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𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬
By Kamrynn Sodsaikich
Intercultural communication involves interacting with people from different backgrounds, such as their appearance, language, and worldviews (Grothe, 2022). This phenomenon is quite normal for many people, especially those living in multilingual, multicultural communities or culturally diverse families. Surprisingly, intercultural communication is not widely known in parts of the world where this phenomenon primarily takes place. The reason is that people, who are bilingual or are raised by parents with different backgrounds are used to this way of communicating. Diverse universities give students the opportunity to navigate communication, bring awareness to the challenges in cross-cultural communication, and teach how to communicate inter-culturally effectively.
Process of Intercultural Communication
The diagram shown above is used to give a visual representation of how two people who speak different languages communicate with one another. Both speakers have their own accents, dialect, vocalics, paralanguage, and jargon that can cause a language barrier (Grothe, 2020). However, the middle ground is code-switching, broken English, paraphrasing, and cultural conventions, which help both people communicate with each other. According to the Statisca Research Department, in 2022, around 1.5 billion people spoke English either natively or as a second language (Ethnologue, 2022).
Cross Cultural Communication Challenges
Language Barrier
When students or people are unaware of intercultural communication, there are then obstacles they may face. The most obvious obstacle is a language barrier, which happens when two people speak different languages and are unable or struggle to fully communicate with one another (Friedman, 2022).
The graph shown above is a part of a survey conducted by Forbes that had found that language barriers have a broad impact on businesses (Rubin, 2011). In this particular graph, the results show the challenges that vary from language and culture. One of the higher percentages in the results is that there was an inability to articulate strategy and ideas verbally for foreign executives in U.S based jobs.
Ethnocentrism
Then there is ethnocentrism, a belief that one’s own culture is superior to others, leading to a superiority complex (Grothe, 2022). Having this mindset will cause unfair assessments and/or judgements on people. An example is a western teacher thinking that a student from a different culture may lack strong English skills and therefore have prejudice.
Stereotyping
Mostly done unknowingly and without harm, people typically tend to put others into categories to help differentiate everyone. However, there are so many people worldwide that it takes time to have a category for each person to differentiate. Therefore, stereotyping is created, which is judgements about a certain behaviour attributed to a specific group of people (Montgomery, 2019).
Culture Shock
Everyone will experience something new at least once, and not all experiences will be great. When someone is subjected to a new culture and environment, they may feel disorientated and uncomfortable; this is called culture shock (McCluskey, 2020). It can be caused by unfamiliar greetings to small things like hand gestures. Even though small, they can cause distress such as anxiety, frustration, and loneliness.
Shown above is a representation of the stages of the culture shock curve by Sverre Lysgaard. Researchers have found that there are four stages of the process of culture shock, the honeymoon period, the culture shock, the adjustment, and the adaptation (McCluskey, 2020). The honeymoon period is where the excitement and fascination of a new environment come in. The next stage is culture shock, which is the frustration and anxiety of being in a new environment. Next is the adjustment stage, as things become more familiar and difficulties become easier to manage. Finally, the adaptation stage is also the last stage in which the feeling of integration has been met and has gained a sense of belonging in the new environment (Lysgaard, 1955).
The diagram shown above is a remake of an adaptation from Laura Underwood’s cultural iceberg, adapted from Linder, 2013 (Ashman, 2018). The iceberg is a commonly used metaphor to describe culture and is a great illustration for both the tangible and intangible. Mostly when talking about culture people focus on the ‘tip of the iceberg’ which is only 10% of the whole iceberg. The other 90% makes up for the deeper cultural aspects such as thought patterns, values, and beliefs that are below the surface.
Recommendations
Now that intercultural communication, its process and its challenges have been mentioned, it is time to tackle how to communicate interculturally effectively. Here are four tips for communicating interculturally successfully (Bonacia, 2021):
- Acknowledge one-self’s abilities and knowledge.
- Do ‘homework’ on a culture or country’s cultural norms, standards, and communication styles.
- It never hurts to ask questions; despite being uncomfortable, the end results show the willingness to learn.
- Be prepared to make mistakes, even though homework was done and questions were asked.
In conclusion, there are various ways of speaking within the same culture and there is no culture that solely uses a particular way of communicating. People can make choices of which style they want to communicate in depending on the situation and context. For instance, a bilingual speaker who is more proficient in one language over the other may use the language they’re more fluent in to use more descriptive words. There is a word for this occurrence, code-switching, which is the practice of switching languages to better express yourself (Grothe, 2022).
References
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