Handout 2

COMMUNICATION AND GLOBALIZATION:

LOCAL AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATION IN MULTICULTURAL SETTINGS
VARIETIES AND REGISTERS OF SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

LESSON OVERVIEW

This chapter describes the role of communication in a globalized world and how
globalization has affected communication in general. It likewise introduces students on the impacts
of globalization to communication and culture and how people have adapted to a multicultural
society. It also introduces students to the varieties of English as an effect of a globalized world.

. Introduction

Image from: https://www.outsourceaccelerator.com/articles/types-of-globalization/

1. What is the image saying about the world today?

2. What d0 you think has contributed to the easy access and exchange of information these days?
Why?
3. In transacting or communicating in a global setting, what vital preparations must be done?
Why?

TOPIC 1: Communication and Globalization

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Click the links below and watch the video clips on

“Globalization” or read any article about globalization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ0nFD19eT8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLNp3kgBuuQ

http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2013/10/30/what-is-globalization-eleven-videos- to-boost-
our-understanding/

How globalization works

In simple terms, globalization is the process by which people and goods move easily across
borders. Principally, it's an economic concept – the integration of markets, trade and investments with
few barriers to slow the flow of products and services between nations. There is also a cultural element,
as ideas and traditions are traded and assimilated.

Globalization has brought many benefits to many people. But NOT TO EVERYONE.

Nowadays, almost everyone is practically addicted to social media. Mention Google, Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, or Pinterest, and you will readily see the faces of your friends light up. In
any public place, you see people taking selfies, and their pictures are readily posted on a social-media
website.
As long as you have a cell phone, an internet connection, and downloaded applications, like
Facebook Messenger, Skype, or Viber, you can now talk, text, instant message, and video chat or video
call your family and friends around the world, and all for free. You can converse with anyone on a

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particular blog spot,, news article, or event. You can also meet people from other countries, make
friends with them, and learn about them and their countries without leaving the comforts of your home
and your country, all of these are possible through these social media.

Researching, too, is no longer difficult, just Google the world’s information through web pages, or
videos. Even the ordinary television allows you to watch events as they happen anywhere else in the
world.

What do all these suggest? By means of television and the internet, the world has now become
like one small community where people from different countries can communicate and interact as if
they were next-door neighbors.

How did globalization happen?

We might think of globalization as a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s been around for
centuries.

One example is the Silk Road, when trade spread rapidly between China and Europe via an
overland route. Merchants carried goods for trade back and forth, trading silk as well as gems and
spices and, of course, coffee. (In fact, the habit of drinking coffee in a social setting originates from a
Turkish custom, an example of how globalization can spread culture across borders.)

What drives it?

Globalization has sped up enormously over the last half-century, thanks to great leaps in
technology.
The internet has revolutionized connectivity and communication, and helped people share their
ideas much more widely, just as the invention of the printing press did in the 15th century. The advent of
email made communication faster than ever.
The invention of enormous container ships helped too. In fact, improvements in transport
generally – faster ships, trains and airplanes – have allowed us to move around the globe much more
easily.

What's good about it?

Globalization has led to many millions of people being lifted out of poverty.

For example, when a company like Starbucks buys coffee from farmers in Rwanda, it is
providing a livelihood and a benefit to the community as a whole. A multinational company's presence
overseas contributes to those local economies because the company will invest in local resources,
products and services. Socially responsible corporations may even invest in medical and educational
facilities.

Globalization has not only allowed nations to trade with each other, but also to cooperate with
each other as never before. Take the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, for instance, where 195
countries all agreed to work towards reducing their carbon emissions for the greater global good.

What's bad about it?

While some areas have flourished, others have floundered as jobs and commerce move
elsewhere. Steel companies in the UK, for example, once thrived, providing work for hundreds of
thousands of people. But when China began producing cheaper steel, steel plants in the UK closed
down and thousands of jobs were lost.

Every step forward in technology brings with it new dangers. Computers have vastly improved
our lives, but cyber criminals steal millions of pounds a year. Global wealth has skyrocketed, but so has
global warming.

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While many have been lifted out of poverty, not everybody has benefited. Many argue that
globalization operates mostly in the interests of the richest countries, with most of the world's collective
profits flowing back to them and into the pockets of those who already own the most.

Although globalization is helping to create more wealth in developing countries, it is not helping
to close the gap between the world's poorest and richest nations. Leading charity Oxfam says that when
corporations such as Starbucks can legally avoid paying tax, the global inequality crisis worsens.

Basically, done wisely, globalization could lead to “unparallel peace and prosperity.” Done
poorly, “to disaster”.

Now, read the essay entitled “The Effects of Globalization on Global Communication” by
Anam Ahmed and reviewed by: Elisa Shoenberger, M.B.A. to understand the effect of globalization to
communication.

Link: https://bizfluent.com/info-8232542-effects-globalization-global-communication.html

a. Which among the effects mentioned do you think applies to you?

b. Discuss the threats and opportunities for industrialized countries.

c. Talk about the challenges and new opportunities of

globalization?

Global Village and the flattening of the world

The term global village has been used to express the idea that people throughout the world
are interconnected through the use of new media technologies. The term was coined in the early
1960s by Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who was writing about the newer
technologies of his day, such as radio and television.

Today, the Web is often seen as the medium that most closely joins people throughout the
globe, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to know what is going on around the world with
the click of a mouse -- and to communicate with individuals and groups of people in faraway places.

One process of globalization according to Thomas Friedman, a New York Times foreign affairs
columnist is the “flattening” of the world, a surprising and lightning-quick convergence of technologies
which allows individuals (not just countries and companies) to communicate “from anywhere to
anywhere,” collaborating and competing for the first time on a level-playing field (Downing, 2000)

Accordingly, the “flattening” of the world economy is achieved through globalized trade,
outsourcing, supply-chaining, and political liberalization. In other words, the use of technologies
allows businesses, such as large multinational corporations, to maintain customers, suppliers, and
even competitors on a worldwide basis (Globalization, 2017).

Watch “Globalization” a video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oTLyPPrZE4 that

gives a comprehensive account of what globalization is and what its ramifications are.

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Examples of Globalization

Figure 1: A sign of
McDonald’s resto in
TOPIC 2: Local and global communication in multicultural settings
Japanese. Globalization
brings many companies
to different parts of the
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world

Figure 2: Hydropolis, the

world’s first underwater hotel,
which was completed in 2009
after many delays, was
entirely built in Germany and
then assembled in Dubai

Figure 3: Iphone, a
US product, is
outsourcing to other
countries. This is an
iphone factory in
India

Topic 2. Intercultural Communication

Intercultural Communication – refers to interaction with people from diverse cultures ( Jandt,
1998)

In today’s globalized world, most people have encounters with members of other cultures, and for
many people, this is on a regular basis. These encounters happen in social, political, and commercial
contexts. It is therefore important for people, in all areas of their lives, to be able to interact successfully
with people who are from cultures that are different from theirs. This ability is called intercultural
competence. Intercultural competence is needed for people from different cultures – with their different
values, practices, and ways of communicating – to avoid conflict and misunderstanding. Intercultural
competence requires people to be flexible in their thinking and to recognize that people are complex.

Intercultural competence is not an all-or-nothing ability. People have different levels of

intercultural competence, among themselves, and from context to context. People’s intercultural
competence will be more or less effective depending on their familiarity with the particular culture they
are encountering and particular stereotypes that they may believe. No one can be completely prepared
for all the intercultural experiences they will have in the future, and so intercultural competence requires
flexibility. This makes the development of intercultural competence an ongoing process; it never ends. It

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requires the ability to think critically about differences. Critical thinking is also necessary to negotiate
differences and use strategies to minimize conflict and misunderstandings.

If you start to think about it, you are a member of many micro-cultures. Your classroom is one
micro-culture that you move through (and create) each day. Other micro-cultures in your life might have
to do with your hobbies, family ties, profession, religion, or politics. We can see that there are many
micro- cultures, and this is connected to the many different aspects of a person’s identity.

Forms of Intercultural Communication

1. Interracial communication – communicating with people from different races
Interethnic communication – interacting with people of different ethnic groups
2. International communication - communicating between representatives from different
nations
3. Intracultural communication – interacting with members of the same racial or ethnic group or
co-culture

Barriers to Effective Intercultural Communication

(McKeiver,2013; Chase & Shamo, 2013)

1. Ethnocentrism – refers to the belief that a person’s culture (his ‘’in-group’’ culture) is much better
than any other group’s culture (an ‘’out-group’’ culture), and the tendency is for that person to judge
any ‘’out-group’’ culture by using the norms of his ‘’in-group’’ culture. Ll of us are, to some extent,
ethnocentric, whose ethnocentricity falls somewhere on a scale between ‘’low’’ and ‘’high’’ (Neuliep.,
2012), as cited in McKeiver, 2013). Our level of ethnocentricity affects our ability to successfully
communicate cross culturally.

If your ethnocentricity level is high, the effect is negative. We experience the largest
communication barriers, so wea less likely to attempt to interact with those whose cultures differ from
ours.

With a low ethnocentricity level, however, the effect is positive. We can become ‘’curious,
interested, and inspired’’ to interact with those belonging to the out-group, so we become more
inclined to deal with them, enjoy their company, and experience the benefits of our increased
intercultural communication.

2. Stereotypes – are often generalized negative traits assigned to a group of people (e.g., race,
nationality, religion, social class, sexual orientation, age, gender) even if these traits may only reflect a
selected few of the group. Simply said, a stereotype is a generalization of a group of people based on a
small sample of these people. Stereotyping or classifying an entire group of people or culture with
defining characteristics, which are usually unfair and untrue, is much easier than explaining the
complexities of the uniqueness of specific situations and the individual differences essential in each
event.
Your generalizations are the results of your own experiences, situations you see in videos,
movies, television, things you read about from newspapers, magazines, and books; and experiences
you hear from your family, relatives, and friends.

EX: Asians have better math ability. African Americans have greater athletic ability, and
women are more caring.

3. Prejudice – an offshoot of stereotype, is an unfair thought, belief, or feeling of dislike for a person
or group because of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, and so on. It is a
negative preconceived opinion held b one group toward members of another group that biases
perception and provides a reason for discrimination. When someone is prejudiced, the prejudice
usually refers to hid thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about a certain group of people, which he learns
only from his ‘’in-group,’’ nit from any first-hand, direct contact, with ‘’out-group’’ members, and he

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seldom attempts to check the validity of this bias, or if ever he proves it being unsubstantiated, he
often ultimately ignores the truth.

EX: Disney's Zootopia takes on prejudice in two forms, possibly three. The main
character, Judy Hopps, is a tiny, female bunny who didn't grow up in the big city. As such,
when she joins a police force dominated by large, powerful male characters (of varying animal
species) who are "street smart," no one thinks she's good for anything other than a lowly position as a
meter maid. Boy, does she prove them wrong, as she is neither large nor male.

4. Assumed Similarities – an assumption of similarity is a baseless, unreasonable refusal to see

cultural differences where they exist. This happens when members of one group assume that all
groups behave the same way they do, that what is true to their culture is also true to all other cultures.
This results to insensitivity to cultural differences.

EX: If you want challenges and responsibility in your job, you'll assume that others want
the same
5. Anxiety – intercultural communication anxiety is the fear or apprehension associated with either real
or anticipated communication with people from another cultural group. Thefear is often caused by
differences in language ability, verbal and nonverbal communication styles, and expression of
emotions. Regardless of culture, everyone may experience feelings of impatience, frustration, and
suspicion while communicating or even in anticipation of the interaction, which can then increase
anxiety. When you experience high levels of anxiety, your natural instinct is to avoid the situation.

EX: As a new college student, you usually feel afraid and nervous before your first
day of classes in the university because you do not know what to expect from your new
classmates and teachers whose cultures are different from yours.

Improving Intercultural Communication Competence

(Gamble & Gamble, 2008)

1. Recognize the validity and differences of communication styles among people.

2. Learn to eliminate personal biases and prejudices.
3. Strive to acquire communication skills necessary in a multicultural world

Linguistic Preferences and Nonverbal Behavior

Variations in the way different cultures use language – like linguistic preferences and
nonverbal behaviors – also cause miscommunication. Nuances in linguistic preferences provide
hints about behavior, manners, and thinking as a cultural group ( Lee, 2017; Zelinski, 2017). For
instance, Asians including Japanese and Chinese, consider harmony an important virtue, so to avoid
confrontation, they often say ‘’yes’’ to many things with the understanding of “Yes, I hear you’’ or
“Yes, I understand,” and not necessarily “Yes, I agree.” People in Latin America, Southern Europe,
and Japan, however, are not comfortable with ambiguity because they are conditioned to expect
absolute truths.

Nonverbal behaviors, which Edward T. Hall (1959) called the “silent language,” are expressive
human attributes that impact feelings, attitudes, reactions, and judgments which need to be given
continued attention because they are acquired mainly through acculturation (adopting the traits of
another cultural group); moreover, they are unspoken and largely unconscious, so the implied
meanings are more felt than understood.

Below are some differences in the nonverbal behaviors of some other cultures that can
help us coexist with them in the globalized community we are in because of technology
(International Etiquettes,”2017; “Dimensions of Body Language,” 2017).

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Your hands should be visible at all times even when seated at a

France:
table.
It is impolite to put your hands in your pockets.
Chewing gum in public is rude
Germany Sit own only after you have been offered
Use titles to show respect.
Punctuality is important
When you are in a private home or mosque, be sure to remove your
shoes. Position them by pointing them toward the door from which you
Indonesia
entered.
Hugging and kissing in public is inappropriate

The bow is still the tradition in greetings. For men: Palms should be face up, toward
the knee. For women: hands should be folded in front of you as you bow
Be sure to remove your shoes at the front door; you will be offered a pair of
slippers
Do not touch your nose. When you need to blow your nose, do so discreetly,
preferably in private, with a paper tissue. Dispose of the tissue immediately. Never
Japan put the used tissue in a pocket or purse; this is regarded as rude.
Even if you are experiencing displeasure or are upset about something, you
should smile to show self-control.
Expect greetings to be very emotional. They consist of a ‘’salaam alaykum”
(May God be with you) followed by a handshake and then a “keef halak” (How
Saudi Arabia are you?)
When reaching for something or offering something, be sure to do so with the
right hand. Using the left hand is considered a taboo.
It is considered good manners to acknowledge an older person by standing
South Korea when the person enters a room.
One way to show respect for elders is by lowering your eyes

Open this link for differences in hand gestures around the world and be able to
demonstrate them in class
https://www.worktheworld.com/infographics/around-world-42-hand-gestures

Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity
brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity. Also,
intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of a more peaceful,
just and sustainable world”.
- Robert Allan Arthur -
.

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References

Buenaventura, A.A. et.al.(201). Instructional Material in Purposive Communication. English in Multimodal

Context. St. Andrew Publishing House, Plaridel, Bulacan

Frank, J. (2013). Raising cultural awareness in the English language classroom. English TeachingForum, 2- 35.

Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. New York: Anchor Press.

McCarthy, E. The dynamics of culture, organisational culture and change. AI & Soc 12, 155–184 (1998).
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01206194

Neuleip, J. W. (2015). Intercultural Communication, 6th Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Padila, M.M., Dagdag, L.A., Roxas, F.R. (2018). Communicate & Connect! Purposive Communication,
Mutya Publishing House, Inc., Malabon City

Schreier, D., Hundt, M., & Schneider, E. (2020). World Englishes: An Introduction. In D. Schreier, M. Hundt,
E. Schneider (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes (Cambridge
Handbooks in Language and Linguistics, pp. 1-22). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. doi:10.1017/9781108349406.001

World Learning. (2018). Introduction to culture. In "Integrating Critical Thinking Skills into the Exploration of
Culture in an EFL Setting.p

https://immigrationanddiversity.weebly.com/benefits-of-cultural-integration-into-a-society.html

http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/counseling-psychology/multicultural-counseling/cultural-accommodation-
and- negotiation/#:~:text=Cultural%20accommodation%20refers%20to%20the,culture%20in%20t he
%20private%20sphere.

https://www.slideshare.net/NirmalaPadmavat/hand-gesture-of-differents- cultures#:~:text=The
%20Corona,the%20horns%20of%20the%20Devil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJdcvlRkaS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tlNJibk234

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoW53zvWBqw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCwyRn40fvk

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