Obstacles in intercultural communication Free Essay Example

Intro As market and trade continues to spread out globally and neighborhoods intermingle, the trouble of language barriers becomes more popular. This barrier includes not only language, but a mindset also. Just finding out a language does not presume that the culture of the language discovered is understood. This can lead to significant interaction problems in all areas: intercultural marriage, working or teaching abroad, relocating to another nation, and negotiating any aspect of every day life.

Intercultural communication demands a lot more than merely speaking a language; it requires good listening abilities, an open mind and the capability to step outdoors one’s own culture psychologically.

This type of learning doesn’t occur with everybody, however with some sense of experience and the willingness to see beyond one’s own mind set, it is rewarding for both celebrations. This paper will look at various obstacles to intercultural interaction, how they happen and recommended methods for preventing them. Wherever we are born, our culture specifies us.

We might be American, but from the South, very various in culture from the West Coast. Every nation has its own areas of culture, ethics, morals and dialects. When different cultures come together and attempt to communicate, even in each other’s languages, troubles emerge due to culture more than language itself. Although countries have differing cultures within them in addition to a common language, the difference is insufficient to trigger the troubles that emerge when people of two very different cultures communicate.

Understandings, values and beliefs are the root of cultural distinctions (Anna Jones & & Xuan Quach, 2004).

First off, bridging the space in regard to intercultural communication involves perception. Individuals of different cultures perceive things in various methods, according to the method they were raised. Understandings in terms of beliefs and worths are learned early in life, then they end up being an integrated part of a person’s point of view; the way the specific performs his/her life will bring about social repercussions that are wide and varied.

According to Jones and Quach, awareness of perception is the beginning of understanding. What works well for one culture may disgust or offend another, and these things may not be obvious. What is “common sense” in one culture will not be to another. Therefore, knowing another language does not introduce an individual to a culture. Culture is easy to observe, but not to define, since it is based upon perceptions. Culture is basically learned behaviors shared among people who, for the most part, share the same language and live in the same place (Richard Brislin, 2002).

Culture is passed on from generation to generation not specifically through overt teaching and learning, but through familiarity and repetitive exposure. Culture is person-made behaviors, collectively. Contributors to culture may be climate, topography, economics and technology (or lack of it), but is people that make the culture around these external factors. An individual from a technologically advanced culture would have some amount of difficulty understanding an individual from a Third World culture, and vice-versa.

The individual from the ease of high-tech life will have difficulty understanding the slower and less frenzied ways of a low-tech individual. In this case, we can compare Americans to rural Mexicans. Americans expect services and tasks to be accomplished expediently and efficiently. Rural Mexicans (and even Mexicans in cities) do not have the advantage of equipment and technology to expedite tasks such as landscaping, home repair, even making a driveway. They work with hand tools and the work is slow. They do not set time limits in terms of “deadlines” as Americans tend to do.

Therefore, an American living in Mexico would need to understand that while the job will eventually get done, it might not get done as fast as it would back at home. This is an example of differences in value. Americans tend to value speed and efficiency, and do not tolerate having to wait very well since technology has made nearly everything on-demand. A very good example of potential culture clashes can be illustrated in the following conversation, between an American living in Mexico and a Mexican technician who is to install a satellite dish (A = American and M = Mexican).

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