Intercultural communication

Social engineering effective outcomes

• Cultural convergence
  • The theory that when two cultures come together, similarities in ideas and aspects will become more prevalent as members of the two cultures get to know one another. In a relatively closed social system, in which communication among members is unrestricted, the system as a whole will tend to converge over time toward a state of greater cultural uniformity. The system will tend to diverge toward diversity when communication is restricted.^[11]
• Communication accommodation theory
  • This theory focuses on linguistic strategies to decrease or increase communicative distances. In relation to linguistics, communication accommodation theory is the idea when two people are speaking to one another, one participant modifies the way they speak to accommodate another person in a given context. This is similar to code-switching in the sense that people are changing their dialects from a given language, to adjust to a different setting for others to understand. Communication accommodation theory seeks to explain and predict why, when, and how people adjust their communicative behavior during social interaction and what social consequences result from these adjustments.^[12]
• Intercultural adaptation
  • Intercultural adaptation is the idea that after living in a culture for an extended period of time, people will start to develop the ideas, rules, values, among other themes of that culture. Adaptation theories conclude that in order to adapt, immigrants need to fully engage in changing one's self beliefs to that of the society's majority.^[13] To elaborate, for example, while someone lives abroad it is imperative they are ready to change in order to live cohesively with their new culture. By understanding intercultural competence, we know that people have an understanding of what it takes to thrive in a culture, by following the norms and ideals that are presented.^[14]
  • Intercultural adaptation involves learned communicative competence. Communicative competence is defined as thinking, feeling, and pragmatically behaving in ways defined as appropriate by the dominant mainstream culture. Communication competence is an outcomes-based measure conceptualized as functional/operational conformity to environmental criteria such as working conditions. Beyond this, adaptation means "the need to conform" to mainstream "objective reality" and "accepted modes of experience".^[15]
  • Cultural adaptation is the process in which individuals are able to maintain stability and reestablish with their environment while in unfamiliar cultural environments.^[16] Intercultural adaptation is a two-way process, this is between the host culture as well as the individuals outside/home culture.^[17] This is based on whether the host culture is willing to adapt, adopt cultural sensitivity, and/or adopt some aspects of the incoming individual's culture. Intercultural adaptation is a two-way process.
• Co-cultural theory
  • Co-cultural theory is the idea pertaining to a group of people that someone belongs to, with people from different parts of the world sharing characteristics of one another.^[18]
  • In its most general form, co-cultural communication refers to interactions among underrepresented and dominant group members.^[19] Co-cultures include but are not limited to people of color, women, people with disabilities, gay men and lesbians, and those in the lower social classes. Co-cultural theory, as developed by Mark P. Orbe, looks at the strategic ways in which co-cultural group members communicate with others. In addition, a co-cultural framework provides an explanation for how different persons communicate based on six factors.

• Cultural fusion theory
  • Cultural fusion theory explains how immigrants can acculturate into the dominant culture they move to. They maintain important aspects of their culture while adopting aspects of the dominant culture. This creates an intercultural identity within an individual, their native identity as well as their new host culture identity.^[20] According to Eric Mark Kramer, the first proponent of cultural fusion theory, this theory distinguishes itself from more dominant frameworks, such as cultural adaptation, by focusing on the combination of many cultures not of adapting from one culture to a dominant one.^[21]

Identity negotiation or management

• Identity management theory
• Identity negotiation
• Cultural identity theory
• Double-swing model

Communication networks

• Networks and outgroup communication competence
• Intracultural versus intercultural networks
• Networks and acculturation

Acculturation and adjustment

Acculturation can be defined as the process of an individual or individuals exchanging or adopting certain culture values and practices that the dominant culture of their location possesses.^[22] Acculturation differs from assimilation because the people who are adopting new culture habits are still processing some of their original own culture habits. Young Yun Kim has identified three personality traits that could affect someone's cultural adaptation. These personality traits include openness, strength, and positive. With these personality traits, individuals will be more successful in acculturating than individuals who do not possess these traits. Kim proposes an alternative to acculturation is complete assimilation.^[20]

• Communication acculturation
  • This theory attempts to portray "cross-cultural adaptation as a collaborative effort in which a stranger and the receiving environment are engaged in a joint effort."^[23]
• Anxiety/uncertainty management
  • When strangers communicate with hosts, they experience uncertainty and anxiety. Strangers need to manage their uncertainty as well as their anxiety in order to be able to communicate effectively with hosts and then to try to develop accurate predictions and explanations for hosts' behaviors.
• Assimilation, deviance, and alienation states
  • Assimilation and adaptation are not permanent outcomes of the adaptation process; rather, they are temporary outcomes of the communication process between hosts and immigrants. "Alienation or assimilation, therefore, of a group or an individual, is an outcome of the relationship between deviant behavior and neglectful communication."^[24]
• Assimilation
  • Assimilation is the process of absorbing the traits of the dominant culture to the point where the group that was assimilated becomes indistinguishable from the host culture. Assimilation can be either forced or done voluntarily depending on situations and conditions. Regardless of the situation or the condition, it is very rare to see a minority group replace and or even forget their previous cultural practices.^[25]
• Alienation
  • Alienation frequently refers to someone who is ostracized or withdrawn from other people with whom they would ordinarily be expected to associate with. Hajda, a representative theorist and researcher of social alienation says, "alienation is an individuals feeling of uneasiness or discomfort which reflects his exclusion or self-exclusion from social and cultural participation."^[26]

Three perspectives on intercultural communication

A study on cultural and intercultural communication came up with three perspectives, which are the indigenous approach, cultural approach, and cross-cultural approach.^[7]

• Indigenous approach: trying to understand the meaning of different cultures.^[7] The process of passing preserved indigenous knowledge and how that is interpreted.^[27]
• Cultural approach: similar to the indigenous approach; however, the cultural approach also focuses on the sociocultural context of an individual.^[7]
• Cross cultural approaches: focuses on two or more cultures to perceive cross-cultural validity and generalizability.^[7]

Other theories

• Meaning of meanings theory – "A misunderstanding takes place when people assume a word has a direct connection with its referent. A common past reduces misunderstanding. Definition, metaphor, feedforward, and Basic English are partial linguistic remedies for a lack of shared experience."^[28]
• Face negotiation theory – "Members of collectivistic, high-context cultures have concerns for mutual face and inclusion that lead them to manage conflict with another person by avoiding, obliging, or compromising. Because of concerns for self-face and autonomy, people from individualistic, low-context cultures manage conflict by dominating or through problem solving".^[29]
• Standpoint theory – An individual's experiences, knowledge, and communication behaviors are shaped in large part by the social groups to which they belong. Individuals sometimes view things similarly, but other times have very different views in which they see the world. The ways in which they view the world are shaped by the experiences they have and through the social group they identify themselves to be a part of.^[30] "Feminist standpoint theory claims that the social groups to which we belong shape what we know and how we communicate.(Wood, 2005) The theory is derived from the Marxist position that economically oppressed classes can access knowledge unavailable to the socially privileged and can generate distinctive accounts, particularly knowledge about social relations."^[31][32]
• Stranger theory – At least one of the persons in an intercultural encounter is a stranger. Strangers are a 'hyperaware' of cultural differences and tend to overestimate the effect of cultural identity on the behavior of people in an alien society, while blurring individual distinctions.
• Feminist genre theory – Evaluates communication by identifying feminist speakers and reframing their speaking qualities as models for women's liberation.
• Genderlect theory – "Male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication. Masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects rather than as inferior or superior ways of speaking. Men's report talk focuses on status and independence. Women's support talk seeks human connection."^[33]
• Cultural critical studies theory – The theory states that the mass media impose the dominant ideology on the rest of society, and the connotations of words and images are fragments of ideology that perform an unwitting service for the ruling elite.
• Marxism – Aims to explain class struggle and the basis of social relations through economics.

Components

Intercultural communication can be linked with identity, which means the competent communicator is the person who can affirm others' avowed identities. As well as goal attainment is also a focus within intercultural competence and it involves the communicator to convey a sense of communication appropriateness and effectiveness in diverse cultural contexts.^[36]

Ethnocentrism plays a role in intercultural communication. The capacity to avoid ethnocentrism is the foundation of intercultural communication competence. Ethnocentrism is the inclination to view one's own group as natural and correct, and all others as aberrant.

People must be aware that to engage and fix intercultural communication there is no easy solution and there is not only one way to do so. Listed below are some of the components of intercultural competence.^[36]

• Context: A judgment that a person is competent is made in both a relational and situational context. This means that competence is not defined as a single attribute, meaning someone could be very strong in one section and only moderately good in another. Situationally speaking competence can be defined differently for different cultures. For example, eye contact shows competence in western cultures whereas, Asian cultures find too much eye contact disrespectful.
• Appropriateness: This means that one's behaviors are acceptable and proper for the expectations of any given culture.
• Effectiveness: The behaviors that lead to the desired outcome being achieved.
• Motivations: This has to do with emotional associations as they communicate interculturally. Feelings which are one's reactions to thoughts and experiences have to do with motivation. Intentions are thoughts that guide one's choices, it is a goal or plan that directs one's behavior. These two things play a part in motivation.^[36]

Basic tools for improvement

The following are ways to improve communication competence:

• Display of interest: Showing respect and positive regard for the other person.
• Orientation to knowledge: Terms people use to explain themselves and their perception of the world.
• Empathy: Behaving in ways that shows one understands the point of view of others
• Task role behavior: Initiate ideas that encourage problem solving activities.
• Relational role behavior: Interpersonal harmony and mediation.
• Tolerance for unknown and ambiguity: The ability to react to new situations with little discomfort.
• Interaction posture: Responding to others in descriptive, non-judgmental ways.^[36]
• Patience^[38]
• Active listening^[39]
• Clarity^[39]

Important factors

• Proficiency in the host culture language: understanding the grammar and vocabulary.
• Understanding language pragmatics: how to use politeness strategies in making requests and how to avoid giving out too much information.
• Being sensitive and aware to nonverbal communication patterns in other cultures.
• Being aware of gestures that may be offensive or mean something different in a host culture rather than one's own culture.
• Understanding a culture's proximity in physical space and paralinguistic sounds to convey their intended meaning.
• Mutual understanding with the aim of promoting a future of appreciation, robustness and diversity.^[40]

Traits

• Flexibility.
• Tolerating high levels of uncertainty.
• Self-reflection.
• Open-mindedness.
• Sensitivity.
• Adaptability.
• "Thinking outside the box" and lateral thinking

Effective communication depends on the informal understandings among the parties involved that are based on the trust developed between them. When trust exists, there is implicit understanding within communication, cultural differences may be overlooked, and problems can be dealt with more easily. The meaning of trust and how it is developed and communicated varies across societies. Similarly, some cultures have a greater propensity to be trusting than others.

The problems in intercultural communication usually come from problems in message transmission and in reception. In communication between people of the same culture, the person who receives the message interprets it based on values, beliefs, and expectations for behavior similar to those of the person who sent the message. When this happens, the way the message is interpreted by the receiver is likely to be fairly similar to what the speaker intended. However, when the receiver of the message is a person from a different culture, the receiver uses information from his or her culture to interpret the message. The message that the receiver interprets may be very different from what the speaker intended.

Cross-cultural business strategies

Cross-cultural business communication is very helpful in building cultural intelligence through coaching and training in cross-cultural communication management and facilitation, cross-cultural negotiation, multicultural conflict resolution, customer service, business and organizational communication. Cross-cultural understanding is not just for incoming expats. Cross-cultural understanding begins with those responsible for the project and reaches those delivering the service or content. The ability to communicate, negotiate and effectively work with people from other cultures is vital to international business.

Cultural Perceptions

There are common conceptualizations of attributes that define collectivistic and individualistic cultures. Operationalizing the perceptions of cultural identities works under the guise that cultures are static and homogeneous, when in fact cultures within nations are multi-ethnic and individuals show high variation in how cultural differences are internalized and expressed.^[8]

Manuela Guilherme, a teacher of foreign languages and cultures at secondary schools and university-level courses in Portugal and Great Britain, recognizes a need for a postmodern, decentered critique of Western societies from the point of view of the other in which no one should be regarded as culturally inferior or colonizable. Holliday states their opposition to this approach by discussing their distaste in Guilherme's and Byram's, a Professor of Education at Durham University, England, orientations towards a clear line between "our culture" and "their culture."^[35]

Culture-Based Conflict Situation Models

The goal of the original CBSCM proposed by Ting-Toomey and Oetzel (2001) was to use the model as a tentative map to organize and explain the various research concepts in the growing intercultural conflict field. It was based of the culture-based situational model in 2001 and Toomey and Oetzel envisioned that researchers and practitioners could collaborate in an integrative manner and locate concepts and linkage of ideas between the factors and test them in a systematic manner when creating the original CBSCM.

The original CBSCM consists of four components: (1) primary orientation factors (e.g., value patterns and personal attributes), (2) situational and relational boundary features (e.g., in-group-out-group boundary, interpersonal relationship boundary, and conflict goals’ assessment), (3) conflict communication process factors (e.g., conflict styles and facework behaviors), and (4) conflict competence features (e.g., appropriates and effectiveness, productivity and satisfaction).^[43]

The integration of the newly revised socioecological framework added by Ting-Toomey and Oetzel (2013) and the original CBSCM results in the revised model. The model still depicts two parties (e.g., people) in conflict with one another and illustrates how the conflict process unfolds. The model is meant to describe the process as continuous and flowing rather than starting at a particular point.

The model is meant to describe the process as continuous and flowing rather than starting at a particular point. It is possible to consider additional conflict parties or entities in the conflict process, yet we are constrained in drawing a model on a single page. The primary orientation factors now include multilevel factors at the macro-, exo-, meso-, and microlevels. The situational appraisals also include multilevel factors at each of these levels.^[43]

Globalization

Globalization plays a central role in theorizing for mass communication, media, and cultural communication studies.^[44] Intercultural communication scholars emphasize that globalization emerged from the increasing diversity of cultures throughout the world and thrives with the removal of cultural barriers.^[8] The notion of nationality, or the construction of national space, is understood to emerge dialectically through communication and globalization.

The Intercultural Praxis Model by Kathryn Sorrells, Ph.D. shows us how to navigate through the complexities of cultural differences along with power differences. This model will help you understand who you are as an individual, and how you can better communicate with others that may be different from you. In order to continue living in a globalized society one can use this Praxis model to understand cultural differences (based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, etc.) within the institutional and historical systems of power. Intercultural Communication Praxis Model requires us to respond to someone who comes from a different culture than us, in the most open way we can. The media are influential in what we think of other cultures and what we think about our own selves. However it is important, we educate ourselves, and learn how to communicate with others through Sorrells' Praxis Model.^[45]

Sorrells’ process is made up of six points of entry in navigating intercultural spaces, including inquiry, framing, positioning, dialogue, reflection, and action. Inquiry, as the first step of the Intercultural Praxis Model, is an overall interest in learning about and understanding individuals with different cultural backgrounds and world-views, while challenging one's own perceptions. Framing, then, is the awareness of “local and global contexts that shape intercultural interactions;”^[46] thus, the ability to shift between the micro, meso, and macro frames. Positioning is the consideration of one's place in the world compared to others, and how this position might influence both world-views and certain privileges. Dialogue is the turning point of the process during which further understanding of differences and possible tensions develops through experience and engagement with cultures outside of one's own. Next, reflection allows for one to learn through introspection the values of those differences, as well as enables action within the world “in meaningful, effective, and responsible ways."^[46] This finally leads to action, which aims to create a more conscious world by working toward social justice and peace among different cultures. As Sorrells argues, “In the context of globalization, [intercultural praxis] … offers us a process of critical, reflective thinking and acting that enables us to navigate … intercultural spaces we inhabit interpersonally, communally, and globally."^[46]