Question

Intercultural Communication.

A college professor has a new student from China in the class. The student does not speak English fluently. Name and discuss three cultural factors that might influence classroom interaction

Answer 1

Cultures and Communication

No matter whereever you are in the world, communication is important. But communicating across cultures can be pretty hard. And I don't just mean that there's a language barrier, although that can be an issue. Some cultures are informal, some cultures use a whole series of ritual greetings before having a conversation, some cultures consider it rude to show up to a meeting on time.

Intercultural Communication

So, we need to learn how to communicate all over again, just like when we were children. And just like when we were children, this requires learning language as well as learning behavioral norms for good communication. However, this will be a bit different since we're adults learning how to communicate in someone else's culture, not our own.

Intercultural communication is the verbal and nonverbal interaction between people from different cultural backgrounds. Basically, 'inter-' is a prefix that means 'between' and cultural means… well, from a culture, so intercultural communication is the communication between cultures. Sometimes, this is used to describe a single person trying to interact in a foreign environment but more often, it is a two-way street, where people from both cultures are trying to improve their communication.

Now, if you want to learn about intercultural communication, it's important to understand what this is. But it's also important to understand what it isn't. Intercultural communication is targeted at allowing for positive and productive interaction. You are not joining this culture, you are not becoming a member of another society, you are not abandoning your own culture. That would be assimilation and that's not what we're after.

Intercultural communication is also not simply a language proficiency. Yes, communication requires the ability to understand language, but just think about how much of your communication with even your own friends is nonverbal: our body language, our attitudes, the rituals from hand-shaking to the stink eye. Some researchers estimate that up to 93% of all human communication is nonverbal, although according to recent studies, it's actually closer to 60%.

Still, that means that more than half of communication is never spoken. So, intercultural communication is going to take a lot more than just learning a language.

Developing Communication

Intercultural communication is generally explained through three parts. They overlap a bit with each other but together, give you the tools to communicate with people from another culture. Ready to give them a try?

The first is knowledge, or an understanding of communication rules within a culture. This is just the practical stuff you need to know to communicate, things like language but also greeting rituals, styles of communication, that sort of stuff. Do people of this culture prefer to talk business in morning or night? Are they generally formal or informal? It's best to try and develop as much knowledge about a culture before going off and trying to master the other two parts of intercultural communication.

Culture and second language learning

Itisnot easy toanswer the question of how peopleacquire language. However,itisobvious thatthe answer cannot befoundonlybylanguagepedagogystudy. Cultural,psychological, sociological and neurological factors mayalso influence language learning significantly(Holland andShortal1, 1997). To knowthe learner elements which mayaffect second language learningis considered to be extremely valuablefor developing effective teaching.

One of the factors, culture, becomes highlyimportant insecondlanguage learning. Culture is a wayof life, the contextwithin whichwe exist,think, feel, and relate toothers. It establishes for each personacontext of cognitiveandaffective behaviour(Brown, 1994b). Culture facilitateshuman and environmentalinteractions and it is learned and shared by all the members of a society (Murdock, 1961 cited inBrown, 1994b). These functions of culture are mostlyconducted through language.

Therefore,culture and languageare “intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significanceof eitherlanguageor culture”(Brown, 1994b,p.165). And also, teaching is consideredtobe anactivityfirmlyfixed with culturallybound assumptions about teachers and students, and culture is assumed toaffect teachers’responsibility and classroom interaction (Richardsand Lockhart, 1994).