Barriers_in_Intercultural_Communication

Họ tên thành viên nhóm: 1. Huyền Tôn Nữ Hạnh Phước 2. Trần Tiến Đức 3. Trương Thị Ngọc Minh 4. Trần Thị Ngọc Diệp Barriers in interculural communication. “The thing I like most about Brooklyn is all the different people who live there. The thing I like least about Brooklyn is that those people do not get along with each other.” Elderly African-American. Brooklyn resident. ( Pearson, Nelson, Titsworth & Harter, 2006, p. 208) Nowadays, with the rapid development of technology and the tendency of globalization, the meeting of people of different racism and backgrounds is inevitable. Each people brings with them their own cultures, beliefs, and values. Therefore, when such intercultural differences meet each other, there are many misunderstandings and conflicts emerging. They are very difficult to avoid and can hamper the effectiveness of an intercultural communication. The following paper will be an analysis of how those raising problems work to make a cross-cultural communcation so difficult and challenging. Barriers in interculural communication. In the age of information, it seems that the world is getting smaller and smaller, and contact with people who are different from us is unavoidable. The geological distance in today is not a question any more, it is reduced in a way that we truly become a “global village”(McLuhan, 1962, p.31). In such an intercultural interaction, many obstacles prevent people from communicating effectively. These obstacles are not usually realized by communicators during the process of communication. In general, problems we often face are ethnocentrism, stereotype, assuming similarity instead of difference, and misinterpretation of codes. Ethnocentrism The very first mistake people often make is to be ethnocentric. It means people use the norms and standards of their own culture to judge and evaluate other cultures. However, they can not answer the question from where they get a right to set their particular culture as an international system for the rest of the world to rely on. Haviland (1991) points out that ethnocentrism is “the belief that one’s own culture is superior to all others” (p.161).Without a logical explanation, people just do the action of admittance that their culture is the best. One research of Pew Global Attitudes Project has revealed that up to 71% of Americans at the age between 50 and 64 agree with the statement: “ our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior.” Even though the younger generation is less ethnocentric, the number is still very high. People of the age group from 30 to 49 has a considerable percentage of 56%, and those of 18- 29 gaining 49%. Such enthnocentric idea can be injurious to the effective intercultural communication. Because it makes people’attitudes manifest a feeling of contempt for members of other groups. Even when they try to be open-mined and tolerant of cultural differences, they still view others from their own cultural perspective. People often forget one thing that in culture, it should stop at the point of observation, not evaluation. It is impossible to say whose culture is the best. Stereotype. Another major problem is stereotype. According to the definition by Augoustinos and Walker (1998), it is a fixed, commonly held notion or image of a person or group, based on an oversimplification of some observed or imagined trait of behaviour or appearance. In other words, stereotype is a belief that every member of a particular culture or co-culture are similar to each other, and all of them have the typical characteristics of that culture or co-culture. It is like an image of printing machine producing thousands of copies, and all are exactly the same. For instance, Asian Americans are generally supposed to be brilliant at maths. A person having stereotypical thinking will believe that all of them can easily get high marks. However, in reality, there are still many Asian students having B’s in maths even when they try hard. In cross-cultural communication, stereotype is a big barrier because it is one main cause leading to false assumption of foreigners. A clear example is the distorted image of Islamists in the mind of Americans after the event September 11th, 2001. Through mass media, many people in U.S make a simple gerneralization of Islamists as terrorists or religious extremists (Abdulla, 2007). Such a negative stereotype can make communication between an American and an Islamist much more difficult and challenging, even worse it can stir up racial hatred and hostility towards the other. However, stereotype does not always have bad side. A reasonable generalization will help us a lot to communicate well in an another cuture. It directs us how people in that culture would like to behave, perceive and believe. For example, in a table of high-context versus low-context rankings of selected countries and groups, U.S holds the third position in the top low-context nations, and China, on the other hand, stands first in the list of the top high-context ones ( Pearson, Nelson, Titsworth & Harter, 2006, p. 319). So, if the Chinese knows this, when coming to U.S they will not appreciate contextual implication in communication as they used to do in their mother land. They may try to adjust themselves to be direct and precise. Such an adaption in communication style can help the Chinese make themselves understood by the Americans. Clearly, stereotype can be either positive or negative. It will be helpful if we do not overgeneralize. Assuming similarity instead of difference. Even though knowing that each cuture is different, people still have the habit of thinking that others and they are alike. People simply hold a belief that what they would like to act, perceive are similar to the other’s. This becomes a big trouble in cross-cultural communication where unlikeness is obviously significant. For instance, in 1997, a Danish women was arrested by New York police for leaving her 14 month-old baby alone in a stroller while she was in a restaurant. She was accused of neglecting and endangering her child. The problem here lies in the cultural difference. In Denmark, it is very commnon for behaving like this woman letting her child ouside the restaurant; however, in America, it is not. For many Americans, it is too dangerous for the child. The mistake of the Danish woman is assuming that Americans behave like people in her country. She forgot that cultures vary considerably (Jandt, 2005, p.83) Besides, the opposite can be a trouble as well. Assuming difference instead of similarity can lead to “your not recognizing important things that cultures share common things” (Jandt, 2005, p.83). Therefore, “it is better to ask “What are the customs'” rather than assuming they are the same-or diffreent-everywhere” (Jandt, 2005, p.83) . Misinterpretation of codes. People often encounter unexpected embarassment in a multicultural conversation because their intentions are mistaken by others. The way of each culture encoding and decoding messages differently can boost the chances of misunderstanding. This inaccurate translation happens verbally, non-verbally, or both. However, during everyday activities, this difficulty occurs with high frequency in nonverbal code. Nonverbal code is often catergorized into three main parts: kinesics, proxemics and paralanguage. • Kinesics includes facial expression, gestures, body movement and eye contacts. One kinesic can have numerous variations in its meaning. For instance, most cultures accept that nodding head up and down shows message of saying “yes”, and shaking it from side to side is “no”; however, in specific cultures like Iran, a part of Greece, Bulgaria or Turkey, the meanings of those gestures are changed oppositely.(Ribbens & Thompson, 2000, p. 26) • Proxemics is the study of personal distance. Each culture has its own “space bubble”- the distance which people feel comfortable to another in a normal conversation. While American bubble is approximately 30 inches (one arm’s length), it is a bit further away in northern Eropean countries, about 36 inches (Li Hui, 2007). So, this change in space bubble can make an American seem to be intrusive in the eyes of Europeans and vice versa, to Americans, the Europeans seem to be “cold and distant”( Li Hui, 2007, p.68) • Paralanguage is composed of speed, tempo, volume, pause and silence. Like kinesics, one paralanguage can transfer various messages depending on cultural diversity. For instance, to answer the question “ Will you marry me'”, silence in America means uncertainty while in China, it means an acceptance (Li Hui, 2007). If a person does not know such differences in nonverbal codes, it will be problematic. Conclusion The hinderances in intercultural communication are not limited to what we have already discussed above. However, to some degree, we think that our paper can go a little deeper into the four most crucial ones: ethnocentrism, stereotype, assuming similarity instead of difference, and misinterpretation of codes. By displaying those big hurdles, we hope that it can help people to realize their mistakes and avoid them. In this way, the effectiveness in cross-cultural communication can be enhanced. REFERENCES   Abdulla, R. A, (2007). Islam, Jihad, and Terrorism in Post-9/11 Arabic Discussion Boards. The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15, para 2. 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