Download What is intercultural communication?

陈润平
生于江南西道，义门陈后裔，谱名
毓善，曾用笔名聊岛、叶扁舟。聊
岛话千鱼，无言对一尘。一介布衣
，五年砍柴，八年放牛打草，十八
年寒窗，逾十载三尺讲台。年近不
惑，方觉唏嘘；蹉跎岁月，人生峰
回路转，情景恰如明晦。结缘工科
，初萌文学。及约而立之年，弃工
从文，力修语言文学。寓身大学，
知遇学，志于教。陈语罗言，润桃
李，平平淡淡度一生。
个人主页：
新浪博客：blog.sina.com.cn/runpingchen
中国诗歌网：www.zgshige.com/c/2015-0805/574652.shtml
教育理想与追求：
教育应该培养健康
、快乐、以劳动创
造幸福的人；教育
的最佳方式是互助
教育；教育的终极
效果是达到自我教
育。
[email protected]
13879186780
陈润平
13879186780
[email protected]
blog.sina.com.cn/runpingchen
Course Outline
 Definition of key terms: Language，culture,
communication, intercultural communication, culture
shock, verbal communication ,non-verbal
communication, etc.
 Chinese culture and western culture: contrast &
comparison
 Social contact and intercultural communication
 Intercultural communication as doing culture
 Managing intercultural conflicts effectively
Suggested readings
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Davis, Linell. Doing Culture: Cross-cultural
Communication in Action. Foreign Language
Teaching and Research Press. Beijing:
2001,2007.
Samovar, Larry A. et al. Communication
Between Cultures. Wadsworth. Boston:
2007,2010.
薛荣主编 .《中国文化教程 英文版》. 南京：
南京大学出版社, 2014.
刘有发主编.《英美国家概况》. 北京：对外经
济贸易大学出版社, 2012.
Teaching Methodology
•
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•
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Instruction
Discussions
Presentations
Interviews
Case studies
Assignments
Assessment
• Process : 50%=Attendance 10%+Participation
10%+Critique 15%+essays 15%
• Final Test: 50%
Unit 1
语言、文化、交流和跨文化交际
Language, Culture,
Communication, and
Intercultural
Communication
1. The students can understand the key terms Language，
culture, communication, intercultural
communication, culture shock, verbal
communication ,non-verbal communication, etc;
2. The students can recognize the difference and similarity
between cultures;
3. The students can analyze the language, communication
strategies according to some context.
1. The technical terms Language，culture, communication,
intercultural communication, culture shock, verbal
communication ,non-verbal communication, etc;
2. The difference and similarity between cultures;
3. To analyze the language, communication strategies according
to some context.
Who am I?
What am I?
Where am I from?
Where am I going?
…
Human ----?----Language
 Human beings were
conditioned/structured by languages.
温故而知新
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An English teacher
I want to buy a coffee cup.
That’s great.
This movie is quite good.
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Communication
L
M
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
If you are Going Abroad Soon...
a. What are the five things that you are most looking
forward to about studying abroad?
b. What are the five things that currently worry
you most about going overseas?
c. What are the five things you believe you will
miss most from home when you are abroad?
d. What are the five things (people, places, activities,
etc.) you believe you will miss least from home when
you are abroad?
e. My greatest single challenge overseas will be?
 What is culture?
 What is communication?
 What is intercultural communication?
 How important is intercultural
communication under the context of
globalization?
现代汉语词典的定义：

人类在社会历史发展过程中所创造的物质和精神
财富的总和，特指精神财富，如文学、艺术、教
育、科学等

考古学用语，指同一历史时期的不依分布地点为
转移的遗迹、遗物的综合体，同样的工具、用具，
同样的制造技术等，是同一种文化的特征，如仰
韶文化、龙山文化
指运用文字的能力及一般知识
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Anthropologist perspective: culture is creation, it
helps to distinguish human beings from animals.
Social functions: culture is productive force, info
and knowledge
Communicative perspective: culture can and
should be transmitted
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Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge,
experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies,
religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of
the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired
by a group of people in the course of generations through
individual and group striving.
Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively
large group of people.
Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is
the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience
which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior
through social learning.
A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors,
beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally
without thinking about them, and that are passed along by
communication and imitation from one generation to the
next.
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Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols
include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and
motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and
deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for
behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting
the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their
embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture
consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached
values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered
as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning
influences upon further action.
Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group
of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of
that people and are transmitted from generation to
generation.
Culture is communication, communication is
culture.
 Culture is a collective programming of the
mind that distinguishes the members of one
group or category of people from another.
 Culture is difficult to quantify, because it
frequently exists at an unconscious level, or at
least tends to be so pervasive that it escapes
everyday thought.
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Cultures may be classified by three large
categories of elements:
1) Artifacts: arrowheads, hydrogen bombs,
magic charms, antibiotics, torches, electric
lights, chariots, jet planes, etc.
2) Beliefs or value systems: right or wrong, God
and man, ethics, general meaning of life
3) Behaviors: actual practices of concepts or
beliefs
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Culture is not innate, it is learned.
Culture is transmissible
Culture is dynamic
Culture is selective
Facets of culture are interrelated
Culture is ethnocentric
A nation will not be a
nation without its own
special culture.
Culture is a system of values and norms
that are shared among a group of people
and that when taken together constitute
a design for living.
Relating to values and beliefs,
communication including body
language, spoken and written
language, norms of behavior,
customs as well as arts, music,
dance, sports.
Culture is learned.
Culture is shared.
Culture is patterned.
Culture is symbolic.
Culture is arbitrary.
Culture is internalized.
We cannot throw away our
own culture and accept
another one totally.
Communication (from Latin, meaning "to share") is the
purposeful activity of information exchange between
two or more participants in order to convey or receive
the intended meanings through a shared system of signs
and semiotic rules.
Communication takes place inside and between three
main subject categories: human beings, living
organisms in general and communication-enabled
devices (for example sensor networks and control
systems). Communication in living organisms (studied
in the field of biosemiotics) often occurs through visual,
auditory, or biochemical means. Human communication
is unique for its extensive use of language.
Human & Nonhuman
communication
• Human communication
Nonverbal communication
Verbal communication
Written communication and its historical
development
Business communication
• Nonhuman communication
 Animals
 Plants and fungi
 Bacteria quorum sensing
Communication
Behavior vs. Messages
• Behaviors
▫ Verbal: written/spoken
▫ Nonverbal: gestures, postures, etc.
• Behaviors and messages
▫ Be observed
▫ Elicit a response: any behavior that elicits a response is
a message
 Any: both verbal and nonverbal
 Behavior may be conscious or unconscious
 We frequently behave unintentionally, or
uncontrollably
Features of communication
Responding to the behavior or the residue of the behavior of another
person.
Behavioral residue: those things that remain as a record of our
actions
When someone perceives our behavior or its residue and
attributes meaning to it, communication has taken place
regardless of whether our behavior was conscious or unconscious,
intentional or unintentional.
Attribution: drawing on past experiences and giving meaning
to the behavior we observe
Being necessitates behavior, and we cannot NOT communicate.
Models of communication
Shannon and Weaver Model of
Communication for Bell Laboratories ,1949
Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver structured this
model based on the following elements:
An information source, which produces a message.
A transmitter, which encodes the message into
signals
A channel, to which signals are adapted for
transmission
A noise source, which distorts the signal while it
propagates through the channel
A receiver, which 'decodes' (reconstructs) the
message from the signal.
A destination, where the message arrives.
Shannon and Weaver argued that there were
three levels of problems for communication within
this theory.
The technical problem: how accurately can the
message be transmitted?
The semantic problem: how precisely is the
meaning 'conveyed'?
The effectiveness problem: how effectively does
the received meaning affect behavior?
Berlo's Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver Model
of Communication, 1960
Linear Communication Model
Interactional Model of Communication
Transactional model of communication
Communication code scheme
Definition of Communication
a form of human behavior derived from a need to
connect and interact with other human beings. It
can be defined as that which happens whenever
someone responds to the behavior or the residue of
the behavior of another person.
That which happens whenever someone responds to
the behavior or the residue of behavior of another
person.
Ingredients of communication
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Behavioral source
Encoding
Message
Channel
Responders
Decoding
Response
feedback
Features of communication
• Dynamic
• Interactive
• Physical and social context
Effective communication
Effective communication occurs when a desired thought
is the result of intentional or unintentional information
sharing, which is interpreted between multiple entities
and acted on in a desired way. This effect also ensures that
messages are not distorted during the communication
process. Effective communication should generate the
desired effect and maintain the effect, with the potential to
increase the effect of the message. Therefore, effective
communication serves the purpose for which it was
planned or designed. Possible purposes might be to elicit
change, generate action, create understanding, inform or
communicate a certain idea or point of view. When the
desired effect is not achieved, factors such as barriers to
communication are explored, with the intention being to
discover how the communication has been ineffective.
6 Barriers to effective human
communication
• Barriers to effective communication can retard
or distort the message and intention of the
message being conveyed which may result in
failure of the communication process or an effect
that is undesirable. These include filtering,
selective perception, information overload,
emotions, language, silence, communication
apprehension, gender differences and political
correctness
Barriers to effective human
communication 1-2
• Physical barriers. Physical barriers are often due to the
•
nature of the environment. An example of this is the natural barrier
which exists if staff are located in different buildings or on different
sites. Likewise, poor or outdated equipment, particularly the failure
of management to introduce new technology, may also cause
problems. Staff shortages are another factor which frequently causes
communication difficulties for an organization.
System design. System design faults refer to problems with
the structures or systems in place in an organization. Examples
might include an organizational structure which is unclear and
therefore makes it confusing to know whom to communicate with.
Other examples could be inefficient or inappropriate information
systems, a lack of supervision or training, and a lack of clarity in
roles and responsibilities which can lead to staff being uncertain
about what is expected of them.
Barriers to effective human communication3-4
• Attitudinal barriers. Attitudinal barriers come about as a result of
problems with staff in an organization. These may be brought about, for
example, by such factors as poor management, lack of consultation with
employees, personality conflicts which can result in people delaying or
refusing to communicate, the personal attitudes of individual employees which
may be due to lack of motivation or dissatisfaction at work, brought about by
insufficient training to enable them to carry out particular tasks, or simply
resistance to change due to entrenched attitudes and ideas.
• Ambiguity of words/phrases. Words sounding the same but having
different meaning can convey a different meaning altogether. Hence the
communicator must ensure that the receiver receives the same meaning. It is
better if such words are avoided by using alternatives whenever possible.
• Individual linguistic ability. The use of jargon, difficult or
inappropriate words in communication can prevent the recipients from
understanding the message. Poorly explained or misunderstood messages can
also result in confusion. However, research in communication has shown that
confusion can lend legitimacy to research when persuasion fails.
Barriers to effective human
communication 5-6
• Physiological barriers. These may result from individuals' personal
discomfort, caused—for example—by ill health, poor eyesight or hearing
difficulties.
• Cultural differences. These may result from the cultural differences of
communities around the world, within an individual country
(tribal/regional differences, dialects etc.), between religious groups and in
organisations or at an organisational level - where companies, teams and
units may have different expectations, norms and idiolects. Families and
family groups may also experience the effect of cultural barriers to
communication within and between different family members or groups.
For example: words, colours and symbols have different meanings in
different cultures. In most parts of the world, nodding your head means
agreement, shaking your head means no, except in some parts of the world.
Noise
• In any communication model, noise is interference with the decoding of messages
sent over a channel by an encoder. There are many examples of noise:
• Environmental noise. Noise that physically disrupts communication, such as
standing next to loud speakers at a party, or the noise from a construction site
next to a classroom making it difficult to hear the professor.
• Physiological-impairment noise. Physical maladies that prevent effective
communication, such as actual deafness or blindness preventing messages from
being received as they were intended.
• Semantic noise. Different interpretations of the meanings of certain words. For
example, the word "weed" can be interpreted as an undesirable plant in a yard, or
as a euphemism for marijuana.
• Syntactical noise. Mistakes in grammar can disrupt communication, such as
abrupt changes in verb tense during a sentence.
• Organizational noise. Poorly structured communication can prevent the
receiver from accurate interpretation. For example, unclear and badly stated
directions can make the receiver even more lost.
• Cultural noise. Stereotypical assumptions can cause misunderstandings, such as
unintentionally offending a non-Christian person by wishing them a "Merry
Christmas".
• Psychological noise. Certain attitudes can also make communication difficult.
For instance, great anger or sadness may cause someone to lose focus on the
present moment. Disorders such as autism may also severely hamper effective
communication.
What is intercultural communication?
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It refers to the communication between people from
different cultures.
It takes place when a message is produced by a member of
one culture for understanding and response by a member
of another culture.
As cultural variations are many and great, the potential for
misunderstanding and disagreement can likewise be
serious and great.
Intercultural studies have become, therefore, imperative.
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All people have the right to be equal and the
equal right to be different.
--Shimon Peres
Intercultural communication entails the
investigation of those elements of culture
that most influence interaction when
members of two different cultures come
together in an interpersonal setting.
Intercultural communication
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Intercultural communication is a form of
communication that aims to share
information across different cultures and
social groups. It is used to describe the wide
range of communication processes and
problems that naturally appear within an
organization or social context made up of
individuals from different religious, social,
ethnic, and educational backgrounds.
Problems in intercultural communication
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The problems in intercultural communication usually come from
problems in message transmission. In communication between
people of the same culture, the person who receives the
message interprets it based on values, beliefs, and expectations
for behavior similar to those of the person who sent the message.
When this happens, the way the message is interpreted by the
receiver is likely to be fairly similar to what the speaker intended.
However, when the receiver of the message is a person from a
different culture, the receiver uses information from his or her
culture to interpret the message. The message that the receiver
interprets may be very different from what the speaker intended.
Management of intercultural communication
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Important points to consider:
Develop cultural sensitivity
Anticipate the meaning the receiver will get.
Careful encoding
Use words, pictures, and gestures.
Avoid slang, idioms, regional sayings.
Selective transmission
Build relationships, face-to-face if possible.
Careful decoding of feedback
Get feedback from multiple parties.
Improve listening and observation skills.
Follow-up actions
Intercultural communication competence
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Appropriateness. Valued rules, norms, and expectations of
the relationship are not violated significantly.
Effectiveness. Valued goals or rewards (relative to costs and
alternatives) are accomplished.
Competent communication is an interaction that is seen as
effective in achieving certain rewarding objectives in a way
that is also related to the context in which the situation
occurs. In other words, it is a conversation with an
achievable goal that is used at an appropriate time/location.
Some components of intercultural
competence
• Context: A judgement that a person is competent is made in
both a relational and situational context. For example eye
contact shows competence in western cultures whereas, Asian
cultures find too much eye contact disrespectful.
• Appropriateness: This means that your behaviours are
acceptable and proper for the expectations of any given culture.
• Effectiveness: The behaviours that lead to the desired outcome
being achieved.
• Knowledge: This is important so you can interpret meanings
and understand culture-general and culture-specific knowledge.
• Motivations: This has to do with emotional associations as they
communicate interculturally.
Basic tools for improving intercultural
competence
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Display of interest: showing respect and positive regard for the other person.
Orientation to knowledge: Terms people use to explain themselves and their
perception of the world.
Empathy: Behaving in ways that shows you understand the world as others do.
Interaction management: A skill in which you regulate conversations.
Task role behaviour: initiate ideas that encourage problem solving activities.
Relational role behaviour: interpersonal harmony and mediation.
Tolerance for ambiguity: The ability to react to new situations with little
discomfort.
Interaction posture: Responding to others in descriptive, non-judgemental ways.
Important factors that are valuable for intercultural
competence
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Proficiency in the host culture language: understanding the
grammar and vocabulary.
Understanding language pragmatics: how to use politeness
strategies in making requests and how to avoid giving out too
much information.
Being sensitive and aware to nonverbal communication patterns in
other cultures.
Being aware of gestures that may be offensive or mean something
different in a host culture rather than your own home culture.
Understanding a culture’s proximity in physical space and
paralinguistic sounds to convey their intended meaning.
Traits that make for competent
communicators
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Flexibility.
Tolerating high levels of uncertainty.
Reflectiveness.
Open-mindedness.
Sensitivity.
Adaptability.
Engaging in divergent and systems-level
thinking.
Driving Forces for Intercultural
Communication
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Improvements in transportation technology
Developments in communication technology
Globalization of the economy
Changes in immigration patterns
Domestic changes, like racial issues, native Americans,
women, homosexuals, the poor, the disabled, the
homeless, and countless other groups became visible
and vocal as they cried out for recognition and their
rightful place in our community.
Culture shock
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Culture shock is the personal disorientation a
person may feel when experiencing an
unfamiliar way of life because of Immigration,
visit a new country, or move between social
environments.
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One of the most common causes of culture
shock involves individuals in a foreign
country. Culture shock can be described as
consisting of at least one of four distinct
phases: Honeymoon, Negotiation,
Adjustment, and Mastery.
There is no true way to entirely prevent
culture shock, as individuals in any society
are personally affected by cultural contrasts
differently.