This document outlines the objectives and key concepts around intercultural communication from Chapter 12. It discusses how culture affects areas like perception, roles, goals, self-image and language. It contrasts individualism vs collectivism and addresses challenges like stereotypes, culture shock, and ethnocentrism. Finally, it provides tips for becoming a more open communicator and successfully adapting to new cultures through exposure to the host culture.

1. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Week 3: Chapter 12

2. OBJECTIVES
• List and explain the five characteristics of
cultures.
• Explain why it is important to learn to
communicate cross-culturally.
• Give examples of ways in which culture affects
perception, role relationships, motivations
and goals, attitudes towards self, and message
making.

3. OBJECTIVES
• List rules that collectivists should follow when
interacting with individualists and rules
individualists should follow when interacting
with collectivists.
• Explain how stereotypes and prejudices can
impede intercultural communication.
• Discuss how blanket assumptions of similarity
can create problems in intercultural
communication.

4. OBJECTIVES
• Explain culture shock and the draw-back-to-
leap model.
• Give examples of ethnocentrism and its
effects on communication.
• Identify factors that affect one’s ability to
adapt to new cultures.
• Discuss ways to become more open and
accepting of cultural differences.

5. DEFINING CULTURE
• Cultures are learned
• Cultures are shared
• Cultures are multifaceted
• Cultures are dynamic
• Cultural identities are overlapping

6. CULTURAL UNIVERSALS
Age grading Ethics Language
Athletics Etiquette Law
Bodily adornment Family Magic
Calendar Folklore Marriage
Cleanliness Funeral rites Numbers
Cooking Gestures Puberty customs
Cosmology Greetings Rituals
Courtship Hairstyles Sex restrictions
Dancing Hygiene Surgery
Education Kinship Tool-making

7. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
• Nowadays intercultural communication
cannot be avoided
• Advances in telecommunication and
transportation technology have created a
global village
• Intercultural identity is a sense of belonging to
an original and a new culture at the same time

8. CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION
• Interpretation of reality
• Understanding of role relations
• Goal-oriented behaviour
• Sense of self
• Message making

9. CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION
• Culture and perception – not knowing the
values of another country can result in
momentary embarrassment
• Culture and role identities – being a good
communicator means understanding role
distinctions and adapting one’s
communication accordingly

10. CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION
• Culture and goals – many cultures are
characterized by effort-optimism, others by
social-position, and some no reward at all.

11. CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION
• Culture and images of self – beliefs about the
self are central to all other values as they
affect every aspect of behaviour. (rationality
premise, perfectibility premise, mutability
premise)

12. COLLECTIVISM VS INDIVIDUALISM
• Collectivism: subordinate personal goals for the
good of others; shared identity is more important
than personal identity; comfortable in vertical
relationships; value harmony, face-saving, duty to
parents, modesty moderation, thrift, equality in
reward distribution, and fulfillment of other’s needs.
• Individualism: values freedom, honesty, social
recognition, comfort, hedonism, and reward-
distribution based on individual performance.

13. CULTURE AFFECTS COMMUNICATION
• Culture and language style – everything that
can be said in one language cannot be said in
another, meanings are not directly
translatable. Speech forms such as teasing,
charm, flattery, lying, effusiveness or
directness have different values in different
cultures.

14. STEREOTYPES AND PREJUDICES
• Stereotypes: generalized 2nd-hand beliefs that
provide conceptual biases from which we
‘make sense’ out of what goes on around us,
whether they are accurate or fit the
circumstances.
• Prejudice: a negative social attitude held by
members of one group toward members of
another group.

15. CULTURE SHOCK
• The anxiety that results from losing all of our
familiar signs and symbols of social
intercourse.
• Signs: feelings of helplessness, lowered self-
esteem, desire to return home, insomnia,
depression, physical illness, withdrawl and
hostility toward host culture.
• Draw-back-to-leap model

16. ETHNOCENTRISM
• The belief that one’s own culture is superior to
all others and the tendency to judge all
cultures by one’s own criteria.

17. ADAPTING TO NEW CULTURES
• Host social communication and ethnic social
communication are two important
determinants of intercultural success.
• Those interested in acculturation should
expose themselves as much as possible to
host social communication.

18. BECOMING AN OPEN COMMUNICATOR
• Open yourself to new contacts
• Learn about the history and experiences of
people from diverse cultures
• Examine yourself for possible stereotypes
• Responsible and open communicators are
willing and able to role-take
• Each of us should work on becoming more
self-confident

19. Homework
DAY TASK
Monday Notes for Objectives 1-5
Tuesday Notes for Objectives 6-10
Wednesday Start Reading Log #2
Thursday Finish Reading Log #2
Friday Key words from Chapter 12
Preview Chapter 3