CHAPTER 12 Striving For Engaged And Effective Intercultural Communication
CHAPTER 12
STRIVING FOR ENGAGED AND EFFECTIVE INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. Why is linguistic knowledge important to intercultural communication competence?
a. It helps identify nonverbal behaviors that occur in various contexts.
b. It increases one’s empathy for culturally different individuals.
c. It increases one’s sensitivity to ethical dilemmas.
d. It helps one understand how competent behaviors vary from culture to culture.
2. The quality of knowing how one is perceived as a communicator as well as one‘s strengths and
weaknesses is called:
a. motivation.
b. self-knowledge.
c. empathy.
d. transpection.
3. When a person realizes that he or she is not experiencing success in intercultural interactions,
but is not sure why, it is a case of:
a. conscious incompetence.
b. unconscious competence.
c. conscious competence.
d. unconscious incompetence.
4. If Jurgen, from Germany, is communicating with his friend Koji from Japan and accidentally
offends Koji, who never tells him, what approach may Jurgen have been using to communicate?
a. unconscious competence
b. conscious competence
c. unconscious incompetence
d. conscious incompetence
5. How can the practice of dialogue help someone become a better intercultural communicator?
a. True dialogue reflects feelings of mutual equality and supportiveness that helps us really hear
the voices of those who come from other cultures.
b. Dialogue is similar to daily conversation, but it requires us to investigate the cultural
background of the other interactants before we speak.
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c. True dialogue can only take place when we focus on understanding people from other cultures,
rather than on knowing our assumptions and social locations.
d. Dialogue helps us show respect and supportiveness, but its drawback is that we cannot hear
the voices of those who are shy or quiet.
6. In an intercultural context, empathy refers to:
a. being able to judge others according to our own frame of reference.
b. the capacity to imagine oneself in another role within a different cultural context.
c. the ability to make correct interpretations of another’s behavior.
d. being conscious of one’s own intercultural behavior.
7. Which of the following is the most important dimension of intercultural competence?
a. knowledge
b. attitudes
c. skills
d. motivation
8. Linguistic knowledge leads to higher intercultural competence because:
a. it is the first step everyone needs to take to learn about intercultural communication.
b. we cannot communicate with people from different cultures if the interaction is not conducted
in their first language.
c. knowing the difficulty of learning a second language helps us develop empathy for individuals
who face challenges in new cultural contexts.
d. fluency in a foreign language increases tolerance for ambiguity.
9. The D.I.E. exercise is helpful in understanding intercultural dynamics because:
a. confusing the different levels of processing information can lead to misunderstanding and
ineffective communication.
b. evaluation is the most important method of understanding intercultural processes.
c. people should always stay at the descriptive level while interacting with someone who is
culturally different.
d. people should never make negative evaluations of intercultural processes.
10. Which of the following is true about the role of motivation in intercultural communication?
a. Most of the time, the communicators’ skill levels are more significant than motivation in
intercultural communication.
b. Historical and political contexts may influence a person’s motivation to communicate.
c. The amount of information a person has about another culture determines his or
her level of motivation to communicate.
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d. Motivation to communicate in intercultural contexts is more often found in women than in
men.
11. The ease in dealing with situations in which there is a great deal of unknown is called:
a. linguistic knowledge.
b. tolerance for ambiguity.
c. nonjudgmentalism.
d. empathy.
12. Cross-cultural empathy is called:
a. knowledge.
b. intercultural alliance.
c. transpection.
d. attitude.
13. Which is an example of an interpretive statement?
a. “You said you wanted to go to the library.”
b. “I am happy you have decided to come to our party.”
c. “I saw you in Professor Brown’s class at 3:30 this afternoon.”
d. “I think you are getting behind in your classes.”
14. If Nadini, who is from India, is really trying hard to communicate as appropriately and
effectively as possible with her American classmates, she is operating from which level of
competence?
a. unconscious competence
b. conscious competence
c. unconscious incompetence
d. conscious incompetence
15. The critical approach to intercultural communication competence reminds us that:
a. an individual cannot assume that people are always motivated to communicate.
b. good communicators need to think about how cultural variations influence the process of
communication.
c. an individuals’ competence must be viewed within larger political, economic, and historical
forces.
d. good communicators need to aggressively question existing social structures and take actions.
16. Which of the following characterizes intercultural alliances?
a. orientations of affirmation
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b. coalitions or equilateral power
c. criticisms of dominant power structures
d. gender and racial equality
17. The D.I.E. exercise helps us to determine if we are communicating in all of the following
ways EXCEPT:
a. educationally.
b. interpretively.
c. evaluatively.
d. descriptively.
18. The Japanese model of intercultural listening includes which of the following?
a. The speaker thinks carefully before delivering a message.
b. The speaker’s message is nonthreatening and may be open to multiple interpretations.
c. After intense consideration and reconsideration of possible interpretations, the listener
responds in a nonthreatening manner.
d. All of the answers are correct.
19. Which of the following is true about building coalitions?
a. It will not happen until people start to share secrets about their past.
b. It is generally quite easy once people sit down and talk to each other.
c. In the process, people may find that their own identities have become injured.
d. It is impossible to accomplish because people need to preserve their own cultural identities.
20. The textbook authors suggest that the most important knowledge a competent intercultural
communicator needs is:
a. self-knowledge.
b. linguistic knowledge.
c. other-knowledge.
a. micro-cultural knowledge.
21. Tolerance for ambiguity refers to:
a. the ability to withhold judgment until facts are obtained.
b. the ability to perceive the world from the perspective of another.
c. the ability to transcend one’s own identity.
d. the ability to feel comfortable in situations with many unknown elements.
22. Which of the following is true about forgiveness and intercultural relationships?
CHAPTER 12 Striving For Engaged And Effective Intercultural Communication
a. Forgiveness is an effective strategy to resolve intercultural conflicts because it requires people
to use knowledge to suppress their emotions.
b. Forgiveness has not been proven as an effective way to deal with intercultural conflicts.
c. Forgiveness can sometimes help reconcile intercultural problems because, after forgiving,
people will no longer be consumed by the wrongs that others have done to them.
d. Forgiveness is the easiest way for people to resolve problems in intercultural relationships.
23. According to communication scholar Mary Jane Collier, which of the following is a
characteristic of intercultural allies?
a. They recognize that people from both historically powerful and less powerful groups view
history in the same manner.
b. They recognize and try to understand how ethnic, gender, and class differences lead to power.
c. They are unable to appreciate differences and fear commitment to relationships.
d. They have a judgmental attitude that leads to misunderstandings and ineffective
communication.
24. White students engaging in much less racial interaction and friendship than students of color,
even at large, diverse universities, is an example of:
a. unconscious incompetence.
b. lack of a positive attitude.
c. lack of motivation.
d. conscious incompetence.
25. In the context of intercultural competence, critical scholars emphasize the:
a. role of behavior and skills.
b. development of a nonjudgmental attitude.
c. context in which communication occurs.
d. role of power differentials.
26. Which of the following best defines the term “cosmopolitan communication”?
a. It occurs when an interaction is going well, but one doesn’t have to think why, as the various
aspects of intercultural communication are being used unconsciously.
b. It is a notion of ethically working with and through cultural differences and power inequities
to achieve understanding and intercultural growth through critical self-transformation.
c. It is the desire to make a commitment in relationships, to learn about the self and others, and to
remain flexible.
d. It is the quality of knowing how one is perceived as a communicator as well as one’s strengths
and weaknesses.
CHAPTER 12 Striving For Engaged And Effective Intercultural Communication
SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS
For each type of statement below, select the letter that identifies an example of that type of
statement.
a. “I do not think that you really want to go downtown with me.”
b. “It is unreasonable that all of the stores shut down for two-hour lunch breaks.”
c. “Mario is yawning.“
27. evaluative
28. descriptive
29. interpretive
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
30. The best way to learn how to become a good intercultural communicator is to read as many
books as possible about different cultural groups.
31. The ability to “walk in another person’s shoes” is nonjudgmentalism.
32. Conscious competence occurs when a person is attitudinally and cognitively prepared but lets
go and uses holistic cognitive processing.
33. One of the best preparations for becoming competent intercultural communicators is to
develop our abilities to think using narrow categories.
34. A competitive framework suggests that for one person to gain something, another person
must lose something.
35. Intercultural alliances are generally formed by oppressed cultural groups in order to take
power away from dominant cultural groups.
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36. When the cultural divide is too huge, forgiveness can be an effective way to promote
intercultural reconciliation.
37. Motivation is the most important dimension of communication competence because if
someone is not motivated to communicate, skill level is not important.
38. Identities of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, etc., remain relatively constant in
all contexts.
39. After taking an intercultural communication course, students can reach the level of
unconscious competence very quickly.
40. Forming coalitions can be emotionally injuring.
41. Linguistic knowledge is the most important component of intercultural communication
competence.
42. Conscious competence is the level of intercultural communication competence at which
communication goes smoothly but is an unconscious process.
43. An interpretive perspective reminds one that a good communicator is sensitive to the various
contexts in which intercultural communication occurs.
44. The D.I.E exercise is a device that helps one determine if he or she is communicating at a
descriptive, interpretive, or evaluative level.
ESSAY QUESTIONS
45. Describe some important reasons why competent intercultural communicators should be self-
reflexive.
46. Discuss why it is problematic to identify universal behaviors that work well in all cultural
contexts.
47. Identify and explain the four levels of intercultural competence.
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48. Discuss the components of intercultural competence.
49. What needs to occur in order for people to be able to form intercultural alliances?
50. Discuss how empathy/transpection impacts intercultural communication.
51. Why is it important to learn the D.I.E. skills to increase one’s level of intercultural
communication competence?