Understanding Intercultural Communication

Whether working on a diverse team or emailing a client in another country, chances are you’re already engaging in intercultural communication. But what does that mean? And how is it different from organizational culture? This section explores the broader concept of culture, how it’s shaped, how it shapes us, and how it influences everything from our values to our sense of time. You’ll learn key terms such as ethnocentrism, intraculture, and intercultural communication, and we’ll delve into how culture is both patterned and negotiated. While organizational culture focuses on shared norms within a company, intercultural communication helps us navigate interactions between people from different cultural backgrounds, which is essential in today’s global and multicultural workplaces.

​You come to create, understand, and transform culture and identity through intercultural communication. Intercultural communication is communication between people with differing cultural identities. To foster greater self-awareness, it is recommended that you study intercultural communication (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Your thought process regarding culture is often “other-focused,” meaning that the culture of the other person or group is what stands out in your perception. However, the adage “know thyself” is apt, as you become more aware of your culture by gaining a deeper understanding of other cultures and perspectives. Intercultural communication enables you to step outside your comfortable, usual frame of reference and view your culture from a different perspective.

Additionally, as you become more self-aware, you may become more ethical communicators by challenging your ethnocentrism, or the tendency to view your own culture as superior to others. Ethnocentrism makes you far less likely to be able to bridge the gap with others and often increases intolerance of difference. Business and industry are no longer regional; you will cross borders, languages, and cultures in your career. You will need tolerance, understanding, patience, and an open mind to differences. A skilled business communicator understands that learning is an ongoing process, and being open to new ideas is a key strategy for success. Communication with yourself is called intrapersonal communication, which may also be intracultural, as you may only represent one culture. But most people belong to multiple groups, each with their own culture. Does a conversation with yourself ever involve competing goals, objectives, needs, wants, or values? How did you learn about those goals or values? Through communication within and between individuals, many cultures are represented. You may struggle with each group’s demands and expectations, and you could consider this internal struggle to be an intercultural conflict or simply an aspect of intercultural communication.

Culture is part of the very fabric of our thoughts, and you cannot separate yourself from it, even as you leave home and redefine yourself through work and achievements. Every business or organization has a culture; within what may be considered a global culture, there are many subcultures or co-cultures. For example, consider the difference between a corporation’s sales and accounting departments. You can see two distinct groups, each with its symbols, vocabulary, and values. There may also be smaller groups within each group, and each department member comes from a different background that influences behavior and interaction. Intercultural communication is a fascinating study area within business communication, and it is essential to your success. One idea to keep in mind as you examine this topic is the importance of considering multiple perspectives. If you tend to dismiss ideas or opinions that are “unlike culturally,” you will find it challenging to learn about diverse cultures. If you cannot know, how can you grow and be successful?

Multiculturalism refers to the existence of a diversity of cultures within one territory and a way of conceptualizing and managing cultural diversity. As a policy, multiculturalism seeks to promote and recognize cultural differences while addressing the inevitability of cultural tensions. Critics of multiculturalism identify four related problems:

• Multiculturalism only superficially accepts the equality of all cultures.
• Multiculturalism obliges minority individuals to assume the limited cultural identities of their ethnic group of origin, which leads to stereotyping.
• The ideal of multiculturalism isolates groups who do not integrate into existing societies.
• Multiculturalism is based on recognizing group rights, which can undermine constitutional protections of individual rights.

Olds College states, “Cross-cultural approaches typically go a bit deeper, the goal being to be more diplomatic or sensitive. They account for some interaction and recognition of difference through trade and cooperation, which builds some limited understanding—such as, for instance, bowing instead of shaking hands, or giving small but meaningful gifts. . . . Sadly, they are not always nuanced comparisons; a common drawback of cross-cultural comparisons is that we can wade into stereotyping and ethnocentric attitudes—judging other cultures by our cultural standards—if we aren’t mindful” (2020). Intercultural societies, on the other hand, demonstrate a profound understanding and respect for differences. Members of an intercultural society learn and grow from one another. Interactions within society are not based on tolerance, but on acceptance, and they lead to the mutual exchange of ideas and norms, fostering deeper relationships. For businesses to succeed in the global economy, developing intercultural relationships is essential for sustained growth and cooperation. This can be achieved through mindful intercultural communication, which will be discussed in the following section.

To summarize, intercultural communication is an integral aspect of all communicative interactions, and paying attention to your perspective is crucial to your effectiveness. Ethnocentrism is a significant obstacle to intercultural communication.

Understanding Intercultural Communication

The American anthropologist Edward T. Hall is often cited as a pioneer in intercultural communication (Chen & Starosta, 2000). Born in 1914, Hall spent much of his early adulthood in the multicultural setting of the American Southwest, where Native Americans, Spanish speakers, and descendants of pioneers from diverse cultural backgrounds came together. He traveled the globe during World War II and later served as a U.S. State Department official. Where anthropologists had once viewed culture as a single, distinct way of living, Hall saw how the individual’s perspective influences interaction. By focusing on interactions rather than cultures as separate from individuals, he asked people to evaluate the many cultures they belong to or are influenced by, as well as those with whom they interact. While his view makes the study of intercultural communication far more complex, it also brings a healthy dose of reality to the discussion. Hall is generally credited with eight contributions to the study of intercultural communication as follows:

1. Focus on the interactions: Avoid focusing on the generalities of culture; instead, focus on the interactions versus general observations.
   
2. Shift to a local perspective: A global perspective considerably widens the context within which interactions occur. Instead of focusing on a worldwide perspective, shift to a regional perspective to analyze understandable and manageable interactions.
3. Strive to understand local signs. Time, space, gestures, and gender roles can be studied, even if we don’t fully understand the culture.
4. Learn the rules: People create rules for themselves in each community that we can learn from, compare, and contrast.
5. Honor personal experience: Personal experience is valuable in addition to more comprehensive studies of interaction and culture.
6. Use linguistics as a model: Descriptive linguistics serves as a model for understanding cultures, and the U.S. Foreign Service adopted it as a basis for training.
7. Apply understanding to trade and commerce: Intercultural communication can be applied to international business. U.S. Foreign Service training led to applications in trade and commerce and became a point of study for business majors.
8. Recognize the interconnectivity of culture and communication: Culture and communication are deeply intertwined, bringing together many academic disciplines.
   (Chen & Starosta, 2000; Leeds-Hurwitz, 1990; McLean, 2005).

Hall indicated that emphasizing a whole culture and its operation might lead people to neglect individual differences. Individuals may hold beliefs or practice customs that differ from their cultural norms. When you resort to the mental shortcut of a stereotype, you lose these unique differences. Stereotypes can be generalizations about people that oversimplify their culture (Rogers & Steinfatt, 1999).

The American psychologist Gordon Allport examined how, when, and why people form or use stereotypes to categorize distinct groups. People tend to resort to stereotypes when they lack sufficient contact with individuals or their cultures, making it difficult for them to understand them (Allport, 1958).

As Hall notes, experience has value. If you are unfamiliar with a culture, it is best to learn more about it firsthand. The people you interact with may not be representative of the culture as a whole, but that is not to say that what you learn lacks validity. Quite the contrary; Hall asserts that you can know something without understanding everything, and given the dynamic nature of communication and culture, who is to say that your lessons will not serve you well? Consider a study abroad experience if that is an option for you, or learn from a classmate from a foreign country or an unfamiliar culture. Be open to new ideas and experiences, and start investigating. Many have gone before you, and today, unlike in past generations, much of the information is readily accessible. Your experiences will allow you to learn about another culture and yourself, and help you to avoid prejudice.

Prejudice involves a negative preconceived judgment or opinion that guides conduct or social behavior (McLean, 2005). For example, imagine two people entering a room for a job interview. You are tasked with interviewing both, and having read the previous section, you know that Allport (1958) is correct when he says we rely on stereotypes when encountering people or cultures with which we have had little contact. Will the candidates’ dress, age, or gender influence your opinion of them? Will their race or ethnicity be a conscious or subconscious factor in your thinking process? Allport’s work suggests that these factors, among others, will increase the likelihood of using stereotypes to guide your expectations of them and your subsequent interactions with them. People who treat others with prejudice often make assumptions, or take preconceived ideas for granted without question, about the group or community. As Allport illustrated, you typically assume characteristics about groups with which you have little contact. Sometimes, you also assume similarity, thinking that people are all basically the same. This denies cultural, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and many other valuable, insightful differences.

In summary, ethnocentric tendencies, stereotyping, and assumptions of similarity can make learning about cultural differences challenging.