Culture, Language and Communication in Intercultural Contexts

Sociology
Essay
Student’s name
9/22/2019

Sociology 1
When we talk about the culture aspect, it mainly highlights information about the certain
knowledge, beliefs, art, moral, law, particular custom, and other capabilities and habits, which an
individual acquires as by being a member of the society. Other than this, it also cover in
information about the various cultural languages, gestures, day to day practices of various
individuals to define culture. So in brief, culture highlights the various characteristics and
knowledge of the particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social
habits, music and lastly, art (Bonvillain, 2019).
Moreover, when we talk about the intercultural or cross-cultural aspect, it highlights
about the deep understanding and respect for all the cultures. In other words, it states that
collection of information from the different cultural groups when various individuals interact
with one another. Further, when we talk about the intercultural aspect, it mainly highlights about
the certain issues in communication aspect, in language and lastly in cultural aspect, when we
consider, communication aspect, issues such as politeness, directness and indirectness, speech
acts across the cultures, intercultural competence, misunderstanding, miscommunication and
cultural presuppositions are considered (Ushioda, 2011).
In cultural terms, there are many issues such as individualism, collectivism, which carries
certain features such as directness and indirectness, low and high power distance, horizontal and
vertical, self-oriented or group oriented, assertiveness or modesty are certain traits that are
defined cultural differences within people and their country (Carbaugh, 2013).
First theory which is Hofstede cultural dimension which is divided into 5 major
categories, named as high or low power distance which high score highlights about the society
which accepts unequal, hierarchical distribution of power. Low distance highlights about shared
power, which is widely dispersed, or power distribution is unequal. Another factor highlights
about the individualism and collectivism, in which individualism highlights weak interpersonal
connection, less responsibility for other actions and outcomes. In collectivism, people are loyal,
take responsibility for other wellbeing.
Other factor highlights about masculinity and femininity in which masculinity highlights
men role over women and they behave assertively by being strong and fast. Whereas, femininity
aspect highlights modesty, which highlights cooperate well with one another. Further uncertainty

Sociology 2
avoidance highlights about the controlling of life high uncertainty highlights less control over
life whereas low uncertainty higher control over life which generates openness, innovation and
change. Lastly, long and short term orientation highlights people with long term orientation tends
to be pragmatic, modest and are more thrifty, while other are consistency to truth, religion
majorly emphasis over principles. Lastly, indulgence and restraint highlights people enjoying
their life, own drives and emotions whereas, restraint highlights more regulation, more conduct
and behavior through it highlights more strict social norms (Richards, & Schmidt, 2014).
In terms of language, culture and language are intertwined, which helps one another to
interact in not only language terms but also interacting person with other culture. Therefore,
language is the manifestation of culture, it open doors to cultural learning and lastly, it makes
person more open-minded when they knew about different culture. However, it only does these
things but sometimes this particular language become ambiguous which translation and
interpretation. This generates issues and differences such as issue of ideology, socialization,
forms of discourse and face systems and social organization. As ideology, aspect mainly covers
beliefs, values and religion that need to be respected. Socialization highlights about the inherit
norms, customs, ideologies and social skills and lastly, behavior in specific groups. Forms of
discourse highlight that information and relationship, negotiation and group harmony and
individual welfare (Martin, & Nakayama, 2013).
Issues in relation to it highlight regarding learning language and vocabulary, which
generates poor ability to send information and gain information and their comprehensive
communicative competence, is majorly affected. There is lack of social skills. When language
competence improves to a level, cultural barriers stand out. Language faults may easily gain
others’ understanding, but pragmatic failure and cultural misunderstanding will often lead to
contradictions and even communication failure. Such pragmatic failure sometimes will make one
suspect this is a deliberate verbal behavior, thus leading to conflicts (Neuliep, 2017).
In this context, person need to follow the theory of cultural scripts, in which represents a
cognitive approach to culture and society and along with this, it also offers a specific
methodology which allows the person to explore thinking, speaking in term of language and
doing a unified work. Therefore, this theory allows a maintaining an effective cross-cultural
study in between the countries, people and their actions and behavior. Moreover, this particular