Communication And Culture. Specific Aspect Of Communication

Communication and Culture
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Outline
Introduction
* Provide the background information about the study as well as stating in summary what the paper is about.
Body
* Cultural Barriers to Communication
* Language
* Cultural Behavior
* Stereotype
* Solution to Overcoming Cultural Communication Hindrances
* Acknowledging Differences
* Learning Key Phrases
* Learning Another’s Culture
* Conclusion
* References
Communication and Culture
Introduction
Communication is more or less the only way through which people can interact in a diverse world. However, due to social diversities and beliefs from various people across the world, effective communication has since become one of the biggest challenges. Cultural differences stemming from either bigger societal factors or personal experiences are capable of creating a communication barrier that can lead to misinterpretations of a message by various parties. Therefore, to curb this vice, there is a need to come up with a solution that helps in harnessing communication between parties from diverse cultural backgrounds. This paper will highlight some of the problems that have since risen from cultural diversities and affected communication. Besides, the paper will also provide some strategies through which the communication problems arising from cultural diversities can be mitigated.
Cultural Barriers to Communication
Language
Language is understood as one of the major distinction of people from various cultural backgrounds (Müller et al 2013). On the other hand, it is also convincible to argue that misunderstandings were common among people from the same cultural background who spoke the same language. With this argument, it is therefore not surprising to experience any form of communication misunderstanding among people from diverse backgrounds who speak different languages. This is because people who have different primary dialects, even if they communicated in a common secondary linguistic dialect they may still have differences ranging from mispronunciation to lack of word specificity, which eventually hinders communication. For instance, an individual with strong a French accent is likely to pronounce the word “thank” and “sank” thus creating a misunderstanding in the communication. To some extent, such misunderstanding can even create a conflict especially when the pronunciation changes the meaning of the intended word.
Cultural behavior
Secondly, different cultures have had different sets of behaviors over time. The behaviors have also had varied meaning from one cultural background to the other. In other words, a specific behavior might mean a different thing to an individual from a different cultural background. A good example that has been cited in various sources is that of Indians who nod their heads to express different things like yes, no and a feeling of uncertainty (Jain & Choudhary, 2011). Researchers have shown that when they communicated to various individuals who did not understand their culture, their communication ended to be ineffective. Americans on the other hand, have also been associated with maintaining eye contact when communicating to ...