LI YNG KOOI Essay 1 4 Sept 2013
Communication might be the most natural and innate ability that we learn and practice since we was born. Communication is the most effective ways that enable us to transfer ideas into language, and then decoded by the other person. Communication happens only while a person using their comfortable specific language that easily absorb and respond to the person talking to them. However, when it comes to the Intercultural communication, people may appear quite daunting and challenging.
There’s no doubt that Intercultural communication would considered as a stumbling blocks among all nations. Since every nations come from different backgrounds along with their own languages, dialects, and cultural upbringing. They might be few variables in the communication process that seem to be major stumbling blocks. The first and needless to mentioning would be the language barrier that majority of foreigner will face. Constrained by their not so fluently and broken local language, they probably might go through some difficulties with language in many aspects of limited vocabulary, unfamiliar accent, grammatical errors. They even may have misinterpretation on words or sentences and cling to the meaning of a words or phrase in new language regardless of the connotation. This is because foreigner spoke their native tongue whole lives and now abruptly they have had a change in language with an addition of a cultural clash. For example, when I told my American friends that my mom going to sent me a “trouser”, she’s seem like don't understand what I am mentioned, and asked me what’s trouser for. Second, difficulties of nonverbal signs and symbols. To understanding a person other than your country, probably would have challenges too. Since people from different cultures may inhabit different nonverbal sensory worlds. They only fits themselves into personal world of recognitions and then interprets it through the frame of reference of his own culture. For instance, I expected to make a lot of American friends, but weeks later I realized this won’t be too easy. Since I tried my best to get approach and acquaintance to my American classmates by saying Hi, but what I have received is only a smile instead a greeting. They seems to be so apathetic and showing no interest for me. In my country, if someone smiles at you without saying a words, we can inference he is either a superficial person or have no interest on that person. Because of this, I have no choice but force myself to seek the company of other foreigners with similar cultural backgrounds to my own. The third stumbling block is the presence of tendency to evaluate between persons of differing cultures or ethnic groups. We can’t deny that people always used to their own culture, and considered their way of life, always seems proper, right, and natural. And this sense of privilege tend to lead them to evaluate the statement and actions of other person or group instead of try to comprehend the feelings and thoughts expressed. For instance, I’m a night
