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What Is Intercultural Communication: Learning New Styles

Updated: June 19, 2024

Published: April 30, 2020

Intercultural communication is a necessary part of today’s world, whether in business, school, or everyday life. It is essential in being a part of the growing global community and knowing how to communicate cross-culturally is a skill you must have to succeed. But just what is intercultural communication? Let’s dive into what is intercultural communication, and how you can increase your intercultural communication skills to succeed in whatever you set your mind to.

Cultures Meet Communication

Everyone communicates, and everyone has a culture, whether it is highly defined or not. This means that inherently, we all must communicate with people of other cultures. That is what intercultural communication is all about.

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Defining culture.

Culture isn’t only about the language you speak, the foods you eat, and the way you dress. There are much more nuanced aspects of our everyday life that can be attributed to culture. Our lifestyle, including ways of personal life, family life, and social life are all part of our culture .

Introducing Intercultural Communication

If you are just beginning your journey of intercultural competence, it can be confusing where to start. One of the best ways to introduce yourself is to start with the concept of intercultural communication, discussed below.

What Is Intercultural Communication?

Intercultural communication is much more than just your typical types of communication such as verbal and nonverbal. It is about the broader exchange of ideas, beliefs, values, and views.

Cultural values impact how people speak, write, and act — all essential aspects of communication. Culture also has a lot to do with how people think about and judge other people. Being aware of our own cultural biases, and others’ biases goes a long way in being able to effectively communicate with anyone.

Other Intergroup Relations Terms

Other relevant terms when discussing intercultural communication are multicultural, diversity, and cross-cultural. While these all might seem to be the same, there are small differences that make each unique.

Multicultural means a group or organization that has multiple cultures within it, or is made up of several cultures. Cross-cultural means between multiple groups of different cultures, whereas intercultural means between members of those cultures.

To further clarify, a company might be multicultural, where it fosters many cross-cultural interactions, which means everyone has to be involved in intercultural communication.

Importance Of Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication is an important part of intercultural competence — or the ability to effectively function across cultures , and with those from other cultures. As our world gets smaller and globalization gets stronger, intercultural competence and great intercultural communication become a necessity to be successful.

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Applying and managing intercultural communication.

Intercultural communication skills must be applied when you are in an intercultural exchange. Use these 7 tips when managing intercultural communication:

1. Common Traps And Problems

Every culture has their own gestures and ways of speaking. If you know in advance that you will be speaking to a person or group of another culture, it’s important to educate yourself on some common faux-pas of that culture.

For example, a handshake may not be the appropriate way of greeting in every culture. Similarly, Spanish speakers find that specific words can have either neutral or negative meanings depending on the country you are in.

2. Learn Phrases In Their Language

Learning a few common phrases in another language is an important part of intercultural communication. It shows that you recognize the cultural difference, respect their culture, and are willing to learn about it. Start with learning hello and thank you if you are meeting with someone you know speaks another language.

3. Adapt Your Behavior

When you enter in an intercultural communication exchange, there may be an expectation on both sides for the other party to adapt to the others’ cultures. If you stop expecting that, and start adapting your own behavior, you will find more willingness on both sides to understand one another.

4. Check Your Understanding

Listen carefully and check your own understanding regularly throughout the conversation. If you find you aren’t able to articulate back what the other person is saying, don’t be afraid to ask for clarification. It’s better to ask than to walk away with misunderstandings.

5. Apologize

If you realize you have offended someone, apologize promptly — don’t let it fester or become awkward. It’s better to apologize without needing to than leave someone feeling bad after your conversation.

6. Use Television

Watching series of other cultures can really aid you in intercultural understanding if you have no other way to access that culture. It will help you see cultural norms and how another culture lives, all which will help you effectively communicate with that culture.

7. Reflect On Experience

Try to take a few moments to reflect on previous intercultural exchanges — ones of your own or ones you have simply observed. What made them effective, or what made them not work out the way it was intended? Take note and adjust your future communication accordingly.

Communicating With People Of Different Cultures

Communication across cultures can be a challenge, especially if you’re not accustomed to working with people from other cultures.

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An understanding of difference.

First, in order to effectively communicate with people of other cultures, there is a fundamental aspect you must be aware of which is understanding differences. Different cultures have different standards, expectations, and norms, and you must realize that those differences shape individuals in some ways but they are not bound by those ways.

Developing Intercultural Sensitivity And Competence

By default, we automatically feel something different when we interact with someone from an unfamiliar culture, or one that is starkly different than our own. If you want to increase your intercultural communication abilities, it is up to you to work on your intercultural sensitivity.

It starts with the idea that as you begin to recognize and understand cultural differences and the more you interact with people of other cultures, the more competent you become and the more complex your ideas of culture become as well. Therefore, the more sensitive you will be each time you communicate interculturally.

Intercultural Communication At University Of The People

University of the People is an American accredited university that prides itself on its globality and accepting applicants from all countries, backgrounds, and cultures. It is a high priority of ours to maintain excellent intercultural communication, and to instill these skills into our students. No matter what degree program you choose, you can count on being able to use it in conversation across a range of cultures.

The Bottom Line

So, what is intercultural communication, and why should you improve your intercultural skills? Our world is only getting smaller, and the ability to competently communicate with other cultures is vital for success in all areas of life. Adapt your behavior, check your understanding, reflect on your experiences and follow our tips to foster excellent intercultural communication.

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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.

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Uniquely interdisciplinary and accessible, The Cambridge Introduction to Intercultural Communication is the ideal text for undergraduate introductory courses in Intercultural Communication, International Communication and Cross-cultural Communication. Suitable for students and practitioners alike, it encompasses the breadth of intercultural communication as an academic field and a day-to-day experience in work and private life, including international business, public services, schools and universities. This textbook touches on a range of themes in intercultural communication, such as evolutionary and positive psychology, key concepts from…

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• Truly interdisciplinary and easy-to-read, it puts the concept of Critical Intercultural Communication at the centre of the field
• Demonstrates how theories relate to real-life applications through a wide variety of application tasks, connecting theory with practice in an engaging way
• Explores the link between intercultural communication and global business, health, psychology and military services, making concepts accessible to students without humanities backgrounds
• Draws on recent high-profile research from the Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Communication (ed. by Rings & Rasinger 2020), which won the Choice Outstanding Academic Title award in 2021

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• DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108904025
• Subjects Anthropology, Applied Linguistics, Language and Linguistics, Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Publication date: 08 December 2022
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Guido Rings is Emeritus Professor of Postcolonial Studies, co-director of the Anglia Ruskin Research Centre for Intercultural and Multilingual Studies (ARRCIMS), and co-founder of iMex and German as a Foreign Language, the first internet journals in Europe for their respective fields. Professor Rings has widely published within different areas of critical intercultural and postcolonial studies. This includes, as editor, the acclaimed Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Communication (with S. M. Rasinger, Cambridge University Press, 2020) and, as author, the world-leading scoring The Other in Contemporary Migrant Cinema (Routledge, 2016) and the celebrated La Conquista desbaratada (The Conquest upside down, Iberoamericana, 2010), next to more than fifty distinguished refereed articles.

Sebastian M. Rasinger is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Anglia Ruskin University. His research focuses on language and identity, with a particular focus on multilingual and migration contexts. He has extensive experience in teaching courses in these areas at all levels. His textbook Quantitative Research in Linguistics: An Introduction, published in two editions (Bloomsbury 2008 and 2013), has sold several thousand copies and has been published in its Spanish translation by Ediciones Akal. Sebastian has a strong interest in equality and diversity in higher education, and is currently the vice chair of the QAA Advisory Group for linguistics, overseeing the review of the linguistics subject benchmarks in UK HE.

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Intercultural Communicative Competence

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Cross-cultural competence ; Cultural intelligence ; Global competence ; Intercultural communication competence ; Intercultural competence ; Intercultural effectiveness ; Intercultural sensitivity ; Transcultural competence

Intercultural (communicative) competence (ICC) generally refers to the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. It is the ability to navigate differences in a complex society, characterized by increasing diversity of cultures, peoples, philosophies, and lifestyles (UNESCO, 2013 ). Various definitions of ICC have been proposed by scholars over the past decades. For example, Byram ( 1997 : 2021) defines intercultural communicative competence as “a person’s ability to relate to and communicate with people who speak a different language and live in a different cultural context” (p. 1). Chen and Starosta ( 1998 ) view ICC as “the ability to effectively and appropriately execute communication behaviors...

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Munezane, Y. (2024). Intercultural Communicative Competence. In: Encyclopedia of Diversity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95454-3_593-1

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10 Intercultural Communication

After completing this section, students should be able to:

• describe what it means to be a provisional communicator.
• define culture and co-culture.
• explain how culture may impact communication choices.
• apply Hofstede’s dimensions of culture to oneself and a group.
• show how Hall’s cultural variations apply to oneself and a group.
• identify barriers to intercultural competence.

Humans are naturally egocentric .  Since we can exist only within our own heads, it is perfectly natural for us to assume everyone else thinks, perceives, and communicates as we do.  The only world we can experience is the world as we see it, and it can be very challenging to understand that varied perceptions, values, and beliefs exist which are equally valid.

Being a provisional communicator can be challenging.  Provisionalism is the ability to accept the diversity of perceptions and beliefs, and to operate in a manner sensitive to that diversity .  Being provisional does not mean we abandon our own beliefs and values, nor does it mean we have to accept all beliefs and values as correct.  Instead, provisionalism leads us to seek to understand variations in human behaviors, and to understand the field of experience See Module I, Section 2 for a discussion of field of experience. out of which the other person operates. This adds an extra step to the interpretation process:

• We interpret the world within our own life experiences, but then
• We stop and consider, “How was the message intended?” or “What other factors may be motivating this behavior?”

In addition to cultural differences, we also experience variations in communication behaviors between men and women.  For example, Keith’s wife and her sister can talk for hours about all sorts of relational issues with co-workers, with family members, and with friends while he finds such extensive conversations exhausting.  Since female communication is far more focused on relationship development and maintenance, such conversations are consistent with the feminine communication style.  The masculine style is far more focused on action and the bare details of events, who did what to whom, and not as focused on the nuances of relational dynamics.  As someone who uses the masculine style, once Keith gets the basic details, he thinks he is informed and does not feel a need to dissect the smaller details of the event.  Note that the masculine and feminine communication styles are not based on biology; men can use a feminine style and women can use a masculine style.  In Module III, Section 2 See Module III, Section 2 , you will learn more about these styles and how we move between them depending on the situation.

Culture and gender impact communication.  As with all human behavior, when we address such variations, we always speak of tendencies, not absolutes: men tend to communicate one way, and women tend to communicate somewhat differently.   Imagine if a visitor from another culture was to ask you, “What are Americans like?”  Chances are you could identify a few characteristics but would also qualify your statements with, “But not everyone….”

Culture and Communication

Within each of the social groups, communication is influenced.  Consider:

• The use of specific gestures, colors, and styles of dress in inner city gangs;
• The classic Southern Accent;
• The use of regional sayings, such as “you betcha,” or “whatever” in rural Minnesota;
• The more quiet nature of Native Americans who may prefer to listen and observe.

These cultural groups and social identities operate within the larger culture while maintaining the traits that make these smaller groups unique.  These variations in lifestyle, communication behaviors, values, beliefs, art, food, and such provide a rich quilt of human experience, and for the provisional communicator, one who can accept and appreciate these difference, it can be an invigorating experience to move among them.

Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture

• Individualism and Collectivism

The left side of this dimension, called Individualism , can be defined as a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only . Its opposite, Collectivism , represents a preference for a tightly-knit framework in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular in-group to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty . A society’s position on this dimension is reflected in whether people’s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “we”  (Hofstede, 2012a).

In a highly individualistic culture, members are able to make choices based on personal preference with little regard for others, except for close family or significant relationships.  They can pursue their own wants and needs free from concerns about meeting social expectations.  The United States is a highly individualistic culture.  While we value the role of certain aspects of collectivism such as government, social organizations, or other forms of collective action, at our core we strongly believe it is up to each person to find and follow their path in life.

In a highly collectivistic culture, just the opposite is true.  It is the role of individuals to fulfill their place in the overall social order.  Personal wants and needs are secondary to the needs of the society at large.  There is immense pressure to adhere to social norms, and those who fail to conform risk social isolation, disconnection from family, and perhaps some form of banishment.  China is typically considered a highly collectivistic culture.  In China, multigenerational homes are common, and tradition calls for the oldest son to care for his parents as they age.

The power distance dimension of culture expresses the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect power to be distributed unequally. The fundamental issue is how a society handles inequalities among people. People in societies exhibiting a large degree of power distance accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification . In societies with low power distance, people strive to equalize the distribution of power and demand justification for inequalities of power (Hofstede, 2012a).

In high power-distance cultures, the members accept some having more power and some having less power, and that this power distribution is natural and normal.  Those with power are assumed to deserve it, and likewise those without power are assumed to be in their proper place.  In such a culture, there will be a rigid adherence to the use of titles, “Sir,” “Ma’am,” “Officer,” “Reverend,” and so on.  The directives of those with higher power are to be obeyed, with little question.

In low power-distance cultures, the distribution of power is considered far more arbitrary and viewed as a result of luck, money, heritage, or other external variables.  For a person to be seen as having power, something must justify their power.  A wealthy person is typically seen as more powerful in western cultures.  Elected officials, like United States Senators, will be seen as powerful since they had to win their office by receiving majority support.  In these cultures, individuals who attempt to assert power are often faced with those who stand up to them, question them, ignore them, or otherwise refuse to acknowledge their power.  While some titles may be used, they will be used far less than in a high power-distance culture.  For example, in colleges and universities in the U.S., it is far more common for students to address their instructors on a first-name basis, and engage in casual conversation on personal topics. In contrast, in a high power-distance culture like Japan, the students rise and bow as the teacher enters the room, address them formally at all times, and rarely engage in any personal conversation.

The uncertainty avoidance dimension expresses the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. The fundamental issue here is how a society deals with the fact the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen? Countries exhibiting strong [uncertainty avoidance] maintain rigid codes of belief and behavior and are intolerant of unorthodox behavior and ideas . Weak [uncertainty avoidance] societies maintain a more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles (Hofstede, 2012a).

Consider how one avoids uncertainty: by limiting change, adhering to tradition, and sticking to past practice.  High uncertainty avoidance cultures place a very high value on history, doing things as they have been done in the past, and honoring stable cultural norms.  Even though the U.S. is generally low in uncertainty avoidance, we can see some evidence of a degree of higher uncertainty avoidance related to certain social issues.  As society changes, there are many who will decry the changes as they are “forgetting the past,” “dishonoring our forebears,” or “abandoning sacred traditions.”  In the controversy over same-sex marriage, the phrase “traditional marriage” is used to refer to a two person, heterosexual marriage, suggesting same-sex marriage is a violation of tradition.  Changing social norms creates uncertainty, and for many change is very unsettling.

In a low uncertainty avoidance culture, change is seen as inevitable, normal, and even preferable to stasis.  In such a culture innovation in all areas is valued, whether it be in technology, business, social norms, or human relationship.  Businesses in the U.S. that can change rapidly, innovate quickly, and respond immediately to market and social pressures are seen as far more successful.  While Microsoft™ has long dominated the world market in computer operating systems, they are regularly criticized for being slow to change and to respond to changing consumer demands, which suggests a high uncertainty avoidance culture within that business.  Apple™, on the other hand, has been praised for its innovation and ability to respond more quickly to market demands, suggesting a low uncertainty avoidance culture.

The long-term orientation dimension can be interpreted as dealing with society’s search for virtue . Societies with a short-term orientation generally have a strong concern with establishing the absolute Truth . They are normative in their thinking. They exhibit great respect for traditions, a relatively small propensity to save for the future, and a focus on achieving quick results. In societies with a long-term orientation, people believe that truth depends very much on situation, context and time. They show an ability to adapt traditions to changed conditions, a strong propensity to save and invest, thriftiness, and perseverance in achieving results (Hofstede, 2012a).

In a long-term culture, significant emphasis is placed on planning for the future.  For example, the savings rates in France and Germany are 2-4 times greater than in the U.S., suggesting cultures with more of a “plan ahead” mentality (Pasquali & Aridas, 2012).  These long-term cultures see change and social evolution are normal, integral parts of the human condition. In a short-term culture, emphasis is placed far more on the “here and now.”  Immediate needs and desires are paramount, with longer-term issues left for another day.  The U.S. falls more into this type.  Legislation tends to be passed to handle immediate problems, and it can be challenging for lawmakers to convince voters of the need to look at issues from a long-term perspective.  With the fairly easy access to credit, consumers are encouraged to buy now versus waiting.  We see evidence of the need to establish “absolute Truth” in our political arena on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and gun control.  Our culture does not tend to favor middle grounds in which truth is not clear-cut.

The masculinity side of this dimension represents a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material reward for success. Society at large is more competitive. Its opposite, femininity, stands for a preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life. Society at large is more consensus-oriented.

In a masculine culture, such as the U.S., winning is highly valued.  We respect and honor those who demonstrate power and high degrees of competence.  Consider the role of competitive sports such as football, basketball, or baseball, and how the rituals of identifying the best are significant events.  The 2017 Super Bowl had 111 million viewers, (Huddleston, 2017) and the World Series regularly receives high ratings, with the final game in 2016 ending at the highest rating in ten years (Perez, 2016).

More feminine societies, such as those in the Scandinavian countries, will certainly have their sporting moments.  However, the culture is far more structured to provide aid and support to citizens, focusing their energies on providing a reasonable quality of life for all (Hofstede, 2012b).

Indulgence stands for a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun .  Restraint stands for a society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms (Hofstede, 2012a).

Indulgent cultures are comfortable with individuals acting on their more basic human drives.  Sexual mores are less restrictive, and one can act more spontaneously than in cultures of restraint.  Those in indulgent cultures will tend to communicate fewer messages of judgment and evaluation.  Every spring thousands of U.S. college students flock to places like Cancun, Mexico, to engage in a week of fairly indulgent behavior.  Feeling free from the social expectations of home, many will engage in some intense partying, sexual activity, and fairly limitless behaviors.

Cultures of restraint, such as many Islamic countries, have rigid social expectations of behavior that can be quite narrow.  Guidelines on dress, food, drink, and behaviors are rigid and may even be formalized in law.  In the U.S., a generally indulgent culture, there are sub-cultures that are more restraint focused.  The Amish are highly restrained by social norms, but so too can be inner-city gangs.  Areas of the country, like Utah with its large Mormon culture, or the Deep South with its large evangelical Christian culture, are more restrained than areas such as San Francisco or New York City.  Rural areas often have more rigid social norms than do urban areas.  Those in more restraint-oriented cultures will identify those not adhering to these norms, placing pressure on them, either openly or subtly, to conform to social expectations.

Hall’s Cultural Variations

In addition to these 6 dimensions from Hofstede, anthropologist Edward T. Hall identified two more significant cultural variations (Raimo, 2008).

In a monochronic culture , like the U.S., time is viewed as linear, as a sequential set of finite time units .  These units are a commodity, much like money, to be managed and used wisely; once the time is gone, it is gone and cannot be retrieved. Consider the language we use to refer to time: spending time; saving time; budgeting time; making time.  These are the same terms and concepts we apply to money; time is a resource to be managed thoughtfully.  Since we value time so highly, that means:

• Punctuality is valued.  Since “time is money,” if a person runs late, they are wasting the resource.
• Scheduling is valued.  Since time is finite, only so much is available, we need to plan how to allocate the resource.  Monochronic cultures tend to let the schedule drive activity, much like money dictates what we can and cannot afford to do,
• Handling one task at a time is valued.  Since time is finite and seen as a resource, monochronic cultures value fulfilling the time budget by doing what was scheduled.  Compare this to a financial budget: funds are allocated for different needs, and we assume those funds should be spent on the item budgeted.  In a monochronic culture, since time and money are virtually equivalent, adhering to the “time budget” is valued.
• Being busy is valued.  Since time is a resource, we tend to view those who are busy as “making the most of their time;” they are seen as using their resources wisely.

In a polychronic culture , like Spain, time is far, far more fluid .  Schedules are more like rough outlines to be followed, altered, or ignored as events warrant.  Relationship development is more important, and schedules do not drive activity.  Multi-tasking is far more acceptable, as one can move between various tasks as demands change.  In polychronic cultures, people make appointments, but there is more latitude for when they are expected to arrive.  David’s appointment may be at 10:15, but as long as he arrives sometime within the 10 o’clock hour, he is on time.

Consider a monochronic person attempting to do business in a polychronic culture.  The monochronic person may expect meetings to start promptly on time, stay focused, and for work to be completed in a regimented manner to meet an established deadline.  Yet those in a polychronic culture will not bring those same expectations to the encounter, sowing the seeds for some significant intercultural conflict.

In low-context cultures , verbal communication is given primary attention .  The assumption is that people will say what they mean relatively directly and clearly.  Little will be left for the receiver to interpret or imply.  In the U.S. if someone does not want something, we expect them to say, “No.”  While we certainly use nonverbal communication variables to get a richer sense of the meaning of the person’s message, we consider what they say to be the core, primary message.  Those in a high-context culture find the directness of low-context cultures quite disconcerting, to the point of rudeness.

In summary, Hofstede’s Dimensions and Hall’s Cultural Variations give us some tools to use to identify, categorize, and discuss diversity in communication.  As we learn to see these differences, we are better equipped to manage inter-cultural encounters, communicate more provisionally, and adapt to cultural variations.

While intended to show only broad cultural differences, these eight variables also can be useful tools to identify variations among individuals within a given culture.  We can use them to identify sources of conflict or tension within a given relationship.  For example, Keith tends to be a short-term oriented, indulgent, monochronic person, while his wife tends be long-term oriented, restrained, and more polychronic.  Needless to say, they frequently experience their own personal “culture clashes.”

In our effort to become better communicators, understanding a few additional concepts is helpful.  One of those is the distinction between race and ethnicity.  Both of these terms are used in varied ways; neither is distinctly defined .  Race is seen as a social construct that developed based on biological traits .  Current findings in genetic studies show those traits are not as distinct as once thought.  However, many communities and co-cultures have been based on race, and some of them developed distinct communication patterns in response to interactions with the dominant culture.  People in those communities rely on codeswitching to alter their language use and behavior as they interact within their co-culture or within the dominant culture .  Ethnicity is generally used to refer to traits associated with country of birth which may encompass language, religion, customs, or geographic location.  Some people identify closely with their ethnic heritage, especially if their immigrant experience is more recent.  Other aspects of cultural identity that play an important role in understanding intercultural communication are gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, social class, and generation.  Students interested in learning more about those components may begin by identifying the values of their own cultures (both dominant and co-cultures).

Intercultural Competence

Before looking at how to be more competent in intercultural interactions, it is important to identify some of the barriers .  Verderber and MacGeorge (2016) give six:

• Anxiety : While an intercultural situation will not necessarily result in culture shock, it is not unusual to experience some level of discomfort in such situations.  The apprehension we feel can make the interaction awkward or can lead us to avoiding situations that we deem too unfamiliar.
• Assumed similarity or difference : If we expect that restaurants will be the same in Asia as they are in the U.S., we are likely to be disappointed.  Likewise, if we think no one in another country will understand us, we might miss the opportunity to connect with others who share similar interests.
• Ethnocentrism : Assuming our culture is superior to or more important than all others will make it difficult to successfully engage with people from other cultures.
• Stereotyping : We can create stereotypes of people within our culture or of people from other cultures.  Either way it stops us from seeing people as individuals, and we instead see them as a certain age, race, gender, ability, or whatever.  Stereotyping is a process of judging that we all need to work to avoid.
• Incompatible communication code : Even within our own language, we may have trouble understanding the messages of others.  When the languages are different, it may be more difficult.  Nonverbal communication also varies between cultures, so it is not always a good substitute for verbal communication.
• Incompatible norms and values: People of one culture may be offended by the norms or values of another culture.  For example, less-significant differences in values, such as which foods are most desired, may be offensive. For example, in India, cows are considered sacred, yet in the U.S., beef is widely consumed. However, different cultural values about business practices or expansion of territory can lead to international conflict.

Moving beyond those barriers and toward ethnorelativism is at the core of becoming a more competent intercultural communicator. Ethnorelativism is the knowledge that “cultures can only be understood relative to one another, and that particular behavior can only be understood within a cultural context” (Bennett, 1993, p. 46).  The image below shows the Bennett Model that begins on the left with denial, meaning the person is unware the cultural differences exist or is avoiding contact with other cultures or worldviews (Bennett, 2011).  As they progress to the right, individuals may move through phases of actually belittling other cultures (defense), indifference to cultural differences (minimization), accepting cultural differences without judging them, and adapting thinking and behaviors to operate successfully in a new culture before reaching integration in which one is comfortable interacting in a variety of cultures. While few people truly reach the integration stage, anyone can strive to increase their intercultural communication competence.  It takes time and effort, beginning with having an attitude of openness, respect, and curiosity.  That leads to a desire to learn more about culture in general and about specific cultures, as well as an interest in learning new communication skills.  Different cultures have different expectations for language use, nonverbals, and relationships.  These can be learned through observation, language study, formal cultural study, or cultural immersion.  The ultimate goals are to embrace a point of view that encourages you to see the value in other cultures, a provisional or ethnorelative view, and to be able to communicate effectively and appropriately in a new culture (Deardorff, 2006).  To achieve this, it is key to value other cultures and respect people from all cultures.

Key Concepts

The terms and concepts students should be familiar with from this section include:

• Provisionalism
• Culture shock

Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture

• Power Distance
• Uncertainty Avoidance
• Time Orientation
• Masculine and Feminine
• Indulgence and Restraint

Hall’s Cultural Dimensions

• Monochronic and Polychronic
• High-Context and Low-Context

Codeswitching

Barriers to Intercultural Competence

• Assumed similarity or difference
• Ethnocentrism
• Stereotyping
• Incompatible communication code
• Incompatible norms and values

Introduction to Human Communication Copyright © 2023 by Araceli Bachner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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ORC Course Descriptions

In our increasingly diverse world, cultural and intercultural literacy is an urgent necessity, not an option.  To help fulfill this exigency, the goal of this class is for students to explore how diverse underlying cultural orientations and patterns influence communication behaviors within and between cultures.Theoretical and practical aspects of intercultural communication will be addressed with a focus on how students can apply alternative communication strategies that result in deliberate and fruitful intercultural outcomes.

Course Details

No prerequisites. Limited enrollment.

Instructor : Drummond.

Distributive : SOC

World Culture : CI

Offered : 24S: 2A

View the ORC description .

Course Summary

In this class, we will enhance the way we perceive the notion of culture and how it affects and is affected by the communication process. Martin and Nakayama note that, "learning about intercultural communication is not about learning a finite set of skills, terms, and theories. It is about learning to think about cultural realities in multiple ways.[1]" Starting from a working definition of culture, we will introduce variations of the definition of culture depending on particular perspectives. This course offers a critical survey of major theories and concepts in intercultural communication encounters. Our goal will be to address how we use our intercultural knowledge to help enrich our lives and the lives of those around us. Our class will be structured into three main units. We will begin the quarter by discussing theoretical questions concerning the study of intercultural communication and answer questions of why the study of intercultural communication is important. The second unit of the course will be spent briefly discussing the intercultural communication processes. Lastly, we will turn our attention to the application of intercultural communication across a wide range of topics, including education, politics, media, and other social justice contexts.

Course Goals

• To understand how communication processes differ among cultures, and to acquire knowledge and skills that increase your intercultural competence.
• To increase your awareness and knowledge of your own cultural norms and values, and of how your cultural location affects what you know and how you communicate.
• To define concepts like—racism, sexism, and systems of privilege—that arise from histories of colonization, exploitation, and discrimination, and learn ways to creatively address these inequities.
• To apply these terms, concepts, and theories to your interactions with others and critically analyze and evaluate the influence of your culture(s) and techniques for intercultural competence.

[1] Martin, J., & Nakayama, T. (2010). Experiencing intercultural communication (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Chapter 1 – The Study of Intercultural Communication

Learning Outcomes

When you have completed this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• List and describe the six imperatives.
• Identify which imperative is most closely related to your reason for studying intercultural communication.
• Understand how communication meets various needs.
• Have a working knowledge of the linear, interactional, and transactional models of the communication process.
• Be able to explain how various contexts might impact communication.

What is your reason for studying intercultural communication?  Maybe it was a requirement on the road to achieving your major, and you dutifully signed up without having given it much thought.  Maybe you’ve spent time overseas or enjoyed spending time with an exchange student at your high school or in your community.  Maybe a friend found the class surprisingly interesting and suggested that you take it.  Possibly, it was the only class that worked in your limited schedule so you are giving it a try.  Whatever your personal reasons—welcome!

Even if you have never taken a communication studies class before, you have a lifetime of experience communicating, and this experiential knowledge provides a useful foundation from which you can build upon. This book is designed to help us to take a look at what we already know by applying principles that will guide our understanding of intercultural communication competence.

1.1 – The Six Imperatives or Reasons Why We Study Intercultural Communication

When considering the various reasons for studying intercultural communication, most answers will fall into what scholars Martin & Nakayama (2011) call the six imperatives or reasons for studying intercultural communication.  The six imperative categories are:

• Demographic
• Self-awareness

Let’s take a quick look at each imperative individually.

The Peace Imperative

History is full of conflict.  Contemporary life is full of conflict.  Conflict over politics, religion, human rights, climate change, wealth, medical care, plus food, water, and mineral resources are often in the news.  It would be naïve to assume that simply understanding intercultural communication principles would end conflict, but there is a need for all of us to learn more about cultural groups other than our own if we wish to be competent communicators.  The peace imperative begs the question as to whether individuals of different races, ethnicities, languages, and cultures can exist together on this planet?  If so, what does that look like?  If not, what does that mean?

The Demographic Imperative

Demographics are the characteristics of a population such as gender, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, educational status, and more.  Demographics are generally those traits and characteristics that we can count.  U.S. demographics, as well as those around the rest of the world, are changing quickly and dramatically. Migratory populations escaping from climate and economic issues are crossing borders in record numbers.  Borders are becoming more fluid as countries go on land grabs in neighboring territory. Pandemics don’t recognize borders at all.  The demographic imperative is not only about immigration though, it’s also about change.  As demographics change, culture changes.

Vocabulary that describes groups of people and are associated with the demographic imperative include the terms, heterogeneous, homogeneous, diversity, and nativistic. If a population is considered heterogeneous , there are differences in the group, culture, or population.  If a population is considered homogeneous , there are similarities in the group, culture, or population.  Diversity is the quality of being different. A nativistic group is extremely patriotic to the point of being anti-immigrant.

The Economic Imperative

To compete and be effective in the global market, an accurate understanding of the economies and ways of doing business around the world is crucial.  The interdependence of our world market in consumer goods, services, labor, and capital has been dramatically illustrated by the shortages produced by the COVID pandemic.  Formerly efficient supply chains were disrupted.  Economically affordable products became expensive for lack of local sources. Labor shortages around the world impacted everyone on the planet. The economic imperative is reflected by the impact that business globalization has on the average person.

The Technology Imperative

Technology has made communication easier than ever before.  Information has become so easy to access and manipulate that we are now confronted with the impact of fake news and purposeful disinformation along with the closely related economic issue of the digital divide .  The digital divide refers to people who grew up with access to technology versus those who did not have access to technology and did not develop the associated skills.  Digital natives , or people who grew up using technology, are often citizens of wealthy nations that live lives of comparable privilege and often have better economic prospects.  Technology is also used as an identity management tool and will be discussed as such in a later chapter.

The Ethical Imperative

Does the idea of a digital divide challenge your sense of social justice?  If so, you are concerned with the ethical principles of conduct that help govern the behaviors of individuals and groups.  Generally, there are two basic ways that humans apply ethical values to behavior—universally or relatively.  If you are viewing a behavior as a relativist , you believe that no behavior is inherently right or wrong, rather everything depends on perspective.  In other words, you might not make the same choice yourself, but are willing to understand why others would make that choice.  If you are viewing a behavior as a universalist , you believe that cultural differences are only superficial, and that fundamental notions of right and wrong are universal. In other words, everyone should be making the same choices for the same reasons.

Although universalism and relativism are thought of as an either/or choice, realistically most people are a combination of both views.  There are some issues you might hold strict opinion about while other issues you are willing to be more open about.

The Self Awareness Imperative

One of the most important reasons for studying intercultural communication is the awareness it raises of our own cultural identity and background. The self-awareness imperative helps us to gain insights into our own culture along with our own intercultural experiences.  All cultures are ethnocentric by their very natures.  Ethnocentrism is a tendency to think that our own culture is superior to other cultures.  Most of us don’t even realize that we think this way, but we do.  Sure, we might admit that our culture isn’t perfect, yet we still think that we are doing better than everyone else.  Ethnocentrism can lead to stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.  These ideas will be discussed in greater detail later in the book.

Learn A Little More!

Ever since I was very young—even before I could find it on a map—I have wanted to go to the People’s Republic of China.   For much of my lifetime, China was almost impossible to visit.  There were no direct flights available.  Invitations had to be issued from work units in the PRC.  Various permissions and permits had to be arranged before entry.  Special money called foreign exchange currency (FEC) was required for use.  Upon return to your home country, many travelers were requested to describe their trip in great detail to their family and friends as well as various governmental agencies who were also interested in the PRC.  It was quite an adventure!

For a long time, I thought that my interest in the PRC was based on the exotic and restricted nature of the location, but it turned out that wasn’t.  It was Bennett.  Bennett’s family was from the old Canton (now Guangzhou).  Because of famine, political unrest, and civil war, they made their way to Hong Kong which was a leased British colony at the time.  As a lone young man, Bennett immigrated first to Canada, and then to the United States.  He worked with my father as a chemist in the Midwest for many years spending most weekends and holidays with my extended family.  To my young ears, his thickly accented stories weren’t that much different than my grandparents thickly accented stories.  Histories, stories of adversity, and fairy tales are commonly shared at family gatherings.

Eventually, Bennett married Pat, started a family, and moved to another part of the Midwest.  Slowly visits became yearly holiday cards and then we lost touch as Bennett faded from my conscious memory.  Unconsciously, my early contact with Bennett fueled a lifelong desire to visit and learn more about the civilization that produced someone who was once so important to me.

So, what’s your story?  Why are you taking intercultural communication?  What do you already know about this topic that could help guide your learning?

1.2 – Communication Principles and Processes

The imperatives help us to organize our personal reasons for studying intercultural communication, but what about the communication process in general?  Most of us think that “communication” is important, but it’s not something that we are often focusing on so we have a tendency to think that it “just happens.”  Consciously becoming aware of the communication process and noticing how you communicate is a fundamental goal of this class.  Studying the communication process will allow you to understand more of what is going on around you, and this understanding will allow you to become a more competent communicator in intercultural contexts.

If you have taken another communication class, the following sections will be a review of what you have learned previously.  If you have never taken a communication class, the following sections are foundational to understanding the basic communication principles and processes so pay close attention.  Everything that we learn in this class will be grounded in these principles and processes.

• Communication Principles

In this section, we will learn the principles of communication.  You are encouraged to note the aspects of communication that you haven’t thought about before and begin to identify the principles in the various parts of your communication life.

Communication Meets Needs

Communication is far more than the transmission of information.  The exchange of information is important for many reasons, but it is not enough to meet the various needs we have as human beings.  The content or message of our communication may help us meet certain physical, instrumental, relational, and identity needs.

Physical needs include needs that keeps our bodies and minds functioning like air, food, water, and sleep.  Instrumental needs include needs that help us get things done in our day-to-day lives and achieve short- and long-term goals.  Relational needs include needs that help us maintain social bonds and interpersonal relationships.  Identity needs include our need to present ourselves to others and be thought of in desired ways.

Communication Is A Process

Communication can be defined as the process of understanding and sharing meaning (Pearson & Nelson, 2000).  When we refer to communication as a process, we imply that it doesn’t have a distinct beginning and end or follow a predetermined sequence of events.  It can be difficult to trace the origin of a communication encounter, since communication doesn’t always follow a neat format.

Communication Is Influenced by Culture and Context

Culture and context influence how we perceive and define communication.  Cultural values are embedded in how we communicate.  All people in all cultures are socialized from birth to communicate in culturally specific ways that vary from context to context.

Communication Is Learned

Most of us are both capable of the capacity and ability to communicate, but we all communicate differently.  This is because communication is learned rather than innate.  As already discussed in the previous principle, communication patterns are relative to the context and culture in which one is communicating.  We are all socialized into different languages, but we also speak different “languages” based on the situations we are in.  This idea will become more understandable in the verbal and nonverbal communication chapters.

Communication Influences Your Thinking About Yourself And Others

Humans share a fundamental drive to communicate.  You share meaning in what you say and how you say it.  On the flip side, your communication skills also help you to understand others—not just their words, but also their tone of voice, their nonverbal gestures.  Your success as a communicator is based on your ability to actively listen and actively interpret others’ messages.

The Communication Process

Communication is a complex process, and it is difficult to determine where or with whom a communication encounter starts and ends.  Models of communication simplify the process by providing a visual representation of the various aspects of a communication encounter.  Models allow us to see specific concepts and steps within the process of communication.  Although the three models differ, they all contain some common elements such as senders/receivers, messages, encoding, decoding, and channels.  Other elements to remember include feedback and noise.

In all the communication models, the participants are referred to as senders and receivers.  Senders initiate the message conveyed through the communication process and receivers are the recipients of the message. The message is the verbal or nonverbal content being conveyed from sender to receiver.

The internal cognitive processes that allow participants to send, receive, and understand messages are known as the encoding and decoding processes.  Encoding is the process of turning thoughts into communication.  Decoding is the process of turning communication into thoughts.  For example, you may realize you are hungry and encode the following message to send to your roommate: “I’m hungry.  Do you want to get pizza tonight?”  As your roommate receives the message, they decode the message you are expressing and turns it back into thoughts in order to make meaning out of it.  Of course, we just don’t communicate verbally—we have various options, or channels for communication.

Encoded messages are sent through a channel , or a sensory route on which a message travels, to the receiver for decoding.  Communication can be sent and received using any sensory route (sight, smell, touch, taste, or sound).  Nor does communication have to be sent using only one route—it can be multi-channeled.

The Linear Model of Communication

The linear model of communication describes communication as a linear, one-way process in which a sender intentionally transmits a message to a receiver (Ellis & McClintock, 1990).  Although the receiver is included in the model, this role is viewed as more of a target or end point rather than a part of an ongoing process.  The receiver either successfully receives and understands the message or they do not.

An example of a linear message is listening to the radio in your car.  The sender is the radio announcer (the sender) encodes a verbal message that is transmitted by a radio tower (the channel) and eventually reaches your ears (the receiver) via the speakers in order to be decoded.  The radio announcer doesn’t really know if you receive their message or not, but if everything is working as it should be, there is a good chance that the message has been received.

Most communication situations are more complex than the linear model, but the linear model is always a good place to start as you begin to dissect a communication situation for greater understanding.

The Interactional Model of Communication

The interactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending messages and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts (Schramm et al., 1997).  Rather than illustrating communication as a linear, one-way process, the interactional model incorporates feedback, which makes communication a more interactive, two-way process. Feedback includes messages sent in response to other messages.  The inclusion of a feedback loop also leads to a more complex understanding of the roles of participants in a communication event.

The interactional model is focused on both the message and the interaction.  While the linear model is focused on transmitting a message, the interactional model is more concerned with the communication loop itself.  Feedback and context help make the interactional model a more accurate illustration of the typical communication process.

The Transactional Model of Communication

Currently, many scholars view communication as more than a process that is used to carry on conversations and convey meaning.  People don’t send messages like computers, and they don’t neatly alternate between roles of sender and receiver as the communication event unfolds.  People also can’t decide to stop communicating, because communication is more than verbally sending and receiving messages.

The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators don’t just communicate to exchange messages—people communicate to create relationships, form intercultural alliances, shape self-concepts, and engage with others to create community.  In other words, people don’t communicate about their reality, communication helps to construct the reality.

The roles of sender and receiver in the transactional model differ significantly from the other models.  Instead of being the sender or the receiver, people are both senders and receivers at the same time.  Communicators are simultaneously sending messages and receiving messages adapting the message being sent as we are receiving messages from others.  Communication is a force that shapes our realities–before and after—communication events, therefore social, relational, cultural and physical contexts frame and influence our social encounters. Context refers to the factors that work together to determine the meaning in communication events.  In other words, we learn the norms and rules for communicating through the process of communicating.  The norms and rules are different based upon the types of relationships we have, and the cultural expectations of the communicators.

Like the idea of context in the communication process, noise refers to things that influence or block the effectiveness of interpretating communication.  Noise can be caused by various things ranging from illness and faulty cell phone reception to stereotyping and poor grammar.  While often overlooked as having an impact on the communication process, noise can subtly impact competent communication by acting as a disruption to the message/channel as well as within senders/receivers.

1.3 – Conclusion

We live in a rapidly changing world with larger forces driving us to interact with others who are culturally different from ourselves.  There are six major categories of imperatives that reflect our reasons for wanting to study intercultural communication.  These imperatives are peace, demographics, economic, technology, ethical and self-awareness.  Regardless of which imperative is personally most important to an individual, one fact is important to remember:  the communication choices we make determine the personal or national or international outcomes that follow.

Understanding that communication is a linear, interactional, or transactional process rather than something that “just happens” helps communicators “see” more of what is going on around them.  Whether you are a sender or receiver or both at the same time, communication is far more than just transmitting information. There are social, relational, cultural, and physical contexts that frame our communication norms and rules.  This class will encourage you to look for and take note of the contexts and communication processes that you haven’t been aware of before.

The opposite of ethnocentrism is self-reflexivity or the process of learning to understand oneself and one’s position in society.  Learning about others helps us to understand ourselves.  Cultures are made up of people attempting to make good decisions about how to live a life.  Like you, they have values and beliefs that govern their choices.  Analyzing the communication of people who are different than you can lead to a whole new appreciation of the diversity of humankind.  Maybe this idea is new to you, but the study of intercultural communication is actually the study of YOUR story within the human story.

• Peace Imperative
• Technological Imperative
• Heterogeneous
• Linear Model
• Self-Reflexivity
• Demographic Imperative
• Ethical Imperative
• Homogeneous
• Digital Divide
• Universalist
• Interactional Model
• Economic Imperative
• Self-Awareness Imperative
• Digital Natives
• Ethnocentrism
• Transactional Model

Reflection Questions

• The book shares six reasons—or imperatives—for studying intercultural communication.  Choose the reason/imperative that most closely reflects your own reason(s) for studying intercultural communication and write two or three paragraphs that explains your motivation for being in this class.
• Consider an instance in which you didn’t intend to communicate a message, but someone saw your behavior as communication.  How did this person misinterpret your behavior?  What were the consequences?  What did you say and/or do to correct the misperception?
• Recall an interaction that took a sudden turn for the worse.  How did each person’s communication contribute to the change?  What are some of the variables that effect meaning?  What did you say or do to deal with the situation?
• Is communication intentional or unintentional? Can I send messages that I don’t mean to send?  How can I tell if someone receives a message that I didn’t mean to send?  Can I have a whole conversation without understanding the “mixed” message?  Does it matter?
• What is competent intercultural communication? What is the difference between competent intercultural communication and effective intercultural communication?  Can I be effective and not competent?  Explore this.  Give a personal or historical example.

Reasons for studying intercultural communication (peace, demographic, economic, technology, self-awareness, ethics).

The possibility of different races, ethnicities, languages, and cultures existing together.

Changes coming from changing demographics and/or changing immigration patterns.

Differences within the group, culture, or population.

There are similarities within the group, culture, or population.

Quality of being different.

A group that is extremely patriotic to the point of being anti-immigrant.

Reflected by the impact that business globalization has on the average person.

Refers to people who grew up with access to technology versus those who did not have access to technology and did not develop the associated skills.

People who grew up using technology.

You believe that no behavior is inherently right or wrong, rather everything depends on perspective.

You believe that cultural differences are only superficial, and that fundamental notions of right and wrong are universal.

Helps us to gain insights into our own culture along with our own intercultural experiences.

Tendency to think that our own culture is superior to other cultures.

Initiate the message conveyed through the communication process.

The recipients of the message.

The verbal or nonverbal content being conveyed from sender to receiver.

The process of turning thoughts into communication.

The process of turning communication into thoughts.

A sensory route on which a message travels to the receiver for decoding.

Describes communication as a linear, one-way process in which a sender intentionally transmits a message to a receiver.

Describes communication as a process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending messages and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts.

Includes messages sent in response to other messages.

Describes communication as a process in which communicators don’t just communicate to exchange messages—people communicate to create relationships, form intercultural alliances, shape self-concepts, and engage with others to create community.

The factors that work together to determine the meaning in communication events.

Refers to things that influence or block the effectiveness of interpreting communication.

The process of learning to understand oneself and one’s position in society.

Intercultural Communication for the Community College (Second Edition) Copyright © 2022 by Karen Krumrey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Intercultural communication : a critical introduction

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1 Chapter 1 – Introduction to Intercultural Communication

Introduction to intercultural communication.

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

— attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a speech by Rep. John Lewis commemorating the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington D.C. (“I have a dream,” attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Lewis, 2013).

A Personal Note from Lori Halverson-Wente

Welcome to our free online Intercultural Communication Coursebook/reading materials. We found that by asking students to rent or purchase the most recent textbook or hoping they would buy less expensive versions online, students often ended up with the most costly book or went without a textbook. It occurred to us that a FREE Open Education Resource (OER) book would better meet the needs and pocketbooks of students.

On a practical level, over the years, intercultural friendships and experiences have enriched our personal and academic lives. Thus our goal for this book is to explain intercultural communication on a theoretical level while including practical skill-based applications to understand local Minnesota co-cultures better. To this end, we have directly incorporated works from other OER textbooks and video materials and attributed them both within the text and at the end of each chapter. Using an OER format allows our course materials to adapt, shift, and become updated with feedback from students each semester. Additionally, an OER allows for updates based on current events and local and national news. As noted throughout the book, a favorite professor of ours used to say, “Communication addresses three questions: who am I, who are you, and what are we doing together?” If we think about these questions, we find that these questions are a practical means to divide the course and examine the primary topics of Intercultural Communication.

Therefore, in this first chapter, we will put forth the book’s overall theoretical approach, the formation of cultural identities, and the basic outline of the primary topics of Intercultural Communication guided by Tucker’s three questions of communication.

Students will notice that this OER textbook will grow and adapt during the semester.  We worked to focus on Minnesota co-cultures and interviewed individuals who you might know or read about. This book is truly a surprise each semester as it keeps growing. At the same time, we want to stress that much of the scholarship in this OER book draws upon other OER books that are freely shared without copyright. We cite the sources and indent for block quotes to show you who authored the information.  You might hear a “shift of voice” in these sections. We want to attribute and thank the community of writers and scholars who have contributed to this book.

We can also provide students with PDFs for downloading and printing. There are study terms at the end of the chapters. PowerPoint presentations and key glossary terms are available – just email: [email protected] if you are not in Lori Halverson-Wente’s Intercultural Communication class.

We are excited to learn with students as the semester progresses. Students are encouraged to ask questions and put forth their ideas about the course topics and concepts, theoretical and practical, to improve their understanding and contribute to the course itself.

Chapter One Overview

This chapter reviews some of the primary terms and concepts related to intercultural communication . In general and, in particular, we will define and explore terms, concepts, and skills correlated to starting the semester off strong for students studying intercultural communication. In subsequent chapters, the concepts this chapter outlines are more thoroughly treated. The end of this chapter concludes with more information about identity and a preview of a discussion activity for online or classroom applications.

This course will include theoretical and skill-based activities; students will gradually become culturally curious, confident, and potentially competent communicators through various intercultural communication encounters as the course continues. Once gained, intercultural competencies may be deepened and tested through travel, perhaps contributing profoundly to an authentic sojourner experience discussed below. While necessary, it is not sufficient to learn with the substance or dep of various life skills required to function effectively in a different culture or navigate our globe’s diverse cultures. We hope that students will move beyond the necessary. Still, theoretical concepts in the book help to develop familiarity with local co-cultures (their history, basics of culture, reading about and watching cultural representatives speak of their co-cultures within the dominant culture, and getting to know someone from a different co-culture personally).

Now, the classroom cannot be the only path to progress in successfully navigating cultures, intercultural concepts, variety and personal connections, and the nuances of culture learned through travel that immerses one in a given culture. Over the past 50 years, new cultures have relocated to the United States due to economic globalization and migration due to war, drought, and other climate-related disasters, extreme poverty, failed states characterized by inter-gang war and its robbing and torture of civilians, civil war, and oppressive governments. Crises change cultures and forced migration, yet they have brought different cultures to Minnesota, allowing the culturally curious to learn about displaced cultures.

Many years ago, we signed up for a cruise ship that promised interaction with the cultures in ports of call. Unfortunately, the cruise ship experience proved very limited interculturally. First, the ship’s cruise director used strictly scripted activities that may bring one interaction with different mammalian “cultures,” such as swimming with dolphins or closely observing whales. Seriously, such cruises limit intercultural experiences and understanding by restricting passengers to luxurious beach hotels and the cheap goods and trinkets set up by locals to sell to tourists on the beach. Instead, the authentic and fun culture exists over the hill from the beaches. Taking a local taxi instead and asking the driver for a short trip to learn about their town, heritage, family, children, and where to shop, eat, or walk is an easy way to take part in authentic local culture. The valuable intercultural action is a few miles away from the Disney floating behemoths that travel to foreign ports of call, such as the Bahamas and Jamaica.

One concept/term is vital to this course – globalization. How has globalization impacted you? Has your or your parent’s job been lost to other countries with lower production costs? Where are your clothes made? Are your groceries locally grown or from another state or country? Consider globalization from a cultural perspective – a crucial concept that both adversely dilutes cultures, destroys local traditions, and produces a homogenized world culture yet allows for efficient intercultural communication:

Globalization, as a concept, refers both to the ‘shrinking’ of the world and the increased consciousness of the world as a whole. It is a term used to describe the changes in societies and the world economy that are the result of dramatically increased cross-border trade, investment, and cultural exchange. The processes and actions to which the concept of globalization now refers have been proceeding, with some interruptions, for many centuries, but only in relatively recent times has globalization become a main focus of discussion. The current or recently-past epoch of globalization has been dominated by the nation-state , national economies, and national cultural identities. The new form of globalization is an interconnected world and global mass culture, often referred to as a ‘global village’ ( New World Encyclopedia , 2022).

Section One: Communication, Culture & Intercultural Communication Defined

Section one learning outcomes.

• Define communication, nonverbal communication, and verbal communication.
• Define symbol.
• Understand the definitions of culture, dominant culture, and co-culture.
• Define intercultural communication.

Communication Defined

Communication loosely means “sharing and understanding meaning” or “making common” (Pearson & Nelson, 2000). Community and communication share the same root word, and in “making common,” we find a means to use verbal (words) and nonverbal (non-words) symbols to reduce uncertainty.

Defining communication is challenging; however, the goal of human communication is to share and understand the same meaning. Professor Schultze straightforwardly: “If you do not understand what I intend to say, we failed to communicate. Such lack of shared understanding is miscommunication, not communication” (Schultze, n.d.). Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy (2017) posit that “…human communication is a dynamic process in which people attempt to share their thoughts with other people through the use of symbols in particular settings…In communication, a symbol is an expression that stands for something else and the act of assigning meaning to symbols is at the core of human communication” (pp. 28-31).

In intercultural settings, the communicators might not share the same language or verbal communication . Verbal communication is defined as an agreed-upon and rule-governed system of symbols used to share meaning (Introduction to Communication, 2022). 

Nonverbal communication takes on an additional emphasis in intercultural communication contexts. “Nonverbal communication is a process of generating meaning using behavior other than words. Rather than thinking of nonverbal communication as the opposite of or as separate from verbal communication, it’s more accurate to view them as operating side by side—as part of nonverbal communication of the same system” (“ Communication in the Real World ,” 2016, p. 165). Communication is dynamic, symbolic, contextual, learned, and has a consequence (Samovar, 2021).

All communication happens within a context or communication situation. When the context includes individuals from different cultures, there is a unique potential for both uncertainty and room for growth as the communicators learn from one another—examining the definition of culture assists in this growth.

Communication is Symbolic

Deeper dive into symbols.

Communication for the Real World (2016) helps clarify what is meant by communication is symbolic:

Most people are born with the capacity and ability to communicate, but everyone communicates differently. This is because communication is learned rather than innate. As we have already seen, communication patterns are relative to the context and culture in which one is communicating, and many cultures have distinct languages consisting of symbols. A key principle of communication is that it is symbolic. Communication is symbolic in that the words that make up our language systems do not directly correspond to something in reality. Instead, they stand in for or symbolize something. The fact that communication varies so much among people, contexts, and cultures illustrates the principle that meaning is not inherent in the words we use. For example, let’s say you go to France on vacation and see the word  poisson  on the menu. Unless you know how to read French, you will not know that the symbol is the same as the English symbol  fish . Those two words don’t look the same at all, yet they symbolize the same object. If you went by how the word looks alone, you might think that the French word for fish is more like the English word  poison  and avoid choosing that for your dinner. Putting a picture of a fish on a menu would definitely help a foreign tourist understand what they are ordering, since the picture is an actual representation of the object rather than a symbol for it. All symbolic communication is learned, negotiated, and dynamic. We know that the letters  b-o-o-k  refer to a bound object with multiple written pages. We also know that the letters  t-r-u-c-k  refer to a vehicle with a bed in the back for hauling things. But if we learned in school that the letters  t-r-u-c-k  referred to a bound object with written pages and  b-o-o-k referred to a vehicle with a bed in the back, then that would make just as much sense, because the letters don’t actually refer to the object and the word itself only has the meaning that we assign to it. We will learn more about how language works, but communication is more than the words we use. We are all socialized into different languages, but we also speak different ‘languages’ based on the situation we are in. For example, in some cultures it is considered inappropriate to talk about family or health issues in public, but it wouldn’t be odd to overhear people in a small town grocery store in the United States talking about their children or their upcoming surgery. There are some communication patterns shared by very large numbers of people and some that are particular to a dyad—best friends, for example, who have their own inside terminology and expressions that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. These examples aren’t on the same scale as differing languages, but they still indicate that communication is learned. They also illustrate how rules and norms influence how we communicate.

Attribution for this Section Above:

• Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies :  https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=274

Application

Russian President Putin promoted the memory of the World War II victory of the Russians over the Germans to bring back cohesion among the Russian people. His use of the nonverbal symbol of the Russian flag. His words speak of Russian pride in their country. Whether this embodies the whole truth or not, it is an important cultural symbol that guides who the Russians are asked to believe who they are as a culture. Intentionally or unintentionally, symbols can be used to manipulate and form perceptions, this is why understanding the core nature of how communication is based upon symbol use is essential for critical thinkers. We wonder, how could someone “blindly follow” Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, or Valdimar Putin. Simply put: symbols are powerful and culturally bound. Advocates for Human Rights are jailed or killed in Russia – or they have left the country due to being in danger when they question the symbols and fight for reform.

When you consider the power of symbols when emersed in the culture, the question becomes more difficult to answer and the need to study intercultural communication more crucial for today’s world.

Read more here: Nexus of Patriotism and Militarism in Russia: A Quest for Internal Cohesion . 

Culture Defined

“Culture is communication, and communication is culture.” ~ E. T. Hall (1959)

Defining culture is imprecise; hundreds of academic definitions highlight different employ nuances to suit their particular approach. As Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy (2017) explain, “Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and lived in the same time and place” (p. 39).

Another definition from Lustig & Koester (2005) in their book, Among Us , explains that culture is a learned set of shared interpretations of beliefs, values, norms, and social practices that includes the behaviors of a  large group of people. In so doing, culture links to human symbolic processes (p. 13).

Finally, a more straightforward definition comes from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies (2016): “Culture is an ongoing negotiation of learned patterns of beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors” (p. 377).

In their book Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy (2017) stress family, worldview, religion, history, values, social organizations, all[ considering language as vital elements of culture. These elements of culture might help one better understand how intercultural communicators both share and differ in various ways. Now, “ Worldview is how people interpret reality and events, including their images of themselves and how they relate to the world around them” (p. 57). When one explores another’s culture, often one finds they are doing likewise.

This sense of definitional ambiguity is evident in the Open Education Resource (OER) Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies (2016), quoted below:

creative commons photo from burst.shopify.com Culture is a complicated word to define, as there are at least six comon ways that culture is used in the United States. For the purposes of exploring the communicative aspects of culture, we will define culture as the ongoing negotiation of learned and patterned beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. When unpacking this definition, note that culture shouldn’t be conceptualized as stable and unchanging. Culture is “negotiated,” and…is dynamic….The definition also points out that culture is learned, which accounts for the importance of socializing institutions like family, school, peers, and the media. Culture is patterned in that there are recognizable widespread similarities among people within a cultural group. There is also deviation from and resistance to those patterns by individuals and subgroups within a culture, which is why cultural patterns change over time. Last, the definition acknowledges that culture influences our beliefs about what is true and false, our attitudes including our likes and dislikes, our values regarding what is right and wrong, and our behaviors. It is from these cultural influences that our defining identities are formed (p. 377).

Regardless of the definition of culture used, individuals experiencing a new culture or witnessing a foreign newcomer to their area, especially outside their language, know the frustrations of learning. Reducing frustrations and developing a variety of intercultural communication skills are helpful.

Dominant Culture and Co-Culture

Lustig & Koester (2010) note, “Not all groups within a nation or region have equal access to sources of institutional and economic power. When cultures share the same political, geographic, and economic landscapes, some form of a status hierarchy often develops. Groups of people who are distinguished by their religions, political, cultural, or ethnic identity often struggle among themselves for dominance and control of the available economic and political resources. The cultural group that has primary access to institutional and economic power is often characterized as the dominant culture ” (p. 214).

Samovar, et. al, (2009), best describe how co-cultures develop within a dominant culture:

{W]ithin each society you will find a dominant culture, but this culture is not monolithic. That is to say, within the dominant culture you will find numerous co-cultures and specialized cultures. As Victor suggests, ‘A national culture is never a homogeneous thing of one piece. In every culture, there are internal contradictions or polarities. U.S. culture is no exception.’  We believe that the best way to identify these groups is by using the term co-cultures, because it calls attention to the idea of dual membership. We will, therefore, use the word co-culture when discussing groups or social communities exhibiting communication characteristics, perceptions, values, beliefs, and practices that are sufficiently different to distinguish them from other groups and communities and from the dominant culture. Some co-cultures share many of the patterns and perceptions found within the larger, dominant culture, but their members also have distinct and unique patterns of communication that they have learned as part of their membership in the co-culture. As you will see…, most of the co-cultures in the United States meet many of the criteria and characteristics that we will apply to describe culture. These co-cultural affiliations can be based on race, ethnic bacground, gender, age, sexual preference, or other factors.  What is important about all co-cultures is that being gay, disabled, Latino, African American, Asian American, American Indian, or female, for example, exposes a person to a specialized set of messages that help determine how he or she perceives some aspects of the external world. It also signifi cantly influences how members of that co-culture communicate those perceptions (p. 13).

Culture is learned, transmitted from generation to generation, based on symbols, and is a dynamic and integrated system (Samovar, 2011, p. 17). These characteristics of culture are demonstrated in the video at the end of the chapter and are discussed in more detail later in this chapter.

Defining Intercultural Communication

Having reviewed the definitions of culture and communication, looking more carefully at the defining characteristics of intercultural communication is essential to this unit. If the purpose of intercultural communication is a straightforward proposition–the requirement of personal interaction with someone of a different culture, be that an intercultural interview or something else. If sharing and understanding meaning is our goal,  intercultural communication is to do so in diverse settings with individuals from cultures different from our own. Lustig and Koester (2011), in their textbook, Intercultural Competence , briefly define intercultural communication as follows: “Intercultural communication occurs when large and important cultural differences create dissimilar interpretations and expectations about how to communicate competently” (p. 52).

Intercultural communication happens in all communication contexts: intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group/team, public, and mass communication. Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies (2016) shares:

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 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 (Communication, 2016, p. 404).

When using intercultural communication, remember these five thoughts when completing the intercultural interview:  after all, [e]ngaging in intercultural communication is a complex activity. It will help to understand: (1) the uniqueness of each individual, (2) the hazards of over-generalizing, (3) the need to be objective, (4) the necessity for compromise, and (5) the myth of believing that communication is a cure-all” (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy, 2017, p. 17). The ultimate goal is to develop one’s intercultural communication competency and integrate this into their own life. Objectivity is a goal, defined as Judgement based upon observable data and uninfluenced by emotions and personal prejudices,; it is a goal that can be hard to achieve. It is still important to cultivate this sense of self-awareness in perception formation.

While studying Intercultural Communication, it is helpful to avoid cultural generalizations or approximations since they are based on limited data and are only a way to “approximately” know more about a larger population. In this course, we will work to create more complex perceptions and test out inferences. In the video at the end of the chapter, you’ll hear more about the cultural generations made of the speaker. A goal of intercultural communication courses is to cultivate an attitude of cultural curiosity. This means you will be asked to seek out new experiences and learn more about how we often view the world from our own worldview. Don’t be worried if you are uneasy about “stepping outside of your comfort zone.” Everyone experiences this course uniquely and it is the hope you will have more questions when you leave the course than when you began the course.

Cultural Characteristics

Culture is learned, transmitted from generation to generation, based on symbols, and is a dynamic and integrated system (Samovar, et. al, 2011, p. 79): 

Culture is transmitted from Generation to Generation The American philosopher Thoreau once wrote, ‘ All the past is here.’   As it applies to culture, Thoreau is correct. For a culture to endure it must make certain that its crucial messages and elements are not only shared, but are passed to future generations. In this way the past becomes the present and helps create the future. As Brislin notes, ‘ If there are values consid ered central to a society that have existed for many years, these must be transmitted from one generation to another.’    This process of transmitting culture can be seen as a kind of ‘ social inheritance.’ Charon elaborates on this idea when he writes: ‘ Culture is a social inheritance; it consists of ideas that may have developed long before we were born. Our society, for example, has a history reaching beyond any individual ’ s life, the ideas developed over time are taught to each generation and ‘ truth ’ is anchored in interaction by people long before dead.’     It is communication that makes culture a continuous process, for once cultural habits, principles, values, and attitudes are formulated, they are communicated to each member of the culture. While the immediate family begins the ‘ education’   process, you need to remember that most of the crucial ‘ lessons’   of a culture continue to be emphasized throughout the person ’ s life. Infants, held and touched by parents, do not consciously know they are learning about family and touch, but they are. The essential cultural values continue to be reinforced as children share holidays, both religious and secular, with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives. So strong is the need for a culture to bind each generation to past and future generations, it is often asserted that a fracture in the transmission process would contribute to a cul ture ’ s extinction (Samovar, pp. 52-53). The chapter “Cultural Characteristics and the Roots of Culture” by Karen Krumrey-Fulks (2021) expands upon this as follows:

Karen Krumrey-Fulks (2021) shares:

Culture is Symbolic Carbaugh [expands] on the work of anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who believed that culture was a system based on symbols. Geertz said that people use symbols to define their world and express their emotions. As human beings, we all learn about the world around us, both consciously and unconsciously, starting at a very young age. What we internalize comes through observation, experience, interaction, and what we are taught. We manipulate symbols to create meaning and stories that dictate our behaviors, to organize our lives, and to interact with others. The meanings we attach to symbols are arbitrary. Looking someone in the eye means that you are direct and respectful in some countries, yet, in other cultural systems, looking away is a sign of respect. Carbaugh also suggested that culture is ‘a learned set of shared interpretations and beliefs, values, and norms, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of people.’ Our course will combine Carbaugh’s longer definitions into the statement that culture is a learned pattern of values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a large group of people. It is within this framework that we will explore what happens when people from different cultural backgrounds interact.

Culture is Learned Although there is a debate as to whether babies are born into the world as  tabula rasa (blank slate) or without knowing anything. We can say that they do not come with pre-programmed preferences like your personal computer or cell phone. And, although human beings do share some universal habits such as eating and sleeping, these habits are biologically and physiologically based, not culturally based. Culture is the unique way that we have learned to eat and sleep. Other members of our culture have taught us slowly and consciously (or even subconsciously) what it means to eat and sleep.

Culture is Dynamic and Heterogeneous …It should be understood that culture is always changing. Cultural patterns are not rigid but slowly and constantly changing. The United States of the 1960s is not the United States of today. Nor if I know one person from the United States do I know them all. Within cultures there are struggles to negotiate relationships within a multitude of forces of change. Although the general nature of this book focuses on broad principles, by viewing any culture as diverse in character or content ( heterogeneous ), we are better equipped to understand the complexities of that culture and become more sensitive to how people in that culture live. Values and Culture Value systems are fundamental to understanding how culture expresses itself. Values are deeply felt and often serve as principles that guide people in their perceptions and behaviors. Using our values, certain ideas are judged to be right or wrong, good or bad, important or not important, desirable or not desirable. Common values include fairness, respect, integrity, compassion, happiness, kindness, creativity, curiosity, religion, wisdom, and more. Ideally, our values should match up with what we say we will do, but sometimes our various values come into conflict, and a choice has to be made as to which one will be given preference over another. An example of this could be love of country and love of family. You might love both, but ultimate choose family over country when a crisis occurs.

Beliefs and Culture Our values are supported by our assumptions of our world. Assumptions are ideas that we believe and hold to be true. Beliefs come about through repetition. This repetition becomes a habit we form and leads to habitual patterns of thinking and doing. We do not realize our assumptions because they are in-grained in us at an unconscious level. We become aware of our assumptions when we encounter a value or belief that is different from our own, and it makes us feel that we need to stand up for, or validate, our beliefs. People from the United States strongly believe in independence. They consider themselves as separate individuals in control of their own lives. The Declaration of Independence states that all people—not groups, but individual people—are created equal. This sense of equality leads to the idea that all people are of the same standing or importance, and therefore, informality or lack of rigid social protocol is common. This leads to an informality of speech, dress, and manners that other cultures might find difficult to negotiate because of their own beliefs, assumptions, and behaviors. Beliefs are part of every human life in all world cultures. They define for us, and give meaning to, objects, people, places, and things in our lives. Our assumptions about our world determine how we react emotionally and what actions we need to take. These assumptions about our  worldviews  guide our behaviors and shape our attitudes. Mary Clark (2005) defines  worldviews as ‘beliefs and assumptions by which an individual makes sense of experiences that are hidden deep within the language and traditions of the surrounding society.’ Worldviews  are the shared values and beliefs that form the customs, behaviors and foundations of any particular society.  Worldviews ‘set the ground rules for shared cultural meaning’ (Clark, 2005). Worldviews  are the patterns developed through interactions within families, neighborhoods, schools, communities, churches, and so on.  Worldviews can be resources for understanding and analyzing the fundamental differences between cultures.

Feelings and Culture Our culture can give us a sense of familiarity and comfort in a variety of contexts. We embody a sense of ethnocentrism.  Ethnocentrism  is the belief that one’s own culture is superior to all other’s and is the standard by which all other cultures should be measured (Sumner, 1906). An example of this could be the farm-to-table movement that is currently popular in the United States. Different parts of the country, pride themselves in growing produce for local consumption touting the benefits of better food, enhanced economy, and carbon neutrality. Tasting menus are developed, awards are given, and consumers brag about the amazing, innovative benefits of living in the United States. What is often missed is the fact that for many people, in many cultures across the planet, the farm-to-table process has not changed for thousands of years. Being a locavore is the only way they know. Geertz (1973) believed the meanings we attach to our cultural symbols can create chaos when we meet someone who believes in a different meaning or interpretation; it can give us culture shock. This shock can be disorientating, confusing, or surprising. It can bring on anxiety or nervousness, and, for some, a sense of losing control. Culture is always provoking a variety of feelings.  Culture shock will be discussed in greater depth later.

Behavior and Culture Our worldview influences our behaviors. Behaviors endure over time and are passed from person to person. Within a dominant or national culture, members can belong to many different groups. Dominant cultures may be made up of many subsets…that exist within them. For example, your dominant or national culture may be the United States, but you are also a thirty-year-old woman from the Midwest who loves poodles. Because you are a thirty-year-old woman, you exist in the world very differently than a fifty-year-old man. A co-culture is a group whose values, beliefs or behaviors set it apart from the larger culture of which it is a part of and shares many similarities (Orbe, 1996). Social psychologists may prefer the term micro-culture as opposed to co-culture.

Attribution for this Section:

This page titled  1.3: Cultural Characteristics and the Roots of Culture  is shared under a  CC BY-NC-SA  license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by  Karen Krumrey-Fulks .

Culture and Identity

The topic of cultural identity will be explored throughout the semester and later in this book. Exploring the key concepts of identity is helpful as we begin our first look at the topics this course will cover. Professor Shannon Ahrndt in her online creative commons textbook, Intercultural Communication , shares:

Personal, Social, and Cultural Identities

Attribution of this Section: Professor Shannon Ahrndt in her online creative commons textbook, Intercultural Communication

Professor Ahrndt (2020) shares, as fully quoted below:

“Personal, Social, and Cultural Identities Ask yourself the question “Who am I?”…We develop a sense of who we are based on what is reflected back on us from other people. Our parents, friends, teachers, and the media help shape our identities. While this happens from birth, most people in Western societies reach a stage in adolescence where maturing cognitive abilities and increased social awareness lead them to begin to reflect on who they are. This begins a lifelong process of thinking about who we are now, who we were before, and who we will become (Tatum, 2000). Our identities make up an important part of our self-concept and can be broken down into three main categories personal, social, and cultural identities (see Table 1.1).

TABLE 1.1 Personal, Social, and Cultural Identities

“We must avoid the temptation to think of our identities as constant. Instead, our identities are formed through processes that started before we were born and will continue after we are gone; therefore our identities aren’t something we achieve or complete. Two related but distinct components of our identities are our personal and social identities (Spreckels & Kotthoff, 2009). Personal identities include the components of self that are primarily intrapersonal and connected to our life experiences. For example, I consider myself a puzzle lover, and you may identify as a fan of hip-hop music. Our social identities are the components of self that are derived from involvement in social groups with which we are interpersonally committed.

“For example, we may derive aspects of our social identity from our family or from a community of fans for a  sports team. Social identities differ from personal identities because they are externally organized through membership. Our membership may be voluntary (Greek organization on campus) or involuntary (family) and explicit (we pay dues to our labor union) or implicit (we purchase and listen to hip-hop music). There are numerous options for personal and social identities. While our personal identity choices express who we are, our social identities align us with particular groups. Through our social identities, we make statements about who we are and who we are not.

“Personal identities may change often as people have new experiences and develop new interests and hobbies. A current interest in online video games may give way to an interest in graphic design. Social identities do not change as often because they take more time to develop, as you must become interpersonally invested. For example, if an interest in online video games leads someone to become a member of a MMORPG, or a massively multiplayer online role-playing game community, that personal identity has led to a social identity that is now interpersonal and more entrenched. Cultural identities are based on socially constructed categories that teach us a way of being and include expectations for social behavior or ways of acting (Yep, 2002). Since we are often a part of them since birth, cultural identities are the least changeable of the three. The ways of being and the social expectations for behavior within cultural identities do change over time, but what separates them = from most social identities is their historical roots (Collier, 1996). For example, think of how ways of being and acting have changed for African Americans since the civil rights movement.

“Any of these identity types can be ascribed or avowed. Ascribed identities are personal, social, or cultural identities that are placed on us by others, while avowed identities are those that we claim for ourselves (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Sometimes people ascribe an identity to someone else based on stereotypes. You may see a person who likes to read science-fiction books, watches documentaries, has glasses, and collects Star Trek memorabilia and label him or her a nerd. If the person doesn’t avow that identity, it can create friction, and that label may even hurt the other person’s feelings. But ascribed and avowed identities can match up. To extend the previous example, there has been a movement in recent years to reclaim the label nerd and turn it into a positive, and a nerd subculture has been growing in popularity. For example, MC Frontalot, a leader in the nerdcore hip-hop movement, says that being branded a nerd in school was terrible, but now he raps about “nerdy” things like blogs to sold-out crowds (Shipman, 2007). We can see from this example that our ascribed and avowed identities change over the course of our lives, and sometimes they match up and sometimes not.”

Section Two: What is Intercultural Communication Competence?

Part two learning outcomes.

• Define communication competence.
• Explain each part of the definition of communication competence.
• Discuss strategies for developing communication competence.
• Discuss communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety and employ strategies to manage them.

Finally, in this introductory chapter, defining the basic notion of intercultural communication competence will help set a strong footing for the following chapters.

According to Darla Deardorff (2004), “Intercultural [communication] competence is the ability to interact effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, based on specific attitudes, intercultural knowledge, skills and reflection” (p. 5). A pyramid model represents desired internal and external outcomes by acquiring necessary preliminary competencies and skills. Deardorff’s model of intercultural communication competence, influential in its field, is explained in great detail beyond our course level (along with other similar models) at this site: center for intercultural dialogue .

Undergirding Deardorff’s pyramid of intercultural communication competence and comprising its foundation are three characteristics allowing for its development and excellence:  (1) motivation — developing cultural curiosity, general openness, and respect for self/others; (2) knowledge — having a fund of knowledge to draw on to develop deep understanding, gaining knowledge of culture as well as specific cultural information and sociolinguistic awareness; (3) skills — possessing communication and listening skills such as listening, interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy, 2017, p. 217).

Barriers & Components of Intercultural Communication Competence

“Intercultural communication competence (ICC) is the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in various cultural contexts.” Samovar, et al. (2017) share that motivation, skills, and knowledge are components of building intercultural communication competence. Others, such as (Martin & Nakayama, 2010) name the vital components as motivation, self and other knowledge, and tolerance for uncertainty.  

Barriers of Intercultural Communication Competence

Green, et. at al (2018) share the importance of looking at what impedes intercultural communication competence in the section below, shared from their OER, I ntroduction to Communication :

Before looking at how to be more competent in intercultural interactions, it is important to identify some of the  barriers .  Verderber and MacGeorge (2016) give six:

• Anxiety : While an intercultural situation will not necessarily result in culture shock, it is not unusual to experience some level of discomfort in such situations. The apprehension we feel can make the interaction awkward or can lead us to avoiding situations that we deem too unfamiliar.
• Assumed similarity or difference : If we expect that restaurants will be the same in Asia as they are in the U.S., we are likely to be disappointed. Likewise, if we think no one in another country will understand us, we might miss the opportunity to connect with others who share similar interests.
• Ethnocentrism : Assuming our culture is superior to or more important than all others will make it difficult to successfully engage with people from other cultures.
• Stereotyping : We can create stereotypes of people within our culture or of people from other cultures. Either way it stops us from seeing people as individuals, and we instead see them as a certain age, race, gender, ability, or whatever. Stereotyping is a process of judging that we all need to work to avoid.
• Incompatible communication code : Even within our own language, we may have trouble understanding the messages of others. When the languages are different, it may be more difficult. Nonverbal communication also varies between cultures, so it is not always a good substitute for verbal communication.
• Incompatible norms and values:  People of one culture may be offended by the norms or values of another culture. For example, less-significant differences in values, such as which foods are most desired, may be offensive. For example, in India, cows are considered sacred, yet in the U.S., beef is widely consumed. However, different cultural values about business practices or expansion of territory can lead to international conflict.

Communication in the Real World ( 2016) expands upon the notion of cultivating intercultural communication competence and is quoted below:

Throughout this book we have been putting various tools in our communication toolbox to improve our communication competence. Many of these tools can be translated into intercultural contexts. While building any form of competence requires effort, building intercultural communication competence often requires us to take more risks. Some of these risks require us to leave our comfort zones and adapt to new and uncertain situations. In this section, we will learn some of the skills needed to be an interculturally competent communicator.

Components of Intercultural Communication Listed

Initially, a person’s motivation for communicating with people from other cultures must be considered. Motivation refers to the root of a person’s desire to foster intercultural relationships and can be intrinsic or extrinsic (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Put simply, if a person isn’t motivated to communicate with people from different cultures, then the components of ICC discussed next don’t really matter. If a person has a healthy curiosity that drives him or her toward intercultural encounters in order to learn more about self and others, then there is a foundation from which to build additional competence-relevant attitudes and skills. This intrinsic motivation makes intercultural communication a voluntary, rewarding, and lifelong learning process. Motivation can also be extrinsic , meaning that the desire for intercultural communication is driven by an outside reward like money, power, or recognition. While both types of motivation can contribute to ICC, context may further enhance or impede a person’s motivation to communicate across cultures. Members of dominant groups are often less motivated, intrinsically and extrinsically, toward intercultural communication than members of nondominant groups, because they don’t see the incentives for doing so. Having more power in communication encounters can create an unbalanced situation where the individual from the nondominant group is expected to exhibit competence, or the ability to adapt to the communication behaviors and attitudes of the other. Even in situations where extrinsic rewards like securing an overseas business investment are at stake, it is likely that the foreign investor is much more accustomed to adapting to United States business customs and communication than vice versa. This expectation that others will adapt to our communication can be unconscious, but later ICC skills we will learn will help bring it to awareness. The unbalanced situation I just described is a daily reality for many individuals with nondominant identities. Their motivation toward intercultural communication may be driven by survival in terms of functioning effectively in dominant contexts. [Consider] the phenomenon known as code-switching , in which individuals from nondominant groups adapt their communication to fit in with the dominant group. In such instances, African Americans may “talk white” by conforming to what is called “standard English,” women in corporate environments may adapt masculine communication patterns, people who are gay or lesbian may self-censor and avoid discussing their same-gender partners with coworkers, and people with nonvisible disabilities may not disclose them in order to avoid judgment. While intrinsic motivation captures an idealistic view of intercultural communication as rewarding in its own right, many contexts create extrinsic motivation. In either case, there is a risk that an individual’s motivation can still lead to incompetent communication. For example, it would be exploitative for an extrinsically motivated person to pursue intercultural communication solely for an external reward and then abandon the intercultural relationship once the reward is attained. These situations highlight the relational aspect of ICC, meaning that the motivation of all parties should be considered. Motivation alone cannot create ICC.

Knowledge supplements motivation and is an important part of building ICC. Knowledge includes self- and other-awareness , mindfulness, and cognitive flexibility . Building knowledge of our own cultures, identities, and communication patterns takes more than passive experience (Martin & Nakayama). Developing cultural self-awareness often requires us to get out of our comfort zones. Listening to people who are different from us is a key component of developing self-knowledge. This may be uncomfortable, because we may realize that people think of our identities differently than we thought. For example, when I lived in Sweden, my Swedish roommates often discussed how they were wary of befriending students from the United States. They perceived US Americans to be shallow because they were friendly and exciting while they were in Sweden but didn’t remain friends once they left. Although I was initially upset by their assessment, I came to see the truth in it. Swedes are generally more reserved than US Americans and take longer to form close friendships. The comparatively extroverted nature of the Americans led some of the Swedes to overestimate the depth of their relationship, which ultimately hurt them when the Americans didn’t stay in touch. This made me more aware of how my communication was perceived, enhancing my self-knowledge. I also learned more about communication behaviors of the Swedes, which contributed to my other-knowledge. The most effective way to develop other-knowledge is by direct and thoughtful encounters with other cultures. However, people may not readily have these opportunities for a variety of reasons. Despite the overall diversity in the United States, many people still only interact with people who are similar to them. Even in a racially diverse educational setting, for example, people often group off with people of their own race. While a heterosexual person may have a gay or lesbian friend or relative, they likely spend most of their time with other heterosexuals. Unless you interact with people with disabilities as part of your job or have a person with a disability in your friend or family group, you likely spend most of your time interacting with able-bodied people. Living in a rural area may limit your ability to interact with a range of cultures, and most people do not travel internationally regularly. Because of this, we may have to make a determined effort to interact with other cultures or rely on educational sources like college classes, books, or documentaries. Learning another language is also a good way to learn about a culture, because you can then read the news or watch movies in the native language, which can offer insights that are lost in translation. It is important to note though that we must evaluate the credibility of the source of our knowledge, whether it is a book, person, or other source. Also, knowledge of another language does not automatically equate to ICC. photo: pexel.com Developing self- and other-knowledge is an ongoing process that will continue to adapt and grow as we encounter new experiences. Mindfulness and cognitive complexity will help as we continue to build our ICC (Pusch, 2009).  Mindfulness  is a state of self- and other-monitoring that informs later reflection on communication interactions. As mindful communicators we should ask questions that focus on the interactive process like “How is our communication going? What are my reactions? What are their reactions?” Being able to adapt our communication in the moment based on our answers to these questions is a skill that comes with a high level of ICC. Reflecting on the communication encounter later to see what can be learned is also a way to build ICC. We should then be able to incorporate what we learned into our communication frameworks, which requires cognitive flexibility.  Cognitive flexibility  refers to the ability to continually supplement and revise existing knowledge to create new categories rather than forcing new knowledge into old categories. Cognitive flexibility helps prevent our knowledge from becoming stale and also prevents the formation of stereotypes and can help us avoid prejudging an encounter or jumping to conclusions. In summary, to be better intercultural communicators, we should know much about others and ourselves and be able to reflect on and adapt our knowledge as we gain new experiences. Skills & Tolerance for Uncertainity Motivation and knowledge can inform us as we gain new experiences, but how we feel in the moment of intercultural encounters is also important. [We have heard feelings are ‘neither good nor bad – they just are.’ In fact, to gain intercultural communication competency, a skill based approach is necessary to help us communicate regargless of our emotional state. Additionally,] t olerance for uncertainty is necessary and refers to an individual’s attitude about and level of comfort in uncertain situations (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Some people perform better in uncertain situations than others, and intercultural encounters often bring up uncertainty. Whether communicating with someone of a different gender, race, or nationality, we are often wondering what we should or shouldn’t do or say. Situations of uncertainty most often become clearer as they progress, but the anxiety that an individual with a low tolerance for uncertainty feels may lead them to leave the situation or otherwise communicate in a less competent manner. Individuals with a high tolerance for uncertainty may exhibit more patience, waiting on new information to become available or seeking out information, which may then increase the understanding of the situation and lead to a more successful outcome (Pusch, 2009). Individuals who are intrinsically motivated toward intercultural communication may have a higher tolerance for uncertainty, in that their curiosity leads them to engage with others who are different because they find the self- and other-knowledge gained rewarding.

photo: pexel.com Cultivating Intercultural Communication Competence How can ICC be built and achieved? This is a key question we will address in this section. Two main ways to build ICC are through experiential learning and reflective practices (Bednarz, 2010). We must first realize that competence isn’t any one thing. Part of being competent means that you can assess new situations and adapt your existing knowledge to the new contexts. What it means to be competent will vary depending on your physical location, your role (personal, professional, etc.), and your life stage, among other things. Sometimes we will know or be able to figure out what is expected of us in a given situation, but sometimes we may need to act in unexpected ways to meet the needs of a situation. Competence enables us to better cope with the unexpected, adapt to the nonroutine, and connect to uncommon frameworks. I have always told my students that ICC is less about a list of rules and more about a box of tools. Three ways to cultivate ICC are to foster attitudes that motivate us, discover knowledge that informs us, and develop skills that enable us (Bennett, 2009). To foster attitudes that motivate us, we must develop a sense of wonder about culture. This sense of wonder can lead to feeling overwhelmed, humbled, or awed (Opdal, 2001). This sense of wonder may correlate to a high tolerance for uncertainty, which can help us turn potentially frustrating experiences we have into teachable moments. I’ve had many such moments in my intercultural encounters at home and abroad. One such moment came the first time I tried to cook a frozen pizza in the oven in the shared kitchen of my apartment in Sweden. The information on the packaging was written in Swedish, but like many college students, I had a wealth of experience cooking frozen pizzas to draw from. As I went to set the oven dial to preheat, I noticed it was strange that the oven didn’t go up to my usual 425–450 degrees. Not to be deterred, I cranked the dial up as far as it would go, waited a few minutes, put my pizza in, and walked down the hall to my room to wait for about fifteen minutes until the pizza was done. The smell of smoke drew me from my room before the fifteen minutes was up, and I walked into a corridor filled with smoke and the smell of burnt pizza. I pulled the pizza out and was puzzled for a few minutes while I tried to figure out why the pizza burned so quickly, when one of my corridor-mates gently pointed out that the oven temperatures in Sweden are listed in Celsius, not Fahrenheit! Despite almost burning the kitchen down, I learned a valuable lesson about assuming my map for temperatures and frozen pizzas was the same as everyone else’s. photo: pexel.com Discovering knowledge that informs us is another step that can build on our motivation. One tool involves learning more about our cognitive style, or how we learn. Our cognitive style consists of our preferred patterns for “gathering information, constructing meaning, and organizing and applying knowledge” (Bennett, 2009). As we explore cognitive styles, we discover that there are differences in how people attend to and perceive the world, explain events, organize the world, and use rules of logic (Nisbett, 2003). Some cultures have a cognitive style that focuses more on tasks, analytic and objective thinking, details and precision, inner direction, and independence, while others focus on relationships and people over tasks and things, concrete and metaphorical thinking, and a group consciousness and harmony. Developing ICC is a complex learning process. At the basic level of learning, we accumulate knowledge and assimilate it into our existing frameworks. But accumulated knowledge doesn’t necessarily help us in situations where we have to apply that knowledge. Transformative learning takes place at the highest levels and occurs when we encounter situations that challenge our accumulated knowledge and our ability to accommodate that knowledge to manage a real-world situation. The cognitive dissonance that results in these situations is often uncomfortable and can lead to a hesitance to repeat such an engagement. One tip for cultivating ICC that can help manage these challenges is to find a community of like-minded people who are also motivated to develop ICC. In my graduate program, I lived in the international dormitory in order to experience the cultural diversity that I had enjoyed so much studying abroad a few years earlier. I was surrounded by international students and US American students who were more or less interested in cultural diversity. This ended up being a tremendous learning experience, and I worked on research about identity and communication between international and American students. Developing skills that enable us is another part of ICC. Some of the skills important to ICC are the ability to empathize, accumulate cultural information, listen, resolve conflict, and manage anxiety (Bennett, 2009). Again, you are already developing a foundation for these skills by reading this book, but you can expand those skills to intercultural settings with the motivation and knowledge already described. Contact alone does not increase intercultural skills; there must be more deliberate measures taken to fully capitalize on those encounters. While research now shows that intercultural contact does decrease prejudices, this is not enough to become interculturally competent. The ability to empathize and manage anxiety enhances prejudice reduction, and these two skills have been shown to enhance the overall impact of intercultural contact even more than acquiring cultural knowledge. There is intercultural training available for people who are interested. If you can’t access training, you may choose to research intercultural training on your own, as there are many books, articles, and manuals written on the subject. Reflective practices can also help us process through rewards and challenges associated with developing ICC. As we open ourselves to new experiences, we are likely to have both positive and negative reactions. It can be very useful to take note of negative or defensive reactions you have. This can help you identify certain triggers that may create barriers to effective intercultural interaction. Noting positive experiences can also help you identify triggers for learning that you could seek out or recreate to enhance the positive (Bednarz, 2010). A more complex method of reflection is called  intersectional reflexivity . Intersectional reflexivity is a reflective practice by which we acknowledge intersecting identities, both privileged and disadvantaged, and implicate ourselves in social hierarchies and inequalities (Jones Jr., 2010). This method brings in the concepts of dominant and nondominant groups and the privileges/disadvantages dialectic we discussed earlier. photo: pexel.com While formal intercultural experiences like studying abroad or volunteering for the Special Olympics or a shelter for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) youth can result in learning, informal experiences are also important. We may be less likely to include informal experiences in our reflection if we don’t see them as legitimate. Reflection should also include “critical incidents” or what I call “a-ha! moments.” Think of reflection as a tool for metacompetence that can be useful in bringing the formal and informal together (Bednarz, 2010).

*The section above is attributed to Communication in the Real World .

Why Study Intercultural Communication

Karen Krumrey (2020) in her online textboo k, Intercultural Communication for the Community College , s hares the following materials about the importance of studying Intercultural Communication. We are grateful to integrate her work in our online textbook. She shares as noted below: What is your reason for studying intercultural communication?  Maybe it was a requirement on the road to achieving your major, and you dutifully signed up without having given it much thought.  Maybe you’ve spent time overseas or enjoyed spending time with an exchange student at your high school.  Martin & Nakayama (2011) believe that all our varied reasons can fall into six categories that they call imperatives.   For our purposes, an  imperative  will be an important or compelling reason.   Martin & Nakayama (2011) identify the six  imperative categories as peace, demographic, economic, technological, self-awareness, and ethical. Human civilization is familiar with conflict.  History is full of conflict over politics, religion, language, resources, and more.  The bottom line for the  peace imperative is a question.  Can individuals of different races, ethnicities, language, and cultures co-exist on this planet?  It would be naïve to assume that simply understanding intercultural communication issues would end war and conflict, but this question does underscore the need for all of us to learn more about cultural groups other than our own. The term demographics means the  characteristics of a population ,  as classified by race, ethnicity, age, sex, income, and more.   U.S. demographics, as well as those around the world, are changing dramatically.  According to the Population Reference Bureau (2019), which computes a “diversity index,” the states in the US south, southwest, and west will see the biggest impact from immigration.  Many of those immigrants will be economic refugees directly impacted by climate change.  They will come searching for new ways to support themselves and their families.  Others will be victims of violence and political instability. The United States has an interesting history in relationship to its’ immigrants.  A commonly used metaphor called  the melting pot  assumes that immigrants and cultural minorities are assimilated into the US majority culture, losing their original cultures.  Most researchers believe that  the melting pot  is a myth, and a better metaphor would be the  tossed salad or rather the diversity of immigrants and minorities is still apparent, but part of a nourishing whole. Vocabulary important to the  demographic imperative  are  heterogeneous  and  homogeneous.   If a population is considered  heterogeneous,  there are  differences in the group, culture, or population.   If a population is considered  homogeneous,  there are  similarities in the group, culture, or population. Diversity  is the  quality of being different.   A  nativistic  group is  extremely patriotic to the point of being anti-immigrant. The  demographic imperative  is not only about immigration though, it’s also about an aging workforce, and economic pressure.  Most families need two incomes to live what is consider a middle-class existence or to generate savings enough to retire on.  As the demographics change, culture changes. The recent trend toward  globalization  or  the creation of a world market in goods, services, labor, capital, and technology  is dramatic.  To be effective in this new global market, we must understand how business is conducted in other countries and cultures because more and more of our domestic economic growth depends on global success. An accurate understanding of the economies around the world is also crucial to compete on the world stage.  The bottom line when considering the  economic imperative is the ultimate impact of globalization on the average person. In 1967, a futurist named Marshall McLuhan coined the iconoclastic term,  global village,  which has become the vanguard for the  technology imperative.   The term  refers to a world in which communication technology unites people in remote parts of the world.   As you know, it was decades later before personal computing came into existence, but today new technology is introduced almost daily.  Technology has made communication easier.  Information is so easy to access and manipulate, that we are now confronted with the impact of  fake news  and purposeful  disinformation. Technology is not just about ease of use though, it’s also about increasing contact with others.  We can increase contact with people who are different than us, but we can also increase contact with people who are the same as us.  In fact, research tells us that humans prefer to use technology to contact those who are  homogeneous.  Diasporic groups, ethnic and/or national groups that are geographically dispersed throughout the world,  are using technology to maintain contact as they disperse from refugee camps to host nations.  Technology is also an  identity management  tool.  Individuals use technology to make sense of their multiple images concerning their sense of self in different social contexts. Communication technology has become so important and so intertwined with the economic imperative that the term,  digital divide,  has come into being.   Digital natives , or  people who grew up using technology,  are often citizens of wealthy nations that live lives of privilege and have better economic prospects because of their technological access.  People who grew up in poorer nations without technological skills and access, often have fewer economic opportunities.  At the end of the last century, this idea was captured in the statement, “they live on the other side of the tracks.” The other side of the train tracks referred to a less desirable location.  In today’s world, the “tracks” have been replaced by technology, and the  digital divide. Does the digital divide lead you to ponder ethical issues of privilege and wealth?  Ethics,  the principles of conduct that help govern behaviors of individuals and groups,  often create cultural questions that lead to our understanding of the  ethical imperative.   Ethical principles often arise from community consensus of what is good or bad, right or wrong, and what “ought” to be as opposed to what “is.”  Some ethical issues are  explicit  or clearly stated within a culture, while other are  implicit or not clearly stated. When pondering ethical situations and cultural mores, there are two ways humans view the situation, relativistically or universally .   If you are a  relativist,  you believe that  no cultural pattern is inherently right or wrong, everything depends on perspective.   In other words, you might not make the same choice yourself, but are willing to understand why others would make that choice.  If you are a  universalist,  you believe that  cultural differences are more superficial, and that fundamental notions of right and wrong are universal.   In other words, everyone should be making the same choices for the same reasons.  Although  universalism  and  relativism are thought of as an either/or choice (non-dualistic), realistically most people are a combination of both (dualistic).  There are some issues you might hold strict opinions about while other issues you are willing to be more open about. [We will explore this notion next chapter].   One of the most important reasons for studying intercultural communication is the awareness it raises of our own cultural identity and background.  The  self-awareness imperative  helps us to gain insights into our own culture along with our intercultural experiences.  All cultures are  ethnocentric  by their very natures.   Ethnocentrism  is a  tendency to think that our own culture is superior to other cultures.   Most of us don’t even realize that we think this way, but we do.  Sure, we might admit that our culture isn’t perfect, yet we still think that we’re doing better than that culture to the north or south of us.  Ethnocentrism can lead to stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.  It will be discussed in greater depth in coming chapters.   The opposite of ethnocentrism is  self-reflexivity  or the  process of learning to understand oneself and one’s position in society.   Learning about others helps us to understand ourselves.  Real people with real lives struggle with decisions just like you do.  They have values, and beliefs that govern their choices.  Listening to the voices of people who are different can lead to different ways of seeing the world.  Developing self-awareness may also lead to an increased awareness of being caught up in the political, economic, and historical systems that are not associated with an individual’s choice.   As you ponder your reasons for studying intercultural communication, it is hoped that you make a conscious effort to become more aware of the communication practices of yourself and others.  Much of the communication principles and theories that you learn about in this book occur at a subconscious level.  As you learn more, challenge yourself to develop observation skills so you can “see” more.  As you learn more, become more flexible in your interpretation of the messages that you are receiving from others.  As you learn more, begin to create meaning “with” others and avoid dictating “to” others.  The study of intercultural communication is the study of the variation of your story within the human story.  Let’s get started. Attribution for this section: Intercultural Communication for the Community College Karen Krumrey-Fulks is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.  

Application – Chapter One Discussion

An ending note from Lori and Mark H-W, as we end this chapter one, we are including your class discussion (which might vary in D2L) and key concepts for the quiz. The key concepts are also defined above and when you click on a glossary term, the definition appears! Here’s to a great week of discussion.

SAMPLE Discussion Questions – Getting Ready to Share

See your own D2L online instructions.

First, please watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, “The danger of a single story.”

“Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding” (TED Talk Description).

Directions:

As you reflect upon Chapter 1, please note how we define intercultural communication. Sometimes we hear people say, “I am from S.E. Minnesota, I am surrounded by corn and soybeans, I have no culture.”

Others say, “I am from far away, how does this relate? My whole life is intercultural communication.”

Please know we all have cultures. This chapter allows for theoretical definitions. The video above speaks to the importance of including all stories, noting there is more than a single story .

You will answer these questions in about 3 paragraphs (think about 3 paragraphs or 500 words) OR add a video upload  (2-3 minutes) of yourself explaining the ideas (remember the quote) in your course online Discussion Area:

Discussion Questions:

1. What does the book mean by “Developing Intercultural Competence?”

• Use at least 1 quote from the book (you can mention the section as there are no “pages”) in this part of your post as you explain this notion.
• Please introduce yourself. What co-cultures do you identify yourself with? Explain.
• How do you describe yourself culturally? Reflect upon the notion of “story” — is your “story” told?
• How have you experienced different intercultural communication relationships? What are the rewards/challenges of having intercultural relationships?
• Add a video upload OR a photo of yourself, so we get a visual cue.

2. What/who do you wish you knew more about? You will need to complete 6 hours of intercultural conversations this semester (Lori will have ZOOM sessions you can join, people you can visit internationally and locally & online, and you can find your own conversations too). What “culture in your backyard” do you most want to explore? What other ideas do you have? Starting next week, I’ll add ideas.

3. What will you do this week (note, you add a reply on Sundays to update us on what you did):

• Learn more about a culture you identify with.
• Learn more about the culture “in your backyard” (yes, make a commitment to doing something).

Chapter Key Vocabulary

• communication
• nonverbal communication
• verbal communication
• dominant culture
• objectivity
• ethnocentrism
• heterogeneous
• homogeneous
• demographics
• technological
• self-awareness
• melting pot
• tossed salad
• global village
• diasporic groups
• identity management
• relativism/relativity
• universalism/universality
• self-reflexivity

Ahrndt, S. (2020). Intercultural Communication [Textbook]. University of Missouri-St. Louis. Open Educational Resources Collection. Retrieved from https://irl.umsl.edu/oer/24

Berger, C. R., & Calabrese, R. J. (1975). “Some Explorations In Initial Interaction And Beyond: Toward A Developmental Theory Of Interpersonal Communication.” Human Communication Research, 1(2), 99–112. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.1975.tb00258.x

Clark, M. E. (2005). “In search of human nature.” London: Routledge.

Communication in the Real World. (2016). Communication is nonverbal. Retrieved from https://open.lib.umn.edu/communication/chapter/6-4-communication-is-nonverbal/

Deardorff, D. K. (2004). The identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization at institutions of higher education in the United States (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database. (UMI No. 3136104)

Geertz, C. (1973). “The Interpretation of cultures.” London: Hutchinson.

Green, J., Broussard, M., & Comadena, M. E. (2018). Introduction to communication. Open Educational Resources Collection. Retrieved from https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=communication-textbooks

Hall, E. T. (1959). The Silent Language. Doubleday.

Hall, E. (1976). “Beyond culture.” Garden City, NY: Anchor.

Hampden-Turner, C., & Trompenaars, F. (1997). “Response to Geert Hofstede.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 21(1), 149–159. doi: 10.1016/s0147-1767(96)00042-9

Hills, M. D. (2002). “Kluckhohn and Strodtbecks Values Orientation Theory.” Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 4(4). doi: 10.9707/2307-0919.1040

Hofstede, G. (1980). “Culture and Organizations.” International Studies of Management & Organization, 10(4), 15–41. doi: 10.1080/00208825.1980.11656300

Introduction to Communication. (2022). Verbal communication. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introductiontocommunication/chapter/verbal-communication/

Kluckhohn, F. R., & Strodtbeck, dF. L. (1961). “Variations in Value Orientations.” Evanston, IL: Row Peterson.

Krumrey-Fulks, K. (n.d.). 1.3: Cultural Characteristics and the Roots of Culture [Webpage]. Open Oregon Educational Resources. Retrieved March 6, 2023, from https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/intercultural/chapter/1-3-cultural-characteristics-and-the-roots-of-culture/

Lustig, M. W., & Koester, J. (2005). Among us: Essays on identity, belonging, and intercultural competence. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2010). Experiencing intercultural communication: An introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2011). “Experiencing intercultural communication” (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

New World Encyclopedia. (2022, January 6). “Globalization.” https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Globalization

Orr, L. M., & Hauser, W. J. (2008). “A Re-Inquiry of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions: A Call for 21st Century Cross-Cultural Research.” Marketing Management Journal, 18(2), 1–19.

Pearson, J. C., & Nelson, P. E. (2000). An introduction to human communication: Understanding and sharing. National Textbook Co.

Samovar, L. A. (2021). Communication. In International encyclopedia of communication. Wiley-Blackwell.

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2009). Communication between cultures (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2011). Communication between cultures (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2017). Communication between cultures (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., & McDaniel, E. R. (2017). Intercultural communication: A reader. Cengage Learning.

Schultze, Q. (n.d.). Definitions of communication. Retrieved from http://www.quentinjshultze.com/definitions-of-communication/

Sumner, W. G. (1906). “Folkways: Sociological importance of usages, manners, customs, mores and morals.” 195

Victor, D. A. (1992). International business communication. Harper Collins.

Attributions

Ahrndt, Shannon, “Intercultural Communication” (2020). Open Educational Resources Collection. 24. Available at: https://irl.umsl.edu/oer/24

• This textbook is brought to you for free and open access by the Open Educational Resources at IRL @ UMSL. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Educational Resources Collection by an authorized administrator of IRL @ UMSL. For more information, please contact [email protected].

Cultural Characteristics and the Roots of Culture

• Shared by LibreTexts is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.

Intercultural Communication for the Community College

• Karen Krumrey-Fulks’s OER Book, Intercultural Communication for the Community College, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

http://introtocommopensource.ridgewater.edu/index.html

• Keith Green, Ruth Fairchild, Bev Knudsen, Darcy Lease-Gubrud’s 2018 OER book, Introduction to Communication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .

https://open.lib.umn.edu/communication/

• [Author removed at the request of original publisher]. (2016, September 29). The University of M.N . Communication in the Real World. Retrieved December 17, 2021, from https://open.lib.umn.edu/communication/front-matter/publisher-information/

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 (Samavor, et. al).

"Identity is a psychological term used to explain the way individuals understand themselves as part of a social group and are recognized by others as members of the social group."

Source: Culture and Psychology by L D Worthy; T Lavigne; and F Romero is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

"sharing and understanding meaning"  or “making common” (Pearson & Nelson, 2000).

In communication, a symbol is an expression that stands for something else and the act of assigning meaning to symbols is at the core of human communication" (Samovar, et. al, pp. 28-31).

Additionally, "a symbol is something that stands in for or represents something else. Symbols can be communicated verbally (speaking the word hello), in writing (putting the letters H-E-L-L-O together), or nonverbally (waving your hand back and forth). In any case, the symbols we use stand in for something else, like a physical object or an idea; they do not actually correspond to the thing being referenced in any direct way" (Communication, pp. 113-114).

Verbal Communication is defined as an agreed-upon and rule-governed system of symbols used to share meaning (Introduction to Communication, 2022).

“Nonverbal communication is a process of generating meaning using behavior other than words. Rather than thinking of nonverbal communication as the opposite of or as separate from verbal communication, it’s more accurate to view them as operating side by side—as part of the same system” (Communication, 2016, p.165).

Samovar, et. al (2018) add, "we purpose that nonverbal communication involves all those nonverbal stimuli in a communication setting that are generated by both the source and [their] use of the environment and that have potential message value for the source and/or receiver.

As Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy (2017) explain, “Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and lived in the same time and place” (p.39).

is how people interpret reality and events, including their images of themselves and how they relate to the world around them” (Samavor et.al., 2017, p. 57).

The cultural group that has primary access to institutional and economic power is often characterized as the dominant culture (Lustig & Koester, 2010, pp. 313-314).

Co-culture refers to, "groups or social communities exhibiting communication characteristics, perceptions, values, beliefs, and practices that are sufficiently different to distinguish them from other groups and communities and from the dominant culture" (Samovar, et. al., 2009, p. 13).

judgment based upon observable data and uninfluenced by emotions and personal prejudices (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/objectivity).

approximations since they are based on limited data and are only a way to "approximately" know more about a larger population. (Samavor, et. al).

According to Darla Deardorff (2004), “Intercultural [communication] competence is the ability to interact effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, based on specific attitudes, intercultural knowledge, skills and reflection” (p.5).

"Motivation describes the wants or needs that direct behavior toward a goal."

"Intrinsic motivation arises from internal factors; things within the person."

"Extrinsic motivation arises from external factors, things outside the person."

Developing Intercultural Communication Competence Copyright © 2018 by Lori Halverson-Wente is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Introduction to Speech Communication

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Sarah E. Hollingsworth, Oklahoma State University

Megan Linsenmeyer, Oklahoma State University

Terrisa Elwood, Oklahoma State University

Sasha Hanrahan, Oklahoma State University

Mary Walker, Oklahoma State University

Kathryn Weinland, Oklahoma State University

Copyright Year: 2021

ISBN 13: 9781957983059

Publisher: Oklahoma State University

Language: English

Formats Available

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Table of Contents

• Accessibility Statement
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Why Public Speaking Matters Today
• Public Speaking in the Twenty-First Century
• Why is Public Speaking Important?
• The Process of Public Speaking
• Chapter 2: Building Confidence
• What is Communication Apprehension?
• Classifying Communication Apprehension
• Learning Confidence
• Chapter 3: Delivery
• The Importance of Delivery
• Methods of Speech Delivery
• Preparing for Your Delivery
• Practicing your Delivery
• What to do When Delivering Your Speech
• Public Speaking Online
• Chapter 4: Ethics
• The Ethics Pyramid
• Ethics in Public Speaking
• Free Speech
• Chapter 5: Audience Analysis
• What is Audience Analysis?
• Why Conduct an Audience Analysis?
• Three Types of Audience Analysis
• Conducting Audience Analysis
• Using Your Audience Analysis
• Chapter 6: Culture and Communication
• Foundations of Culture and Identity
• Exploring Specific Cultural Identities
• Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Communication Competence
• Chapter 7: Organizing and Outlining
• Why is Organizing and Outlining Important?
• The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis
• Organizational Patterns of Arrangement
• Outlining Your Speech
• Chapter 8: Researching Your Speech
• Library Resources
• What is Research?
• Developing a Research Strategy
• Citing Sources
• Chapter 9: Supporting Ideas and Building Arguments
• Crafting Supporting Ideas
• Using Research as Support
• Exploring Types of Support
• Using Support and Creating Arguments
• Chapter 10: Introductions and Conclusions
• Introductions
• Conclusions
• Chapter 11: The Importance of Listening
• Importance of Listening
• Listening vs. Hearing
• Listening Styles
• Why Listening is Difficult
• Stages of Listening
• Listening Critically
• Chapter 12: Language
• What Language Is and Does
• Standards for Language in Public
• Using Effective Language in Public Speaking
• Chapter 13: Presentation Aids
• What Are Presentation Aids
• Functions of Presentation Aids
• Types of Presentation Aids
• Using Presentation Slides
• Low-Tech Presentation Aids
• Chapter 14: Informative Speaking
• What is an Informative Speech
• Types of Informative Speeches
• Guidelines for Selecting an Informative Speech Topic
• Guidelines for Preparing an Informative Speech
• Giving Informative Speeches in Groups
• Sample Informative Speech Outline
• Chapter 15: Understanding Small Group Communication
• Communicating in Small Groups
• Understanding Small Groups
• Small Group Development
• Small Group Dynamics
• Chapter 16: Small Groups & Decision Making
• Leadership, Roles, and Problem Solving in Groups
• Leadership and Small Group Communication
• Group Member Roles
• Problem Solving and Decision Making in Groups
• Chapter 17: Persuasive Speaking
• Why Persuade?
• A Definition of Persuasion
• Why is Persuasion Hard?
• Traditional Views of Persuasion
• Theories of Persuasive Communication
• Constructing a Persuasive Speech
• Sample Persuasive Speech Outline
• Chapter 18: Special Occasion Speaking
• Understanding Special Occasion Speaking
• Types of Special Occasion Speeches
• Special Occasion Language
• Special Occasion Delivery
• Sample Special Occasion Speech Script
• Links by Chapter

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Introduction to Speech Communication is used to support teaching, learning and research for SPCH 2713 at Oklahoma State University (OSU). In addition to inclusion of original work authored by the editors to meet the needs of their course at OSU, the editors adapted portions of Exploring Public Speaking: 4th Edition,  Stand Up, Speak Out, and Fundamentals of Public Speaking. Please see the Acknowledgements chapter for full citations. We at Oklahoma State University Libraries acknowledge our gratitude for the expertise and generosity of the scholars at Affordable Learning Georgia, College of the Canyons, the Open Education Network and elsewhere for creating and sharing customizable versions of their work. This book also includes an audio version funded by Women for OSU, as well as updated images enabled by a grant from the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

About the Contributors

Sarah E. Hollingsworth , Oklahoma State University

Megan Linsenmeyer , Oklahoma State University

Terrisa Elwood , Oklahoma State University

Sasha Hanrahan , Oklahoma State University

Mary Walker , Oklahoma State University

Kathryn Weinland , Oklahoma State University

Contribute to this Page

Communication/Speech

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• How to Search in Databases
• Speech & Presentation Resources
• APA & MLA Citations
• How to Search the Library Catalog
• Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
• GEDC 2176 - Technical Communication
• COMM 1210 - Introduction to Communication
• COMM 1215 - Public Speaking
• COMM 1220 - Interpersonal Communication
• COMM 1225 - Intercultural Communication
• COMM 1230 - Small Group Communication
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Experiencing Intercultural Communication: An Introduction 4th Edition

• ISBN-10 0073406791
• ISBN-13 978-0073406794
• Edition 4th
• Publisher McGraw-Hill Education
• Publication date January 19, 2010
• Language English
• Dimensions 7.25 x 0.55 x 9 inches
• Print length 448 pages
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ McGraw-Hill Education; 4th edition (January 19, 2010)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0073406791
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0073406794
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.25 x 0.55 x 9 inches
• #302 in Speech Communications
• #1,354 in Speech

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