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Module Oral Com

Intercultural communication involves interactions between individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds, influencing their understanding of values, language, and relationships. The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity outlines six stages of recognizing and adapting to cultural differences, from denial to integration. Competent intercultural communicators exhibit traits such as flexibility, open-mindedness, and sensitivity, while also considering factors like gender and religion to avoid biases in communication.

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Module Oral Com

Intercultural communication involves interactions between individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds, influencing their understanding of values, language, and relationships. The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity outlines six stages of recognizing and adapting to cultural differences, from denial to integration. Competent intercultural communicators exhibit traits such as flexibility, open-mindedness, and sensitivity, while also considering factors like gender and religion to avoid biases in communication.

Uploaded by

Jai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Definition and Nature of Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication happens when individuals interact, negotiate, and create meanings while bringing in their
varied cultural backgrounds (Ting-Toomey, 1999). For some scholars, intercultural communication pertains to
communication among people from different nationalities (Gudykunst, 2003). Still, others look at intercultural
communication as communication that is influenced by different ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations. Both
interpretations show that intercultural communication takes place when people draw from their cultural identity to
understand values, prejudices, language, attitudes, and relationships (Gudykunst & Kim, 2003). Moreover, this facet of
communication can also be seen as a bargained understanding of human experiences across diverse societies. Simply
put, intercultural communication is the sending and receiving of messages across languages and cultures. Sometimes,
intercultural communication can flow smoothly and become very interesting for a cross-cultural group. However, things
may not go as planned when communication is disrupted by cultural collisions. When you speak, your speech is
continuously accompanied by gestures, facial expressions, and other body movements that add to what you are saying in
different ways. For example, nodding means “yes” in the Indian subcontinent, Iran, most of Europe, Latin America, and
North America. However, in Greece, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Turkey, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Albania, nodding
indicates disagreement. Moreover, in the case of Japanese culture, silence as a form of communication is more
integrated in their customs than in Western languages. It is therefore important for you to acknowledge and understand
the many communication patterns present in other cultures.

The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) offers a structure that explores how people experience
cultural differences. According to Bennett and Bennett (2004), it has six stages. These are the following:

Stage 1: Denial. The individual does not recognize cultural differences.

Stage 2: Defense. The individual starts to recognize cultural differences and is intimidated by them, resulting in either a
superior view on own culture or an unjustified high regard for the new one.

Stage 3: Minimization. Although individuals see cultural differences, they bank more on the universality of ideas rather
than on cultural differences.

Stage 4: Acceptance. The individual begins to appreciate important cultural differences in behaviors and eventually in
values.

Stage 5: Adaptation. The individual is very open to world views when accepting new perspectives.

Stage 6: Integration. Individuals start to go beyond their own cultures and see themselves and their actions based on
multifarious cultural viewpoints.

Once you understand these stages, you may apply it to

1) recognize communication behaviors which differ from your own,

2) take into account what can influence these types of behaviors, and

3) try to analyze how linguistic and cultural communities differ in terms of communication behavior and influencing
factors (Allwood, 1985).

Characteristics of Competent Intercultural Communicators World Bank (2010) identifies the following traits that define a
competent intercultural communicator.

1. flexibility and the ability to tolerate high levels of uncertainty

2. reflectiveness or mindfulness

3. open-mindedness

4. sensitivity

5. adaptability

6. ability to engage in divergent thinking (or thinking creatively) and systems-level thinking (or thinking how each one in a
system or organization influences each other)

7. politeness

Note that in addition to culture, other elements such as gender, age, social status, and religion must also be taken into
consideration when communicating with others. Refrain from showing bias when talking to someone by following the
tips below.

1. Avoid stereotypes, i.e., generalizations about a certain group.

2. Challenge gender norms; avoid using “he” and “man” to refer to a general group of people. To remedy this, you may
use plural pronouns or rewrite a sentence to avoid using pronouns. The use of his/her is also acceptable.
3. Do not talk down on younger people and the elderly.

4. Be sensitive to the religious practices of others.

5. Be polite at all times; do not belittle people you perceive to be on a lower social class than you.

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