A Tentative Approach To Intercultural Communication

This paper is about face-to-face cross-cultural communication in this global village, a village in which products, ideas, and information are shared and recognized. It is a paper intended to analyze and understand intercultural challenges presented by such a world. Although it is a familiar topic, it may still help us to figure out why any instance of intercultural communication succeeds or fails. Its main task is to surmount those intercultural obstacles. The paper is designed as following: The first part discusses about intercultural communication. As used by anthropologists, all of the significant parts of a culture are passed on to different generations not through biological heredity but through "tradition" or social learning. From this standpoint, all human groups have a culture. Culture exists in agricultural as well as in industrialized societies. Culture is necessary for the survival and existence of human beings as human beings. Practically everything humans know, think, value, feel, and do is learned through participation in a sociocultural system. Culture shapes values, norms, emotions, beliefs, attitudes, aspirations, symbols, laws, perceptions and material possessions. In turn, these impact culture, which means that cultures are dynamic, always undergoing tremendous change. As individual and group qualities change either due to the internal process of growth and maturation or contact with outside groups, cultures also change. It is often possible to experience a case of "culture shock" especially when one is in a new culture. The second part explores language communication. To live in a culture, human beings need to communicate with each other. Just as Miller and Steinberg have defined, communication is a process whereby one person deliberately attempts to convey meaning to another. They imply that we communicate with the intention of attempting to modify behavior. Words are selected and organized in such a way as to have maximum impact on the individual whose behavior we are trying to modify. Whatever approach is used to define communication, it is important to note that this process is critical and indispensable to human existence. It is through communication that human beings have accomplished tasks such as lighting fire or going to the moon. Human beings are social animals. They are inescapably involved in social communication all the time and everywhere except when they are cut off from the society. It is important to recognize that people from different culture or even the same culture communicate differently. The communication process is a system that involves an interrelated, interdependent group of elements working together as a whole to achieve a desired outcome or goal. We can study communication in much the same way we study biological systems within our own bodies. We can determine the elements involved (circulatory and digestive systems, for example), analyze how those elements affect one another, and thus determine the nature of the process as a whole. The third part is about building relationships. Interpersonal communication, concerned with making contacts with others, is so important for establishing a pleasant harmonious life. We are fully aware that we apply various strategies in our daily association with other people and play different roles on the stage of life. Culture and communication, though of two different concepts, are directly linked whenever people interact they communicate. Culture is learned, acted out, transmitted, and preserved through communication.