Essay about Intercultural Communication
1427 Words6 Pages
Intercultural communication is commonly explained as an interaction between people of 'different cultures whether defined in terms of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic differences.' Human communication consists of verbal and nonverbal messages (language and gestures) which are shaped by gender, social class or culture. Thus, what perimeters define the intercultural exchange and what primary messages do we need or try to convey?
Our communication process or the way we attribute symbolic meanings to words and gestures, in order to express ourselves is shaped by the society in which we evolve. This shared use of codes within a given group of persons, also leads to a common philosophy of life, ideas or…show more content…
Although Latin American countries like Ecuador are defined as ?Third World? due to their economical level the lifestyle in Quito, for instance, follows more or less the pattern we know in this part of the world. People, drive to work, eat out and children go to school. However, this system functions with different values, customs or schedule. I spent four weeks in Quito at the Spanish Academy to take transfer credits in this language. During this time period I lived with an Ecuadorian family that is the parents and their two daughters, which allowed me to interact with them on a daily basis. The father, Ramon works in the United States and Marcella, 18, the eldest daughter attends college in Quito where she studies medicine. I found it easy to interact with Marcella because our age difference is not big and we are both college students. In addition she is a girl and we could discuss topics that are relevant to our gender, such as fashion or dates. The fact that this family educational level does not greatly differ from mine helped our communication, and shaped the messages we were exchanging. We were able to discuss many topics from politics to sociological and although they are from a different culture, our views were not radically opposites. However, the pace at which the Ecuadorian society develops made it difficult for me to explain them clearly
Essay about Intercultural Communication
1561 Words7 Pages
In the process of globalization, the intimate relationship between people from different racial, ethnic, national and regional groups becomes such a normative thing and is seen as good sign of integration process and social diversity. According to Ho (1990), the definition of “intercultural marriage” is explained as the marriage between partners from different racial, ethnic, national or religious backgrounds. Now intercultural marriage becomes a trend and receives a massive notice, which explains why it appears as frequent topic on several magazines, news, documentaries… Many couples now are more interesting in this topic and also can have better advices in this field than they were 30 years ago, when intercultural marriage was such an…show more content…
With the rising number of intercultural couples, more and more people raising bicultural children, the demand for good advices about this issue is also in high needed. There have been more research documentaries of many scholars regarding this field; information is exposed in many ways including TV shows, magazines, newsletters..; many couples find these were few good resources for supporting which may help them to navigate their marriage lives, because these couple is often received more disapproval than support from family, friend and society.
Along with the negative prejudice from the outside, the couples also have to undergo the tension of stressful situations, which are basically the whole differences from the two cultures where they come from. Many of those popular problems are related to gender roles, raising children, values and beliefs, viewpoint upon money and time, also language is consider one of the blocks and produce conflicts.
Value is what one person believes in and served as a principle rule for every behavior. Different cultures have different values, which have an important impact on and served as a potential conflict to intercultural marriage life. This means that the couples have to deal with various differences in their worldviews, which is the reason behind all misunderstands and disagreements, make their lives become more complex. For example, Americans consider making sound when eating soup is a