The Major Features of Intercultural Communication
飞毛腿Communication is the process of understanding and sharing meaning. It occurs whenever information is exchanged between a nder and a receiver. Sending signals of one kind or another is inevitable. And the process of nding and receiving message is complex. What a signal means to the nder is not always what it means to the receiver. Therefore, the trick is to transmit appropriate information to appropriate receivers at appropriate times.
Communication is a symbolic behavior. And the most important mode of communication is verbal. Language is a highly developed symbolic system of human communication. As a most basic element of culture, language is the means, by which culture is transmitted from generation to generation and a person’s language greatly influences how he or she perceives the world.
The major features of communication inclouds:
1. Communication is symbolic
Human communication is symbolic. We employ symbols as a way of sharing our internal states. The ability to produce and u symbols enables human beings to share their internal status and infer what another human being is experiencing, thus distinguishing human beings with other animals. Symbols are at the core of communication, but no symbol means the same thing to everyone, becau different cultures often employ different symbols and usually assign special meaning to them. For example, dragon has been taken as totem by Chine for thousands of years, it reprents a kind of powerful and propitious animal, although it may never really exist. However, in western cultures, dragon is a kind of fierce and evil animal.
Therefore, many people insist that we should not translate “龙” into “dragon”, since the two symbols reprents totally different things.
2.Communication can be intentional and unintentional behavior
Communication takes place whenever people attach meaning to messages, even if the nder of the message does not expect his or her actions to be considered part of the co有关节日的作文
腊肉怎么炒才好吃mmunication event. Just like the Chine phra— “言者无心，听者有意”威龙商务网, so being aware that your actions convey many potential messages is very important when engaging in intercultural communication.
梦见自己被别人用刀刺伤流血3.Communication has a conquence
篮球小子Communication influences other people whether we intend it to be or not. This feature of communication—communication has a conquence— means that when we receive a message, something happens to us. It also means that all of our messages, in one degree or another, do something to someone el. We cannot nd message without influencing other people.
4. Communication is dynamic
Communication is a behavioral process. It is not static. Communication is dynamic like a motion picture, not a single snapshot. What is said can not be unsaid and what is done cannot be undone. Communication is irreversible and unrepeatable. It is very important to
realize that communication is dynamic. And when we nd signals to others, we’d better think thrice before we act in order not to cau any trouble that can not be made up.
5. Communication is contextual and governed by rules
手机族Context is a key element in both communication and culture. Communication is contextual. Messages exchange always takes place in specific and definable location, not in a vacuum. Different context call for different modes of behavior. The regulations for each context are culturally bad. Since communication is contextual and governed by rules, we should never imagine everyone behaves in the same way as we do. And when the context or culture changes, the mode of our behavior must change at the same time. That is what is called “When in Rome do as the Romans do.”
As for culture, it is a complex, abstract, and pervasive matrix of social elements that functions as an all encompassing form or pattern for living by laying out a predictable world in which all individual is firmly oriented. It enables us to make n of our surroundings, aiding the transition from the womb to this new life.
There are three aspects of culture: material life such as material things, esntial for human survival; social life such as lifestyles, social organizations, and political and economic relations; and spiritual life such as religion, philosophy, value system, science and art.
The major features of culture are as follows:
1. Culture is not innate, but learned.
As animals, all of us must eat, drink, sleep, find shelter, give and receive affection, and meet all of the other biologic requirements that flesh is heir to. But what we eat when we eat and how we eat are all behaviors we have learned from the groups in which we have grown up. Not only the language we speak and the way we think, but even what we e, hear, taste, touch, and smell are conditioned by the culture in which we have been raid.
