CHAPTER 11
The Challenges of Intercultural
Communication: Managing
Differences
OVERVIEW
Chapter Eleven, the final chapter in the text, explores the influences that influence
communication: The cultural impact on context in intercultural communication. The authors
begin the chpater by explaining the assumptions of context, how context is assessed, and the role
it plays in intercultural communication. Using the contexts of business, education, and
healthcare, cultures are compared and contrasted in an effort to promote awareness and
understanding of cultural differences.
OUTLINE
I.Intercultural communication in a dynamic world
II. Entering another culture
A.Culture shock and its impact
B. The process of acculturation
C. Managing culture shock and enhancing acculturation
1.Learn about the host culture
2. Learn about the language of the host culture
3. Guard against ethnocentrism
4. Stay connected to your own culture
D. Obstacles to effective intercultural communication
E. Tendencies to seek similarities
F. Managing uncertainty
G. Withdrawal
H. Stereotyping
1. Stereotyping defined
2. Acquiring stereotypes
3. Stereotypes and intercultural communication
4. Avoiding stereotypes
I. Prejudice
1. Functions of prejudice
2. Causes of prejudice
3. Expressions of prejudice
4. Avoiding prejudice
J. Racism
1. Racism defined
2. Categories of racism
3. Countering racism
K. Power
1. Power defined
2. Power in intercultural communication
III.Ethical considerations
A.Ethics in communication
1. Relativism
2. Universalism
B. Guidelines for intercultural ethics
1. Be aware that communication produces a response
2. Respect others
3. Seek commonalities
4. Recognize and respect cultural differences
5. Be selfresponsible
IV. A final appeal
V.Summary
ACTIVITIES
Activity 11-1: What rules, then, can one follow if one is dedicated to the truth?*
This activity is designed to assist students in the process of developing personal and professional
ethics as they become more adept and competent at communicating with individuals with
different cultural backgrounds. Consider the following arbitrary rules of interaction:
• Fifth, the assessment of another’s needs is an act of responsibility, which is so complex
that it can only be executed wisely when one operates with genuine love for the other.
• Six, the primary factor in the assessment of another’s needs is the assessment of that
person’s capacity to utilize the truth for his or her own spiritual growth.
• Finally, in assessing the capacity of another to utilize the truth for spiritual growth, it
should be born in mind that our tendency is generally to underestimate rather than
overestimate this capacity.”
* Adapted from Peck, M. S. (1978). The road less traveled. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp.
62-63.
Activity 11–2: The intercultural file
This activity is designed to assist students in the process of becoming familiar with a culture that
is not their own.
Divide students into small groups of five to seven members at the beginning of the semester.
Assign them to study a culture different than their own through collecting newspaper articles,
magazine articles, and internet searches. Suggest that they choose four or five areas within the
culture to study such as politics, religion, education, family life, art, and/or music. Have them
assemble a file (in a three-inch notebook), to be presented in class at the end of the semester. The
file should also include a taped interview with a person from the culture they have studied. (This
should be a group interview with more than one person from the group in attendance). Students
might want to bring in traditional dress and food as they make their presentations to the class.
PART III
INTERNET RESOURCES
The Internet provides teachers and students with new opportunities to explore other cultures. It is
itself a place with much cultural diversity and offers teachers and students new resources to study
communication around the world. A search for intercultural resources on the Internet can easily be
done using any of the major search engines. This list of resources only highlights some of the more
interesting and useful kinds of web sites that you can use to help your students learn more about
intercultural communication. The internet has become so user-friendly that the most effective and
efficient way to find information on intercultural communication topics is to do an individual search
on a particular country, culture, religion, language, and so forth. There is one word of caution,
however, if you ask students to do research reports on various cultures. University students have
become so accustomed to using only the Web to access information for research that they forget
about other kinds of information that university libraries typically hold. Remind them of that ancient
form of communication called “the book.” Books are still the most plentiful source of information
available on other cultures.
• Intercultural Communication LOOP. According to this web site at
<http://www.fun.ac.jp/~davies/intercultural/icclwelcome.html >, the Intercultural
Communication LOOP is your connection to the best intercultural communication sites
on the Web. The only requirement to join this LOOP is that the site you submit be
related to intercultural communication. This is a multilingual LOOP, and all sites are
welcome. The Intercultural Communication LOOP works like this: each site is linked
to the next in a circular fashion. The user can navigate around the Intercultural
Communication LOOP until he or she finally ends up back at the beginning.
• University Websites. Students could learn a great deal about intercultural
communication by surveying university web sites in different countries. For
example, B’not Torah Institute at <http://www.bti.org.il/> for orthodox Jewish
women not only provides information on university programs, but also includes
essays written by members of the Institute. Such essays can provide valuable insight
into the values, beliefs, and ways of communicating in other countries and cultures.
A simple search of “Yahoo!” under “Education: Colleges and University” provides a
list of countries with university web sites.
• Newspapers and Periodicals On-line. Newspapers across the globe are increasingly
going on-line, giving easy access to anyone with a modem. Three particularly good
international newspaper directory sites are “Newspaper of the World on the Internet”
at <http://www.virtourist.com/newspapers/>, <http://www.actualidad.com/>, “250
Best On-line Newspapers” “Newspapers from Around the World” at
<http://www.nidhin.com/123world_newspapers.html>. For periodicals and books,
there are several web sites that provide a host of resources. Weber State’s
“Clearinghouse for Multicultural/Bilingual Education” web site at
<http://www.weber.edu/MBE/htmls/mbe.html#index> provides “educators, from pre–
kindergarten to higher education, with commercial and non-commercial sources for
multicultural and bilingual/ESL information.”
• Intercultural/Cross-Cultural Training Organizations. A large group of training
organizations can be accessed by doing a search using the term “intercultural
communication” on “Yahoo!” or “Excite.” For example, The Center For
International Briefing at <http://www.cibfarnham.com/> provides country-specific
briefings, intercultural workshops, and language training for international managers.
The Intercultural Management Institute at <http://www.imi.american.edu/> describes
services that include cross-cultural orientation and negotiations, multicultural
management, and U.S. business culture training. Consider asking students to do a
research project that includes surveying intercultural training and consulting
organizations and reporting on common practices and recent trends. Lastly, the
Young Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research (SIETAR) at
<http://www.InstantWeb.com/~ysietar/> has a web page that focuses specifically on
providing information to students and recent graduates interested in intercultural
events and experiences. One of the missions of Young SIETAR is to “try to connect
the professionals of today with the professionals of tomorrow.”
• International Chat Rooms. One way to provide students with more experiential
learning opportunities is to have them join a chat room focused on a particular
language, culture, or country. A “Google” search using the term “international chat
rooms” reaps several sites, including: “The Bistro,” an international site with 12
languages. You can find several additional international chat rooms at
<http://chatinternational.com/>. ” Do remind students that they should proceed with
caution as they enter and begin to converse in an on-line chat room. This kind of
intercultural communication does not have the benefit of face-to-face interaction, and
they should exercise good sense and discretion as they chat.
• Additional Intercultural Resources for instructors: Although these websites could
certainly be used by students, there are numerous sites that provide links to resources
on intercultural communication topics. For example, there are websites that provide
lists of resources such as: http://www.holocaust-trc.org/video_res.htm#0701 and
http://www.brandeis.edu/jewishfilm/ that offer a database of videos on prejudice and
stereotyping of Jews as well as a list of films in which the Jewish religion is portrayed.
Likewise, a website hosted by UC Berkeley
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/imagesarabs.html provides a comprehensive list of
films that have positive and negative portrayals of Arabs and the Middle East. Finally,
websites such as http://www.youtube.com and
http://www.mefeedia.com/tags/stereotyping/ offer a plethora of short media clips that
can highlight topics discussed in class.
• Biophysical Resources on Attractiveness and Beauty: Although not
necessarily overtly linked to cultural perceptions, two resources offer biophysical
insights into the concept of beauty. Using a proprietary facial aggregation
technique, http://www.faceresearch.org allows visitors to learn about the
technique and apply it. Mixing the facial features of people of different ages,
genders, races, etc, and averaging the characteristics produces faces that tend to
be rated as more attractive across cultures. A second biophysical approach,
explained in detail at http://www.beautyanalysis.com , attempts to explain to
perceptions of facial beauty through math and geometry. Although different
schools offer different variations on the ideal, the assumption is that attractiveness
in the face is independent of culture and can be defined mathematically.