Intercultural Communication Essay

The world is characterized by increased contacts within different areas such as business, education, tourism and military cooperation resulting into communication between people from different cultural and linguistic background. This form of communication where the people involved in the conversation are from different cultural origins is known as intercultural communication. Intercultural refers to the communicative relation between people from different cultural background while communication is the use of language to establish an active relationship. Intercultural communication is of critical importance as it offers individuals with the ability to deal with people from different cultures which is increasingly important as the world become

Communication problems are not always due to language differences. Some of the communication issues are gender-related and thus heterosexual relationships is intercultural in that they bring together the different cultural world of female and male. Communication between people of opposite sex is a form of intercultural communication because gender not only influences communication but it is also a product of communication. Males and females are taught different communicative behaviors and linguistic practices. The differences in communicative practices between male and female create cultural concepts of gender. Although men and women grow in the same environment, they grow in two distinct communication cultures. Furthermore, intercultural communication is affected by how different cultures view the role of men and women. There are two different expectations placed on female and males creating two group of people with the various perceptions of the world. Both genders find difficult to correct misunderstanding intercultural communication because their sense of place in culture is tied in the relationship between men and

Individuals from different cultural backgrounds vary in their expectation of leadership due to differences in value orientation which may lead to intercultural conflicts. For instance, some culture value individualism whereas others values collectivism. People from collectivistic cultures place a great emphasizes on group loyalty and teamwork. Cultural values also influence communication patterns and people from collectivistic prefer leaders who use less direct communication. On the other hand, people from individualistic cultures prefer highly individualistic communication which may conflict with the collectivistic cultural background (Holliday,