Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication is the communication between cultures.

It pertains to communication among people from different nationalities. It
involves sharing of information across different cultures and social groups,
including individuals with different religious, ethnic, and educational
backgrounds. It is the sending and receiving of messages across language and
cultures. It happens when individuals interact, negotiate, and create meanings
while bringing in their varied cultural backgrounds. Intercultural Communication
is very important because it offers the ability to deal across cultures which is
increasingly important as we are having more and more contact with people who
have different cultures. It is one of the of the important skills in life as it enables
us to not only to communicate effectively but also to share ideas and information
to people with different culture. The need for effective intercultural
communication can be found in all aspects of business, from internal
communication to marketing and advertising. It allows workers with different
cultures to work together as a group. Intercultural communication has become
more important in schools as it is becoming more diverse culturally. It helps the
educators to be effective communicators and thus culturally competent in cross
cultural encounters. It is important to everybody because it helps us to
understand people with different cultures. It enables us to learn their cultures
giving us lessons in life.
 Cultural Differences

Eye Contact Touch

Eye contact vary tremendously in meaning. In Arab culture, too little eye
contact is regarded as disrespectful. In English culture, a certain amount of eye
contact is necessary but too much makes peole feel uncomfortable. In South-
Asian culture, direct eye contact is regarded as aggressive and rude. In Ghana, if a
young child looks an adult in the eye, it is considered as an act of defiance. A great
number of cultural expressions are achieved through touch. In America, using a
firm handshake is considered appropriate to greet a stranger or another business
professional. In France, it is common to kiss someone you greet on both cheeks.
Touching children on the head is fine in North America. Yet in Asia, this is
considered highly inappropriate as the head is considered a sacred part of the
body. In the Middle East, the left hand is customarily used to handle bodily
hygiene. Therefore, using that hand to accept a gift or shake hands is considered
extremely rude.
 Intercultural Communication:
Do’s and Don’ts
Do’s: Don’ts:
- Avoid assumptions - Stereotyping
- Avoidance of head mentality - Prejudice
- Dropping insensitive behavior - Ethnocentrism
- Being wise - Fail to take language barriers into
- Empathizing with others account
- Know their culture’s perception - Letting cultural differences
- Take cultural and local differences become a source of conflict
into account - Talk to anyone with
- Accept cultural differences patronizing matter
- Acknowledge the impact of - Try to speak or act like a
stereotyping culturally different person
- Speak inclusively - Using the same approach
- Avoid judgments and generalizations worldwide
- Learn to adopt their communication - Not recognizing cultural
style in written, spoken and non verbal differences
- Understand the non verbal dimensions - Assuming similarity
such as posture, gesture, handshake, - Different communication code
timing, space and intimacy - Assumptions