CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

What is Culture???• Provides patterns of

acceptable behavior & beliefs.

• May be based on….–Nationality–Race and Religion–Historical Roots–…All of the Above

Good Intercultural Communicators Are….

• Aware values & behaviors not always “right.”

• Flexible & open to change.

And…..• Sensitive to verbal

& nonverbal behavior.

• Aware of values, beliefs, practices of other cultures.

• Sensitive to differences within cultures.

HIGH CONTEXT VS. LOW CONTEXTCULTURES

High-Context Cultures• Infer information from

message context, rather than from content.

• Prefer indirectness, politeness & ambiguity.

• Convey little information explicitly.

• Rely heavily on nonverbal signs.

• Asian• Latin American• Middle Eastern

Low-Context Cultures• Rely more on content rather than on context.• Explicitly spell out

information.• Value directness.• See indirectness as

manipulative.• Value written word more

than oral statements.

• European• North American

Cultural Norms and Values

Intercultural Communication

The sharing of meanings between

individuals from different cultures

Intercultural Communication…

Requires an understanding of …

• Own culture

• Cultures of other groups

• Parent/Dominant culture (e.g. based on race or

ethnicity)

• Co-cultures (e.g. based on gender,

religion, age)

Intercultural Communication…

Requires an understanding of …..

• Knowledge system

• Beliefs

• Values

• Customs

• Behaviours

Importance of cross-cultural communication

Definition of Culture:Culture is a definition highly misunderstood and misused, thus the need for an explanation:

Culture refers to the following Ways of Life, including but not limited to:Language : the oldest human institution and the most sophisticated medium of expression.Arts & Sciences : the most advanced and refined forms of human expression.Thought : the ways in which people perceive, interpret, and understand the world around them.Spirituality : the value system transmitted through generations for the inner well-being of human beings, expressed through language and actions.Social activity : the shared pursuits within a cultural community, demonstrated in a variety of festivities and life-celebrating events.Interaction : the social aspects of human contact, including the give-and-take of socialization, negotiation, protocol, and conventions.All of the above collectively define the meaning of Culture.

Effects of culture on cross-cultural communication:

1. Culture is inappropriately blamed for some miscommunication. Often it is assumed to be the cause of miscommunication.

2. One must take care not to over-generalize cultural practices. There might be differences of background like urban or rural, rich or poor within same culture and therefore consequential to miscommunication. Culture is a complex subject and though crucial, should never be over-generalized.

Is culture to be blamed?

• People accustomed to their own culture tend to disregard other cultural habits as peculiar and often unjustly label them as bad or primitive or wrong. This kind of view is lop-sided and must be overcome.

• Two types of cultural differences are responsible for these kind of unfair declarations:

1. Differences in body positions or movements2. Differences in perceptions, approach and

practices ( time, space, intimacy and so on)

Body- Positions and Movements

• Body positions like sitting, standing, leaning, etc are indicative of cultural practices and can be misinterpreted resulting in miscommunication. E.g. sitting vs squatting(bend) while waiting.

• Manners of walking also pertain to cultural diversity.

• Communication with body parts (hands, arms, head, etc) varies by culture so do eye movements, touching and handshaking.

Culture and Respective Handshakes

1. American2. German3. French4. British5. Hispanic6. Latin American7. Middle Eastern8. Asians

1. Firm2. Brusque, repeated, firm3. Light, quick, not with superiors

4. Soft5. Moderate gaps, repeated6. Firm long-lasting7. Gentle, repeated frequently8. Gentle, for some, shaking

hands is unfamiliar and uncomfortable unlike koreans

Differing attitudes toward various factors of human relationships cause

communication problems• Time: Some cultures esp. western cultures take

time management seriously and plan for max. efficiency in min. time whereas in some cultures like middle-east or Asia, time is spent leisurely and its usage is at persons discretion.

• Space: People’s attitude varies when it comes to space between two people while conversing. E.g. North Americans prefer maintaining atleats2 ft distance unlike South Americans and Arabians.

• Frankness: North Americans are frank, direct and open to the limit of being unashamed and clear .

• Asians are far more reserved or implicit and go to great lengths to save face and or to avoid offending/hurting.

• Americans belong to high-context culture, a culture which explicitly shares all relevant background information, whereas belong to low-context culture, extracting limited information and thus communicating more implicitly.

• Thus, Asians may appear shifty, roundabout and indecisive to North Americans, and North Americans appear harsh, impolite and aggressive to Asians.

• Values: Also differing by culture are our values- how we evaluate a critical matter in our life depends on it. For North Americans hard work is primary and they believe success and pleasure will follow based on their puritanical outlook. Similarly relations with seniors also depends upon culture. North Americans accept authority, yet they fiercely maintain the individual’s rights. In Asia workers accept subservient role and they expect autocracy to some extent also.

• Expression of emotions: From culture to culture, differences in social behaviour develop. For e.g., in some Asian countries public display of emotions are severely frowned upon, is considered crude and offensive.

• Westerners, contrarily, accept it as natural. People belonging to Mediterranean culture display a lot of emotions while communication where as Northern Europeans’ emotions are much more subdued. The first group tends to see the second as disinterested and lacking in friendliness. The second sees the first as excitable, emotional and even unstable

Problems of Language• Lack of language equivalency: Wide differences among languages

make precisely equivalent translations difficult. One reason for such differences is that languages are based on the concepts, experiences, views, etc are all formed by cultural values and no cultures are the same. Another explanation for the lack of language equivalency is the grammatical and syntactic differences among languages.

• Some languages (Urdu, for example) ave no adverbs and/or adjectives. Not all languages deal with verb, mood, voice and tense in the same way.

• The obvious result is that even the best translators often cannot find literal equivalents between languages.

• Even words with the same meaning can differ in usage by culture. Overcoming such language problems by knowing languages well and by questioning.

• For very important oral messages, documents, or such, you might consider using a procedure called back translating.

Back Translating

• This procedure involves using two translators, one with first-hand language skills in one of the languages involved and one with first-language skills in the other language. The first translator translates the message into his or her language, and the second translator then translates the message back into the original. If the translations are good, the second translation matches the original.

Difficulties in using English:English is the primary language of international business. But

many non-natives have problems using English. They are likely to use it less fluently because they must have learnt it as a second language. In such cases one should avoid using two-word verbs like even out, give away, take over, put off ,etc. Some suggested substitutes are:

Give up Surrender

Go on Continue

Put off Defer

Think up Imagine

Blow up explode

Figure out Solve

Even out Compensate/ correct

Culturally Derived Words• Culturally derive words esp. slangs create a lot of problems.

Slangs are short-lived and are rarely found in dictionaries but are extensively used in spoken language. Often slangs have an offensive meaning too. Therefore it should be avoided in formal settings and esp. in cross-cultural communication. However slangs are different from idioms or proverbial phrases which adds richness to the language. Similarly words from various fields like sports like kick off, right off the bat, knock out, below the belt, on the ropes ,etc have also been appended to English and must be used with discretion. Some words and expressions are also developed within our culture (colloquialisms) and must be avioded. Some e.g. are as follows:

Western perspective

Eastern perspective:

We were caught flat-footed We were surprisedThey couldn’t make heads or tails of the report.

They couldn’t understand the report

Your prediction was right on the beam

Your prediction was correct

Your report put us on orbit Your report pleased us very much

Take an educated guess on this question

Answer this question to the best of your knowledge

He frequently shoots from the hips

He frequently acts before he thinks

The company will wind down its operations

The company will end its operations