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CHAPTER 02
Communication and Culture:
The Voice and the Echo
OVERVIEW
Chapter Two extends the discussion of intercultural communication by expanding on the
concepts of communication and culture. The components and characteristics of communication
are outlined, as are its uses and definition. A definition of culture is presented along with its
functions, elements, and characteristics.
OUTLINE
I. The uses of communication
A. Communication and identity
B. Communication and person perception
C. Communication and interpersonal needs
D. Communication and persuasion
II. Defining communication
III. The components of communication
A. Source
B. Encoding
C. Messages
D. Channel
E. Receiver
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F. Decoding
G. Feedback
H. Noise
IV. Characteristics of communication
A. Communication is a dynamic process
B. Communication is symbolic
C. Communication is contextual
1. Location
2. Occasion
3. Time
4. Number of participants
D. Most communication behavior is learned
E. Communication has a consequence
IV. Culture
A. Culture is shared
B. Culture defined
C. The functions of culture
D. The elements of culture
1. Religion
2. History
3. Values
4. Social organizations
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5. Language
E. Characteristics of culture
1. Culture is learned
a. Learning culture through proverbs
b. Learning culture through folktales, legends, and myths
c. Learning culture through art
d. Learning culture through mass media
2. Culture is transmitted from generation to generation
3. Culture is based on symbols
4. Culture is dynamic
5. Culture is an integrated system
V. Summary
ACTIVITIES
Activity 2-1: The why of human behavior
The beauty of having so many different cultures in the world is the wide spectrum of lifestyles
and ways of speaking that can add variety to our own lives. While such cultural variation can
make life more interesting and exciting, it can also cause difficulty when we are trying to make
sense of how another person is behaving or communicating. We may not understand why
someone is diverting his eyes away from us as we converse, or why another person is standing
closer than is comfortable for us. Answering the “why” of human behavior can be very
challenging during intercultural interactions. Our unfamiliarity with another’s culture may lead
us to answers that are not always satisfactory, accurate, or honest.
This activity asks students to identify unfamiliar behavior or ways of communicating that they
have found confusing. First, ask students to identify five behaviors that culturally different
individuals perform and that students have found confusing or that they were not able to explain.
Second, have students identify five behaviors that they themselves enact that others who do not
share their cultural background or experiences might find confusing. Finally, engage students in
a discussion using some of the questions listed below. These questions focus on how instances of
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miscommunication and misunderstanding can result in strained interpersonal relationships and
how we can come to better understand others through interpersonal interaction.
• What happened when you saw this behavior?
• Where did it occur?
• How did you interpret the behavior at the time and how do you interpret it now?
• What effect did your unfamiliarity have on the interaction?
• What were your perceptions of the person engaging in the specific behavior?
• How could you have alleviated the confusion surrounding the unfamiliar
behavior?
• How might unfamiliarity with and confusion about another person’s way of
communicating hinder the development of interpersonal relationships?
• How can we familiarize ourselves with unfamiliar cultural ways of behaving and
communicating?
Activity 2-2: Then and now
This activity illustrates the changing nature of a society. Divide the class into groups of 4-5
students. Have each group generate a list of objects, ideas, products, slogans, norms, and values
that they or their parents encountered in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Have each group then generate
a similar list for the 1980s and 1990s. Ask students to draw parallels between the two lists: What
has changed? What is no longer evident in today’s society? Why have these changes occurred?
How have these changes impacted people’s lives? Students should discuss how these changes
have affected relations between people from different ethnic, sexual orientation, gender,
religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Ask students to make some predictions about the first
decade of the 21st century: What’s ahead for U.S. culture? An open classroom discussion can
follow with each group reporting its results to the class. The instructor or another student should
use the chalkboard to record all of the answers.
Activity 2-3: Women and men in the workplace
This activity asks students to analyze a case study that illustrates the changing attitudes toward
women that have taken place in the U.S. Divide students into groups of four to five, have them
read the case study and answer the questions that follow. A large class discussion should follow
with different interpretations of the case study recorded on the chalkboard.
Bill is a man in his late fifties and the founder of a two-person investment company. He has run
this company for twenty years and is well respected in the field. Helen has been Bill’s secretary
for the last ten years, and the two get along very well. Helen is also in her early fifties and began
working outside of the home after her last child finished high school. Bill often refers to Helen as
“dear” and his “catch–all girl,” since the small size of the company necessitates Helen doing a
wide variety of tasks. For example, Helen is expected to make Bill’s coffee in the morning and
run personal errands for him during office hours. Helen enjoys doing these things and considers
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them part of close working relationships within a small company. She looks forward to working
with Bill for many years.
While Helen was out sick for two weeks, the temporary employment service sent another woman
to fill in for her. Margaret is in her mid-twenties and very career-oriented. Shortly after starting,
she told Bill that she did not like the title of “secretary” and preferred “administrative assistant”
instead. The first time Bill referred to her as a girl, Margaret promptly corrected him by saying
she was certainly old enough to qualify as a woman. She also politely refused to make the
morning coffee, explaining that her job title did not call for her to be a waitress. Bill was
becoming increasingly annoyed by Margaret’s behavior. After she refused to run a personal
errand for him during office hours, the two agreed that the working arrangement was not
working for anyone. Bill then called the temporary service and asked for someone who was not
as “difficult to work with.” Margaret, in turn, asked for someone who was not “such a
chauvinist.”
Possible discussion questions following the exercise:
• How would you describe Bill, Helen, and Margaret?
• How are Helen and Margaret different in their attitudes towards the treatment of
women in the workplace?
• What might account for these differences?
• Why do you think Bill became frustrated with Margaret’s behavior? Why did
Margaret become frustrated with Bill’s behavior?
• Do you think anyone acted or reacted inappropriately? Do you think anyone acted
or reacted appropriately?
• What changes in women’s roles, language, and the workplace can you identify
from this case study?
• Can you think of other ways in which attitudes toward and of women have
changed in our society?
Activity 2-4: Generation interviews
This activity illustrates how different generations perceive the world and what changes have
taken place from generation to generation. Students should interview two people from different
generations; these people may be family members, friends, acquaintances, teachers, bosses, and
so forth. The interview questions should concentrate on the people’s values, beliefs, aspirations,
perceptions of the world, and attitudes toward other generations and cultures.
Possible interview questions:
• What is important to you? What is valuable in your life?
• How would you define success? What are the characteristics of a successful
person?
• What is your opinion of U.S. society today? Of young people today? Of older
people today?
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• How would you describe the relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the
world?
• Have changes taken place in the U.S. and/or around the world that you are
satisfied with or that frustrate or anger you?
• What changes would you like to see take place in the next decade?
• What is your perception of the status and treatment of women? The disabled?
People of color? Religious minorities?
• What is your perception of the status of dominant white culture in the U.S.?
• How would you describe relations between culturally different groups (including
such co-cultures as women, the disabled, African Americans, etc.) in the U.S.?
Have they improved or worsened?
• Have students report their findings to the class or in small groups. In a large class
discussion or in groups, ask the students to draw conclusions from the answers.
Potential discussion questions include:
• What are the differences between the two generations?
• What might account for these differences? That is, what changes or events in U.S.
society might explain these different generational perceptions?
• How do you account for any differences between the two generations with regard
to perceptions about intercultural relations?
• What might account for any frustration that might be felt regarding changes in the
U.S. and abroad?
Activity 2-5: Intercultural assessment tool
This activity allows instructors to gain valuable insights and information about their students’
prior knowledge of intercultural communication issues. Before the class begins, design a brief
assessment tool with questions regarding their prior knowledge of intercultural communication,
their expectation of a course called intercultural communication and what they have been taught
about communicating with strangers. Make the assessment anonymous and limit it to five
questions in order to encourage participation by all students. During the first week of class have
students complete the assessment. Once the instructor has had an opportunity to study the
answers, arrange a class discussion centered around one of the questions, such as communicating
with strangers. This type of assessment can be repeated many more times during the semester as
a way of gauging students’ progress in intercultural awareness. It also provides the opportunity
to discover uncomfortable or difficult issues with which students may be struggling.
Possible questions for the assessment:
• How would you define intercultural communication?
• What would you expect to be taught in a course with such a title?
• Do you know anyone from another culture?
• How comfortable are you in communicating with strangers?
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Activity 2-6: How others perceive us
This activity raises students’ awareness of how others might perceive them in an intercultural
setting and how closely those perceptions match students’ own perceptions of their cultural and
personal characteristics. On the day of the exercise, have students answer the following two
questions individually. Impress upon them that they are to imagine, as much as possible, how
others from specific countries or cultures would perceive them, not how they perceive
themselves. It might be helpful for students to imagine an intercultural encounter they have
previously experienced.
1. List ten cultural predictions that you think others would use to describe you in an
intercultural interaction.
2. List ten individual predictions that you think others would use to describe you in
an intercultural interaction.
Possible discussion questions following the exercise:
• What information might people use to make their cultural and individual
predictions?
• How accurate would their impressions of you be if these were the only
predictions they could make about you? What errors would they make?
• Do you think that their impression is the “real” you?
• How similar are their cultural and individual predictions? How different
are they? Where are the contradictions?
• In what situations do you think it would be useful to make strictly cultural
predictions? Only individual predictions? When are both most useful?
• Should people only assess others based on perceived individual
characteristics?
Activity 2-7: Comparing cultures
This activity asks students to gather information on their own culture and a different culture and
then to compare and contrast the communicative characteristics of the two cultures. Students will
not only learn about the communicative characteristics of their own culture and those of another
culture, but also discover the difficulty in doing cross-cultural comparative research. The
exercise is divided into two parts and can be used in class or out of class.
Separate the class into groups of four to six students. Duplicate the “Cultural Comparison”
handout that follows the explanation of this activity and give each student a copy of the form.
Ask students to discuss to what extent U.S. culture (the dominant culture or a U.S. co-culture)
contains each of the listed communicative characteristics (i.e. talkative, shallow, warm, etc.).
Careful thought should go into each response. Ask students to also come up with examples that
illustrate their answers. The first part of this exercise will probably take most of the class period.
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Before the class ends, ask each group to choose another country to use as a cultural comparison.
It would be helpful if the chosen countries were represented by international students on the
university’s campus and if the instructor had a list of countries represented on campus. Ask each
group to find at least three individuals from the country the group has chosen. “From” means that
these individuals identify the comparison country as their native country. The three participants
may be students, friends, acquaintances, family members, or even strangers, but they should be
kept anonymous so that participants feel comfortable being honest in their responses.
Each participant should complete the cultural comparison form without a member of the group
explaining the meanings of the words: To do so would be to potentially bias the answers with
U.S. interpretations of the characteristics. Using the completed forms, an average for each
communicative characteristic should be computed and recorded on a master form. A “master”
form listing averages for each characteristic for both the U.S. and the selected comparison
culture should then be completed.
Allow each group adequate time to present their findings to the class. Each group should also
supply the class with a copy of their comparative findings.
Possible discussion questions following the exercise:
• How does the U.S. culture compare communicatively to other Western cultures?
To African, South American, or Asian cultures?
• How do you think these characteristics developed in both cultures?
• What are the similarities and the differences? What might account for such
disparities between the two cultures?
• How accurate do you think this data is? Did your group encounter any problems
while gathering the data?
• Are cultural comparisons fair to make? What problems with interpretation might
arise during a cultural comparison?
• Can a true and realistic comparison ever be made between two very different
cultures?
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Comparing cultures activity sheet*
Comparing Cultures
Focus Culture:
Not a Strong
Communicative Cultural Cultural
Characteristics Trait Trait
FORMAL 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
INDEPENDENT 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
TALKATIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
CLOSE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SHALLOW 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SERIOUS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
DEPENDENT 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
CALCULATING 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
TENSE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
RESERVED 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
FRANK 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
TRUSTING 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
COMPETITIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
MASCULINE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SPONTANEOUS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
OPEN 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
AGGRESSIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
RELAXED 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
EVASIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SILENT 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SELF-ASSERTIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
INFORMAL 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
DISTANT 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SUSPICIOUS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
PASSIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
CAUTIOUS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
INDIFFERENT 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
COOPERATIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
FEMININE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
RESPONSIVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
HUMOROUS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
* Adapted from Barnlund, D. C. (1975). Public and private self in Japan and the United
States:Communication styles of two cultures. Tokyo: The Simul Press, Inc.
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Activity 2-8: Culture class*
This activity asks students to identify cultural elements and characteristics in two case studies
depicting intercultural situations. Students will learn what culture entails and how culture
manifests itself in interaction. Divide the class into groups of four to six students. Have students
read the following case studies and answer the questions that follow. A large class discussion
may follow with each group reporting their findings to the class. Different answers may arise,
and groups should be prepared to support their answers with data from the case studies.
Adapted from Language and Intercultural Research Center. (1977). Building bridges with the
French speaking peoples in Europe. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press.
Case #1
Mr. Williams was assigned indefinitely to his company’s Paris branch, and he wanted to
establish some social relationships with his fellow employees. He had been in France only a few
days when he was asked to attend a meeting in the outer office. As Mr. Baudin entered and sat
beside him, Williams politely introduced himself and they shook hands. After exchanging some
pleasantries about the weather, Williams told Baudin how thrilled he and his family were to be in
Paris. He casually asked how many children Baudin had. Baudin replied that he had two sons.
However, Williams noted that when he asked further about Baudin’s family, the Frenchman
seemed offended. The conversation ended abruptly with Williams thoroughly confused.
• Identify what you believe are the specific U.S. cultural characteristics illustrated
in this scenario.
• Identify what you believe are the specific French cultural characteristics.
• How might Mr. Baudin characterize U.S. culture if this were the only interaction
he had experienced with someone from the U.S.?
• How might Mr. Williams characterize French culture if this were the only
interaction he had experienced with someone from France?
Case #2
Laura is a new secondary school teacher from the U.S. teaching in a small, rural Kenyan
community. Along with Laura, the school has a staff of eighth Kenyan teachers. Beatrice is the
only other woman on the staff, and the two have become fast friends. Nevertheless, after each
long day Laura looks forward to going home and spending time alone reading or writing letters.
Laura’s route home passes right where Beatrice lives, and Beatrice frequently invites Laura in
for tea each time she spots her walking along the dirt path. On a few occasions, Laura has
accepted and stayed for two hours. Laura felt as though she should stay for a long visit although
Beatrice never insisted that she stay. Laura has never been sure about how to tell Beatrice that
she could only stay for a short while, as she wished to hurry home and have the rest of the day to
herself. As a result, Laura has begun to decline Beatrice’s continual invitations. She now simply
waves and says, “Tutaonana kesho!” (“See you tomorrow!”) as she hurries home.
Beatrice has continued to invite Laura for tea because she feels that is the polite thing to do. But
because Laura always declines now, she has begun to feel as though Laura no longer wants to
visit her home.
• Identify what you believe are the specific U.S. characteristics illustrated in this
scenario.
• Identify what you believe are the specific Kenyan cultural characteristics.
• How might Beatrice characterize U.S. culture if this were the only interaction she
had experienced with someone from the U.S.?
• How might Laura characterize Kenyan culture if this were the only interaction she
had experienced with someone from Kenya?
• Using your list of Kenyan and U.S. cultural characteristics, list the ingredients of
culture that you have identified.
• What misunderstandings between Laura and Beatrice are taking place?
* Adapted from Language and Intercultural Research Center. (1977). Building bridges with the
French speaking peoples in Europe. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press.
Activity 2-9: The value of proverbs
This activity illustrates the values that are taught through cultural proverbs. Students are asked to
generate a list of proverbs from their own cultures, identify the values being taught, and
determine the extent to which the values are held and acted out in their culture. Divide the class
into groups of four to six students and have each group generate a list of cultural proverbs. At
least one value should be identified in each proverb. There may be more than one list generated
in each group if the groups are culturally diverse. If you have international students in your class,
the proverbs from their cultures will add a unique dimension to the discussion. Some examples
of proverbs and their corresponding values are on the next page. Have each group read its list(s)
of proverbs and identify the values being taught.
Possible discussion questions following the exercise:
• Where do we learn these proverbs? Can you remember where and when you
learned these proverbs?
• How else are these values taught?
• What proverbs from other cultures reveal value orientations?