Intercultural Communication
Intercultural Communication
Intercultural Communication
Nowadays, people find their lives interconnected and interdependent with each
other due to the forces of globalization. As people from different cultural backgrounds
claims that culture is a concept that we use often yet we have a great deal of trouble
defining. Since culture is central to the way we view, experience, and engage with all
aspects of our lives and the world around us, even our definitions of culture may really
Well, intercultural communication offers the ability to deal across cultures, which
is increasingly important, as the world gets smaller. Getting smaller doesn’t mean the
world is becoming identical, it means having more and more contact with people who
are culturally different. Being able to deal with this cultural difference peacefully, never
mind creatively and innovatively, is becoming a survival issue to thrive in a global world
as a global citizen.
As culture plays a greater role today than ever before because of the ways it is
linked to community, it is now seen as a resource for economic and political exploitation.
Moreover, as national economies evolve, overlap, and merge, the need to do business
assumptions and views of the world. However, one of the main benefits of intercultural
communication is the ways in which it broadens and deepens our understanding of the
world we live in by challenging our taken-for-granted beliefs and views and by providing
cannot be excluded from our life, we must engage ourselves with an ongoing process of
only assist us in eliminating many problems such as conflicts and misunderstanding, but
exchange among people, cultures, and cultural forms across geographic, cultural, and
politically, and environmentally, which leads both to shared interests, needs, and
inequities based on flows of capital, labor, and access to education and technology, as
institutions; and lastly, a historical legacy of colonization, Western domination, and U.S
As we move around the globe –whether for tourism, work, or political asylum; in
the military; in search of economic opportunity; or for survival – we carry our culture with
us and make efforts, however elaborate or small, to re-create a sense of the familiar or
a sense of “home.” While the complex notion of culture cannot be reduced to objects
that are tucked away in a suitcase or packed in a backpack, the things we take as we
take as we move, travel, or flee are significant in representing our culture, just as the
languages we speak, the beliefs that we hold, and the practices we enact. As such,
Sorrels introduces few of the more salient aspects of cultural globalization including
migration and the formation of cultural connectivities, cultural flows within the context of
unequal power relations, and the emergence of hybrid cultural forms and identities.
have reshaped the way we interact with the world. As workplaces, communities,
schools, and people’s lives become more intricately interwoven in global webs,
claimed by Sorrels.
CHAPTER 3
COMMUNICATION
As intended by Sorrels, this chapter focuses on understanding how and what our
bodies communicate, how our bodies have been marked by difference historically, and
also introducing the process and practice of “reading” politics in the age of globalization,
experience.
From a very early age, we are taught implicitly and explicitly how to read,
interpret, and assign meanings to our own and others’ bodies based on our culturally
informed codes. Skin color, hairstyles, facial features, and expressions, as well as
gestures and clothing, all convey meanings within complex cultural systems of
As mentioned above, Sorrels starts this chapter with the idea that our bodies are
sites where categories of social difference are constructed. Body politics, as used here,
refers to the practices and policies through which power is marked, regulated, and
Since our engagement with others is through our bodies, Sorrels looked at how
differences are marked on the body – how our bodies are signs that communicate – in
the socially constructed systems of race, gender, and class that impact global and local
particular society or culture through communication. Thus, social constructs exist only
because people agree to act like and think like they exist and agree to follow certain
construction of race to show how social constructs are linked to power—social, political,
and economic power. Since social constructs are invented, used, and institutionalized
by people through communication, they can and have changed over time, yet we know
how the preferred meanings of deeply engrained signification systems that benefit those
in power are difficult to disrupt and change. The social constructions of race and racial
capitalism, and national/ regional identities, have been resignified in the global context.
CHAPTER 4
In this chapter, Sorrels examines how cultures are simultaneously placed and
displaced, inevitably located in specific places, and yet dislocated from their sites of
origin in the context of globalization. She also introduces the concept of globalization to
show how specific places are impacted by globalizing and localizing forces. Moreover,
she proposes the notion of bifocal vision or the ability to attend to the linkages between
“here” and “there” as well as the connections between the present and past to
understand the complex, layered, and contested dimensions of places, cultural spaces,
Throughout history and today, space has been used to establish, exert, and
maintain power and control. Hence, Sorrels asserted that historically, notions of culture
have been closely bound to place, geographic locations, and the creation of collective
and shared cultural spaces. As the traditional definition of culture implies that cultures
are bounded entities that are grounded in place, a reciprocal relationship exists between
culture and place. In short, to understand place is to understand culture and vice versa.
disparate cultures into closer and closer proximity, intersection, and juxtaposition with
each other. As cultural spaces are permeated, disrupted, transported, and relocated in
hybridization, and fusion of cultures and cultural space occurs. Yet, place and location
still matter.
deterritorialized and reterritorialized around the world in the global context, contested
and hybrid cultural spaces develop. Segregated, contested, and hybrid cultural spaces
expose the context of unequal power relations that structure intercultural communication
in the global age. Well, Sorrels discovers that hybrid cultural spaces are much more
than the blending of multiple cultural traditions and practices. Rather, hybrid cultural
reconstitute identities, and sites where creative alternatives challenge and transform
alliances, and conflicts. As areas of the world join and are forced into the interconnected
global economy, we, people, are thrust into unparalleled migration flows. Hence, the
lives of those who are uprooted, the lives of those who remain, and the lives of those in
identifying different types of migrants is to highlight the particular conditions that shape
the experiences of migrants and draw attention to commonalities and differences across
adaptation from macro-, meso-, and micro-levels are also introduced by Sorrels to
enable us understand the dynamic and multifaceted nature of migration and cultural
adaptation today. Well, world migration from the first wave to the current wave has been
migration and cultural adaptation in the global context requires that we address the
intricate web of individual, social, and geo-political factors that compel and constrain as
well as empower and transform migrants and their surroundings. A multilevel analysis
that attends to the macro-level historical, political, and economic issues; micro-level
individual attributes; and meso-level migrant networks account for the intersection of
compared to those who are forced to migrate. Yet, the cross border movements of
International migration creates significant financial and social benefits for migrants, for
their families, and for the countries of origin and destination. Thus, It helps to improve
social life of people as they learn about new culture, customs, and languages which
DIVERSE CULTURES
which messages are communicated. The term network media is defined and referred to
as media like the World Wide Web which connects multiple points to multiple points
while also adding to serving interpersonal and mass media functions. Technology is the
main focus for media. It advances technology and dramatically magnifies the impact of
institutions to create and convey meaning and products that reflect, construct, and
The forces and factors that have given rise to globalization – advances in
as the privatization and deregulation of media outlets in much of the world – combine to
intensify the role of media and popular culture in shaping our communication with and
understanding of cultures different from our own. Media and culture also play pivotal
roles in how we make sense of and construct our own cultures and identities whereas
popular culture is defined as the systems and artifacts that the general populous or
broad masses within society share or about which most people have some
understanding. There are three characteristics that help define popular culture: 1)
popular culture is central and pervasive in advance capitalist systems, 2) popular culture
reading are also presented by Sorrels to reveal the ways prevailing ideologies are
represented and reinforced through popular culture and to bring to awareness the
To conclude, this chapter provides emphasis on the central role of media and
popular culture in intercultural communication and in the context of globalization for they
facilitate communication across cultural and national boundaries escalating the flow of
information and images interculturally. The title of this chapter connotes that the
technologically advanced global age characterizes the mediated popular culture scene
INTERPERSONAL CONTEXTS
need for effective interpersonal communication among differing cultures has become
quite clear.
phones to the Internet to global media has also revolutionized and transformed the lives
and lifestyles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities in Asia and
around the globe. Clearly, globalizing forces have magnified the frequency and intensity
of intercultural relationships.
Our need to communicate across culture can be very beneficial personally and
both prevalent in emphasizing the differences in cultures. The way we act and the
relationships, or relationships that cross socially constructed racial groups. Thus, this
chapter draws attention to how intercultural relationships in the global context are sites
where cultural differences, power, privilege, and positionality are negotiated, translated,
and transformed. Sorrels aims to let us understand the critical role intercultural
and stereotypes held by other individuals and communities, and building alliances that
in small, centralized groups, a need to broaden these groups and bring about a general
relationships that involve a relatively small group of people, such as couples, families,
friends, workgroups, and even classroom groups from those involving much larger
audiences.
CHAPTER 8
COMMUNICATION
Globalization has been defined in various ways, but is most typically defined in
computer networks. Globalization refers primarily to the ways in which economic and
there are ripple effects that make the impact of globalization much broader socially and
culturally. Ideas, customs, and cultural movements all follow closely after the exchange
The trade of commodities has brought people and things from different cultures
into contact and collision since antiquity. In this regard, capitalism has provided relative
global economic integration. Yet, Sorrels points out the ethnocentric assumptions that
the culture of capitalism is superior to all others mask the exploitative and dehumanizing
market unless some individuals or companies are getting unfair advantages in the form
of monopolies. Often the government plays the role of providing public goods such as
healthcare and education to the poor, who may not otherwise receive the same
benefits.
To use resources efficiently, the goods and services have to follow the law of
supply and demand. This affects the prices the companies can charge for their goods
and services. Since companies are trying to maximize their profit, they try to sell at the
highest price and the lowest cost. If they don’t, then competitors will eat away their
profits.
Well, in a capitalist society, companies and individuals own the different factors
of production. They receive rent, interest, profit, and wages from the ownership. This
ownership and benefits incentivize capitalist society to maximize profit and thus
In the context of globalization, everything, including culture, has been and will still
always be commodified.
CHAPTER 9
Conflicts among individuals and groups from different cultural, ethical, racial,
religious, and national backgrounds are propelled today by greater proximity, increasing
magnified social and economic inequity also shape the causes and consequences of
intercultural conflict.
The given scenarios in this chapter exclaimed by Sorrels point to the likelihood of
As for interpersonal contexts, conflicts, if handled effectively, can clean the air
and result in stronger bonds between two people. Workplace conflicts, if managed
Many companies today are making an exerted effort to develop culturally diverse
workforces that can better represent them globally. While these multicultural workforces
bring new perspectives and ideas that companies can use, such as diversity, both in the
workforce and in the client base, they also bring unique challenges.
diversity. They need to grasp the concepts of intercultural communication, which are
skills that become more important as the global population makes tighter connections.
With intercultural training, which has become a survival guide in the global business
intercultural conflict from three interrelated frames: (1) the micro-frame that examines
cultural orientations to conflict and communication styles; (2) the meso- or intermediate
frame that broadens our view to address cultural group prejudices, cultural histories,
and cultural identities; and (3) the macro- or geopolitical frame that expands our
viewpoint to include the impact of media and discourse as well as political and
Globalization has catapulted people from different cultures into shared and
racism, and other forms of fear and exclusion. This chapter offers a critical theory, social
Commonly, the notion of citizenship has been used to refer to membership in and
identity associated with a nation-state. The people who are recognized as global
citizens are seen as having specific rights, duties, responsibilities, and privileges that go
complex web of connections and interdependencies. One in which our choices and
actions may have repercussions for people and communities locally, nationally or
internationally. It nurtures personal respect and respect for others, wherever they live. It
encourages individuals to think deeply and critically about what is equitable and just,
and what will minimise harm to our planet. Exploring global citizenship themes may help
learners grow more confident in standing up for their beliefs, and more skilled in
and proactive. They need to be able to solve problems, make decisions, think critically,
communicate ideas effectively and work well within teams and groups. These skills and
21st century life too, including many workplaces. These skills and qualities cannot be
developed without the use of active learning methods through which pupils learn by
The opportunities our fast-changing ‘globalised’ world offers young people are
enormous. But so too are the challenges. Young people are entitled to an education that
equips them with the knowledge, skills and values they need in order to embrace the
opportunities and challenges they encounter, and to create the kind of world that they
want to live in with an education that supports their development as global citizens.