Intercultural Communication

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1 Intercultural Communication Nonverbal Communication 2011 Winter Semester WingSie LI Exchange Student Studentno.: Dr. Peiming LU & Dr. Wensheng XU Associate Professor

2 1. INTRODUCTION Intercultural Communication is a large topic and it is very important for human beings with different cultures from different countries. In the words intercultural communication includes three words: intercultural, culture and communication. All the three words have a special meaning. I will introduce the basics of intercultural communication and especially the three words. Afterwards I will go on with communication such as nonverbal communication. You can communicate with words like speaking or even singing but also with your body. If you communicate with somebody your body is speaking a language as well. This includes your motions and also facial expression. There is no communication without your body language. The verbal and the nonverbal communication interact together and cannot seen independent. Why is intercultural communication so important nowadays? The globalization is not only happening in the economics but also in our relationships. Through internet we can meet a lot of people in the world and get to know them and their culture. Not only in personal affairs but also in business affairs are important to get to know the other culture, hence you will not want misunderstandings in both party. Different countries or rather different cultures have another interpretation of the meaning of your body. Mostly you can see differences between Western and Asian cultures. When a western man, e.g. from Germany is going to China, he has to prepare or has to be informed about the Chinese culture and as well as the behavior of Chinese. One example for nonverbal communication is Glance. Western men normally look into one eye to show respect and that he is paying attention. But in China it is completely different. It shows rudeness to look directly into the eyes of Chinese men. There are a lot of rules and guidelines in intercultural communication that is why everyone has to pay attention not to get misunderstanding. 2. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION Intercultural Communication has three different words and different meanings: culture, communication and intercultural. At first culture will be introduced. Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Cultures may be classified by three large categories of elements: Artifacts: arrowheads, hydrogen bombs, magic charms, antibiotics, torches, electric lights, chariots, jet planes, etc. Beliefs or value systems: right or wrong, God and man, ethics, general meaning of life. Behaviors: actual practices of concepts or beliefs. Culture has a sense of cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning. Behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept are generally 1

3 without thinking about them. These will pass along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. Communication is explained like a form of human behavior derived from a need to connect and interact with other human beings. It can be defined as that which happens whenever someone responds to the behavior or the residue of the behavior of another person. Communication has two sides: verbal and nonverbal communication. These two types of communication always interact with each other. There is nobody who just uses the verbal communication. Verbal communication is e.g. written or spoken language with a partner. Nonverbal communication can be such as gestures or postures. Particularly as much as 65% of human communication happened through nonverbal communication and during a face 93% of the human communication. When we speak and talk to each other our behavior may be conscious or unconscious. Other can see your body language and can analyze what someone is really intended about. We frequently behave unintentionally, or uncontrollably At least the meaning of intercultural will be explained. It refers to the communication between people from different cultures. It takes place when a message is produced by a member of one culture for understanding and response by a member of another culture. As cultural variations are many and great, the potential for misunderstanding and disagreement can likewise be serious and great. Intercultural communication entails the investigation of those elements of culture that most influence interaction when members of two different cultures come together in an interpersonal setting. Culture is communication, communication is culture. 3. NONVERBALCOMMUNICATION What is nonverbal communication? Nonverbal communication is the act of giving or exchanging information without using any spoken words. Basically it is sending and receiving messages in a variety of ways without the use of verbal codes (words). It is both intentional and unintentional. Most speakers / listeners are not conscious of this. Examples are such as Gestures, Facial expressions, Body language, Posture and Glances. This kind of communication cannot be consciously controllable all the time. Various messages can be sending and received simultaneously. One other aspect is that nonverbal communication can be more emotional than verbal communication. In a communication process between human beings there are five major functions which takes place. We repeat in a nonverbal way what you said orally, for instance to use your fingers to point at something. Between human beings we use Substitutions. Human beings substitute verbal messages thorough nonverbal ones, e.g. to clap the hand instead of saying awesome. Another function is Emphasis. In a communication we emphasize and enhance our verbal messages. Contradiction means that to give an opposite message to communication partner through contradicting nonverbal signs, e.g. describing a meal delicious with a disgusted facial expression. The last function called Regulation. Human beings show someone through nonverbal communication what he/she should do or not do, 2

4 for instance parents are often using eye contact to regulate their children in public. There are other functions how nonverbal communication works. Nonverbal communication is multidimensional. 3.1 Categories of Nonverbal Communications Personal Space: This category refers to the distance which people feel comfortable approaching others or having others approach them. People from certain countries, such as parts of Latin America or the Middle East often feel comfortable standing closer to each other, while persons of Northern European descent tend to prefer a relatively greater distance. However, if those others play the parts of parents, lovers, or children, explore which kinds of closeness feel appropriate. Different distances are also intuitively assigned for situations involving intimate relations, ordinary personal relationships, social relations (e.g., co-workers or salespeople), or in public places (e.g., in parks, restaurants, or on the street). Eye Contact: Eye contact modifies the meaning of other nonverbal behaviors. For example, people on elevators or crowds can adjust their sense of personal space if they agree to limit eye contact. What happens if this convention isn't followed? This issue of eye contact is another important aspect of nonverbal communication. Modern American business culture values a fair degree of eye contact in interpersonal relations, and looking away is sensed as avoidance or even deviousness. However, some cultures raise children to minimize eye contact, especially with authority figures, lest one be perceived as arrogant or "uppity." When cultures interact, this inhibition of gaze may be misinterpreted as "passive aggressive" or worse. Eye Contact also depends on the time and then eye contact can be said as glancing, gazing, and staring. One can keep contact for 2 seconds or 20 seconds. One can look away, and then look at the person every 5 seconds, holding that gaze as mentioned above for varying lengths of time; or perhaps look at the person only every minute or so. Position: The position one takes vis-a-vis the other, along with the previous two categories of distance between people and angle of eye contact all are subsumed under a more general category of "proxemics" in the writings on nonverbal communications. Posture belongs to body movements also known as kinesics. A person's bodily stance communicates a rich variety of messages. Consider the following postures and the emotional effect they seem to suggest: stiff, slumped, towering, and kneeling. Paralanguage: "Non-lexical" vocal communications may be considered a type of nonverbal communication, in its broadest sense, as it can suggest many emotional nuances. This category includes a number of sub-categories: Inflection (rising, falling, flat...) Pacing (rapid, slow, measured, changing...) Intensity (loud, soft, breathy...) Tone (nasal, operatic, growling, wheedling, whining...) 3

5 Pitch (high, medium, low, changes...) Pauses (meaningful, disorganized, shy, hesitant...) We should not underestimate the power of tone of voice. Another semi-linguistic element is dialect, and this can also be subtle and within the culture, suggesting class, age, sophistication, etc. There's also the problem of understand-ability, which applies not only to people from other cultures or nations, but also inter-generationally. Facial Expression: The face is more highly developed as an organ of expression in humans than any other animal. Some of these become quite habitual, almost fixed into the chronic muscular structure of the face. For instance, in some parts of the South, the regional pattern of holding the jaw tight creates a slight bulge in the temples due to an overgrowth or "hypertrophy" of those jaw muscles that arise in that area. This creates a characteristic appearance. The squint of people who live a lot in the sun is another example. More transient expressions often reveal feelings that a person is not intending to communicate or even aware of. Here are just a few to warm you up: sad, sleepy, amused, happy or angry. Gesture: There are many kinds of gestures: folding arms, smoothing hair, looking away, waving or hands on the hips. These have many different meanings in different cultures, and what may be friendly in one country or region can be an insult in another. Touch: How one person touches another communicates a great deal of information: Is a grip gentle or firm, and does one hold the other person on the back of the upper arm, on the shoulder, or in the middle of the back. Is the gesture a push or a tug? Is the touch closer to a pat, a rub, or a grabbing? People have different areas of personal intimacy, and this refers not only to the sexual dimension, but also the dimension of self-control. Many adolescents are particularly sensitive to any touching that could be interpreted as patronizing or undue familiarity. Even the angle of one's holding another's hand might suggest a hurrying or coercive implicit attitude, or on the other hand, a respectful, gentle, permission-giving approach. 3.2 Examples of Categories of nonverbal communication There are too many different cultures and different countries on the world. That is great and human beings can learn from another. I will give some examples of these categories of nonverbal communication from different cultures to have an overview of the variants interpretation. First of all I will explain the japans culture with the category posture Posture: Greeting In western country the greetings are mostly the same. When Western people or business men meet each other the first time, they will shake hands. But also when western people already know each other the first body movement is to shake hands. An important body movement in Asian culture especially in Japan is the bow. It is not only a sign for greeting but also sign to show respect. The bow signifies that culture s concern with status and rank. The angle of the bow is very important too. A low posture is an indicator of respect. The person who occupies the lower station begins the bow and his or her bow must 4

6 be deeper than the other person s. The superior determines when the bowing is to end. When the participants are as the same rank they begin the bow in the same manner and end at the same time. So these bow rules are very complicated but very important for Japanese. It is also important that foreign people and especially foreign business men get to know these rules. In Thailand there is also some kind of greeting s rules. But instead of bowing they will press both hands close together in front of one s body. This called wai Facial Expressions The meanings of facial expression are from country to country different. There are some universal facial expressions for which people have similar meaning. There are six facial expressions that are innate, universal and carry the same basic meaning throughout the world. These six pan cultural and universal facial expressions are happiness, sadness, fear, anger disgust and surprise. In Western countries the people there like to exaggerate signs of grief or sadness. This exaggeration is typical for Mediterranean cultures. For western countries it is quite normal that they show emotions to other persons. They do not hide emotions. The use more facial expressions and are more expressive, smile more and are more attracted to others who smile. But in Japan and as well in China they often hide their emotions. They need to save face. Especially in business meetings Japanese and Chinese men s meanings behind the neutral face is very difficult to analyze. In Chinese cultures is to save face very important. This has a deep meaning in Chinese culture. They do have the opinion if Chinese men show too many emotions that they will interrupt and disrupt the harmony. It is not only disrupting the harmony but also causes conflict between the relationships between the men. Japanese and also Chinese have always a neutral face or they avoid problems in laughing or smiling Eye Contact and Gaze You can also speak with your eyes. Human beings can send messages through eyes and these are limitless. You can describe a person s eyes as direct, sensual, intelligent, sad cheerful, hard, suspicious etc. Now I will speak about direct and indirect eye contact. There are some cultures where you have to look to one s eyes directly like the Arabian Countries, European Countries and the United States of America. If you speak with people in these countries you should look into their eyes while you speak, because this show respect, interest and that you are paying attention to what your communication partner say. But in the other hands there are some countries such as African Countries, Latin America, Caribbean Countries and Asian Countries (Japan, China). If you are in these countries or have to deal with one of these cultures you have to avoid direct eye contact. Because looking directly into the eyes show rudeness, threatening and disrespectful. One s face is the mirror of one s soul. 5

7 4. CONCLUSION Intercultural communication is very important and necessary nowadays. We can learn a lot from other cultures and we have to learn from others. Especially the globalization is an important aspect that shows that it is important to get to know intercultural communication and especially nonverbal communication. I will give you some guidelines for intercultural communication. You have to discover the host culture s nonverbal communication cues before you visit one country. This will help you understanding and not get misunderstanding. Hence, be aware of own nonverbal behavior and signals and be careful of how you interpreting nonverbal communication cues in a new culture. But the most important is to be patient when you go to a country for a long time. You have to get along with people around you. 6

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