The document discusses key components of intercultural communication competence including motivation, cultural knowledge, communication skills, sensitivity, and character. It also discusses improving intercultural skills through self-awareness, empathy, listening, and flexibility. Culture shock is defined as occurring in phases from excitement to effective functioning in a new culture. Adaptation involves acculturation, forms of coping, and strategies like making contacts and learning the host culture. Intercultural ethics considers both fundamentalism and cultural relativism in moral perspectives.

1. Communication Between Cultures 7th ed. Larry A. Samovar San Diego State University, Emeritus Richard E. Porter California State University, Long Beach, Emeritus

2. Chapter 11 Overview Venturing into a new culture: becoming competent • Components of communication competence • Improving intercultural communication skill • Culture shock and adaptation • Intercultural communication ethics

3. Becoming interculturally competent Five components of communication competence 1) Motivation to communicate - personal desire to improve communication abilities 2) Appropriate fund of cultural knowledge - content knowledge: topics, words, meanings required in a situation - procedural knowledge: how to assemble, plan, perform content knowledge 3) Appropriate communication skills - adapted to rules of interaction appropriate to host culture 4) Sensitivity - possessing tolerance for ambiguity, developing feelings of allophilia 5) Character - your personal history and how you exhibit it

4. Improving intercultural communication skills • Be aware of your culture and yourself as a cultural being Examine personal attitudes - Identify biases that may form pre-communication attitudes Understand your communication style - Note preferred topics, favorite forms of interaction, communication traits • Be empathic Ability to sense, perceive, respond to one’s personal, interpersonal, social environment Removing roadblocks to empathy : - Have as much cultural information as possible about diverse cultures - Eliminate self-focus, learn to accept differences - Engage in culturally-accepted behaviors - Avoid judgments/evaluations; avoid stereotypical notion about gender, race, culture - Pay attention, communicate empathy • Practice effective listening - Nonverbal communication influences listening process - Interactive nature of communication encourages feedback: verbal, nonverbal, silence - Respect for communicator: provide non-evaluative feedback • Develop communication flexibility - Ability to adjust communication behavior to fit setting, the other person, and self

5. Venturing into a new culture: Culture shock • Culture shock defined Mental state resulting from transition from familiar to unfamiliar environment • Varying reactions - Brief anxiety, disorientation - Fatigue, upset stomach, headaches - Antagonism toward new environment - Feelings of rejection, insensitivity from host culture - Homesickness, missing friends/family - Feeling a loss of status and influence; withdrawal • Stages of culture shock (the U-curve) 1) Excitement phase 2) Disenchantment phase: crisis period of culture shock 3) Beginning resolution phase: gaining some understanding of new culture 4) Effective functioning phase • Lessons of culture shock Shock often positive sign that expatriate experiencing deep involvement in new culture

6. Beyond culture shock: adaptation • Acculturation: adjusting to new culture Dual process of cultural and psychological change resulting from contact between two or more cultural groups and their individual members • Four forms of coping with disequalibrium 1) Assimilation: absorption into host culture 2) Separation: rejection of host culture, inward turn to native culture 3) Integration: balance between native and host cultures 4) Marginalization: little possibility of maintaining native culture - unlike first three, result of uncontrollable external forces (exclusion, discrimination) • Language as a barrier Lack of language skills strong barrier to adjustment If you can’t learn host language, at least master basics such as greetings, requests for necessities, proper polite responses • Other barriers, coping mechanisms Ethnocentrism: affects both immigrant and host culture Reorganization, forward movement through stress-adaptation-growth dynamic

7. Beyond culture shock: adaptation , continued • Adaptation strategies 1) Make personal contact with host culture 2) Learn about the host culture 3) Participate in cultural activities • Host cultures’ reactions to acculturation Anti-immigration backlash can result from multicultural communities Tolerance is key

8. Intercultural ethics • Considering the question of morality: two differing perspectives Fundamentalism - Moral absolution - Posits that ethical principles are universally applicable - Cultures that differ or operate outside universal moral code deemed unethical Cultural relativism - Moral relativism, ethical multiculturalism - Posits that ethical principles are culturally bound, context dependent, and only applicable in their respective cultures • The practice of ethical intercultural communication Awareness of your messages’ effects on others - Respect the other during interactions - Search for commonalities - Respect difference - Accept responsibility for behavior