According to Hahn (2005), "More and more companies around the world are hopping national borders to conduct business. Regardless of the organization you join, you are likely to be dealing with people who come from various national, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. Communicating across language and cultural barriers at home will also challenge your skills. Without leaving your own country, you're likely to come into contact with people from a variety of backgrounds who work in your company, industry, and community." This is extremely true because companies are now global and it's vital to not only be able to communicate effectively within your own culture, but to communicate effectively across many different cultures. I also liked the point Hahn made when he talked about interacting with other cultures even in your own country. The United States has a huge population of immigrants and it's imperative to know how to interact with other cultures.
According to Jandt (2010), "intercultural communication generally refers to face-to-face interactions among people of diverse cultures" (p. 45). I think that all of the aspects of intercultural communication that were mentioned by Hahn in his article are important but the most important, I think, are being aware of body language and being aware of different etiquette rules or manners. Body language is usually pretty universal so it's a good way to evaluate a person or a situation even if there is a language barrier. You can usually tell how a person is feeling just by their body language. Also of equal importance is being aware of specific etiquette rules or manners within a culture. Some cultures take offense to certain hand gestures or movements and it's important to be aware of what to avoid to ensure not offending someone.
References
Hahn, M. (2005, December 30). Ten Commandments of Intercultural Communication. Ezine @rticles. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Ten-Commandments-of-Intercultural-Communication&id=120247.
Jandt, F.E. (2010). An introduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a global community (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
I think that your entire blog is excellent. All of your postings have a lot of content and they have very good points. The quotation you used about the global business model does a good job of summarizing the major reasons diversity is so important to communication. You go on to explain this concept very well also. In order to better communicate with other cultures we must be able to understand their tendencies and what is important to them. In many ways this is hand gestures, bows, tones, eye contact, and many different things.
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