Intercultural Communication
Let us define intercultural communication as the symbolic exchange process whereby individuals from two (or more) different cultural communities attempt to negotiate shared meanings in an interactive situation within an embedded social system. Symbolic exchange is the use of verbal and nonverbal symbols between at least two people to accomplish shared meanings. Process is the interdependent nature of the intercultural encounter. The cultural community is a large group of people within a bounded unit that uphold a shared set of traditions and way of life. To negotiate shared meanings is the goal of any intercultural communication interaction.
Successful intercultural communicators are flexible. This flexibility emphasizes the importance of integrating knowledge and open mindedness in everyday communication. When we are inflexible, we stress the continuation of using our own cultural values, judgments, and routines even when communicating with culturally different others. There are three essential components of flexible intercultural communication. These are knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Knowledge is the systematic, conscious learning of essential concepts in intercultural communication flexibility. This conscious learning can be through formal studying and informal immersion experiences. Attitude is our mental approach to something. In developing intercultural openness, we intentionally try to see the world through a different set of lenses. A flexible intercultural attitude is to engage in ethnorelative thinking as opposed to ethnocentric thinking in efforts to understand someone else's behavior from his or her cultural perspective. In an ethnorelative perspective, we suspend our hasty cultural judgments. Skills refer to our ability to integrate knowledge and responsive attitude in our intercultural practice.
There are three criteria of flexible intercultural communication. These are appropriateness, effectiveness, and adaptability. Appropriateness is the degree to which behaviors are considered proper and match the expectations of the members of the culture. Effectiveness is the degree to which people achieve mutually shared meaning. In other words, is your message getting across in the way that you intend? Adaptability is our ability to alter our interactive behaviors and goals to meet the specific needs of the situation. It implies flexibility and the willingness to modify our own behaviors and goals so we can adapt to the situation.
This is the foundational synopsis of what we mean when we talk about intercultural communication. The following lessons will explore these and additional areas in detail.
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