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There are six particular barriers to communication between people.

These are anxiety, assuming similarities instead of difference, ethnocentrism, language problems, prejudice and stereotyping, and misinterpretation of nonverbals. According to LaRay M. Barna (1997), the developer of the list of six barriers, actual difficulties are mostly related to people with different cultures. ANXIETY: The first barrier going to be discussed is high anxiety. The meaning of it is when a person feels inconvenient when he or she does not know how to behave in some situations. The result is that the communication transaction fails. ASSUMING SIMILARITIES INSTEAD OF DIFFERENCE: The next barrier to intercultural communication is assuming similarity instead of dissimilarity. When people are acting in a home manner in the different culture it might cause a lot of problems. In order to prepare yourself for various circumstances it is very important to assume laws, habits, and attitudes of another society. ETHNOCENTRISM: Ethnocentrism is a third issue on the barrier list. It is based on the idea that your own race, nation, or group is better than any other. Usually ethnocentrism is common for people who come across the culture shock. During the period of time when an individual is learning the new culture he might find this novel worst than his home culture. LANGUAGE PROBLEMS: The fourth barrier is the language problems. According to Jandt (2000) the definition of language is the set of symbols shared by a community to communicate meanings and experiences.There are five actual factors that generally produce the difficulties in the translation. They are lack of equivalences in vocabulary, idioms, grammar and syntax, experiences, and concepts. PREJUDICE AND STEREOTYPING: Prejudice can be defined as an unreasonable dislike and distrust of people who are different from you in some way, especially because of their race, sex, religion, etc. Stereotypes are the perceptions about that certain people have particular qualities or abilities because they belong to a particular race, sex, or social class. They can be positive and negative. Usually they are based on half-truths. MISINTERPRETATION OF NONVERBALS: Talking about nonverbal misinterpretations as another barrier to communication, it can be stated that in a conversation this is more problematical to understand the nonverbal symbols without sharing the same nonverbal codes. There are more than a few types of nonverbal interaction: proxemics, kinesics, chronemics, paralanguage, olfactics, clothing appearance, haptics, oculesics, etc. All of them are very different in every culture

CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE What is Cultural Intelligence? Cultural Intelligence (CI) is the ability to make oneself understood and the ability to create a fruitful collaboration in situations where cultural differences play a role. CI consists of three dimensions that correspond to the classical division between emotion, understanding and action: The emotional dimension intercultural engagement This dimension relates to the emotional or feeling component of the situation and the motivation to generate solutions. This dimension is the 'touch paper' in the intercultural encounter - the thing that changes fuel into fire and contains both the creative potential and the 'danger'; the positive driving forces and the stumbling blocks that can destroy or enliven the contact. Intercultural engagement includes the motivation we have to achieve a fruitful inter-cultural encounter. Our motivation comes from both external drivers, goals and objectives such as the need to develop a strategy for innovation and internal drivers such as curiosity or an attraction to things or people who are different. These drivers determine how much of an investment we are prepared to put into any situation. The cognitive dimension cultural understanding The cognitive component is the objective or rational component. It is based on reason and the capacity to develop mental structures which enable us to understand the encounter, to think about what is going on and to make judgments based on conceptual frameworks and language. It consists of understanding oneself as a cultural being as well as understanding people with a different cultural background. This dimension requires knowledge about what culture is as well as knowledge about the characteristics of our own and others' cultures. It also consists of cognitive flexibility and the ability to transfer experience from one kind of cultural encounter to another. The Action dimension intercultural communication This component is about what happens during an encounter, what we decide to do based on our judgments about the situation coming from the emotional and rational data we have collected. The action dimension is the activity and communication during the cultural encounter, what each participant actually does in this encounter. It consists of various types of interpersonal communication, for example, listening, questioning, summarizing, agreeing or disagreeing etc. as well as skills which we have learned to manage relationships in general involving body language, etiquette, rituals, rules and techniques. The action dimension brings the other two dimensions of cultural intelligence into play. Cultural intelligence involves a combination of the three dimensions and they influence each other. The three dimensions are all equally important and form the structure which helps us to gain a deeper understanding of the intercultural encounter and give us some options for improving the outcome. NATURE OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION Intercultural communication principles guide the process of exchanging meaningful and unambiguous information across cultural boundaries, in a way that preserves mutual respect and minimises antagonism. For these purposes, culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and norms of behaviour. It refers to coherent groups of people whether resident wholly or partly within state territories, or existing without residence in any particular territory. Hence, these principles may have

equal relevance when a tourist seeks help, where two well-established independent corporations attempt to merge their operations, and where politicians attempt to negotiate world peace. The following intercultural communication rules and norms: 1.Be Patient: Working in an intercultural environment can be a frustrating affair. Things may not get done when expected, communication can be tiresome and behavior may be inappropriate. Patience with yourself and others helps move beyond such issues and address how to avoid similar incidents in the future. 2.Establish Rules: Sometimes if working in a truly intercultural team it may be necessary for all to take a step back and set down some ground rules. i.e. how do we approach punctuality, meetings, communication, emails, disagreements, etc? It is always a good idea to try and develop the rules as a group rather than have them imposed. 3.Ask Questions: When you don't understand something or want to know why someone has behaved in a certain way, simply ask. Asking questions stops you making assumptions, shows the questioned you did not understand them and helps build up your bank of intercultural knowledge. 4.Respect: The foundation of all intercultural communication is respect. By demonstrating respect you earn respect and help create more open and fruitful relationships. 5.The Written Word: Sometimes people who do not have English as their mother tongue will read more proficiently than they speak. It is a good idea to always write things down as a back up. 6.Time: Not everyone in the world thinks "time is money". Understand that for many people work is low down on the priority list with things like family taking a much higher precedence. Do not expect people to sacrifice their own time to meet deadlines. It is good practice to always leave a bit of spare time when considering deadlines. 7.Humour: In an intercultural environment one man's joke is another's insult. Be wary of differences in the sense of humour and also the acceptability of banter and the like in a business environment. 8.Always Check: The easiest way of minimizing the negative impact of intercultural communication is to check and double check. Whether agreeing something or giving instructions, a minute spent double checking all parties are 'reading from the same sheet' saves hours of work later on down the line. 9.Be Positive: When faced with incidents of an intercultural nature steer clear of blame and conflict. Stay positive, analyse the problem areas and work as a team to build

strategies and solutions to ensure the same never occurs again. 10.Self-Reflect: A good intercultural communicator not only looks outwards but also inwards. Take time to reflect on your own communication, management or motivation style and see where you can improve as an individual. Global networking eliminates geographic distances and facilitates communication with different cultural groups. The Internet presents an opportunity to highlight cultural differences and promote an understanding and awareness of diverse cultural perspectives. Multinational management orientation Managers must become proficient cross-cultural communicators if they wish to succeed in today's global environment.

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