How to understand intercultural communication

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How to understand intercultural communication?

• Värska, 2006
• Leen Rahnu

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• Culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs,
  attitudes, values, expectations, and norms of
  behaviour.
• Intercultural communication is a process of
  exchanging meaningful and unambiguous information
  across cultural boundaries.

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The role of culture in communication

• What people say?
• How they say it?
• What they dont say?
• What they mean by what they say?

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Communication behaviour is influenced by

• Universal variables
• Cultural variables
• Ethnicity
• Profession
• Religion
• Gender / Age
• Individual variables

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• Theres no point pretending we all agree. But at
  the heart of most arguments, we find an amazing
  amount of agreement.
• For example, people have different views about
  methods but we all want to be healthy.
• //

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Communication barrier The problems of
intergroup communication

• Peoples group membership is not always obvious
• Difficult to distinguish interpersonal and
  intergroup factors in communication
• Interaction between different others can cause
  anxiety
• The need to enhance ones own social identity
  when perceiving the encounter as intergroup
• Ethnocentrism

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Communication barrier Stereotyping

• Stereotypes influence the way information is
  processed
• More variation within groups than between groups
• Stereotypes create expectations and pressure to
  confirm the expectation
• Stereotypes can cause misunderstandings when they
  are not shared between groups

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Communication barrier Behaviour influenced by
emotions

• Disconfirmed expectations
• Not belonging
• Ambiguity
• Confrontation with ones own prejudices
• Anxiety

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Communication barrier Different communication
patterns

• Language and language use
• Nonverbal behaviour
• Style of communication
• Miscommunication of politeness

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Are all people different or similar?

• Possible mistakes
• Assuming similarity instead of
  recognising difference
• Assuming difference instead of recognising
  similarity

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Description vs interpretation 1

• That man is very angry.
  That man is talking quite loudly.
• My boss doesnt trust his subordinates. My
  boss doesnt delegate responsibility.
• That woman stands one meter away when she speaks
  to me. That
  woman is cold and reserved.
• That man is afraid of his boss.
  That man never contradicts his boss in public.

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Description vs interpretation 2

• She doesnt have strong opinions. She
  never speaks up in meetings.
• That worker never does anything until he is told.
  
  That worker is lazy.
• He lied to me. He said yes when the
  answer to my question was no.
• She wasnt listening to me. She didnt
  look at me in the eye when I was talking to her.