Cross Cultural Comunication

Cross-Cultural Communication

Cross Cultural Communication

Introduction

Communication is the relaying of information from one place another. The communication process may be between human beings or animals. Communication involves giving instructions or relaying the feelings to others. The process of communication could be verbal (orally), codes, or by use of signals. Communication helps convey meanings and intentions from one group or entity to another where both sides of the divide mutually concur, understands the signs, and perceives the intended information. All forms of communication have common features. Individuals communicate with a motive or a reason. The message comprise of coding that the other party is likely to understand usually in the form of speech, text, gestures, or symbols familiar to the intended recipient. The message must travel through a media. The recipient should be able to decode the signals and interpret the information to make meaning out of the message.

Culture is compounded outcomes of experience, knowledge, attitude, beliefs, hierarchies, values, religion, roles, spatial relations, material objects, notion of time, or wealth that individuals across generations develop and pass onto the next. A group of people sharing a knowledge can be culture. Communication as a way of sharing information among individuals is an aspect of culture. The human calculated behavior is an aspect of culture. The cultivated behavior involves the overall intellections development and experiences in life through the social construct. Culture is a people’s way of life through shares beliefs, behaviors, symbols, and values that individuals learn through communication and imitation from a generation and pass onto the next. Communication is an essential aspect of culture where people learn various beliefs, motives, knowledge, skills, and attitude. The aspects of culture could be implicit or explicit through embodiments in artifacts, traditional ideas, and other mechanisms that influence a group of people. Culture is a product of individuals learning to identify with the community into which they are born. Culture reigns supreme among the various groups. Culture is the hallmark of the differences among the community that subscribe to it.

Layers of culture and culture index

        The layers of depend on the position and the mental programming of the individuals. The national level of a culture refers to the association of the people of a given country. The regional layer has both ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences in a nation. The gender level differences entail the identity of an individual concerning state of being male or female. The generation level of culture is the lineage in a culture showing the difference between parents and children, parents and grandparents. The social class level is based on occupation, social roles, and education. Finally, the corporate level is the organizational culture.

        The cultural differences are essential in understanding the cross culture communication. The cultural differences arise from a composite-measure technique that dictates the cultural index. The power distance index is the measure of the degree of inequality that exists in a particular society. The uncertainty avoidance index measures the response to threat, arising from the ambiguous or uncertain conditions. The individualism index measures the extent of individualistic society. The loosely knit social ties are responsible for the individualism. Here, the individuals care for themselves and that of the nuclear family only. The collectivism arises from the strong family and social ties. The individuals affiliates to a particular group and always care for one another with absolute loyalty. The masculinity index describes the connections between success and interpersonal relationships. The index is a measure of the extent to which individuals prefer success other than the quality of life.

        The beliefs, ideas, values, and meanings that people adopt are a product of learning and extend to shape the human nature. Individuals exhibit the character and behavior that they learn from others. Therefore, culture, as a way of life, has no definite description of its scope. Culture can be as diverse as people perceive their environments. The diversity of culture across the world confirms that there are not standard features to a culture as long as a group of people. There is no set standard regarding culture as one aspect of a culture may be different from another. The cultural diversity also confirms that the characteristics of human being are not conventional but takes the form of the society in which one dwells. Whatever one culture embraces may be a taboo in another. Imperatively, people think and act differently. Science cannot justify that a set of people from a culture are more superior to the other. Each person is uniquely different from the other depending on the culture that the individual practices.

The elements of a particular mode of communication determine the quality of communication. Any problem within the process may reduce the effectiveness of communication. The sender must determine the appropriate code that the receiver can understand and send through a desired medium. For instance, a communication in a school system or business organization may be in the form of billboards, memos, bulletins, report, newsletters, and letters. The verbal communicating takes the form of telephone, tape-recorded, sound slide shows, public address unit systems, and face-to-face communications. People have different means of decoding information depending on the needs, values, and beliefs. Therefore, the sender must ensure that the message and mode of communication conforms to the beliefs of the individual. The communication can either be one-way or two-way depending on the need for a response expected by of the parties.

Types of Communication

The type of communication depends on the kind of information to be relayed and the intended audience or the recipient. The three types include verbal, which involves talking and listening, written communication which requires reading, and non-verbal types.

Mode of communication

The tree mode of communication include interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational. The interpersonal mode is a two-way means of communication that include active discussion of meaning among involved parties. The interpersonal communication is spontaneous, with exchange of information, which is therefore meaningful. The individuals involved monitor and observe each other to ensure that they see and make meaning and intention of the information communicated. The individuals have the opportunity to make clarifications and necessary adjustments while conversing. However, interpretive communication is one way that does not provide room for active negotiations of the author or the sender of the message. The recipient get the message in a coded way and reads, listens, or view to understand the meaning intended by the author, speaker, or producer. The interpretation differs among recipient depending on the translation and comprehension. The outcome depends on the ability to listen, view, or listen in a cultural mindset. Finally, the presentational in a one-way communication intended for a particular audience; either viewers, listeners, or readers. The mode does not allow for exchange of information. The viewers, readers, or listeners have not direct means to discuss actively with the presenter. The presenter should be conversant with the language, culture, and the knowledge of the recipient.