Page 45 - Communication across Cultures

Chapter 2 Culture and Communication

Chapter 2 Culture and Communication

In the past, most human beings were born, lived, and died within a limited geo-
graphical area, never meeting people of other cultural backgrounds. Such an existence,
however, no longer prevails in the world. The wheel of human history has moved us
inexorably forward from isolation to integration. As the globe shrinks and its dwellers
become interdependent, people from remote cultures increasingly come into contact on
a daily basis. It’s no longer hard to find solutions in which members of once isolated
groups of people have to communicate with people from other cultural groups. Now
these people may live thousands of miles away or right next door to each other.
The term “globalization” has already become a commonplace word throughout the
world in the last two decades or so. Webster’s New World College Dictionary (1996)
defines the word “globalize” as to organize or establish worldwide. It might be said that
globalization dated from ancient times, or perhaps, from the beginning of modernity,
the end of the 15th century. It should be considered a post-1945 occurrence whose driv-
ing force is technology, particularly telecommunications and computers.

2.1 Defining Communication

Communication is an essential aspect of human interaction and plays a vital role in
conveying messages, ideas, and emotions between individuals or groups. It encompass-
es a wide range of verbal, non-verbal, written, and visual forms of expression, enabling
effective understanding and meaningful exchange of information.
At its core, communication involves the process of encoding and decoding mes-
sages. Encoding refers to the formulation of thoughts and ideas into a format that can
be transmitted to others, while decoding involves interpreting the received information
to extract its intended meaning. This process utilizes various channels, such as spoken
words, gestures, facial expressions, body language, writing, and even technology-medi-
ated platforms.
Verbal communication is perhaps the most common and direct method of express-
ing thoughts and ideas. It involves the use of spoken words, tonality, pitch, and rhythm
to articulate messages. Verbal communication relies heavily on language, which can
be formal or informal, depending on the context and audience. For example, conver-
sations, speeches, presentations, and interviews are all forms of verbal communication

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