Cross-Cultural Communication

A Brief Study on Cross-Cultural Communication

Culture belongs to human society and exists in human society. Communication is culture bound, and communication is a product of culture.

Everything that occurs within a society, a community, a school, and especially in the social, commercial or working environment or in the classroom, involves communication, the act of sharing information. Sometimes communication involves the use of oral or written verbal symbols. On other occasions, communication involves various types of nonverbal symbols, including body language.

Communication is the medium for instruction, assessment, interpersonal relationships, group interactions, parent and community relations and counseling. Most behavior problems in schools, and their resolutions, involve some type of communication. In sum, communication permeates education.

Since communication is the interaction of people in the society, the social culture influences the communication greatly. Sociolinguistics examine social and cultural on language behavior. Among the most important concepts to emerge are those relating

to dialects and language standards. Sociolinguists have documented the presence of dialects in every language. These dialects, all of which are legitimate, are associated with educational, economic, social and historical conditions.

Along with more and more frequent international cultural exchange, there are more and more intercultural communication opportunities, and intercultural communication has become a common accept vocabulary. It can be said that the people of many different cultural background in the process of communication is cross-cultural communication. Studying cross-cultural communication characteristics can help reduce the cross-cultural communication friction, avoid communication turnover, and fulfill effectively cross-cultural communication practice. Analysis shows that, cross-cultural has the following features: c both sides of culture sharing are poor;

d various cultural differences hav

e different degrees; e the unconscious obstinacy is the strongest;

f Misunderstanding, contradictions and conflicts increase;

g Cultural variability is strong.

Cross-cultural communication models contain mainly Gender Communication and Body Language & Non-Verbal Communication. The detail introductions are the following:

Gender Communication

Here are some common ways that men and women differ: c Attitude towards tasks vs. relationships; d Way of Processing Information; e Leadership style;

f Communication styles;

g Talk time.

Body Language & Non-Verbal Communication

Most people believe the best way of communication is verbal. However, oral

communication makes up just 10 percent (or less) of the total means to get across a message. In addition, words conveyed orally frequently do not point towards what people are actually thinking or feeling. The one way you can ascertain their private thoughts and feelings is by studying their body movements. Speaker and listeners – oral communication, and writers and readers – written communication. But you have another form of communication which we all use most of the time, usually without knowing it. This is sometimes called body language. Its more technical name is non-verbal communication. Body language, or NVC signals (not involve the use of words), are sometimes categorized into five kinds: c body and facial gestures; d eye contract; e body contract or “proximity”; f clothing and physical appearance; g the quality of speech.

What causes cultural confliction of cross-cultural communication? The confliction between Western and Eastern cultures is rooted mainly in four basic cultural patterns: c Collectivist --- Individualist Cultural Pattern; d High-Context --- Low –Context Cultural Pattern; e High-Power Distances and Low-Power Distances Cultural Patterns;

f Monochronic time --- Polichronic time Cultural Pattern.

In culturally diverse communities, differences may be expected to exist in the communication styles of students, teachers, parents, administrators and no instructional staff. Perhaps the most important reason for educators to understand cross-cultural communication is to improve their relations with the diverse groups of students and parents they will encounter. The fact that these circumstances occur is a tragedy, of course. The greater tragedy, however, is that educators do not always know how to eliminate or minimize this type of discord.