Text 28 Cross-cultural communication

It is no secret that today’s workplace is rapidly becoming vast, as the business environment expands to include various geographic locations and span numerous cultures. The accelerating pace of globalization has made cross-cultural competence an indispensable qualification for any university graduate. So, what does cross-cultural communication mean?

First of all, cross-cultural communication is a field of study that examines how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. One of the aims of cross-cultural studies is to produce some guidelines with which people from different cultures can better communicate with each other.

Speaking about the history of cross-cultural studies, one can say that their origin cаn be found after World War II when changes and advancements in economic relationships, political systems and technological options began to break down old cultural barriers. As a result of this process, business transformed from individual country capitalism to global capitalism. Thus, international literacy and cross-cultural understanding have become crucial to a country’s cultural, technological, economic and political health.

The main theories for cross-cultural communication are based on the analysis of differences between various cultures. The greatest influence on these studies was produced by Edward T. Hall, Geert Hofstede and Fons Trompenaars. Their theories have been applied to a variety of different communication settings, including general business and management.

Thus, Edward T. Hall, a well-known American anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher, developed the concept of “high context culture” and “low context culture”. He wrote several popular books on dealing with cross-cultural issues, such as “The Silent Language” (1959), “The Hidden Dimension” (1966) and others.

An influential Dutch psychologist Gerard Hofstede studied the interactions between natural cultures and organizational cultures. His studies have demonstrated that there are national and cultural groupings that affect the behavior of societies and organizations, and they are very persistent across time. He found five dimensions of culture:

1) low vs. high power distance,

2) individualism vs. collectivism,

3) masculinity vs. femininity,

4) low vs. high uncertainty avoidance,

5) long vs. short term orientation.

These cultural differences describe averages or tendencies and not characteristics of individuals.

F. Trompenaas is a Dutch specialist in the field of cross cultural communication. He analyzed language and cultural difficulties within the family. F. Trompenaad had grown up speaking both French and Dutch and then later he worked with multinational oil company Shell in 9 countries.

The study of cross-cultural interaction is fast becoming a global research area. Language learning can not only help us understand what we as human beings have in common, but also assist us in understanding the diversity which underlies our ways of constructing and organising knowledge, and the many different realities in which we all live and interact. Knowledge is the key to effective cross-cultural communication.

Questions:

1. Why is a cross-cultural competence indispensable qualification for any university graduate?

2. What does cross-cultural communication examine?

3. What is one of the aims of cross-cultural studies?

4. Where can the origin of this science be found?

5. How did business transform at that time?

6. What are the main theories of cross-cultural communication based?

7. Can you name any leading specialists in this area?

8. What did Edward Hall develop?

9. What have Gerard Hofstede’s studies demonstrated?

10. What is the key to effective cross-cultural communication?