Intercultural Communications

Chapter 1
Studying Intercultural Communication

* This chapter offers six reasons or imperatives for studying intercultural communications * Economics * The workplace * Businesses must be more attentive to diversity issues * As the workforce becomes more diverse, their will be more problems * Benefits * Speaking different languages * Seeing new business markets * Marketing products to different cultures * Learn about different cultures * Global economy * Globalization * Bring money to the poor areas by opening up businesses * Wal-mart, they open one in china, but takes away jobs from Americans * Mom and pop stores out of business * Pollution in other countries because they don’t have regulations * To bridge the cultural gap, many companies employ cross-cultural trainers who assist people abroad by giving them information and strategies from dealing with cultural differences * American’s tend to say that they are the best and won’t open up * Technology * GLOBAL VILLAGE to discribe a world in which communication technology (tv, radeo, news services) brings new and information to the most remote parts of the world * Today people are connected via e-mail, instant message, bulletin boards, and the internet to people they have never met face-to-face. * Complex relationships can develop through technology * Technology and Human Communication * Kenneth gergen describes the changes that occur as technology alters patterns of communication * Relationships were described on how far a person could walk * What does it have to do with intercultural communication * Easier to talk to people * Faster * Convenient * Too reliable, forget your phone at home and you get anxiety * Effects face-to-face communication * Limits what you are trying to say * Miscommunication, taking a text the wrong way * DIGITAL DIVIDE exists between those who have access to technologies like the internet and those who do not * Older Americans, those with low incomes and less education, and people with physical disabilities lag behind. * 22% of Americans have never been online and are categories as the “truly disconnected” * Demographics * Changes come from two sources, either changing demographics within the United States or changing immigration patterns * Changing us demographics * DEMOGRAPHICS refers to the general characteristics of a given population * Population will change drastically by 2050 * Changing immigration patterns * There is a contradiction when discussing immigration in the United States * “nation of immigrants” * patters of immigration are having a significant effect on the social landscape of the United States * these demographic changes present many opportunities and challenges for students of intercultural communication and for society * Learn about other cultures * Meet men and women from around the world * Tolerance of other cultures * Miscommunication * Different work habits * Intercultural conflict is not necessarily a consequence of diversity * Expands our linguistics, politics, etc. * Historical overview: we have to look at the history of immigrants in the u.s. to get a better sense of the sociocultureal situation * MELTING POT- the cultures all get together and melt together and make one culture * College classroom * SALAD BOWL- when cultures are distinctly different * My big fat Greek wedding * Economic conditions affect attitudes toward foreign workers and immigration policies * They sent all of the Americans back to free up jobs for White Americans * 10 years later they told them all to come back for cheap labor and they can be in the country * The current situation * Always going to have conflict and diversities * “Crash” the movie shows all the diversities between cultures in LA * Class structure * Usually the one they are born into * Economic disparity among these groups * Peace * The key issue is whether or not individuals of different sexes, ages, ethnicities, races, languages, and cultural backgrounds coexist on the planet * Not realistic because we are not all on the same page * Contact among different cultural groups often leads to disharmony * Conflict is also tied to economic disparities and economic colonialism * Some are extremely poor, and don’t have natural resources * Going somewhere and nobody likes American’s * Media influences us a lot and they don’t like that * It will be naïve to assume that knowing intercultural communications would end the wars * Self-awareness * One of the most important (but less obvious) reasons for studying intercultural communication is to gain an awareness of one’s own cultural identity and background * Peter Adler observes that the study of intercultural communication begins as a journey into another * If you are white and middle class, intercultural learning may mean an enhancing awareness of your privilege * Ethics * Ethics are the principles of conduct which help to govern the behavior of individuals and groups * Ethical judgments and cultural values: * Ethical judgments focus more on the degrees of rightness and wrongness in human behavior than do cultural values * Cultural values tell us what is “good” and what “ought” to be. * “killing for the name of god” * Universally ethical * This book stresses the relativity of cultural * According to the UNIVERSALIST position, we need to identify those rules that apply across cultures * By contrast, the RELATIVIST position holds that any cultural behavior can be judged only within the cultural context in which it occurs. This means that only community can truly judge the ethics of its member