2 TYPES OF COMMUNICATION

1.VERBAL – refers to the use of

language.

2.NON-VERBAL – refers to the use of

gestures, facial expressions, and other
body movements
 WHAT IS INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION?

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION refers to

the effective communication between people,
workers and people at different cultural
backgrounds.
It refers to communication between people
whose cultural perceptions and symbol
systems are distinct enough to alter the
communication event.
 An academic field study which seeks to understand
how people from different countries and culture
behave and communicate and perceive the world
around.
 The interpersonal interaction between members of
different groups which differ from each other in
respect of the knowledge shared by their members
and in respect of their linguistic forms of symbolic
behavior.
 ELEMENTS OF INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION

1. PERCEPTIONS – the beliefs, values, attitudes, world

views, social organizations.
2. VERBAL PROCESSES – the ways in which cultures,
employ symbols to portray things and experiences.
3. NON-VERBAL PROCESSES – shared thoughts and
feelings of bodily behavior, time and space.
4. CONTEXTUAL ELEMENTS – business, education and
health care, tourism and personal relationships
 WHY DO WE STUDY INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION?

1. INCREASES SELF-AWARENESS
 It increases our awareness of our own culture – our cultural
identity and cultural background.
 It helps us to avoid ethnocentrism – a tendency to think
that our culture is superior to other cultures.
2. DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES
 The constant demographic shifts that countries and
communities experience result to more immigrants,
refugees and undocumented individuals.
3. WORKPLACE AND ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION
 To compete effectively in a global market we must understand
how business and cultural practices are conducted in other
countries.
4. CREATE PROBLEM-SOLVING
 According to research, we learn from people who are different
than us from those who are similar to us.
5. GLOBAL AND INTRAPERSONAL PEACE
 Fundamental to peace, global and interpersonal.
 If we are at peace with ourselves, we will hold more compassion
and caring from other around us.
 IMPORTANCE OF INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION IN EDUCATION

 Intercultural communication has become important

because the schools are becoming more diverse
culturally.
 Roux (2002) argued that successful educators are
effective communicators and thus culturally competent
in cross-cultural encounters.
 Communications can be useful source of intercultural
knowledge and mutual enrichment between culturally
diverse students if managed proactively by the teacher.
 Linds (1997) in his paper, states that successful
communication is a prerequisite of effective
transfer of knowledge in schools.

 A rich repertoire of verbal and non-verbal behaviors

appropriate to the intercultural situation as well as
effective capabilities to react sensitively to fellow
communicators from other cultures is a necessity
in education.
 PARALANGUAGE

Paralanguage is a language of gestures,

expressions and postures.

It is part of the redundancy in

communication that helps prevent
ineffective communication.
 Form of Paralanguage

 BODY LANGUAGE/KINESICS this is the language of

gestures, expressions and postures.
 Example: “In North America, for instance we commonly
use our arms and hands to say goodbye, point, count,
express excitement, warn away, threaten, etc.
 Our communication is not limited to spoken language.
We communicate directly through facial expression,
body system, gestures and tone of voice.
 Indirectly, we communicate through system of signs and
symbols such as writing algebraic expressions, musical
scores, paintings and road signs.
 As we all know from experience, the spoken word does
not communicate all that we know about a social
situation.
 We can tell if a person is okay when he says “I’m fine” in
response to a question “How are you?”. Tone of voice,
facial expressions, or other body language is also
communication.
 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

 Language is an abstract system of word meaning and

symbols for all aspect of culture. It includes speech,
written characters, numerals, symbols and gestures and
expressions of non-verbal communication.
 Language enables us to store meaning and experiences
to pass this heritage on to new generation.
 In addition, language enables us to transcend the here
and now, preserving the past and imagining the future.
 While language is cultural and universal, striking
differences in the use of language are evident around
the world.
 Example: An English-speaking person from the United
States who is visiting London may be puzzled the first
time and English friend says “I’ll ring you up”, the
friend means “I’ll call you on the telephone”.
 Similarly, the meaning of non-verbal gestures vary from
one culture to one another.
 A man’s language is a reflection of the kind of person he is, the
family where he comes from, the level of education he has
attained, and an index to the behavior that may be expected
from him.
 Without language, knowledge could not have been maintained
and accumulated. Without the ability to communicate, man
cannot pass on his accumulated wisdom to the succeeding
generations.
 Language is the key factor in the human race’s success in
creating and preserving culture, for without language, the ability
to convey ideas and traditions is impossible. With language,
persons can perpetuate and pass on knowledge from one
generation to the next.
 FOUR AREAS OF THE STUDY OF
LANGUAGE

1. PHONOLOGY the system of sounds that a particular language

uses, includes not only the language’s basic unit of sounds, or
phonemes, but rules about how we put phonemes together to
from words and rules about the proper intonation patterns fro
phrases and sentences.
Phonemes are considered basic units of sounds because they are
the smallest sound units that affect meaning. Changing a phoneme
changes the meaning of a word.
Example: changing the initial phoneme in the word bat, we can
make the very different word cat. By changing the middle phoneme
in the word bat, we can make yet another word bit.
2. SEMANTICS is the study of word meanings and word combinations.
Comprehension of written as well as spoken language requires not only
a knowledge of specific words and their definitions but an
understanding of how we use words and how we combine them in
phrases, clauses, and sentences.
Example: A first year psychology student must learn a whole new
vocabulary of psychological terms.
3. GRAMMAR describes the structure of a language which consists of
two major parts: MORPHOLOGY & SYNTAX
Morphology is the study of the language’s smallest unit of meaning,
called morphemes – prefixes, suffixes, and root words – and of how
these units are properly combined
Syntax specifies how words are combined into sentences.
 Example: Each language has syntactic rules for expressing
grammatical relations such as negation, interrogation, possession,
and juxtaposition of subject and object. The rules of syntax allow us to
vary word order so that we are not limited to one way of sating what
we mean. “After class I went to the library to listen to some music”.
This is syntactically correct, but “I listened to some music after class
and I went to the library” is syntactically incorrect because it is
ambiguous and unclear.
4. PRAGMATICS the 4th component of language, consists of rules for
the use of appropriate language in particular contexts. Thus
pragmatics is not only concerned with speaking and writing but with
social interaction, and it directly addresses the issue of effective
communication.
Example: The child learns that she has a better chance of
getting a what she wants if she asks a classmate, “ May I
have one of your crayons?” rather than demand, “Gimme a
crayon.”
The pupil also learns to take turns in speaking, to remain
silent while others speak, and to speak differently in
different settings such as the classroom and the playground.
 LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

 Perhaps the most significant of the inventions made possible by culture

is language. The learning of culture takes place through language.
 From our enormous capacity to learn and use language is derived our
collective memory (myths, fables, sayings, ballads, and the like) as well
as writing, art, and all other media that shape human consciousness
and store and transmit knowledge.
 Attempts to explain the diversity of languages have focused on the
possible interactions between language and other aspects of culture. If
culture can affect the structure and content of its language, then it
follows that linguistic diversity derives in part from cultural diversity.
 Language is an integral part of culture and human culture cannot
exist without it. All human societies have languages. In some
simple societies where people cannot read or write, they have a
spoken language. Through the use of language, wide vistas of
reality have been opened. What we have observed and
experienced, as well as our norms, values, and ideas exist
because we have learned to identify or experience these things
through language. These things are shared and transmitted from
one generation to another through the process of socialization.
 One way a society’s language may reflect its corresponding
culture is in lexical content, or vocabulary. When experiences,
events, or objects are singled out and given words it may be the
result of cultural characteristics.
 An approach that may reveal the difference between language and culture
is to study how children in different cultures (speaking different
languages) develop concepts as they grow up. If language influences the
formation of a particular concept, we might expect that children will
acquire that concept earlier in societies where the languages emphasize
that concept.
 One long standing claim concerning the relationship between language
and culture is that the structure of a language determines the way in
which speakers of that language view the world. This claim has intrigued
many anthropologists and linguist and there is fairly extensive literature
concerning it. The opposite claim would be that the culture of a people
finds reflection in the language they employ: because they value certain
things and they do them in a certain way, they come to use their language
in ways that reflect what they value and what they do. In this view, cultural
requirements do not determine the structure of a language.
 Edward Sapir, a linguist, acknowledged the close relationship
between language and culture, maintaining that they were
inextricably related so that you could not understand or appreciate
the one without a knowledge of the other.
 So complete is the human reliance on language that it often seems
that language actually determines the possibilities for thought and
action in any given culture. Perhaps we are actually unable to
perceive phenomena for which we have no nouns or to engage in
actions for which we have no verbs. This idea is expressed in the
LINGUISTIC-RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS.
 In its most radical form, the linguistic –relativity hypothesis asserts
that language actually determines the possibilities for a culture’s
norms, beliefs and values.
 Another acceptable version of the theory recognizes the mutual
influences of culture and language. One does not determine the
other.
Example: A person who loves to watch birds will have a much
larger vocabulary about bird habitats and bird names than one who
cares little about bird life.

So, although the extreme version of the linguistic-relativity hypothesis

is incorrect, it has been a valuable stimulus toward the development
of a less biased view of other cultures. It is to be understood that a
culture perceive and understand the world and at the same time,
influences their perceptions and understandings.
 No amount of training can produce the more advanced uses of
language found in all normal humans, no matter what their
culture. For example, every human language allows its
speakers to express an infinite number of thoughts and ideas
that can persist even after their originators are gone. This
property of human language which is not shared by any other
known species (Eisley, 1970 as cited by Kornblum, 1991),
allows human to transmit their culture from one generation to
the next.
 CULTURE

 As our nation continues to change, we all will interact with

others from quite different backgrounds from our own,
especially in the classroom. The manner in which we respond
to others who seem different can have a serious impact on
success in school, work, and harmonious relationship with
others.
 People from different countries, Americans, Japanese, Filipino,
can use standards from their own cultural background to form
opinions about those from other cultures. If people can
understand why those from other groups behave and talk as
they do, there is less of an inclination to conclude that
“different is deficient”.
 Example: When meeting people from another
culture, we are initially struck by differences in
behavior, speech, clothing, food, etc.

 An understanding of culture will provide individuals

with a better appreciation of the different cultures
of people with whom they may relate how and in
the future.