The Importance Of Intercultural Culture

Previous research indicates that positive attitudes towards other cultures are essential for international students to achieve Intercultural Communicative Competence. Several of those positive attitudes include: respect, openness, curiosity and discovery (Deardoff, 2006). The notion of openness implies an individual’s willingness to take part in intercultural learning, while withholding judgements about people from other cultures. Furthermore, Furnham and Bochner’s (1982) study has shown that when a sojourner enters the host culture, he or she will experience a certain level of social difficulties. These difficulties are typically associated with international students’ personal ability to deal with situations such as frustration, stress, alienation, uncertainty and ambiguity (Furnham & Bochner, 1982). Therefore, the concept of curiosity and discovery suggests that tolerance towards these social difficulties during an intercultural encounter will help foreign students communicate more appropriately in their host countries. In addition, a great level of respect towards peoples’ cultural values is necessary for someone to be consider an effective intercultural communicator (Deardoff, 2006). Deardoff (2006)

The opposite of social decentering is egocentric communication, which refers to individuals’ tendency to construct communication patterns that only make sense to themselves and send them to others without adapting to differences. Egocentric communication is often present in an intercultural encounter, however, it can be avoided when at least one participant recognizes, analyzes and adapts to the significant differences in their cultural backgrounds. In order to promote social decentered communication, an individual should have a substantial amount of knowledge of the host culture (Redmond & Bunyi,