183–205.
• Kim, Y. Y. (ed.) (forthcoming). The international encyclopedia of intercultural communication. New York: Wiley Blackwell.
• Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (1990). Notes on the history of intercultural communication: The Foreign Service Institute and the mandate for intercultural training. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 76, 262–281.
• Tajfel, H. (ed.) (1978). Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations. New York: Academic Press.
• Watson, B. M. (2012). Intercultural and cross-cultural communication. In A. Kurylo (ed.), Inter/cultural communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 25–46.
• Wiseman, R. L. (2002). Intercultural communication competence In W. B. Gudykunst & B. Mody (eds.), Handbook of international and intercultural communication, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 207–224.

Back to Communication Research Paper Topics .

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Master of Advanced Studies in INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Case Studies in Intercultural Communication

Welcome to the MIC Case Studies page.

Here you will find more than fifty different case studies, developed by our former participants from the Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication. The richness of this material is that it contains real-life experiences in intercultural communication problems in various settings, such as war, family, negotiations, inter-religious conflicts, business, workplace, and others. 

Cases also include renowned organizations and global institutions, such as the United Nations, Multinationals companies, Non-Governmental Organisations, Worldwide Events, European, African, Asian and North and South America Governments and others.

Intercultural situations are characterized by encounters, mutual respect and the valorization of diversity by individuals or groups of individuals identifying with different cultures. By making the most of the cultural differences, we can improve intercultural communication in civil society, in public institutions and the business world.

How can these Case Studies help you?

These case studies were made during the classes at the Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication. Therefore, they used the most updated skills, tools, theories and best practices available.   They were created by participants working in the field of public administration; international organizations; non-governmental organizations; development and cooperation organizations; the business world (production, trade, tourism, etc.); the media; educational institutions; and religious institutions. Through these case studies, you will be able to learn through real-life stories, how practitioners apply intercultural communication skills in multicultural situations.

Why are we opening our "Treasure Chest" for you?

We believe that Intercultural Communication has a growing role in the lives of organizations, companies and governments relationship with the public, between and within organizations. There are many advanced tools available to access, analyze and practice intercultural communication at a professional level.  Moreover, professionals are demanded to have an advanced cross-cultural background or experience to deal efficiently with their environment. International organizations are requiring workers who are competent, flexible, and able to adjust and apply their skills with the tact and sensitivity that will enhance business success internationally. Intercultural communication means the sharing of information across diverse cultures and social groups, comprising individuals with distinct religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. It attempts to understand the differences in how people from a diversity of cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them. For this reason, we are sharing our knowledge chest with you, to improve and enlarge intercultural communication practice, awareness, and education.

We promise you that our case studies, which are now also yours, will delight, entertain, teach, and amaze you. It will reinforce or change the way you see intercultural communication practice, and how it can be part of your life today. Take your time to read them; you don't need to read all at once, they are rather small and very easy to read. The cases will always be here waiting for you. Therefore, we wish you an insightful and pleasant reading.

These cases represent the raw material developed by the students as part of their certification project. MIC master students are coming from all over the world and often had to write the case in a non-native language. No material can be reproduced without permission. ©   Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication , Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland.

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1.6: Understanding Intercultural Communication

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• Tammera Stokes Rice
• College of the Canyons

Learning Objectives

• Define intercultural communication.
• List and summarize the six dialectics of intercultural communication.
• Discuss how intercultural communication affects interpersonal relationships.

It is through intercultural communication that we come to create, understand, and transform culture and identity. Intercultural communication is communication between people with differing cultural identities. One reason we should study intercultural communication is to foster greater self-awareness (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Our thought process regarding culture is often “other focused,” meaning that the culture of the other person or group is what stands out in our perception. However, the old adage “know thyself” is appropriate, as we become more aware of our own culture by better understanding other cultures and perspectives. Intercultural communication can allow us to step outside of our comfortable, usual frame of reference and see our culture through a different lens. Additionally, as we become more self-aware, we may also become more ethical communicators as we challenge our ethnocentrism, or our tendency to view our own culture as superior to other cultures.

As was noted earlier, difference matters, and studying intercultural communication can help us better negotiate our changing world. Changing economies and technologies intersect with culture in meaningful ways (Martin & Nakayama). Technology has created for some a global village where vast distances are now much shorter due to new technology that make travel and communication more accessible and convenient (McLuhan, 1967). However, as the following “Getting Plugged In” box indicates, there is also a digital divide, which refers to the unequal access to technology and related skills that exists in much of the world. People in most fields will be more successful if they are prepared to work in a globalized world. Obviously, the global market sets up the need to have intercultural competence for employees who travel between locations of a multinational corporation. Perhaps less obvious may be the need for teachers to work with students who do not speak English as their first language and for police officers, lawyers, managers, and medical personnel to be able to work with people who have various cultural identities.

• What do you think of Finland’s inclusion of broadband access as a legal right? Is this something that should be done in other countries? Why or why not?
• How does the digital divide affect the notion of the global village?
• How might limited access to technology negatively affect various nondominant groups?

Intercultural Communication: A Dialectical Approach

Intercultural communication is complicated, messy, and at times contradictory. Therefore it is not always easy to conceptualize or study. Taking a dialectical approach allows us to capture the dynamism of intercultural communication. A dialectic is a relationship between two opposing concepts that constantly push and pull one another (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). To put it another way, thinking dialectically helps us realize that our experiences often occur in between two different phenomena. This perspective is especially useful for interpersonal and intercultural communication, because when we think dialectically, we think relationally. This means we look at the relationship between aspects of intercultural communication rather than viewing them in isolation. Intercultural communication occurs as a dynamic in-betweenness that, while connected to the individuals in an encounter, goes beyond the individuals, creating something unique. Holding a dialectical perspective may be challenging for some Westerners, as it asks us to hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously, which goes against much of what we are taught in our formal education. Thinking dialectically helps us see the complexity in culture and identity because it doesn’t allow for dichotomies. Dichotomies are dualistic ways of thinking that highlight opposites, reducing the ability to see gradations that exist in between concepts. Dichotomies such as good/evil, wrong/right, objective/subjective, male/female, in-group/out-group, black/white, and so on form the basis of much of our thoughts on ethics, culture, and general philosophy, but this isn’t the only way of thinking (Marin & Nakayama, 1999). Many Eastern cultures acknowledge that the world isn’t dualistic. Rather, they accept as part of their reality that things that seem opposite are actually interdependent and complement each other. I argue that a dialectical approach is useful in studying intercultural communication because it gets us out of our comfortable and familiar ways of thinking. Since so much of understanding culture and identity is understanding ourselves, having an unfamiliar lens through which to view culture can offer us insights that our familiar lenses will not. Specifically, we can better understand intercultural communication by examining six dialectics (see Figure 6.1 “Dialectics of Intercultural Communication”) (Martin & Nakayama, 1999).

The cultural-individual dialectic captures the interplay between patterned behaviors learned from a cultural group and individual behaviors that may be variations on or counter to those of the larger culture. This dialectic is useful because it helps us account for exceptions to cultural norms. For example, earlier we learned that the United States is said to be a low-context culture, which means that we value verbal communication as our primary, meaning-rich form of communication. Conversely, Japan is said to be a high-context culture, which means they often look for nonverbal clues like tone, silence, or what is not said for meaning. However, you can find people in the United States who intentionally put much meaning into how they say things, perhaps because they are not as comfortable speaking directly what’s on their mind. We often do this in situations where we may hurt someone’s feelings or damage a relationship. Does that mean we come from a high-context culture? Does the Japanese man who speaks more than is socially acceptable come from a low-context culture? The answer to both questions is no. Neither the behaviors of a small percentage of individuals nor occasional situational choices constitute a cultural pattern.

The personal-contextual dialectic highlights the connection between our personal patterns of and preferences for communicating and how various contexts influence the personal. In some cases, our communication patterns and preferences will stay the same across many contexts. In other cases, a context shift may lead us to alter our communication and adapt. For example, an American businesswoman may prefer to communicate with her employees in an informal and laid-back manner. When she is promoted to manage a department in her company’s office in Malaysia, she may again prefer to communicate with her new Malaysian employees the same way she did with those in the United States. In the United States, we know that there are some accepted norms that communication in work contexts is more formal than in personal contexts. However, we also know that individual managers often adapt these expectations to suit their own personal tastes. This type of managerial discretion would likely not go over as well in Malaysia where there is a greater emphasis put on power distance (Hofstede, 1991). So while the American manager may not know to adapt to the new context unless she has a high degree of intercultural communication competence, Malaysian managers would realize that this is an instance where the context likely influences communication more than personal preferences.

The differences-similarities dialectic allows us to examine how we are simultaneously similar to and different from others. As was noted earlier, it’s easy to fall into a view of intercultural communication as “other oriented” and set up dichotomies between “us” and “them.” When we overfocus on differences, we can end up polarizing groups that actually have things in common. When we overfocus on similarities, we essentialize, or reduce/overlook important variations within a group. This tendency is evident in most of the popular, and some of the academic, conversations regarding “gender differences.” The book Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus makes it seem like men and women aren’t even species that hail from the same planet. The media is quick to include a blurb from a research study indicating again how men and women are “wired” to communicate differently. However, the overwhelming majority of current research on gender and communication finds that while there are differences between how men and women communicate, there are far more similarities (Allen, 2011). Even the language we use to describe the genders sets up dichotomies. That’s why I suggest that my students use the term other gender instead of the commonly used opposite sex . I have a mom, a sister, and plenty of female friends, and I don’t feel like any of them are the opposite of me. Perhaps a better title for a book would be Women and Men Are Both from Earth .

The static-dynamic dialectic suggests that culture and communication change over time yet often appear to be and are experienced as stable. Although it is true that our cultural beliefs and practices are rooted in the past, we have already discussed how cultural categories that most of us assume to be stable, like race and gender, have changed dramatically in just the past fifty years. Some cultural values remain relatively consistent over time, which allows us to make some generalizations about a culture. For example, cultures have different orientations to time. The Chinese have a longer-term orientation to time than do Europeans (Lustig & Koester, 2006). This is evidenced in something that dates back as far as astrology. The Chinese zodiac is done annually (The Year of the Monkey, etc.), while European astrology was organized by month (Taurus, etc.). While this cultural orientation to time has been around for generations, as China becomes more Westernized in terms of technology, business, and commerce, it could also adopt some views on time that are more short term.

The history/past-present/future dialectic reminds us to understand that while current cultural conditions are important and that our actions now will inevitably affect our future, those conditions are not without a history. We always view history through the lens of the present. Perhaps no example is more entrenched in our past and avoided in our present as the history of slavery in the United States.

I remember an instance in a history class where we were discussing slavery and the subject of repatriation, or compensation for descendants of slaves, came up. A white male student in the class proclaimed, “I’ve never owned slaves. Why should I have to care about this now?” While his statement about not owning slaves is valid, it doesn’t acknowledge that effects of slavery still linger today and that the repercussions of such a long and unjust period of our history don’t disappear over the course of a few generations.

The privileges-disadvantages dialectic captures the complex interrelation of unearned, systemic advantages and disadvantages that operate among our various identities. As was discussed earlier, our society consists of dominant and nondominant groups. Our cultures and identities have certain privileges and/or disadvantages. To understand this dialectic, we must view culture and identity through a lens of intersectionality, which asks us to acknowledge that we each have multiple cultures and identities that intersect with each other. Because our identities are complex, no one is completely privileged and no one is completely disadvantaged. For example, while we may think of a white, heterosexual male as being very privileged, he may also have a disability that leaves him without the able-bodied privilege that a Latina woman has. This is often a difficult dialectic for my students to understand, because they are quick to point out exceptions that they think challenge this notion. For example, many people like to point out Oprah Winfrey as a powerful African American woman. While she is definitely now quite privileged despite her disadvantaged identities, her trajectory isn’t the norm. When we view privilege and disadvantage at the cultural level, we cannot let individual exceptions distract from the systemic and institutionalized ways in which some people in our society are disadvantaged while others are privileged.

As these dialectics reiterate, culture and communication are complex systems that intersect with and diverge from many contexts. A better understanding of all these dialectics helps us be more critical thinkers and competent communicators in a changing world.

• Some people who support the law argue that part of integrating into Western society is showing your face. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
• Part of the argument for the law is to aid in the assimilation of Muslim immigrants into French society. What are some positives and negatives of this type of assimilation?
• Identify which of the previously discussed dialectics can be seen in this case. How do these dialectics capture the tensions involved?

Intercultural Communication and Relationships

Intercultural relationships are formed between people with different cultural identities and include friends, romantic partners, family, and coworkers. Intercultural relationships have benefits and drawbacks. Some of the benefits include increasing cultural knowledge, challenging previously held stereotypes, and learning new skills (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). For example, I learned about the Vietnamese New Year celebration Tet from a friend I made in graduate school. This same friend also taught me how to make some delicious Vietnamese foods that I continue to cook today. I likely would not have gained this cultural knowledge or skill without the benefits of my intercultural friendship. Intercultural relationships also present challenges, however.

The dialectics discussed earlier affect our intercultural relationships. The similarities-differences dialectic in particular may present challenges to relationship formation (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). While differences between people’s cultural identities may be obvious, it takes some effort to uncover commonalities that can form the basis of a relationship. Perceived differences in general also create anxiety and uncertainty that is not as present in intracultural relationships. Once some similarities are found, the tension within the dialectic begins to balance out and uncertainty and anxiety lessen. Negative stereotypes may also hinder progress toward relational development, especially if the individuals are not open to adjusting their preexisting beliefs. Intercultural relationships may also take more work to nurture and maintain. The benefit of increased cultural awareness is often achieved, because the relational partners explain their cultures to each other. This type of explaining requires time, effort, and patience and may be an extra burden that some are not willing to carry. Last, engaging in intercultural relationships can lead to questioning or even backlash from one’s own group. I experienced this type of backlash from my white classmates in middle school who teased me for hanging out with the African American kids on my bus. While these challenges range from mild inconveniences to more serious repercussions, they are important to be aware of. As noted earlier, intercultural relationships can take many forms. The focus of this section is on friendships and romantic relationships, but much of the following discussion can be extended to other relationship types.

Friendships

Even within the United States, views of friendship vary based on cultural identities. Research on friendship has shown that Latinos/as value relational support and positive feedback, Asian Americans emphasize exchanges of ideas like offering feedback or asking for guidance, African Americans value respect and mutual acceptance, and European Americans value recognition of each other as individuals (Coller, 1996). Despite the differences in emphasis, research also shows that the overall definition of a close friend is similar across cultures. A close friend is thought of as someone who is helpful and nonjudgmental, who you enjoy spending time with but can also be independent, and who shares similar interests and personality traits (Lee, 2006).

Intercultural friendship formation may face challenges that other friendships do not. Prior intercultural experience and overcoming language barriers increase the likelihood of intercultural friendship formation (Sias et al., 2008). In some cases, previous intercultural experience, like studying abroad in college or living in a diverse place, may motivate someone to pursue intercultural friendships once they are no longer in that context. When friendships cross nationality, it may be necessary to invest more time in common understanding, due to language barriers. With sufficient motivation and language skills, communication exchanges through self-disclosure can then further relational formation. Research has shown that individuals from different countries in intercultural friendships differ in terms of the topics and depth of self-disclosure, but that as the friendship progresses, self-disclosure increases in depth and breadth (Chen & Nakazawa, 2009). Further, as people overcome initial challenges to initiating an intercultural friendship and move toward mutual self-disclosure, the relationship becomes more intimate, which helps friends work through and move beyond their cultural differences to focus on maintaining their relationship. In this sense, intercultural friendships can be just as strong and enduring as other friendships (Lee, 2006).

The potential for broadening one’s perspective and learning more about cultural identities is not always balanced, however. In some instances, members of a dominant culture may be more interested in sharing their culture with their intercultural friend than they are in learning about their friend’s culture, which illustrates how context and power influence friendships (Lee, 2006). A research study found a similar power dynamic, as European Americans in intercultural friendships stated they were open to exploring everyone’s culture but also communicated that culture wasn’t a big part of their intercultural friendships, as they just saw their friends as people. As the researcher states, “These types of responses may demonstrate that it is easiest for the group with the most socioeconomic and socio-cultural power to ignore the rules, assume they have the power as individuals to change the rules, or assume that no rules exist, since others are adapting to them rather than vice versa” (Collier, 1996). Again, intercultural friendships illustrate the complexity of culture and the importance of remaining mindful of your communication and the contexts in which it occurs.

Romantic Relationships

Romantic relationships are influenced by society and culture, and still today some people face discrimination based on who they love. Specifically, sexual orientation and race affect societal views of romantic relationships. Although the United States, as a whole, is becoming more accepting of gay and lesbian relationships, there is still a climate of prejudice and discrimination that individuals in same-gender romantic relationships must face. Despite some physical and virtual meeting places for gay and lesbian people, there are challenges for meeting and starting romantic relationships that are not experienced for most heterosexual people (Peplau & Spalding, 2000).

As we’ve already discussed, romantic relationships are likely to begin due to merely being exposed to another person at work, through a friend, and so on. But some gay and lesbian people may feel pressured into or just feel more comfortable not disclosing or displaying their sexual orientation at work or perhaps even to some family and friends, which closes off important social networks through which most romantic relationships begin. This pressure to refrain from disclosing one’s gay or lesbian sexual orientation in the workplace is not unfounded, as it is still legal in twenty-nine states (as of November 2012) to fire someone for being gay or lesbian (Human Rights Campaign, 2012). There are also some challenges faced by gay and lesbian partners regarding relationship termination. Gay and lesbian couples do not have the same legal and societal resources to manage their relationships as heterosexual couples; for example, gay and lesbian relationships are not legally recognized in most states, it is more difficult for a gay or lesbian couple to jointly own property or share custody of children than heterosexual couples, and there is little public funding for relationship counseling or couples therapy for gay and lesbian couples.

While this lack of barriers may make it easier for gay and lesbian partners to break out of an unhappy or unhealthy relationship, it could also lead couples to termination who may have been helped by the sociological support systems available to heterosexuals (Peplau & Spalding, 2000).

Despite these challenges, relationships between gay and lesbian people are similar in other ways to those between heterosexuals. Gay, lesbian, and heterosexual people seek similar qualities in a potential mate, and once relationships are established, all these groups experience similar degrees of relational satisfaction (Peplau & Spalding, 2000). Despite the myth that one person plays the man and one plays the woman in a relationship, gay and lesbian partners do not have set preferences in terms of gender role. In fact, research shows that while women in heterosexual relationships tend to do more of the housework, gay and lesbian couples were more likely to divide tasks so that each person has an equal share of responsibility (Peplau & Spalding, 2000). A gay or lesbian couple doesn’t necessarily constitute an intercultural relationship, but as we have already discussed, sexuality is an important part of an individual’s identity and connects to larger social and cultural systems. Keeping in mind that identity and culture are complex, we can see that gay and lesbian relationships can also be intercultural if the partners are of different racial or ethnic backgrounds.

While interracial relationships have occurred throughout history, there have been more historical taboos in the United States regarding relationships between African Americans and white people than other racial groups. Anti-miscegenation laws were common in states and made it illegal for people of different racial/ethnic groups to marry. It wasn’t until 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Loving versus Virginia , declaring these laws to be unconstitutional (Pratt, 1995). It wasn’t until 1998 and 2000, however, that South Carolina and Alabama removed such language from their state constitutions (Lovingday.org, 2011). The organization and website lovingday.org commemorates the landmark case and works to end racial prejudice through education.

Even after these changes, there were more Asian-white and Latino/a-white relationships than there were African American–white relationships (Gaines Jr. & Brennan, 2011). Having already discussed the importance of similarity in attraction to mates, it’s important to note that partners in an interracial relationship, although culturally different, tend to be similar in occupation and income. This can likely be explained by the situational influences on our relationship formation we discussed earlier—namely, that work tends to be a starting ground for many of our relationships, and we usually work with people who have similar backgrounds to us.

There has been much research on interracial couples that counters the popular notion that partners may be less satisfied in their relationships due to cultural differences. In fact, relational satisfaction isn’t significantly different for interracial partners, although the challenges they may face in finding acceptance from other people could lead to stressors that are not as strong for intracultural partners (Gaines Jr. & Brennan, 2011). Although partners in interracial relationships certainly face challenges, there are positives. For example, some mention that they’ve experienced personal growth by learning about their partner’s cultural background, which helps them gain alternative perspectives. Specifically, white people in interracial relationships have cited an awareness of and empathy for racism that still exists, which they may not have been aware of before (Gaines Jr. & Liu, 2000).

• Intercultural Conversation Starters
• Language Exchange Partners Program

Conversation Starters for Language Exchange Partners

• Bring your Grammar or integrated language book and practice from the exercises in it.
• Bring pictures/magazines/articles to discuss.
• Foods, fasting practices across cultures, and for special holidays (Ramadan, Eid, etc.): family and the social significance of food
• My family, my identity
• Friendships and the importance of Facebook in my culture
• TV shows that I enjoy and that reflect and influence my culture
• Humor in my culture
• Popular films in the last year
• Songs of my generation
• A poem that is meaningful to me
• What’s new in the news?
• Sports activities on campus and off
• Books that “everyone” is reading/should read these days
• “In places” to hang out and chill out: on and off campus
• Cultural activities that are going on: theater, art, concerts, etc.
• Driving and traffic in Cairo and in other cultures
• Health issues: avian flu, swine flu, etc.
• Preserving the environment in and around AUC/in my culture
• The latest technology for communication: Twitter, blogs, etc.

Conversation Starters using New York Times articles, read here . 

Other Topics for Conversation can be checked here . 

The following Topics for Conversation are just a small sample of the over 800 topics from the game , Roll Play , by Dymon Publications .

What would you do if you were late for an important appointment? What would you do if someone accused you of a crime you didn't commit? What would you do if you got lost in an unfamiliar city? What would you do if you left something in a locked building? What would you do if your best friend stole something from you? What would you do if you didn't have enough money to pay your bills? What would you do if your children were caught shoplifting? What would you do if your car got a flat tire on the freeway? If you could change one thing about your past, what would it be? If you could change one major historical event, what would it be?

Someone asks you a question you do not want to answer. What do you say? You need to borrow some money from a friend. What do you say? You broke your sister's favorite vase. What do you say? You forgot your mother's birthday. What do you say when you see her? You want to buy an item located behind the cashier. What do you say? You arrive late to a meeting because you couldn't get a taxi. What do you say? Your friend "wiped out" while skiing and looks hurt. What do you say? The man in the seat next to you is smoking. What do you say? Your child is playing with matches. What do you say? You need more time to finish an exam. What do you say to the teacher?

Describe a famous park or recreation area in your home country. Describe an interesting neighbor you have had. Describe something you could never give away. Describe a place you will never forget. Describe a sporting event you attended recently. Describe a memorable birthday celebration. Describe a place you go for recreation or exercise. Describe your childhood home. Describe someone you respect deeply. Describe the nightlife in a city you are familiar with.

Tell about a recent interview. Tell about a time when you lost something. Tell about one of your fondest childhood memories. Tell about a time when you lied to your parents, boss, or teacher. Tell about a time when you were treated unfairly. Briefly tell about a movie you saw recently. Tell about something you made "from scratch." Tell about a "close call" you had recently. Tell about something you wish had never happened. Tell about a time when you inadvertently caused trouble for someone else.

What is your opinion about cellular phones? What is your opinion about women in the military? What is your opinion about a current politician? What is your opinion about violence on television? What is your opinion about fortune telling? What is your opinion about the tabloids? What is your opinion about legalizing marijuana? What is your opinion about the welfare system? What is your opinion about cloning? What is your opinion about recycling?

Tell how to find something on the Internet. Tell how to feed family members who drop by unexpectedly. Tell how to dump a boyfriend/girlfriend. Tell how to get from your house to the supermarket. Tell what to do in an earthquake. Tell how to get someone to fall in love with you. Tell how to make a paper airplane. Tell how to get a good table at a restaurant. Tell how to get a discount on an expensive item. Tell how to discipline an unruly child

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What is Intercultural Communication and Why is it Important?

Intercultural Communication is a mammoth topic.

It has so many facets, angles and sub-topics that doing it any real justice requires lengthy and considered research.

So, rather than try to give some sort of all-encompassing guide to Intercultural Communication , with all its ins and outs, we’re going to keep it simple.

We’re going to focus on 10 answers to 10 commonly asked questions about Intercultural Communication that will offer some great initial insights and answer the question posed, “ What is Intercultural Communication and why is it important?”

You’ll find plenty of links to further reading along the way if you want to take your learning to the next level.

DON’T MISS THE FREE SAMPLE OF OUR ELEARNING COURSE IN QUESTION 10!

Click Below to Skip to a Question or Scroll On

• What is the Definition of Intercultural Communication?
• What is Intercultural Communication in Simple Terms?
• What are Some Examples of Intercultural Communication?
• What is the Purpose of Intercultural Communication?
• What Makes Intercultural Communication Important?
• What are Intercultural Communication Skills?
• What is the Role of Intercultural Communication in Work Life?
• What is Intercultural Business Communication?
• What Can I Do to Improve My Intercultural Communication Skills?
• What are Some Essential Books About Intercultural Communication?

1. What is the Definition of Intercultural Communication?

“‘Intercultural Communication’ is one of those terms that everybody uses, and in many different and not necessarily compatible ways. ” (Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction. Ingrid Piller. 2017)

“Loosely, an umbrella term for interaction between people from different cultural or subcultural backgrounds intended to lead to shared understandings of messages.” (Oxford Reference)

“Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication.” (Wikipedia)

“Intercultural communication is the study and practice of communication across cultural contexts.” (Milton J. Bennett, Ph.D. Intercultural Development Research Institute)

There is no formal definition of ‘Intercultural Communication’.

As you can see from the quotes above, there is a fuzzy agreement as to what it does and what it looks like , but there are also differences in definitions, meanings and assumptions.

As training practitioners within the Intercultural field, we define Intercultural Communication as the study, research, awareness, training, skills, and practicalities of communicating across cultures – whether those cultures be foreign cultures, i.e. American culture vs. Indian culture , or some other sort of culture, such as organizational culture, i.e. Military Culture vs. Private Sector Culture .

Cultural differences exist between many types of cultures, including generational. We can see this expressed in lots of ways including differences in the way they dress, walk and, of course, communicate. Photo by Benjamin Ranger

2. What is Intercultural Communication in Simple Terms?

Simply put, Intercultural Communication is about understanding what happens when people communicate with one another when they come from different cultures.

It’s about an awareness of many different factors such as how messages are delivered (e.g. listening and speaking ), differences in areas such body language (e.g. eye contact , touch, gestures, etc.) and non-verbal communication (e.g. silence, proxemics, social cues, etc.).

Intercultural Communication, as well as being its own discipline, overlaps with many others including sociology, psychology, anthropology , biology, political science, economics, and public policy.

An easy way to think about Intercultural Communication is that it tries to teach us about ourselves, as individuals and as a species, by using the concept of ‘culture’ to analyze how we create meaning and express that with other cultures.

“Intercultural communication is a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, contextual process, in which people from different cultures create shared meanings.” (Lustig & Koester, Intercultural competence 2007)

At its most basic, as the above quote illustrates, Intercultural Communication is as simple as a conversation or an interaction between two or more people from different cultures.

Intercultural Communication also covers the ways in which we, as cultures, meet and greet people. Learning how other cultures do it, teaches us about our similarities and differences. Photo by Bob Brewer

3. What are Some Examples of Intercultural Communication?

Let’s look at some examples of Intercultural Communication to help consolidate our understanding of the definition and meanings associated with it.

We mentioned above the example of communication differences between national cultures . Well, let’s explore that further.

American and Indian cultures share certain cultural traits when it comes to communication. For example, they both tend to value politeness and friendliness. However, they also have differences. For example:

• Americans tend to communicate explicitly whereas Indians to be implicit.
• Americans are comfortable with dealing with conflict openly whereas in Indian culture it requires subtlety.
• In the USA, “yes” may have very limited interpretations whereas in India, “yes” can mean many things.
• Strong eye contact is a positive behavior in the USA whereas in India it can be disrespectful or aggressive.
• Personal space is expected in the USA whereas in India keeping your distance from someone could be interpreted as rude or cold.

The key learning point here is that different national cultures communicate in slightly different ways.

This is also true within countries themselves – you often find subtle regional differences within a country or culture in terms of communication styles.

For example, in the UK , the people of the North are widely recognized as being much more open and friendly than their guarded countrymen in the South and London. In the USA, you will also see differences between the East and West coasts as well as the South.

The other example we mentioned above was between Military Culture and Private Sector Culture . Again, as with national cultures, we can also see different communication styles between organizations within a country.

Military organizations are highly hierarchical, conservative and formal. This is reflected in the communication style where seniors are spoken to according to protocols, where messages are transactional and the language, tone and vocabulary are highly regimented.

This starkly contradicts the communication style of the Private sector where organizations are more egalitarian, open to change and informal. As a result, the communication style is much more informal, messages are personalized and people are allowed to express themselves.

Such differences, created by different cultures, can even be found within an organization itself. For example, salespeople generally tend to have a very different communication style to their colleagues working in accounts or at leadership levels. The reason behind the difference is cultural and also due to values .

Organizations, like countries, develop their own cultures due to many factors such as the environment, threat, philosophy, leadership and history. Culture is a complex patchwork of influences. Photo by Bao Menglong

4. What is the Purpose of Intercultural Communication?

Well, there isn’t one single purpose. Intercultural Communication is something that is researched, read about and taught for many reasons.

For starters, understanding how culture impacts communication helps us understand more about the areas of culture and communication. On top of that, it helps us understand more about ourselves as people and as a species.

On a personal level , Intercultural Communication can help us understand our own preferences, strengths and weaknesses when it comes to communicating and how these can help or hinder us when communicating across cultures.

On a wider level, Intercultural Communication can help us understand all manner of things about ourselves as human beings from how we create meaning to the mechanics of the brain (neuroscience) to the use of language(s) for social cohesion.

As practitioners of Intercultural Communication Training , ‘the purpose’ for us is to help professionals understand how culture impacts their effectiveness when working abroad or in a multicultural workplace.

For example, when we train an executive moving to the UAE , we will help them appreciate their own way of communicating, what they like and don’t like as well as possible biases they may hold. On top of this, they would also learn about the communication style in the UAE and potential areas of culture clash.

So, in this context, the purpose of Intercultural Communication is to try and prevent miscommunication and a mismatch of communication styles . Through raising awareness of this through training, it helps promote more successful communication.

Another example would be of a multicultural team we provide training for. In such a training course we would help the different team members understand the various communication styles within the team. Through creating an awareness of the difference, and the reasoning behind it, we help colleagues overcome issues and put into place different ways of doing things.

So, in this context, Intercultural Communication is about understanding how to effectively navigate various communication styles found in the various cultures you work with.

With more and more of us working remotely with people around the world, learning about Intercultural Communication has become necessary for both personal and organizational success. Photo by Katsiaryna Endruszkiewicz

 5. What Makes Intercultural Communication Important?

A few reasons why Intercultural Communication is important have already been covered; namely, it helps people understand each other and avoid confusion.

Let’s give this a bit more context by looking at why Intercultural Communication is so important for many people in the workplace.

a. Intercultural Communication and Teamwork

Many of today’s companies and organizations are multicultural. Employees come from around the world. This is not only the case with global and international brands but also domestic companies and organizations (including the Third Sector) which have culturally diverse employees. Learning to communicate and work with people from different cultures is essential if these organizations want to be successful. So, in this regard, Intercultural Communication is important because it helps teamwork .

b. Intercultural Communication and the Military

Believe it or not, many militaries spend a lot of money on teaching their troops Intercultural Communication. Why? Because when they spend time in foreign countries, they must learn to adapt their communication style in order to ingratiate themselves with the locals, or at least, in order to gain intelligence . In the USA, for example, the Army , Navy and Marine Corps (plus others) all offer training in Intercultural Communication or similar. I n this context, Intercultural Communication is important as it could be the difference between life or death.

c. Intercultural Communication and Healthcare

Another field in which Intercultural Communication can mean life or death is in healthcare. Doctors, nurses and medical professionals are now given training in Cultural Competence in order to improve healthcare for all patients . An ignorance of someone’s culture and how they communicate can lead to poor care, misdiagnosis and potential damage to health. For example, if a doctor doesn’t understand that in some cultures the elderly won’t divulge intimate details in front of family members, that Doctor is not going to get the information they need when a son or daughter brings in an elderly parent. They need to understand this and ask the child to leave so a private conversation can be had. So, in this example, Intercultural Communication is important as it ensures good care.

d. Intercultural Communication and Teaching

For teaching professionals working in multicultural schools, learning about Intercultural Communication is essential as it otherwise can lead to discrimination, bias and alienation of children from different backgrounds. Some cultures teach their kids to be quiet and respect authority, others to be expressive and challenge ideas. Some cultures wait to be asked to speak, others speak when they have something to say. The point is, as a teacher if you don’t understand the different ways your students communicate , you can make some bad judgement calls. In the context of school and education, Intercultural Communication is important because it prevents bad teaching.

e. Intercultural Communication and Marketing/Advertising

A final example of the importance of Intercultural Communication is the marketing and advertising industry. A failure to understand differences in communication around the world can lead to all sorts of marketing fails and PR disasters. A lack of awareness over cultural issues can even lead to claims of cultural appropriation and similar. Today the industry is much more culture-savvy, understanding that to run a successful ad or marketing campaign, it has to be in tune with the target audience and their values. So, in this regard, Intercultural Communication is important because it helps brands reach their audiences.

So, as you can see, Intercultural Communication is important for lots of reasons; probably too many to count.

Pretty much every facet of modern-day life needs some awareness of Intercultural Communication , whether that’s for tourists travelling abroad on vacation, businesspeople negotiating a merger or a lecturer with students from around the world.

Self-reflection is critical for those who want to improve their Intercultural Communication skills. Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider

6. What are Intercultural Communication Skills?

Intercultural Communication requires multiple skills, some of which can be learned, others that all of us possess and just need working on.

Let’s examine a few of the most important Intercultural Communication Skills that focus more on personal competencies rather than communication skills such as listening, speaking, body language, etc.

a. Self-Awareness

The key to understanding how other cultures communicate is to understand how you, yourself communicate and how your culture has shaped you. Once you are more aware of your own preferences, habits and possible biases and stereotypes, then it’s much easier to understand how you may influence or impact a conversation or communication. Intercultural Communication is not only about being aware of ‘the other’ but also yourself .

Appreciating that you have been shaped by your culture and other influences, helps create understanding, compassion, mindfulness and empathy . Empathy is critical to Intercultural Communication as it helps you put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand what they may be going through. Intercultural Communication relies on empathy as it creates a two-way street as opposed to being dominated by one or the other party.

With understanding and empathy, respect should be the natural logical progression. Respect means that you may not agree or like everything about someone else or their culture, but that you acknowledge their right to express themselves, their culture or values. Also, without showing respect it is also hard to receive it. Intercultural Communication can only ever be effective if respect is the foundation.

d. Emotional Intelligence

Working across cultures means learning to tune yourself into much of the unseen, intangible and subtle aspects of communication. It’s about using all your senses and engaging your self-awareness and empathy to understand what’s being communicated, or not. The Japanese have a great term for this, ‘Reading the air’ ( kuuki o yomu in Japanese) which brilliantly captures the mindset needed. Intercultural Communication requires intuition and the ability to move beyond words.

e. Adaptability

In some ways, the essence of Intercultural Communication is to help people adjust their communication styles to promote clarity, harmony and collaboration in exchange for confusion, weak relationships and competition. Therefore, we need to be adaptable – adaptable not only in how we talk and listen and use body language but adaptable in how we think, react and engage with people. Intercultural Communication gives us the insights and tools we need to be flexible and adapt our ways.

f. Patience

“Acquaintance without patience is like a candle with no light,” is a Persian proverb that perfectly captures why this is such an important skill when it comes to communicating across cultures . Things work slightly differently around the world; this means things might take more time than you’re used to, or less! Whichever end of the stick you’re dealing with, patience is necessary for effective Intercultural Communication as it moderates expectations and emotions.

g. Positivity

When engaging with people from different cultures, it’s always important to keep things positive. 99% of the time when miscommunication happens it’s not because anyone purposefully tried to confuse someone else. Most people are just trying to do what’s right. Sometimes, if we lack cultural awareness , we misread what’s being communicated. That’s why we need to always frame any sort of intercultural interaction positively. To be fruitful, Intercultural Communication must come with positive intentions.

There are of course many other skills that are an important part of Intercultural Communication but hopefully, this has given you some solid points to consider.

So, to quickly recap, 7 important Intercultural Communication skills are:

• Self-Awareness
• Emotional Intelligence
• Adaptability

Many workplaces today are culturally diverse, making Intercultural Communication skills essential. Photo by Arlington Research

7. What is the Role of Intercultural Communication in Work Life?

The answer to this question really depends on what ‘work’ you’re thinking about. We like to speak from experience, so let’s look at some examples of Intercultural Training we have provided for clients .

These will give you an idea of some of the common challenges professionals in various contexts have to deal with in the workplace and how learning about Intercultural Communication helps them.

a. Intercultural Communication and Meetings

We did some training for a global fashion brand and its team of international managers. Various members of the team were frustrated with the way online virtual meetings were being run. For example: “The Americans give you zero time to think and move onto the next point.” vs. “The Chinese never give their opinions which is really frustrating.”

This came down to cultural differences around expectations of meetings. The Americans wanted frank, open discussions whereas the Chinese preferred non-confrontational meetings that focused on face. Due to a lack of awareness, the team meetings were not working. By raising awareness through training, the team learned to find a balance that worked for all.

So, the role of Intercultural Communication here was to help people understand their differences and find common ground.

b. Intercultural Communication and Management

Another example that shows how communication styles differ across cultures and why it’s necessary to be adaptable, is some Intercultural Training we did for a German organization. With staff all over the globe, German managers were consistently receiving positive feedback from some countries and terrible feedback from others. In many parts of the world, they were seen as ‘distant’ and ‘impersonal’.

What the managers needed to learn to do was become a bit more relationship-focused in their communication as opposed to focusing on tasks and agendas. In some parts of the world, ‘getting down to business' is not dealt with positively and people expect a bit more ‘warmth’. The managers just needed to be shown what was happening and they learned to adapt their communication style accordingly.

So, the role of Intercultural Communication here was to help managers communicate more effectively with their staff and get more positive feedback.

c. Intercultural Communication and Working Abroad

A final example would be one of the many training courses we provide for professionals relocating to a foreign country for work. Moving to another county means learning a new culture and if you fail to appreciate cultural differences, it can result in some bad decisions. For example, one manager from Europe working in Saudi Arabia nearly got the sack for berating his staff!

Professionals who fail to invest some time and energy in understanding the new host culture can take longer to settle in, make more initial mistakes and generally don’t’ make a great first impression. The statistics show that this is also one of the key reasons why relocations fail, i.e. why people return ‘home’ quicker.

So, the role of Intercultural Communication here is to give people the tools they need to navigate a new culture and to help them settle into a country or job.

By way of summarizing, the role of Intercultural Communication in work life is in helping people understand how culture shapes the different ways we communicate, collaborate and coordinate.

We can use this understanding to help us recognize what is being communicated to us and how we communicate with others.

Doing business successfully across the globe requires the ability to communicate and convince effectively. Photo by Cytonn Photography

8. What is Intercultural Business Communication?

‘Intercultural Business Communication’ refers specifically to interpersonal and structural communication within a professional business context.

The examples above from our Intercultural Training courses were all focused on Intercultural Business Communication as opposed to communication taking place within social services, the military, diplomatic services or healthcare.

Different industries and sectors have very different needs. Yes, there may be some overlap between the needs of a surgeon, a taxi driver , a police officer and a politician, however, when it comes to the specifics, you need focus.

Therefore, Intercultural Business Communication is treated separately as the needs of people within business are specific to the way trade, commerce and enterprise are conducted around the world.

Business as a whole understands that they have their own challenges when it comes to the 'culture question' . This is being reflected in the number of University Degrees now entitled “Intercultural Business Communication” which have been developed to fill the need of global businesses looking to hire people with the skills they need.

Courses focus on key business areas to prepare learners for international careers including topics such as:

• Human Resource Management
• Developing Intercultural Competence
• Global Marketing
• Business Communication
• International Business Event Management
• Organizational Change and Management
• Understanding Language in the Global Workplace

‘Intercultural Business Communication’ covers everything from the big (such as how to launch retail products in a foreign market ) to the small (such as how to avoid using humor inappropriately ) and everything in between.

If you're looking for a good book on Intercultural Communication for your next vacation, we've got plenty to recommend! Photo by Dan Dumitriu

9. What are Some Essential Books About Intercultural Business Communication?

If you’re looking for good books on Intercultural Business Communication, you’re spoilt for choice! There are many tens of books published on the subject looking at it from lots of different angles.

If there’s something you’re specifically interested in, then we recommend you do a search to see what books come up. You can also do a search for academic publications, for example with JSTOR .

If you want a decent overview of some of the important books on Intercultural Communication, then we recommend this list by Good Reads which is very comprehensive.

If you want our opinion on some essential books about Intercultural Business Communication , then here’s our top 5 (in no particular order or rank).

• Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication: Paradigms, Principles, & Practices . Bennett, Milton Boston, Intercultural Press 2013
• The Silent Language . Hall, Edward T. Garden City: Doubleday 1959
• Understanding Intercultural Communication . Ting-Toomey, Stella & Chung, Leeva., Oxford University Press 2011
• Intercultural Business Communication. Robert Gibson, Oxford University Press 2000
• Use Your Difference to Make a Difference: How to Connect and Communicate in a Cross-Cultural World . Tayo Rockson, Wiley 2019

Improving your Intercultural Communication skills means you need to be culturally curious. Photo by Yingchou Han

10. What Can I Do to Improve My Intercultural Communication Skills?

If you want to improve your Intercultural Communication skills, then there are several things you can do to get started.

Obviously travelling abroad , learning a language and mixing with people from different cultures are all excellent ways of improving your Intercultural Communication skills, however, these aren’t very easy for most people. Plus, it takes a lot of time.

So, we’re going to focus on giving you some more simple and tangible things you can do instead.

a. Learn about Culture

Learning about other cultures, their values and their communication preferences will offer a lot of insight into differences around the world. There are plenty of websites that offer cultural overviews which you can find online, including our award-winning culture guides . As well as learning about other cultures , it’s also a good idea to learn about some of the basics of Intercultural Communication. A good place to start is this self-study guide to intercultural communication.

b. Watch TV Shows

Most of us like to watch TV shows, so why not watch TV and learn about different cultures at the same time? Rather than listen to a poorly dubbed foreign movie in English, listen to it in its native language so you can hear how people from that country communicate. Streaming services today such as Netflix have TV series from around the world, so if you want to learn about Indian culture , Turkish culture or Chinese culture, it’s all there!

c. Ask People

If you work with people from different countries or have neighbours from abroad, you have excellent untapped resources. Speaking to people about their cultures and about any ‘culture shock’ they may have experienced living in your country, can give you all sorts of rich information and insights. As long as it’s done with respect, most people around the world love to share their opinions and thoughts.

d. Listen & Observe

When it comes to actual communication, there are all sorts of tips to help you improve your Intercultural Skills. For example, learning to ask open and closed questions where needed or avoiding humor. Here’s a list of 10 simple tips if you want to read more . Perhaps the two most important tips when it comes to communication are to listen more than you normally would and also actively observe what others are doing . 

e. Take a Course

Finally, if you want to start peeling away your own cultural make-up, address your own cultural biases and preferences, plus start to learn more about Intercultural Communication, then why not take a course? There are plenty of courses available online which looks at various aspects, however, to get you started you can watch the free video from our eLearning course on Cultural Awareness. It’s a fantastic introduction to the topic of cultural differences, communicating across cultures and working with cultural diversity.

You can watch it below or if you visit the course page you can also access some free course resources and find out more about the contents .

THANKS FOR READING OUR INTRO TO INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION! WE HOPE YOU FOUND IT USEFUL.

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A Comprehensive Introduction to Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication encompasses a range of topics from linguistics and sociology to psychology and anthropology. It is a complex field that requires an understanding of various cultures, languages, psychologies, values, and perspectives. Proper intercultural communication can yield positive results for business operations, international negotiations, interpersonal interactions, and more.

This article provides an introduction to the topic, including definitions, theories, skills, and differences between multiculturalism, cross-cultural, and intercultural communication, plus practical examples and challenges faced when engaging in intercultural communication. Additionally, strategies to effectively improve intercultural communication skills will also be discussed.

Short Summary

• Intercultural Communication is a process of exchanging information and creating understanding between people of different cultures and social groups.
• It involves understanding how culture shapes beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors, as well as strong communication, adaptability, empathy, cultural understanding, foreign language proficiency, and collaboration skills.
• To improve intercultural communication skills, it is important to prepare with anticipation, learn the language, observe the culture, be open-minded and self-aware, ask questions, and seek help.

What is Intercultural Communication?

Intercultural Communication is a complex process of exchanging information between people of different cultures and social groups.It involves the sharing of ideas, beliefs, values, and behaviors in order to create understanding and promote collaboration. As we live in a globalized world, it is essential to understand the different cultural identities, social conventions, and communication styles that exist. Intercultural Communication plays a pivotal role in international business, the formation of foreign policy, and the sharing of knowledge, opinions, and perspectives.

The fundamental inquiry that necessitates our increased understanding of cultures other than our own is whether it is possible for people of diverse racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds to peacefully coexist. To answer this, we must first define culture, which can be characterized by a set of criteria and characteristics that include dual membership, communication characteristics, perceptions, values, beliefs, and practices. Culture is acquired and passed on from generation to generation through symbols, forming a dynamic and integrated system.

Intercultural Communication is a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, and contextual process that enables individuals from different cultures to create shared meanings. It is an essential element in understanding the differences in how people from various cultures communicate, interact, and perceive the world around them. Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge multiple narratives to ensure that the exchange of information between individuals is respectful, accurate, and meaningful.

Intercultural communication can be defined as the exchange of information on various levels of understanding between individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds. Achieving maximum efficiency in communication with others requires an understanding of cultural distinctions. Furthermore, culture plays a significant role in determining how individuals from different nations and cultures interact, communicate, and interpret messages.

The purpose of human communication is to effectively convey and comprehend shared meaning. To do this, verbal and nonverbal symbols must be used to reduce uncertainty and facilitate clarity. Verbal communication is an accepted and regulated system of symbols used to convey meaning, while nonverbal communication is the process of conveying meaning through behavior that does not involve the use of words.

Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy’s (2017) definition of culture emphasizes its familial, worldview, religious, historical, value-based, social organization, and linguistic components. It is essential to consider these components when studying intercultural communication to ensure accuracy. Additionally, it is important to avoid making generalizations based on limited information.

Successful intercultural communication necessitates a range of competencies, including strong communication, adaptability, empathy, cultural understanding, foreign language proficiency, and collaboration. It is essential to have an understanding of the various cultural values and norms that may be different from one’s own. Interactions between individuals of varying cultural backgrounds are a key component of intercultural communication, and culture has a significant impact on the ways in which conflicts and communication are expressed and understood in various contexts.

By understanding the fundamentals of intercultural communication, individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds can effectively communicate and interact with one another. This can be achieved through fostering mutual understanding through dialogue and collaboration, respecting cultural identity, and learning the language of the other culture.

Intercultural Communication draws upon a variety of theoretical approaches, including indigenous, cultural, and cross-cultural perspectives. These theories focus on the comprehension of communication across diverse cultural boundaries, as well as how individuals adjust, adapt, mediate, and manage their communication in various cultural contexts.

Cognitive style refers to an individual’s preferred approach to gathering, interpreting, and applying information. It encompasses differences in how people attend to and perceive the world, explain events, and organize their understanding of it. Additionally, cognitive style encompasses the utilization of rules of logic. It is important to take this into account when examining the various life experiences and cultural patterns that exist between individuals of different cultural backgrounds.

Communication competence is an important factor in successful intercultural communication. It involves the ability to understand and interpret different cultural systems and communication processes, such as communication styles, culture values, and non-verbal communication. Individuals must also be able to reflect on their own cultural identity and be aware of their biases when engaging in intercultural communication.

By understanding the various theories of intercultural communication , we can gain a deeper insight into how culture shapes our beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. This can be achieved through self-reflection and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the context of the interaction, any cultural distinctions, and the various communication styles. Furthermore, it is essential to consider the educational backgrounds and social groups of the individuals involved in the communication situation.

Successful intercultural communication necessitates a range of competencies, including strong communication, adaptability, empathy, cultural understanding, foreign language proficiency, and collaboration. It is essential to have an understanding of the various cultural values and norms that may be different from one’s own. Additionally, facial expressions, body language, and gestures must be taken into account when communicating interculturally.

Intercultural communicators must be able to effectively navigate the unfamiliar culture, as well as adapt to different communication styles. This includes being sensitive to the environment, being open to learning about different cultures, and understanding cultural differences in order to effectively communicate with people of various backgrounds. Furthermore, it is essential to be aware of one’s own biases and to strive for intercultural sensitivity.

It is also important to recognize the importance of language in intercultural communication. Language is a powerful tool that enables us to express our thoughts and ideas through the use of symbols that represent objects or concepts. Therefore, it is beneficial to learn the language of the other culture in order to better understand their values and beliefs. Additionally, individuals must be prepared to interact with different social groups and have the ability to adjust to different communication styles.

By understanding the competencies necessary for successful intercultural communication, individuals can better prepare themselves to engage in effective intercultural communication. This can be achieved through self-reflection, learning the language, and understanding cultural differences.

Differences between Multicultural vs. Cross-cultural vs. Intercultural

Intercultural communication is a complex concept that involves the presence of multiple cultures in a single space and the productive interactions that occur between them.It is the exchange of ideas and information between individuals from different cultures, which often involves a comparison of different cultures. Intercultural communication is distinct from multicultural communication, which involves the presence of multiple cultural or ethnic groups in a society, and cross-cultural communication, which entails the comparison of different cultures.

Understanding the differences between multicultural, cross-cultural and intercultural communication is essential for effective intercultural communication. They each involve a different level of understanding and acknowledgement of cultural identities and differences. Multicultural communication allows individuals to recognize and appreciate the cultural identities of others, while cross-cultural communication provides a platform to compare and contrast the communication styles of different cultural groups.

Intercultural communication, on the other hand, emphasizes the productive interactions that occur between people from different cultures.

Multicultural communication

Multicultural communication is a field of study that focuses on the ways in which people from different cultural backgrounds interact and communicate with one another. As the world becomes increasingly globalized, there are more opportunities for individuals of different cultural backgrounds to come together and communicate. Through multicultural communication, people of different cultural backgrounds are able to understand and appreciate one another’s cultures and identities.

Multicultural communication is essential for international businesses, as it provides individuals with the skills needed to communicate effectively across cultures. It also helps to reduce culture shock, as individuals can become more familiar with unfamiliar cultures.

By understanding the definition and differences between multicultural, cross-cultural, and intercultural communication, we can gain a better understanding of the importance of intercultural communication.

Cross-cultural communication

Cross-cultural communication is an exchange of ideas and information between individuals from different cultural backgrounds. It encompasses a variety of factors, such as nationality, working style, age, race, sexual orientation, and gender. Through this process, individuals are able to create and share meaning. Cross-cultural comparison involves examining two or more distinct cultures for comparison, which can help provide insight into how symbols vary between cultures.

Membership in a co-culture shapes the way its members communicate their perspectives. Individuals are expected to communicate in accordance with the customary practices and social conventions of the destination they are visiting. For example, the gesture of a thumbs-up sign is considered offensive in Japan, Indonesia, and Latin America.

By understanding the differences between multicultural, cross-cultural, and intercultural communication, individuals can better prepare themselves for successful intercultural communication.

Intercultural communication

Intercultural communication is a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, and contextual process that enables people from different cultures to create shared meanings. Through intercultural communication, individuals from different cultures can learn to understand and appreciate one another’s perspectives, values, and beliefs. It is essential for understanding the differences in how people from various cultures communicate, behave, and perceive the world around them.

Intercultural communication involves both verbal and non-verbal communication. For example, the customary form of address in the United States is to address individuals by their first name, while in Austria titles are generally used when addressing others. In Germany, a handshake is the customary way to show respect when greeting someone, while in Thailand people place the palms of their hands together at chest level and bow. In addition, different cultures have their own brand names. For example, Coca-Cola employs the name KeKou-KeLa in the Chinese market, which is a literal translation of “bite the wax tadpole”.

Intercultural communicators must also be aware of the differences in communication styles between various cultural groups. It is important to be mindful of the potential for code-switching, which is the practice of altering one’s communication style to fit the expectations of the dominant group. By understanding the differences in how people from various cultures communicate, behave, and perceive the world around them, we can become more effective communicators and better navigate the complexities of intercultural communication.

Why is Intercultural Communication Important?

Intercultural communication is an important tool for navigating and understanding cultural differences, and this section will explore why it is important.Firstly, when individuals from different cultural backgrounds interact, there is a greater likelihood of miscommunication and misunderstanding due to their differing customs and beliefs. By learning about intercultural communication, we can better appreciate and understand the cultural identities of others, and communicate effectively.

Additionally, by developing intercultural communication skills, individuals are able to communicate more effectively in international settings and create meaningful interactions with people from different cultures. This can open up opportunities in international business, provide access to a more diverse range of perspectives, and foster greater understanding and empathy between people of different backgrounds.

Moreover, it helps to eliminate cultural misunderstandings and resolve conflicts in intercultural contexts. By understanding the benefits of intercultural communication and developing the necessary skills, we can create a more inclusive and understanding global community.

Practical Examples of Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication is the exchange of ideas, values, and beliefs between people from different cultures.It is an important process in which cultural identities, cultural groups, and different cultural backgrounds interact and share information with one another. Intercultural communication can be seen in international business, educational settings and everyday life. Examples of intercultural communication include adjusting communication approaches to align with distinct cultural standards, being conscious of nonverbal communication signals, and attentively listening to and valuing different points of view. Additional examples include collaborating in a multicultural team, studying overseas, and targeting a worldwide audience. In all these cases, effective communication across cultures is essential.

When engaging in intercultural communication, it is important to understand social conventions, because they dictate how different cultures interact with one another. Culture shock, the feeling of discomfort or confusion caused by unfamiliar cultural norms, can be avoided by understanding the basics of intercultural communication. By understanding the nuances of intercultural communication, we can better navigate our interactions with people from different backgrounds and cultures.

Social conventions

Social conventions in intercultural communication refer to the implicit rules, values, beliefs, and customs that influence social behavior without being explicitly stated. These conventions can vary between cultures and can have a significant impact on communication styles and expectations. For example, facial expressions, personal space, and the dominant culture all play a role in determining how we communicate with one another. Additionally, life experiences, cultural values, and understanding of cultural differences shape how individuals interact.

Intercultural communicators must be aware of the various conventions of different cultures and be prepared to adjust their communication styles accordingly. By understanding the importance of social conventions in intercultural communication, we can better prepare ourselves to navigate different cultures and contexts. When we are able to navigate different social conventions and understand the nuances of intercultural communication, we can communicate more effectively with those from other cultures.

Barriers and Challenges

When engaging in intercultural communication, there are a variety of obstacles and challenges that can arise.People from different cultural backgrounds may have different life experiences and expectations that can lead to misunderstandings and conflict. These obstacles can be further complicated by language barriers, unfamiliar cultures, and psychological barriers such as anxiety, fear, or negative self-image.

Anxiety is the most prevalent impediment to intercultural communication, as it can lead to a shift in focus away from successful intercultural transaction, an increase in mistakes, and potentially awkward behavior. The primary sources of anxiety in intercultural communication are uncertainty regarding what is expected and how to appropriately respond. Therefore, it is essential to cultivate an attitude of open-mindedness and acceptance towards other cultures in order to address ethnocentrism.

Conflict management is another challenge associated with intercultural communication. Cultural differences can lead to misunderstandings and disagreements, which can further complicate cross-cultural interactions. Empathy, problem-solving, negotiation, and mediation are all essential skills for successful conflict management. Additionally, when engaging in intercultural communication, it is important to develop an attitude of self-awareness and knowledge of others, as well as an acceptance of ambiguity.

The ultimate aim of studying intercultural communication is to cultivate one’s intercultural communication proficiency and incorporate it into their daily life. By understanding the various barriers and challenges associated with intercultural communication, one can be better prepared to engage in successful intercultural communication. With the proper preparation and attitude, intercultural communication can help foster meaningful and productive relationships between people of different backgrounds.

Intercultural Communication in Business

Intercultural communication in business is an important factor in the success of any organization operating in a global environment.The world has become increasingly globalized, and individuals of various cultural identities, cultural groups, and different cultural backgrounds interact in international business. This interaction can create potential for culture shock and misunderstandings, making effective intercultural communication an essential component of success.

The ability to communicate effectively across different cultures is a key component of developing successful international businesses. By understanding the cultural values, norms, and communication styles of other cultures, intercultural communicators can better understand the needs of their foreign partners and customers. This understanding can lead to more effective communication and more productive relationships. Intercultural communicators must also be able to bridge different languages, as well as be aware of potential differences in nonverbal communication.

Intercultural communication is a complex field of study that encompasses the theories, skills, and various communication processes used in intercultural interactions. Those who strive to become competent intercultural communicators must have an understanding of the introduction to intercultural communication, as well as an appreciation of the many cultures that exist in the world today. This includes an understanding of the definition of intercultural communication, the differences between multicultural, cross-cultural, and intercultural communication, the various theories of intercultural communication, and the communication skills needed to communicate interculturally.

Intercultural communicators must also develop an understanding of their own cultural identity, as well as the cultural identity of their international partners and customers. This understanding of cultural identity is essential for developing communication competence and ensuring effective communication. Additionally, it is important to be aware of the cultural systems and communication styles of different cultures, as well as the values and norms associated with each culture.

By understanding the impact of intercultural communication on business operations, the benefits it can bring, and the practical considerations for successful intercultural communication, you can begin to develop the skills necessary to improve your intercultural communication. With the right tools and techniques, you can begin to create effective, meaningful, and successful intercultural communication in business.

How to Improve Your Intercultural Communication Skills

Improving intercultural communication skills requires taking certain steps to understand and appreciate cultural differences. This includes preparing with anticipation, learning the language, observing the culture, being open-minded and self-aware, asking questions, and seeking help.

Preparing with anticipation involves researching the culture and customs, familiarizing yourself with the language, and having an open-minded attitude when engaging in dialogue. Learning the language is essential for fostering a greater understanding of other cultures and building meaningful connections.

Observing the culture involves restating or summarizing what someone has said, taking note of how individuals from the same culture interact with one another, and being mindful of cultural differences. Being open-minded and self-aware involves having an open attitude towards cultural differences and understanding one’s own cultural biases and assumptions.

Prepare with anticipation

Preparing for intercultural communication is essential for developing cultural awareness and sensitivity. Being familiar with cultural distinctions, utilizing appropriate language, being cognizant of nonverbal signals, and actively listening are all essential for improving your intercultural communication skills. Additionally, exploring the nuances of different cultures can help to identify shared values, beliefs, and customs. This can provide insight into the unique aspects of one’s own culture, as well as allowing for exploration of different cultures.

To gain a better understanding of the culture, consider visiting local museums and cultural centers, watching foreign films, sampling new cuisines, and attending cultural celebrations and events. Being open-minded and curious is key to cultivating cultural awareness and sensitivity. Additionally, cultural coaching can offer valuable insight into effective strategies for communicating across cultures.

Gaining fluency in the language of a culture is also essential for successful intercultural communication. Learning the language can lead to a deeper understanding and connection between two people and encourages tolerance and openness to interaction. Furthermore, understanding the culture and language can help avoid making assumptions and prevent the formation of stereotypes.

By utilizing the resources available and employing the strategies discussed, you can improve your intercultural communication skills. Developing a fundamental understanding of the topic and utilizing practical techniques and illustrations can be beneficial in improving intercultural communication skills. Additionally, cultivating attitudes that motivate, acquiring knowledge that informs, and developing skills that enable are all necessary for becoming an effective intercultural communicator. By taking the time to understand different cultures and engage in meaningful dialogue, you can become a more confident and successful intercultural communicator.

You should also read: Visual Communication: Value of Visual Storytelling Why is Intercultural Communication Important Communication Skills Interview Questions How Does Culture Affect Communication

Learn the language

Learning the language for Intercultural Communication is essential for fostering greater understanding of other cultures and building meaningful connections. It also encourages tolerance and openness to interaction, allowing for exploration of different cultures. Language is a key factor in intercultural communication, as it is closely linked to one’s identity, worldview, and positioning, and thus has a significant impact on how people from different cultural backgrounds interact and perceive each other.

Acquiring proficiency in a language can be incredibly rewarding, as it allows for a deeper understanding and connection between two people. It can also help to create meaningful dialogue and bridge cultural divides. To acquire proficiency in a language, consider taking a language class, using an online language-learning program, or immersing yourself in a language-speaking environment.

Additionally, if you encounter a language barrier, it is advisable to seek out a translator or to learn the basics of how to greet someone in the language of the person you are communicating with. By taking the time to learn the language of a culture, you can increase your understanding and appreciation of its customs and values.

Observe the culture

Observing culture is an important part of intercultural communication. This involves restating or summarizing what the other person has said, taking note of how individuals from the same culture interact with one another and following their lead, being mindful of personal space, and observing people as they converse. Additionally, it is important to be aware of cultural differences and how they can influence communication.

Cognitive flexibility is also essential for successful intercultural communication, as it helps to keep knowledge fresh and prevents the formation of stereotypes. Furthermore, it is important to be aware of variations in attitudes towards physical contact between cultures, as this can have a significant impact on communication. In order to foster a sense of inclusivity, consider using language such as “us” and “we” when communicating with individuals from different cultures.

Developing an appreciation for diverse perspectives and customs through learning and understanding is also essential for successful intercultural communication. Cultivating cultural self-awareness can enable us to move beyond our comfort zones and reflective practices can assist us in navigating the rewards and challenges of developing Intercultural Competence. Additionally, it is important to demonstrate a high degree of tolerance for ambiguity, as this can lead to a more successful outcome.

By taking the time to observe the culture, we can gain a better understanding of the nuances of communication and develop an open-minded and self-aware outlook. Cultural learning and training are essential for successful intercultural communication, and cultural coaching can facilitate intercultural communication. Additionally, asking questions in an intercultural communication context is essential for successful communication, and acquiring proficiency in a language can enhance a relationship. By taking these steps, we can become more confident in our intercultural communication skills and better understand different cultures.

By taking the time to observe the culture, we can gain a better understanding of the nuances of communication and develop an open-minded and self-aware outlook.

Be open-minded and self-aware

Being open-minded and self-aware are essential components of successful intercultural communication. Open-mindedness involves having an open attitude towards cultural differences, being tolerant of different approaches, and understanding one’s own cultural biases and assumptions. Self-awareness requires an understanding of how one’s cultural values and beliefs may influence the way one communicates with members of other cultures. It is important to be mindful of the different communication styles, values, and norms that are prevalent in different cultures.

By being open-minded and self-aware, one can better understand the cultural context of a conversation and foster meaningful intercultural communication. Additionally, by engaging in self-reflection, one can gain insight into their own values and beliefs and, in turn, become more open and accepting of others. Intercultural communicators also need to be prepared to adjust their communication style to suit the cultural context.

Ask questions

Asking questions is an essential part of successful intercultural communication. When engaging in intercultural communication, it is essential to ask open-ended questions that invite a response. Additionally, it is important to be respectful and cognizant of cultural differences, and to avoid making assumptions. Asking questions can help clear up any misunderstandings and bridge cultural divides.

Questions should be tailored to the context of the conversation and the culture of the interlocutor. Moreover, it is important to be mindful of the language you use when asking questions, as certain words or phrases might have different connotations in different cultures. It is also important to listen carefully to the answers and be prepared to adjust your questions if necessary.

The final step in improving your intercultural communication skills is to seek help. Seeking help from native speakers of a language or from those who have experience in intercultural communication can provide invaluable insight into the nuances of different cultures and communication styles. Additionally, it can help to establish relationships with those who understand different cultures and can serve as a reliable resource in times of need.

Furthermore, it is important to be aware of any training or educational opportunities available that provide guidance on effective intercultural communication. These resources can provide guidance on best practices and help build confidence in communicating with people from different cultures.

By seeking help, you can gain valuable insight into the nuances of intercultural communication and become a more effective communicator.

Intercultural communication is an essential component of navigating the complexities of our increasingly globalized society. It is a process of exchanging information and creating understanding between people of different cultures and social groups, which can be vital to peacefully coexist in our interconnected world.

By fostering an attitude of open-mindedness, acceptance, and awareness of cultural differences alongside the use of resources, learning the language, observing culture, asking questions, and seeking help, intercultural communication can become an invaluable skill that can facilitate effective dialogue, build meaningful connections, and ultimately create a more inclusive global community.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is introduction to intercultural communication.

Introduction to Intercultural Communication is a field that focuses on how messages are interpreted, received and sent between different cultures. It examines the basic elements of interpersonal communication and culture as they relate to one another, with a focus on the influence of culture on communication practices.

Cross-cultural communication skills are emphasized, such as the need to understand the backgrounds of individuals from different cultural contexts and the importance of being open and respectful in conversations across cultures.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercultural_communication.

What is the meaning of intercultural communication?

Intercultural communication is the ability to share ideas and information among individuals of different backgrounds, cultures, religions, and beliefs. It involves being aware of cultural differences, respecting them, and using effective strategies to bridge potential differences in communication styles.

Intercultural communication is essential for any successful international business venture.

What are the 4 elements of intercultural communication?

The four elements of intercultural communication are cultural awareness, verbal fluency, nonverbal fluency, and active listening. Cultural awareness requires having knowledge of how different cultures work.

Both verbal and nonverbal fluency refer to the ability to effectively use language to communicate one’s meaning. Active listening involves understanding both the words and contexts in which they are being said.

Thus, these four elements constitute the building blocks of successful intercultural communication.

What is the 3 types of intercultural communication?

The three types of intercultural communication are verbal communication, non-verbal communication, and the perspectives of indigenous, cultural, and cross-cultural approaches. These three offer important ways to bridge gaps between different cultures and promote understanding.

What is the introduction of intercultural communication?

Intercultural communication is the sharing of ideas, thoughts and attitudes between people with different backgrounds. It entails developing an understanding of cultures from various perspectives, learning how to interact with individuals from different cultures, and using language to bridge cultural divides.

By understanding the cultural differences between people, we can better communicate with each other and build relationships. We can also learn to appreciate the diversity of cultures and the unique perspectives they bring.

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Research Topics in Intercultural Interaction

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• Helen Spencer-Oatey 3 &
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This chapter and the next focus on research into intercultural interaction. In this chapter, we outline some key research topics, and sample studies, associated with the various issues explored in Parts 1 and 2. In the next chapter, we explore the steps involved in carrying out a research project, and discuss the ways in which cultural factors need to be taken into consideration in relation to each of them.

• Critical Incident
• Impression Management
• Communication Style
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• Intercultural Competence

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Spencer-Oatey, H., Franklin, P. (2009). Research Topics in Intercultural Interaction. In: Intercultural Interaction. Research and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230244511_10

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Texas Southern University’s 2024 Communication Week to Encourage Diverse Voices in the Media

Posted on Friday, April 05, 2024

The 2024 Commweek, signifying the 42nd Intercultural and Communication Conference of the School of Communication at Texas Southern University will be held April 8-12, 2024. Themed “Amplifying Diverse Voices in Media and Communication," the conference will culminate with an Awards Gala on Friday, April 12, at the University’s Tiger Room.

The Intercultural Communication Conference provides a forum for scholars, students, professionals, and civic-minded leaders to explore topics with cultural, political, economic, and social implications as well as communication dynamics.

This year, a distinguished lineup of dignitaries, scholars, and professionals have confirmed their participation in this conference. For example, on the opening day of the conference, Monday, April 8, the Honorable Martha Castex-Tatum, City of Houston Vice Mayor Pro-Tem, and TSU’s Provost, Dr. Carl Goodman will deliver the opening remarks.

On Thursday, April 11, Dr. Mary Evans Sias, Interim President of Texas Southern University, will provide the opening welcome, while Dr. Kathleen McElroy, Professor at the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin, will deliver the keynote address. Kathleen McElroy, a native of the Third Ward of Houston is the daughter of Lucinda Martin and George McElroy, the first African-American to earn a master's degree in journalism from the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri.

Additionally, the NBCU Academy's Next Level Summit will be featured live at the state-of-the-art School of Communication TV Studio as part of this event. This session will also be broadcast live on NBC's virtual platforms, providing a unique opportunity for engagement and collaboration.

But the theme for is necessary and also, it is coming at the right time. The challenges posed by a lack of diverse voices in media and communication can be seen across social, political, economic, and cultural spheres of influence. These issues can influence the views represented in news coverage and dissemination. Indeed, the diversity of perspectives is key to creating a more inclusive and equitable society.

“The 2024 event will be special because we are equally raising scholarship funds for gifted and economically disadvantaged students in the School of Communication,” said Dr. Chris Ulasi, Interim Dean of the School of Communication. Traditionally, a majority of our students rely on some form of financial assistance to fund their education. This is why I am using this opportunity to appeal to individuals, corporate and community organizations to support this cause.”

Proceeds from 2024 Commweek will:

• Help SOC students break down financial barriers while pursuing their academic
• Help SOC students cover the cost of tuition, textbooks, and other educational
• Help SOC students supplement the cost of living expenses such as housing, transportation, and
• Create retention possibilities for students who might dropout for financial
• Act as incentives and encouragements to students in

This financial sponsorship will be a catalyst for expanding SOC’s ongoing professional relationship with corporate businesses, community organizations, and individual sponsors.

Category: News Media, Students, Faculty & Staff, Alumni

Keywords: TSU School of Communication, Texas Southern University, Commweek

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