课外延伸-Understanding Intercultural Communication资料文件与下载

Books（推荐书目）

1. Linda Beamer & Iris Varner. Intercultural Communication on the Global Workplace (2^nd Edition). New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2001.

2. Ting-Toomey, Stella & Chung, Leeva. Understanding Intercultural Communication, Second Edition. London: Oxford University Press, 2011

Geert Hofsted. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1997.

Websites（推荐网址）

https://intercultural.org/ The Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI) is a nonprofit charity with the mission of fostering an awareness and appreciation of cultural difference in both the international and domestic arenas.

https://library.mtroyal.ca/ESL/websites/intercultural This website provides resources for intercultural communication.

https://media.norquest.ca/MDS/intercultural_coach/index.htm This is an intercultural communication resource. It is designed to develop intercultural sensitivity and intercultural competence of the readers.

Further Reading （拓展阅读）

Intercultural Communication

Extended Encyclopedia Entries in C. Cortés (Ed) Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia

Milton J. Bennett, Ph.D.

Intercultural Development Research Institute

Intercultural communication is the study and practice of communication across cultural contexts. It applies equally to domestic cultural differences such as ethnicity and gender and to international differences such as those associated with nationality or world region. Intercultural communication is an approach to relations among members of these groups that focuses on the recognition and respect of cultural differences, seeks the goal of mutual adaptation leading to biculturalism rather than simple assimilation, and supports the development of intercultural sensitivity on the part of individuals and organizations to enable empathic understanding and competent coordination of action across cultural differences. 

Communication

Communication is much more than a simple transmission of information: it is the mutual creation of meaning. Information is not, in itself, meaningful; it is only when information is intended and interpreted in some way that it attains significance. For instance, if you are telling me about a movie you just saw, you probably intend for me to understand what the movie is about and also something about your experience and evaluation of it. You pose the information in a language I know, use references to concepts and other films I might know, and in conveying your feeling you assume that I am able and willing to access your experience. For my part, I try to interpret the information in the way you intended it by using common meanings for words and concepts and by recognizing both our common experience of similar events and the uniqueness of your personal experience in this particular event.

Of course, the exchange described above is an ideal that is seldom achieved in one pass (or many). What usually happens is that my interpretation is both more and less than what you intended. It is less in my probable failure to assign exactly similar meaning to words and concepts that you use, and it is more in that I probably project many of my own feelings about similar events onto your description. In my response (feedback) to your message, you may recognize some of my discrepant interpretation and correct it. Assuming that this is not your first communication with someone like me, you may have already anticipated some of my likely misinterpretation by tailoring your message to me in the first place. So both your intention and my interpretation are in play as we attempt to negotiate a mutually acceptable match. The final meaning of the communication event is neither just your intention nor simply my interpretation; it is our mutual creation of an agreeable position.

Culture

The sense of “culture” used in intercultural communication is that of “worldview.” Culture is a generalization about how a group of people coordinate meaning and action among themselves. One way they do that is through institutions such as religious, political, and economic systems, and family and other social structures. But underlying these institutions is a habitual organization of how the world is perceived, and thus how it is experienced. These habits are often referred to as cultural assumptions and values, and they occur in all groups, not just national societies. In general, intercultural communication focuses on this worldview aspect of culture and not so much on the institutions of culture. Human communication is conducted by people, not institutions. The concern of any study of communication is therefore with the way that human beings organize meaning. We all are influenced by the institutional structures that we internalize as part of socialization, and understanding those institutions may give insight into how we habitually organize our perception, but in the end it is our human worldview that generates meaning, not institutional structure.

An essential element of culture is the boundary that distinguishes “us” from “them.” Every human being belongs to groups defined by boundaries. Typical boundaries are those formed by nation- states (e.g. US Americans, Japanese, Nigerians) or by ethnic groups composed of people with a particular tribal, national, or regional heritage (e.g. Kurdish, Jewish, Russian, European, African). Within a boundary, people communicate with each other differently than with people outside the boundary. The difference may or may not involve using a different language or jargon, but it always includes different kinds of agreements on meaning and action. A cultural boundary indicates a greater amount of interaction and need for coordination among those enclosed by it.

In multicultural societies, national and ethic boundaries are often combined to indicate membership in both groups (e.g. African American, European American, Malay Singaporean, Russian Kazakhstani). In addition to these common distinctions, boundaries are also formed by geographical regions within or across national boundaries (e.g. Southern Italians, Pacific Northwest Americans, Western Europeans, Sub-Saharan Africans) Also importantly, the boundaries of organizations often indicate very strong and distinct cultural worldviews (e.g. corporate cultures, police culture, armed services culture, peace corps culture). Within organizations, different functional groups such as accountants, service people, engineers, detectives, etc. are likely to share a culture. Within societies, cultural boundaries may also include gender, sexual orientation, generation (age), and other grouping. In these and other cases, the culture is generated not by any particular belief or behavior of the group, but by the need to coordinate meaning and action among more frequently interacting people. So, for instance, gay culture is not about homosexuality per se; it is about how people communicate with other people with whom they are more likely to be in contact due to shared sexuality. In this same way, some religious or political groups can generate culture, not because of their particular beliefs, but because people in the groups are spending more time with others who agree with them. 

Intercultural Communication

Since “communication” is the mutual creation of meaning and “culture” is the coordination of meaning and action in a group, it follows that “intercultural communication” is the mutual creation of meaning across cultures. This means that intercultural communication is the mechanism whereby people of different groups perceive and try to make sense of one another. While there is no guarantee that people will be respectful of the differences they encounter in this process, it is certainly a criterion of good communication that people seek to understand the intentions of each other in non-evaluative ways. For that reason, intercultural communication incorporates particular strategies that encourage us to attribute equal humanity and complexity to people who are not part of our own group.

The most common tactical goal of intercultural communication is to inform one-way cross- cultural adaptations in situations such as teaching in multicultural classrooms, providing social services (including policing) in multicultural communities, traveling for business or pleasure, and some kinds of international study. In those cases, sojourners need to recognize cultural differences that are relevant to short-term communication, to predict misunderstanding that may arise from those differences, and to adapt their behavior as necessary to participate appropriately in the cross-cultural encounter. Central to this application is having a good system for identifying cultural differences that are relevant to communication. Several of those systems are included in the Further Reading following this entry. Whatever system is used, the outcome of employing tactical intercultural communication is generally to decrease stereotyping of the cultures encountered, increase knowledge of cultural differences, and broaden the behavioral repertoire of the adapters.

A more substantial practical goal of intercultural communication is to contribute to the success of cross-cultural projects such as transferring knowledge, conducting long-term business, or effecting change through community development projects. In these cases, more people involved in the cross- cultural encounter need to make adaptations toward one another in order to coordinate meaning and action adequately. When intercultural adaptation is two-way, or mutual, it tends to create “third cultures” in which two or more cultural patterns of coordination are themselves coordinated. Third cultures are virtual conditions that come into existence for the purpose of intercultural communication and then dissolve when that communication is not active. Third cultures may become longer lasting when they constantly employed in multicultural groups or communities, but, by definition, third cultures do not supplant the original cultural patterns that they coordinate.

The most strategic application of intercultural communication is to derive the value of cultural diversity. This has long been the goal of multicultural societies, and it more recently is being touted by global corporations. After some mistaken hope that diversity in itself generates value, it is now accepted that cultural diversity creates the potential but not the actuality of added value. The potential of diversity is to offer alternative perspectives and approaches to tasks, thus contributing to innovation and creativity. However, the actuality is that diversity is frequently suppressed or eliminated in the name of unified action: “my way or the highway.” This is particularly notable in immigration policies and in corporate mergers and acquisitions, where the rhetoric of added value is generally at direct odds with the practice of demanding assimilation to the stronger culture. Assimilation destroys the potential for added value from diversity. One-way adaptation preserves the potential of added value, but it does not actualize it. Only mutual adaptation can generate third cultures that support the coordination of cultural differences, and it is from those coordinated differences that value is added.

(source: https://www.idrinstitute.org/resources/intercultural-communication/)