Reflective Journal on Intercultural Communication

Running head: REFLECTIVE JOURNAL ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Reflective Journal on Intercultural Communication
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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REFLECTIVE JOURNAL ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
INTRODUCTION
In the past 6 weeks, I have learned about working across cultures, culture, cultural values,
culture shock, language and written communication patterns, and verbal and non- verbal
communication. These various topics have given me a broader view of why people behave the
way they do and the different perceptions that each person has towards any particular thing. This
report will talk about the above mentioned topics in detail and provide instances for the same in
order to gain a clear understanding and vision. In addition to this, the future prospects too will be
discussed to improve the intercultural communication amongst people of various countries.
WEEK 1 –
From the Week 1 class, I have learnt that Intercultural Communication has 6 imperatives,
that is, technological, demographic, economic, ethic, peace and self-awareness. From these six
imperatives, I noted that technological brings about news and information to the remote areas too
with the help of social media and this also connects two different countries and brings them
together. While the demographic imperative taught the various migration patterns which
influences a culture (Fong Boh, Nguyen & Xu, 2013) (Lempert, 2014). In addition to this, I also
got an insight into the diversified cultures that exists in terms of communication in the
organisation and how this diversified culture actually benefits these organisations.
I believe that having a diverse workforce has more pros than cons. For instance, the
individuals will not only get to learn more about the different cultures and the countries from
where it originates but also, about their business markets and knowledge to develop new
products and services. This eventually helps people to bridge the gap of understanding and
tolerance by becoming aware of their own similarities and differences (Fong Boh, Nguyen & Xu,

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REFLECTIVE JOURNAL ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
2013). Moreover, ethics plays a crucial role too in governing the behaviour of an individual or
groups (Fong Boh, Nguyen & Xu, 2013).
The challenges that I faced while working with the various cultures is that – firstly, we all
come from different backgrounds and caste which will make all of us have different beliefs and
values towards one another. Having experienced and communicated with the Australian culture,
I believe that there is so much more to learn and embed from their culture in terms of moral
values. Although, my interaction with them kept reminding me of the stereotypes that other
countries have towards our Vietnamese culture.
WEEK 2 –
From this week’s study, I learned that culture is very important to each country and not
just Vietnam. Culture is something that deals with the concept of how people live together and is
learned from parents, media, and school (Valle & Gait, 2014). Here in, Vietnam we place an
extreme value and importance to our culture. Culture basically depends on where an individual is
birthed and the languages they learn, and their surrounding environment (Valle & Gait, 2014). I
also observed that each individual experiences the world around them differently. In addition to
this, communication barriers exist whenever we have to communicate with a person who is not
from the same culture (Khoo, 2013). Barriers can take place in terms of an intercultural business
communication, international communication, and intracultural communication (Valle & Gait,
2014).
Barriers to communication can be of various types, that is, physical, perception,
linguistic, nonverbal, experiential, etc. (Khoo, 2013). Apart from this, we are all aware that
different cultures have different norms, rules and roles. For instance, when we had an exchange
program, I had faced a lot of challenges in communicating my views and perception to other

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REFLECTIVE JOURNAL ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
students in Germany. The culture over there is extremely different than what we Vietnamese
have. Along with all these, there are some systems that also affect our culture (Khoo, 2013).
These systems are economic, political, educational, social hierarchies and interaction, and
marriage and family systems (Valle & Gait, 2014). These systems are something which universal
to all the cultural groups in the global setting.
In order to be able to overcome these cultural barriers, we must understand both the
similarities as well as the differences that prevails amongst the different cultures (Khoo, 2013).
The concept of culture is very important and must be respected by all the individuals irrespective
of their own culture. This particular week had given me a broader insight as to why different
people have different beliefs towards the same thing. In addition to this, we all dress and present
ourselves according to our culture keeping in mind factors like gender, age, ethnicity, and social
interaction.
WEEK 3 –
This week’s lesson was about values, semantic differences, attribution and perception,
attitude towards women, religious influences, and attitude towards work, attitude towards ethics,
and individualism and collectivism. A broad insight was given to us on these topics and on its
importance. The impact cultural values has in international business has also been discussed in
this week. In addition to this, the attitude towards women was based on various cultures where
the Vietnamese culture gave equal rights to both men and women opposing to other cultures
which did not treat women equally be it in the work place or in general (Thompson, 2018).
For instance, it was seen that America, Japan and the Arab nations had different values
which mattered the most to them. Like, to America, freedom, independence and self- reliance
mattered the most but for Japan it was belongingness, group harmony, and collectivism. While