Cross Cultural Communication

In Communicating, Negotiating, and Resolving Conflicts Across Cultures (Thomas and Inkson, 2009) we can learn some valuable lessons to become a great negotiator. As a negotiator in a cross-cultural environment you have to go beyond your own culture and this is what the authors of this article are making clear. In this paper I will discuss and reflect on several aspects of cross-cultural communication in this article. As I previously majored in (Latin and Greek) linguistics and literature and after that in business communication I will also apply a linguistic approach on communication.

The authors of this article are using several cases to demonstrate that communication failures that led to the breakdown of relationships all have cultural origins.

The channel of communication can be spoken words, written words, or nonverbal behavior as I have mentioned when I discussed Hall. Other important factors in communication are skills of communicating and listening, selection of an appropriate channel, and the absence of “interference” or “noise”. Noise distracts communicators by focusing their attention on something extraneous to the communication act (Gamble T and Gamble M, 2014). Noise can be divided into three sub categories : external, internal and semantic noise. External noise is noise that is caused neither by the sender or receiver. This is noise in your surroundings by other people and the environment. An example of this can be when people all talking when you are presenting. Internal noise is noise that only exists within a person’s mind. For instance, you are losing your attention in a meeting you have with your manager because your dog recently died. The last type of noise that can impact communication is semantic noise due to the ambiguity of words and sentences. This is often the case when people are using jargon or a very technical

In order to become fluent in another language it takes time and study to master a language’s pronunciation, grammar, conventions and subtleties. This is not different when you are learning English as a second language. The language’s richness of vocabulary and its numerous synonyms can cause great difficulty. Therefore it is important that native or skilled English speakers communicate in relatively standard in which they avoid the use of colloquialisms, jargon and obscure language and avoid assumptions about comprehension by the other person when they are communicating with less skilled people in English. Personally, I believe that this does not only apply to people that are native of very skilled in English. If I am communicating with English native speakers I definitely have to do an extra effort to follow them. However, when I am communicating myself with my Chinese colleagues I can often feel the same barriers as I think a native English speaker can have when communicating with me as a second-language user. When I am speaking with my Chinese fellow students - whose level of English is below mine - I feel that the second-language strategies in the article are definitely applicable. I always have to enunciate very carefully what I am saying and make things not to complex. Another strategy when I am not sure if they fully understood me that I use –especially when you are having