Communication Skills ELE205

1. Communication SkillsELE205 Chapter Two Communication Diversity Eng.Mohmmed Alsumady

2. Outline • Diversity definition. • Acknowledge intercultural interdependence. • Principles of intercultural Communication • Intercultural Communication styles • Barriers to intercultural Communication • Tools of diversity

3. Diversity definition • Diversity is defined as the condition of being different. • In other words, it means dissimilarity and variance between things. The differences could be in size, weight, age, and so on. • In communication, diversity could be in: cultural values, religion, habits, gender, origin, accents, stereotypes and so on.

4. Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence Sources of diversity: • Movement toward a global economy • When OPEC raised the Price of oil in the 1970, people In the whole world had to stand in waiting Lines at gas stations

5. Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence Sources of diversity: • Movement toward a global economy • Many of our jobs are directly or indirectly is dependent on foreign trade. • We are not just interacting with people different from us, we rely on them in health, education and food

6. Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence Sources of diversity: b) Increase in ethnic/ language minorities The 2000 U.S genus's Data characterized 12.5% of U.S Population is Latino, 12.3% are African, 10% others (Indian, Asian,…) in addition to Bi-racial. In short: 1 from 3 American can be classified as ethnic minority

7. Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence Sources of diversity: b) Increase in ethnic/ language minorities Actually they are not numbers They are people we know, care about, and depend upon. They enrich our lives, because of their differences and they help us to Imagine new ways of thinking and behaving

8. Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence Sources of diversity: c) Variation in communication styles Differences in communication styles can make the sender of the message appear to be pushy, rude, aggressive, passive, etc. Factors involved in this are volume and rapidity of speech, tone of voice, and emphasis on key words

9. Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence Sources of diversity: c) Variation in communication styles For example much has been written about differences in gender. Best seller book in 1993 is “Men are from Mars and women are from Venus”

10. Cross-Cultural Communication • Is a field of study that looks at how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they try to communicate across cultures. • Understanding these different perspectives about how communication works is a necessary first step in communicating cross-culturally.

11. Picture Intercultural Communication Sender, Enryo 1…2…3…4 Receiver, Sasshi 6…7…8…9 5 Feedback (traditions, cultures) Enryo:reservation, restraint, coyness, regard, hesitation, diffidence Sasshi: conjecture, judgment, guess, understanding, consideration, sympathy Not all cultures view communications at the same way. For example the American way is different than Asian one . Enryo-Sasshi Communication: is certain to the image of Japan as a passive society, where people wok to avoid conflict. 1- Sender’s potential experiences. 2- Sender’s chosen ideas (enryo filtering) 3- Sender’s encoding (filtering) 4- Narrow, limited sending (filtering) 5- Channel 6- Wide, open receiving 7- Receiver's decoding 8 Receiver's expanded ideas (sasshi) 9- Receiver’s experience This model works efficient because Japanese are homogeneous people

12. Principles of Intercultural Communication • The greater the cultural/linguistic difference, the greater the likelihood of communication breakdown. • For example communicating with customer from France is more difficult than communication with Syrian customer (for Jordanian). • Differences in world-views, values, and communication styles leads to misunderstandings.

13. Principles of Intercultural Communication • Communication breakdowns are most often attributed to cultural differences • Also such breakdowns could be the result of misunderstanding based on personal differences or any of the breakdowns described in chapter 1 (gaps, gossips,…)

14. Principles of Intercultural Communication • Cross-cultural communication makes us more conscious of our own communication. • Choose our words carefully • Clarify our questions • Refrain from discussing some topics. • Fear from misinterpretation of nonverbal. This increased awareness can make us uncomfortable when communicating with people from other culture.

15. Principles of Intercultural Communication • Cultures vary with their “do’s and taboos” (What is good to do or bad to do) • The effective cross-cultural communicators learn what they are and respect them. Example: giving small gift to Japanese visitor. Any other examples??

16. Principles of Intercultural Communication • Learning about cultural norms and variation in communication styles of a particular cultural group helps ensure understanding. • Cultural norms are behavior patterns that are typical of specific groups. Such behaviors are learned from parents, teachers, and many others whose values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors take place in the context of their own organizational culture. • It is helpful to understand the world-view and the value systems different groups of people hold.

17. Principles of Intercultural Communication • Barriers are more easily overcome if people see each other as friendly, cooperative and trustworthy.

18. Outline Diversity definition. Acknowledge intercultural interdependence. Principles of intercultural Communication Intercultural Communication styles Barriers to intercultural Communication Tools of diversity

19. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken communication: begin with the value cultures place in language itself. • Americans generally value the power of the spoken word. So they often feel uncomfortable in silence. In contrast other cultures believe language can never reveal the truth. they feel comfortable with silence. • Variation in nonverbal communication: Nonverbal communication is the sum total of our body's communication. It is how our body communicates or sends a message.

20. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • values placed in language: American generally value the power of the spoken word, other cultures are skeptical of language. • Purpose of language - American are concerned with language that accomplish tasks to get the point quickly.

21. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • Purpose of language: • Pay attention to the language variation help us to learn how people regards relations. • For example in English we use the word “you” for friend, boss, or president of USA while in Spanish they use “Su” for Boss and use “tu” for informal relations.

22. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: Structure of language: Subject- Verb –Object format used for communicating in English. In Spanish order of words doesn’t matter. • Classes of words (parts of speech), meanings of words is called semantics ((علم دلالات الالفاظ. • how words are organized in relation to each other is called syntax (بناء الجمله).

23. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • Structure of language: • Morphology is how words are formed • The study of sounds of words is phonology . • There are overall 800 sounds in human languages, in English there are about 45 sounds and in Hawaiian there are 18 sounds.

24. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • Structure of language: • In English : she hit the ball • In Spanish: she the ball hit, the order of words dose not matter

25. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • Most languages are tonal: • In English : we don’t know how to pronounce word start with “ng” or “ts” but can read them at the end of word “for example: cats, meaning”. • In Spanish; words don’t begin with “sp” but begin with “es”. Spanish speaker will read “speech as espeech”

26. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • Differences in word meanings: • Denotative differences: in English chair means the object you sit in or the head of committee but in Arabic different words would be used for each version of chair that you mean. • Connotative differences: emotional meaning that come with words, in English we describe a woman supervisor as “aggressive” but a man supervisor as “assertive”. Also we usually have negative feeling about “propaganda” but Spanish has no such feeling.

27. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • Word meanings: • Figurative language: for example: • White hands?! Clean hands or cocasion person? • Fish sleeping?! Does it mean lazy or boring? (wishy-washy person). • You are just like palm tree?! Tall person?

28. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • Knowing how language is used is called (pragmatics): • Where and with whom we are communicating • Person talks while you are talking, example Hawaiian • Respond to a question by telling a story that irrelevant to the topic, example Native American. • The appropriateness of topics changes from culture to culture, asking about your age or money you make.

29. Intercultural Communication Styles • Variation in spoken language: • As a result; • We tend to make modification to our communication depending on where and with whom we are communicating. In class or in coffee shop. • We change depending on informal or formal relationships. • How we think people will respond to our use of slang or regional variation in dialect. • Talking louder and slower when talking with children or non-English speakers.

30. Intercultural Communication Styles 2. Variations in nonverbal communication: is the hidden dimension of our communication • Use of time:(chronemics) how we regard time • Use of personal space: proxemics • Use of eye contact: oculesics • Use of gestures (kinesics), touch (haptics) and voice (vocalics)

31. Intercultural Communication Styles 2. Variation in nonverbal communication: • Use of time: chronemics • time is important for Americans “ losing time, killing time, saving time, time is money,..etc” • In contrast to time orientation is relationship orientation where the quality of the interaction indicates how much time will be spent.

32. Intercultural Communication Styles 2. Variation in nonverbal communication: • Use of personal space:(proxemics): • Refers to differences in the distance we stands when talking with one another . • People in middle east have shorter distance and people from England have large distance compared to USA.

33. Intercultural Communication Styles 2. Variation in nonverbal communication: • Use of eye contact: oculesics • Americans: like soft eye contact where people look at them, from time to time, look away. Intense stars makes most Americans feel very nervous. • Other cultures is very little eye contact • For middle Easters the eye is the window of the soul, they can read eyes (read our true messages).

34. Intercultural Communication Styles 2. Variation in nonverbal communication: • Use of gestures (kinesics), touch (haptics) and voice (vocalics) • Hand gestures are by no mean universal • hug and a kiss is a typical greeting even among strangers in Latin America.

35. Intercultural Communication Styles 2. Variation in nonverbal communication: • Use of gestures (kinesics), touch (haptics) and voice (vocalics) • Some cultures talk too loud in conversation (Americans), and others tend to vocal volume deemed.

36. Outline Diversity definition. Acknowledge intercultural interdependence. Principles of intercultural Communication Intercultural Communication styles Barriers to intercultural Communication Tools of diversity

37. Barriers to Intercultural Communication We will identify four barriers to effectiveness in intercultural communication: • Walking on eggs • Hot buttons • Container myth • Language, vernacular ( (عاميهand accent bias

38. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Walking on eggs: Certain topics create tension for ethnic minorities When someone says they feel like they are walking on eggs, what is that telling you? It's telling you : • that they can no longer be themselves in your presence. • that they fear your reaction whenever they speak. • that they are stuck, that they cannot move in either direction, for fear of upsetting you. • It is also telling you that they need to stop this feeling that is tearing them apart.

39. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Walking on eggs: If you are walking on eggs, you are being very careful not to offend someone or do anything wrong.

40. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Walking on eggs: • Certain topics create tension for ethnic minorities • This tension can make those communicating with ethnic minorities hesitant to approach these topics. • Its difficult to know exactly what these topics are? • one example is ethnic jokes.

41. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Walking on eggs: Several things can help with this barrier: • Remember that these topics are profoundly (deeply) personal. • Have implication (ضمنا) for how people feel and think about themselves. • Learn to handle defensiveness and to support ethnic minority people.

42. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Walking on eggs: Several things can help with this barrier : • It may work to invite these ethnic minority people to discussion and to share their perception(فهم) of the topic at hand . • Remember that listening is vital(( حيوي link in any constructive communication interaction. • Finally, and the best is to avoid these topics, until stronger relationship (trust) is established.

43. Barriers to Intercultural Communication • Hot buttons: • Hot buttons are words that invoke an emotional response in other person.

44. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Hot buttons: • Sometimes words simply are misunderstood • Swearing can become hot button for ethnic minority people who have a more formal view of the world. • Derogatory words used for people from specific ethnic minority groups (Red necks).

45. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Hot buttons: To avoid: • Identify the hot buttons for you and for other people you communicate with, then try to avoid them. • If they are used then work hard to control your emotional response. • When tension is minimized talk about why and how these buttons produce that reaction, the other will cease from using these hot buttons next time.

46. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Container myth Is assumption that words mean the same thing across all cultures

47. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Container myth: • Sometimes words is misunderstood, for example, as when our students told that “foul” language is not allowed, a concerned student from Turkey came to office to ask why they could not talk about chickens and birds “fowl” in class.

48. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Container myth: • Also as we talk before about denotative (دلالي and connotative (تلميحي )meaning of words. • A relationship built on trust will create a climate where people share their understanding. • It would be helpful to be curious about language use across culture. • Stay away from jargon.(specialized language of an occupation).

49. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Language, vernacular and accent bias: • Every group have particular affinity for their language. • There are certain biases that come with a particular accent. • You must identify your biases about languages, vernaculars (the specific language used in particular communities) or accents and actively work to overcome them.

50. Barriers to intercultural Communication • Language, vernacular and accent bias: • There is power in learning new languages. • There are advantages of being able to use multiple languages. English is the international language of business. relationships are strengthened with others when you can demonstrate some competence in there language.