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Purposive Communication Notes #5

The document discusses several challenges of intercultural communication. It notes that lack of shared knowledge and cultural diversity make interpreting meanings more difficult. It also discusses how greetings, handshakes, and other nonverbal behaviors vary across cultures and can lead to misunderstandings. Three approaches to studying intercultural communication are outlined: the social science approach focuses on describing and predicting behavior, the interpretive approach emphasizes understanding behavior in context, and the critical approach recognizes how power dynamics influence culture and communication.

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Peach Montefalco
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374 views3 pages

Purposive Communication Notes #5

The document discusses several challenges of intercultural communication. It notes that lack of shared knowledge and cultural diversity make interpreting meanings more difficult. It also discusses how greetings, handshakes, and other nonverbal behaviors vary across cultures and can lead to misunderstandings. Three approaches to studying intercultural communication are outlined: the social science approach focuses on describing and predicting behavior, the interpretive approach emphasizes understanding behavior in context, and the critical approach recognizes how power dynamics influence culture and communication.

Uploaded by

Peach Montefalco
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Challenges of Intercultural Communication

Communicating with people who are very different from us, it is very difficult to know how to draw
inferences about what they mean, and so it is impossible to depend on shared knowledge and
background for confidence in our interpretations. Scollon (1995)
 
 Lack of shared knowledge and beliefs and cultural diversity make it more complicated to
arrive at the correct inference or interpretation of meanings
 
 English is now global lingua franca. In fact, with the ASEAN integration, English has been
declared the official or working language of ASEAN.
 
 It is important to empathize that the ownership of English cannot be attributed to just one
country or to those who use it as a native or home language.
 
 Varieties of English spoken by different speech communities have evolved for a reason
o They use it for communal purposes.
o Heavily influenced by the local culture and its speakers.
 
The problem of misunderstanding is not overt. and can be traced to speech perturbations, poorly,
management turn-taking, and non-aligned.
 
Communication in English as lingua franca (LEF) is “a form of intercultural communication characterized
by cooperation rather than misunderstanding.
 Participants coming from 7 different first language backgrounds which yielded the result
the that the participants displayed communicative behavior not generally associated with
their linguacultural background
 misunderstanding in intercultural communication may not always be caused by verbal
utterances
 May also occur due to wrong interpretation of the non-verbal code.
 
Handshake which is commonly done by people introduced to each other by a third party should be done
and interpreted correctly as the type of handshake varies from culture to culture.
 
Country or Region Types of Handshake

United States Firm handshake

France Soft handshake

Germany Firm handshake, for men, traditionally accompanied by a slight


bow

Japan Handshake with arm firmly extended, accompanied by a bow

Handshake and free hand placed on the forearm of the other


Middle East person
 
 
Greetings
 Greeting rituals also vary from culture to culture. Japanese women bow differently from
Japanese men
 German bow which is termed as diener means a bow to and in recognition of an authority
 
Sources of Misunderstanding (Kaur, 2016)
 Ambiguity
o lack of explicitness on the part of the speaker in the form of problematic
reference
o utterance is open to different interpretations.
 Performance-related misunderstanding
o slips of the tongue and mishearing
o due to utterances spoken quickly and unclearly.
 Language-related misunderstanding
o ungrammaticality of language
 Gaps in world knowledge
o gaps in content rather language
 Local context
o turns within sequences produced by the participants themselves
o orientation of the participants as well as the repair moves that follow the
displayed understanding.
 
Why is there a need to understand intercultural communication?
 Some people take it for granted to read about and study first a country’s culture before
they go and travel to the place.
 a need to be aware or conscious of other cultures especially those that you will visit so
you can avoid offending people.
 become aware of cultural identities and background as it will broaden your horizon.
 need to understand that no culture is superior or inferior to another.
 through awareness that you get to compare other cultures with your own and appreciate
cultural diversities and learn to live with them.
 
Three approaches as explained by Martin and Nakayama (2010)
 
  Social Science of
Interpretative Critical
Functionalist

Discipline on which Psychology Anthropology, sociolinguistics Various


approach is founded

Research Goal Describe and predict Describe behavior Change behavior


behavior

Assumption of External and describable Subjective Subjective and


reality material

Assumptions of Predictable Creative and voluntary Changeable


human behavior

Method of study Survey, observation Participant observation, field Textual analysis of


study media
Relationship of Communication influenced Culture created and maintained Culture as a site of
culture and by culture through communication power struggle
communication

Contribution of the identifies cultural Emphasizes that communication Recognizes the


approach variations; recognizes and culture and cultural economic and
cultural differences in differences should be studied in political forces in
many aspects of context culture and
communication but often communication;
does not consider context. asserts that all
intercultural
interactions are
characterized by
power.

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