The Basics of Cross-Cultural Communication

Communication Basics

Communication is the way we succeed in imparting information, and how we relate socially. As we can see from the root of the word, we need find commonness with the people we communicate. Since God has chosen us to be his ambassadors to a lost and dying world, we must be able to communicate effectively. To communicate effectively, we must know something with those we communicate.

The speaker, or the source of the message, will encode the message he wishes to impart based on his own experiences, knowledge, culture, and language, which are laden with assumptions about the hearer’s experience, knowledge, culture, and language. Now the receptor, or the hearer, may or may not have the same experience, knowledge, culture or language. If she does, there is no problem, and she will decode the message and understand most of what the speaker is saying. However, if there is a mismatch in experience, knowledge, culture, and language, and there likely will be, something will be lost in the communication.

As communicators, we need to be able to encode the message for the receptor to be able to decode it, minimizing miscommunication. In short, we need to be able to acquire the receptor culture to some degree.

Culture Basics

Culture is the social structure, organization, and design of a civilization. Enculturation is the process of being indoctrinated with the cultural norms from the earliest days of one’s life. Every single person learns the culture into which they are born. Much of this enculturation is done formally. As children, for example, we all are taught to say please and thank you, and to brush our teeth twice a day. We also learn our culture by observation as well.

Culture is interwoven into everything we think, do, and say. It is also shared with other people and does evolve over time. We have personal culture based on what we have learned from our families in the early years, but we also have a broader shared culture within the larger community into which we are born. There may be differences between me and others I meet, but there is enough commonality to communicate well. Everything we see, we evaluate through a cultural framework based on our enculturation. We measure up ourselves and others according to cultural rules and values.