How can we define intercultural communication? Intercultural communication essentially means communication across different cultural boundaries. When two or more people with different cultural backgrounds interact and communicate with each other or one another, we can say that intercultural communication is taking place. So intercultural communication can be defined as the sharing of information on different levels of awareness between people with different cultural backgrounds, or put simply: individuals influenced by different cultural groups negotiate shared meaning in interactions.
Intercultural communication theories
There are many different intercultural communication types and theories. The most important ones are:
Social science approach: This model focuses on observing the behavior of a person from a different culture in order to describe it and compare it with other cultures. It also examines the ways in which individuals adjust their communication with others in different situations, depending on who they are talking to. For example, we would tell the same story differently to our best friend than we would to our grandmother.
Interpretive approach: This theory focuses on accumulating knowledge about a culture through communication in the form of shared stories based on subjective, individual experiences. The main focus is on intercultural communication as it is used in particular speech communities, so ethnography plays a major role here. Because the individual context is so important for this model, it does not strive to make generalized predictions based on its findings.
Dialectical approach: This method examines aspects of intercultural communication in the form of six dichotomies, namely cultural vs. individual, personal vs. contextual, differences vs. similarities, static vs. dynamic, history vs. past-present vs. future, and privilege vs. disadvantage. A dialectical approach helps us think about culture and intercultural communication in complex ways, so we can avoid categorizing everything in either-or dichotomies by adopting a broader approach and acknowledging the tensions that must be negotiated.
