Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication is a form of communication between people with different linguistic, religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. The term is used to describe the wide spectrum of interactions, communication processes, and conflicts that appear in a system or social context made up of individuals coming from different cultures. The assessment and understanding of differences between cultures, languages, and customs of people from other countries play a vital role in the performance of this type of communication whose discourses focus mainly on linguistics, social and cultural attributes, and thought patterns. Although it is a very old human activity, intercultural communication achieved the status of a discipline with its own theory building only in the second half of the twentieth century. However, in an age of globalization, its relevance and applicability has rapidly grown, because of increased migration, tourism, development of global media, and pervasiveness of cultural and linguistic contacts.

Background

The discourses of culture, cultural difference, and intercultural communication arose in the historical contexts of the nineteenth and twentieth century as part of the process of colonialism. During the nineteenth century, within the new discipline of anthropology, the comparative study of cultures was intended to locate a certain culture on a scale of human development from "savagery" to civilization. The industrialized world of Europe and America set a standard by placing its own nations at one end and the "savage" tribes at the other, evaluating the rest of humankind between these limits based on advancement of industrial arts, scientific knowledge, moral principles and religious beliefs, and social and political organization. Increased travel led to an increased awareness of different people, and anthropological theory of a developmental direction offered moral justification for the exploitation and subjugation of colonialism, leading to the view that colonialism must be regarded as a moral duty, the colonized being "savages" in need of education and rehabilitation.

Positive implications of cultural differences became visible only in the twentieth century in the political climate of decolonization and civil rights movements of the 1950s. During that time, ethnic diversity resulting from migration became increasingly visible, and the term multiculturalism came into play, often used as a substitute for multiethnic or multiracial. The discourse of intercultural communication emerged at about the same time with multiculturalism, spreading from academic publications into general discourse. Initially, the term intercultural communication was used in parallel with cross-cultural communication, some of the early works that mention it being those of Bronisław Malinowski and Margaret Mead. Early publications on intercultural communication fell into clearly identifiable threads (military, business, and missionary and religious studies) and many of the Cold War–era developments in intercultural communication were associated with applied purposes, such as training, rather than for theoretical considerations. The first original paradigm for intercultural communication was articulated by Edward T. Hall and had a major influence on the further development of the discipline, bringing into focus elements such as systematic empirical study, classification and emphasis of nonverbal communication, tolerance of cultural differences, and participatory training methods in intercultural communication.

Topic Today

In the second half of the twentieth century, intercultural communication started to be seen as a means through which to overcome cultural differences, in a both cooperative and competitive sense. From the earlier, more applied focus on teaching and training, intercultural communication has, in the twenty-first century, become an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates insights from social sciences, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, and communication studies. Although the term has still been used synonymously with cross-cultural communication, some researchers have advocated for a clear delineation between the terms, pointing out that cross-cultural communication seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and apprehend the world around them, making it a descriptive discipline, while intercultural communication studies the dynamic patterns of interaction and the resulting frames (e.g., cultural adaptation vs. cultural isolation, conflict vs. cooperation, understanding vs. misunderstanding, etc.). New theories have emerged focusing on effective outcomes (e.g., theory of cultural convergence, communication accommodation theory, co-cultural theory), identity negotiation or management (e.g., identity management theory, double-swing model), communication networks (e.g., intracultural vs. intercultural networks), or acculturation and adjustment (e.g., theory of assimilation, deviance, and alienation states). A key concept intensively discussed within the discipline is intercultural communication competence, or the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with people coming from different cultures. The basic requirements for achieving intercultural competence are considered to be knowledge, empathy, self-confidence, and cultural identity, the development of this competence being based primarily on the individual’s experience and their desire to acquire new helpful skills, such as language proficiency skills or awareness to nonverbal communication in other cultures. A competent communicator’s profile includes tolerance, flexibility, open-mindedness, sensitivity, adaptability, reflectiveness, and the capacity to engage in divergent and system-level thinking.

The problems in intercultural communication are usually associated with failure in effectively transmitting a message, with the main challenges that communicators face being the linguistic challenge (language learning), the discursive challenge (presence and use of stereotypes), and the social challenge (exclusion and injustice). Intercultural communication is both a facet of globalization and a response to it, the omnipresence of cultural and linguistic contacts resulting in a strong interest in the discipline with a call for sustained and relevant research. The applicability of intercultural communication is also larger than ever before. Intercultural communication is traditionally considered a base for international businesses, but the population of cross-cultural service providers who ask to be assisted with the developments of intercultural communication skills has grown. The assumption that a greater understanding of cultural differences will contribute to making the world a better place has been embraced by many authors in intercultural communication. However, other specialists have expressed their fears that culture is, in many cases, displayed as a disguise for injustice and exclusion, insisting that the future of intercultural communication should feature an emphasis on the material-linguistic basis of communication.

Bibliography

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