Intercultural Communication

Defining Intercultural Communication

There are two key elements to defining a communication encounter as intercultural: (1) two individuals must be engaged in a communicative exchange and (2) the two individuals must be from different cultures. For example, an Egyptian protestor who speaks to a British journalist about the Arab Spring represents an instance of intercultural communication because the two individuals are interacting communicatively and they are of different cultural backgrounds. These two elements set intercultural communication apart from other areas, such as intracultural communication, cross-cultural communication, intergroup communication, or international communication. Intracultural communication focuses on communication within a culture, between the members of that culture. For example, the communication that takes place between Japanese husbands and wives regarding parenting could be an example of intracultural communication. Cross-cultural communication focuses on comparing communication phenomena across two (or more) cultures. One studies these behaviors in each culture and then compares the findings across the two (or more) cultures (e.g., a comparison of the types of greetings business [Page 756]associates use in the Norwegian culture to the types of greetings business associates use in the Japanese culture). In this case, individuals from the two cultures are not actually brought together to exchange greetings, which would be an instance of intercultural communication, but rather the focus is on comparing the two practices. Intergroup communication focuses on how individuals who belong to different groups communicate and the complex ways in which people’s group affiliation and membership shape the way they communicate (e.g., how do elderly individuals communicate with their adolescent grandchildren through social media). Some scholars have considered this type of communication to be the umbrella term under which cross-cultural and intercultural communication fall, considering culture a specific form of group affiliation. Finally, international communication focuses mostly on communication issues and the flow of information in the global arena, across national borders, and though various media. For example, as an international communication instance, one could examine the role Twitter has played in the Arab Spring or the popularity of Korean dramas in the United States.

Origins of the Field of Intercultural Communication

The field of intercultural communication has roots in cultural anthropology and the works of Edward T. Hall, especially the work he initiated during his years at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Washington, DC. Between 1951 and 1955, Hall and several other anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists were in charge of developing and implementing training programs for diplomats at FSI. The trainees (Americans who worked abroad at embassies and other State Department posts) did not usually receive any training up to that point in how to communicate effectively with people from the cultures where they were stationed. They needed practical knowledge to be able to complete their assignments successfully. The training curriculum that Hall and his colleagues put together covered aspects, such as people’s use of space (which Hall termed proxemics) or their different relation to time passing across cultures (also known as chronemics), as well as exercises and knowledge sharing, given that a lot of the trainees had practical experiences in other cultures. Thus, the beginnings of intercultural communication stress practical applications and behavioral guidelines for maximizing effectiveness in intercultural encounters. Despite Hall’s momentum, the study of intercultural communication did not penetrate the academia widely until the 1970s in the United States and the 1980s in Europe.

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