Intercultural communication: problems and consequences

Abstract

(uk) Стаття присвячена міжкультурній комунікації як культурному та соціальному явищу. У статті розглядаються найважливіші аспекти мовної комунікації та труднощі, які можуть виникнути в процесі спілкування. Особлива увага приділяється проблемам, які виникають під час комунікації.

(ru) Статья посвящена межкультурной коммуникации как культурному и социальному явлению. В статье рассматриваются самые важные аспекты языковой коммуникации и трудности, которые могут возникнуть в процессе общения. Особенное внимание уделяется проблемам, которые возникают во время коммуникации.

(en) This article focuses on the role of communication in the relationships of peoples and groups with different cultural, ethnic, religious or social backgrounds. It looks at both the cultural barriers to effective communication as well as to various ways those barriers can be overcome. This article also addresses the concept of dialogue as the use of communication to achieve harmony, mutual understanding and respect among peoples and groups. The author of the article has made attempts to define and explain the importance of intercultural communication, to describe the role intercultural communication plays in communicating effectively and to define culture and co-culture and what it means to possess a cultural identity. Cross-cultural communication occurs when a person from one culture sends a message to a person from another culture. Cross-cultural miscommunication occurs when the person from the second culture does not receive the sender's intended message. The greater the differences between the sender's and the receiver's cultures, the greater the chance for cross-cultural miscommunication. Communication does not necessarily result in understanding. Cross-cultural communication continually involves misunderstanding caused by misperception, misinterpretation, and misevaluation. When the sender of a message comes from one culture and the receiver from another, the chances of accurately transmitting a message are low. Foreigners see, interpret, and evaluate things differently, and consequently act upon them differently. In approaching cross-cultural situations, one should therefore assume difference until similarity is proven. It is also important to recognize that all behavior makes sense through the eyes of the person behaving and that logic and rationale are culturally relative. In cross-cultural situations, labeling behavior as bizarre usually reflects culturally based misperception, misinterpretation, and misevaluation; rarely does it reflect intentional malice or pathologically motivated behavior. Cross-cultural communication confronts us with limits to our perceptions, our interpretations, and our evaluations. Cross-cultural perspectives tend to render everything relative and slightly uncertain. Entering a foreign culture is tantamount to knowing the words without knowing the music, or knowing the music without knowing the beat. Our natural tendencies lead us back to our prior experience: our default option becomes the familiarity of our own culture, thus precluding our ac curate understanding of others' cultures. Strategies to overcome our natural parochial tendencies exist: with care, the default option can be avoided. We can learn to see, understand, and control our own cultural conditioning. In facing foreign cultures, we can emphasize description rather than interpretation or evaluation, and thus minimize self-fulfilling stereotypes and premature closure. We can recognize and use our stereotypes as guides rather than rejecting them as unsophisticated simplifications. Effective cross-cultural communication presupposes the interplay of alternative realities: it rejects the actual or potential domination of one reality over another