This document discusses strategies for intercultural communication between dominant and non-dominant groups. There are three main strategies for non-dominant groups: assimilation, accommodation, and separation. Assimilation involves adopting the behaviors and norms of the dominant group. Accommodation seeks to change rules to incorporate non-dominant group experiences. Separation essentially avoids the dominant group by forming separate organizations. Within each strategy there are non-assertive, assertive, and aggressive approaches. The document concludes mindfulness and patience can help improve intercultural communication between groups.

1. Inividual Essay
Effective Public Communication
(FCOM 0102)
Intercultural Communication
Strategies
Wong YeongCherng (0313378)

2. Intercultural communication is a form of global communication. It is
very important to international businesses as it examine how people from
different cultures, beliefs and religions come together to work and
communicate with each other.Without the help of intercultural communication,
they can cause misunderstanding and confusion. As a separate notion, it
studies situations where people from different cultural backgrounds. Aside
from language, intercultural communication focuses on social attributes,
thought patterns, and the cultures of different groups of people. Intercultural
communication plays a role in social sciences, such as, psychology and
communication studies. Much of the literature about communication is written
from the point of view of the dominant, or majority, and culture. In the United
States, dominant culture means white people from a European background,
while non-dominant cultures includes people of colour, women; gays, lesbians,
and bisexuals; those who socioeconomic background is lower than middle
class. There are also some problems happened in intercultural
communication such as prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination and so on. In
this sense, non-dominant members will adopt one of three basic strategies
when they wanted to confront oppressive dominant structures and achieve
success, which are assimilation, accommodation, and separation.
When non-dominants use assimilation, they drop any distinguishing
cultural difference, such as, food and speech pattern. There are three types of
strategies used which are non-assertive, assertive and aggressive. Nonassertive means the minority of members try to be like the majority by
emphasizing the similarities and downplaying the differences. For example, a
woman may try to fit in with male counterparts through dressing and talking

3. asin the same way which man usually does. On the other hand, assertive
means a minority member may try hard to be accepted by the majority by
overcompensating. For instance, the woman at work will try to outdo her male
counterparts by working twice as long and try to knowing more than the man.
For aggressive assimilation, it means a minority member wants to fit in at any
cost. The person will downplay any differences and possibly even put their
own group down to be accepted. They will imply that there are no differences
between the two groups and will be careful to not do or say anything that
would indicate their difference, such as speaking in a dialect or making
reference to their own group’s behaviour. They are also eager to be part of
the dominant group that they might ridicule the group they belong to.
The next main category consists of accommodation strategy.
Accommodation works toward getting the dominant group to reinvent or
change the rules so that they incorporate experiences of the non-dominant
group. There are also three types of accommodation strategies, which are
non-assertive, assertive and aggressive. Non-assertive accommodation
includes the person does not act in any way that would cause dominant group
members to be defensive or cautions but try to make people aware of the
group as well as trying to dispel stereotypes. For example, Anna is a Mexican;
often talk to her co-workers about her friends who are professionals, trying to
break the stereotype of Mexican as manual labourer. In assertive
accommodation, the non-dominant person tries to educate their own group
and possibly uses mentor from the dominant group to speak to and educate.
Their goal is to make balance between groups. For instance, they persuade
some dominant group members to go to a Mexican restaurant and guide them

4. through the menu. Besides that, the strategy of aggressive accommodation is
to get into the dominant group and change them from the inside out. It may
include confrontations between dominant and non-dominant. For example, a
woman on a committee that brings international scholars to the university may
point out that no women have been chosen. Persons using aggressive
accommodation may also warn dominant group members of their history of
oppression.
In the third category of strategies, non-dominant group members have
essentially given up because they do not want anything to do with the
dominant group and want to stay away from them. There are also three types
of strategies in separation which are non-assertive, assertive and aggressive.
In non-assertive separation, the non-dominant person avoids the dominant
whenever possible. For example, when Tony, who is gay, is asked whether he
is going to the Christmas party, he answers no because he knows that the
man he lives with would not be welcome. Moreover, in assertive separation,
the non-dominants will try to form an organization that can be separate from
the dominant, such as, a special club that you need to be a member of a
certain minority to gain entrance or membership. While in these groups, they
work against any dominant group messages that imply the dominant group is
superior and they are inferior. Furthermore, in aggressive separation, people
separate from the dominant group and expect their fellow non-dominant group
members to do so too. They are very critical of those who practise
assimilation or accommodation. For instance, an employee would bring legal
action against his or her boss for discrimination.

5. As a conclusion, non-dominant group members will adopt one of these
three strategies when there is an intercultural communication is happening.
Sometimes, in an intercultural communication situation with a person different
from us, we may interpret the other person as abnormal, weird and simply
different. To improve an intercultural communication, we can engage in
mindfulness which means paying attention to what is going on in the present
moment without judgement. Also, you must show patience as in willingness to
observe and describe what is happening without bias. These two ways might
help us to improve the intercultural communication between dominant and
non-dominant group members.

6. REFERENCES LIST:
Stefnoski, C. (2009) Chapter 3 Part 3. Retrieved 3rd November 2013 from
http://www.slideshare.net/cstefnoski/chapter-3-part-3
Weaver, H. (2009) Communicating Effectively (9thed.) Boston: McGraw Hill.
Pearson, C.P., Nelson, E. N., Scott, T., Harter, H. (2013) Human
Communication, (5thed.) Boston: McGraw Hill.