Communicating Across Culture
Cross-cultural communication is a special social complex phenomenon that includes various forms of interaction between the representatives of different cultures and nationalities. Xu identifies cross-cultural communication as the exchange of information, ideas, and emotions via oral and body language among the people from various cultural backgrounds. Due to the fact that among the main trends in the development of modern world are powerful integration processes, the role of cross-cultural communication in such spheres as economics, politics, culture, science, education, and others grows. The process of cross-cultural communication is a particular form of activity that is not confined to the knowledge of foreign languages, but it also necessitates the general knowledge of culture, values, religion, moral attitudes, worldviews of other nations that determine the model of interlocutors’ behavior as known from writemyessay.net review
Business is the most popular sphere of intercultural dialogue. Participation in various forms of international cooperation, including numerous projects and actions, the need for political interaction, the active development of transnational corporations, and so on require the participants of communication to know the national, cultural, and other characteristics of their interlocutors. Despite the fact that cross-cultural collocutors adhere to common norms and rules, national and cultural peculiarities can be very significant in business relations. Therefore, the knowledge of these features can serve as a kind of guidebook for the possible behavior of partners.
The problem of a competent organization of business communication becomes particularly relevant in such a form of intercultural communication as business negotiations. Reaching a joint decision is the goal of conversation. Considering interlocutor’s national characteristics, one can build the right tactics of interaction as well as correctly understand and evaluate collocutor’s actions. Business partners must master perfectly the forms and genres of communications at intercultural business interaction since the effectiveness of communication process depends on this. It is important for speakers of different cultures to create an atmosphere of respect. If the interests of interlocutors coincide, national differences cannot significantly affect the conduct of cases, except for conflict situations. Thus, the knowledge of national mentality, the perception of cultural traditions will help make cross-cultural communication effective.
Intercultural communication trainings should include verbal and non-verbal studies. For example, the study of various aspects of time, such as punctuality and attitude to the duration of the establishment of business relations, is quite important for business communication. Moreover, speakers should be ready for possible language barriers, for example, the peculiarities of the pronunciation of individual words in various language variants or understanding the differences in the use of terms. In addition, studying the body language during communication, which indicates the emotional state of collocutors, can be rather useful for a successful communication.
Language is a rather serious barrier in cross-cultural communication for the representatives of different ethnic cultures. For a successful intercultural communication in the conversations with business partners, it is necessary not to use slang expressions, idioms, and colloquialisms since using such an informal language often causes misunderstanding. In a formal situation, slang is an indicator of the status and educational qualification of a person. In order to eliminate all kinds of confusion in cross-cultural contacts, one must speak slowly and clearly formulate their thoughts, avoid incomprehensible expressions, repeat key points in different formulations, avoid using long sentences, and listen carefully to their interlocutor.
It is extremely important in cross-cultural communication to overcome stereotypes. Thomson believes that ‘stereotypes limit our understanding of human behavior and intercultural discourse because they limit our view of human activity to just one or two salient dimensions and consider those to be the whole picture’. However, even if communicators are aware of cross-cultural differences, they may fail at a successful conversation with their foreign collocutors. Such a failure might occur because their awareness is some kind of a stereotype.
In addition to the influence of the peculiarities of national culture on the communication process, a collocutor’s personality is an important factor. Each individual realizes themselves in their own way as a representative of a particular culture. Such characteristics as education, family and region, contiguity with other territories, corporate culture, religion, profession, social class, gender, race, and age influence this perception. The importance of these characteristics will vary depending on the national culture, situation, and connections of a single person. A speaker can switch cultural attitudes depending on whether they are at work, or they spend time with their family or attend meetings. Therefore, it is quite important not to make too many assumptions about a person who represents a different culture.
Consequently, a cross-cultural dialogue can promote the development of interethnic and intercultural relations. The achievement of intercultural understanding and, as a result, effective cross-cultural communication is an ideal model that every person should seek in the desire to adapt to the surrounding world in the best way possible.
