Intercultural Communication

The dramatic increase in intercultural communication in the past three or four decades has come about primarily through rapid increases in technology world communication networks now span the globe. A network of telecommu­nications, including television, telephone, radio, and the news wire services, allows us to communicate across great distances. A network of transportation, especially of air travel, makes travel across great distances feasible" (Harms, 1973, p. 10).

Even in ancient time, long-distance communication existed, "linking whole empires, but its use was confined to military, diplomatic, and governmental pur­poses, by generals, governors, emperors, and other privileged elite" (Cherry, 1971, pp. 29-30). Only in very recent years have long-distance communication and travel become relatively available to the general public. Today, man}- people regularly travel hundreds, even thousands of miles, to negotiate business arrangements. Advertisements in popular magazines coax us to "reach out and touch someone" across the country or on the other side of the world. Tourism, once a rare pleasure even for the very rich, has brought many Americans to countries would once have only read about, and European and Asian tourist groups have become a common sight in many big American cities.

When war or natural disaster occurs in remote parts of the world, we not only hear about it within hours, we often see the scene of the disaster and hear a firsthand report from a correspondent—or even the victims—on the evening news. Some theorists believe that the Vietnam War became the most unpopular war in American history largely because, for the first time, civilians at home could see the effects of war: the devastation of villages and the piles of bodies. Sometimes the television correspondents were reporting as bullets whizzed by them.

Although modern means of travel and communication have brought us into contact with virtually the whole world, the technical capacity to transmit and receive messages is not, in itself, enough to allow people who have vastly different cultures to communicate with one another. The dramatic improvements in the technolog­ical means of communication have in many instances outstripped our abilities to communicate effectively with people who have different languages, different beliefs and values, and different expectations of relationships. Repeatedly, interaction between people of different cultures has created far more misunderstanding than understanding.

Of the many principles used by theorists to describe the communication process, several clearly apply to intercultural exchanges. The first is a shared code system, which of course will have two aspects—verbal and nonverbal. Sarbaugh (1979) argues that without such a shared system communication will be impossible. There will be degrees of difference, but the less a code system is shared, the less communication is possible. For example, among American Indians from the Southwest, direct eye contact is considered disrespectful. An Indian child who has an Anglo teacher shares a common language with that teacher, a verbal code system, which will certainly facilitate a great deal of communication, yet that teacher might not understand-the: child's -nonverbal- code. Thusian -averred gaze might well be interpreted as a sign of disrespect

As we saw in Chapter 5, one aspect of a shared code system seems to be rhythmic synchrony, which contributes to the smooth flow of conversation and ultimately to understanding. But when speaker and listener have different language backgrounds or are members of different cultures, even their expectations or norms for speech rhythms may be vastly different. Sociolinguistic John Gumperz explains how social rhythms can contribute to misunderstandings: "While you're trying to figure out what the person is saying, you delay your response.... So the other person says something else. You fall further and further behind. It's as if you hesitate during a ballroom dance—you get completely out of sync and the dance falls apart" (cited in Douglis, 1987, pp. 39, 42).

Second, different beliefs and behaviors between communicators establish the basis for different assumptions from which to respond. In fact, our own beliefs and behaviors influence our perceptions of what other people do. Thus two people of different cultures can easily attribute different meanings to the same behavior. If this happens, the two behave differently with neither being able to predict the other's response. Yet as we saw in Chapter 7, predictions are an integral part of being able to communicate effectively. Writing of his trip to East Africa, American essayist Edward Hoagland described how Gabriel, who was from the Sudan, served him a drink:

Gabriel explained that it was his duty as a host to make me want to share with him whatever he had. I suggested that it was foolish for us to argue about the nature of hospitality in our two countries.... This sufficed for a while, but because I was not drinking my share of the sherry he became agitated again that I was not participating in the ritual of being his guest. I didn't know whether the way he knitted his forehead was from a host's unease, from empathy with my discomfort with ... [my] headache, or from real twinges of a kind of pain of his own. (1979, p. 213)

A third principle discussed by Sarbaugh that has important implications for intercultural communication is the level of knowing and accepting the beliefs and behaviors of others. Notice that there are two components: knowledge and acceptance. It isn't so much the catalogue of differences—that is, the knowledge of such differences—that creates a problem. It's also the level of your acceptance. For example, writing about a tribe of African hunters called the Ik, anthropologist Colin Turnbull tried to come to terms with his own feelings of repulsion. The Ik, he knew, were uprooted hunters and the violent way they now lived—stealing each other's food, killing, and so on—could be explained by the fact that their entire society had been uprooted. Turnbull knew a great deal about the beliefs and behaviors of the Ik, but he could not accept the people of that culture. As an anthropologist, however, he still brings to his perceptions a certain objectivity— simply in declaring his responses.

The degree to which we judge a culture by our own cultural values and refuse to consider other cultural norms will determine how likely-: it-is that, .effective communication takes place. At one extreme, we have participants in a transaction who both know and accept the beliefs and behaviors of others; at the other, we have those who neither know nor accept. And in this instance the probability of a breakdown in communication is extremely high (Sarbaugh, 1979)

Adopting a shared code system, acknowledging differences in beliefs and behaviors, and learning to be tolerant of the beliefs and behaviors of others all contribute to effective communication. These principles are evident in one pho­tographer's description of how she learned to conduct business in Japan, where, she writes,

I have found it most effective to have a bilingual Japanese person make calls for me, and to have that person go with me to appointments.

The Japanese are more accustomed to meeting in committee than one-on-one, and I have learned not to be surprised if my interpreter and hosts talk for 10 or 15 minutes without consulting me. These conversations often sound like a lot of light banter, and at first I found myself growing impatient. "Will they ever get down to business?" I would ask myself, tapping my toe and sipping the inevitable cup of coffee or green tea.

I now know not to interrupt, and not to demand interpretations. The interpretations do come in time, very likely after the meeting! Meanwhile, my interpreter and my hosts are establishing their positions in society relative to one another, and they are watching my demeanor throughout this process. (Katchian, 1985, p. 8)

Verbal Messages

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 536