Sociology Report: Communication Barriers in Australian Society

This report delves into the communication barriers encountered within Australian society, particularly focusing on interactions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It identifies key obstacles such as language differences, varying communication styles, and cross-cultural disparities. The report emphasizes the importance of effective communication skills, including active listening, non-verbal cues, empathy, and feedback. It also provides strategies to overcome identified barriers, such as understanding local languages and promoting cultural awareness. A case study involving healthcare providers and Aboriginal cancer patients highlights the real-world implications of these communication challenges. The report concludes by underscoring the necessity of effective communication to foster positive relationships and understanding within the diverse Australian community.

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Sociology

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Communication Barriers..................................................................................................................2
Effective communication skills.......................................................................................................3
Overcome communication barriers..................................................................................................3
Case Study.......................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
Reference.........................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
In today’s western dominant society, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are
considered as the socially disadvantaged and marginalized group. This group as compare to other
Australian face several issues related to health, employment, education and housing. In order to
understand their issue, values and thinking; communication is important (Kapur,2018). These
people have different cultural belief, views, behavior and values. It is essential to reflect without
judgment before, after and during interacting with people whose beliefs, views, experience and
values are different. This report includes communication barriers face by individual while
interacting with this group and effective skills that are required in order to make communication
effective.
Communication Barriers
Effective communication is essential in order to influence others and to get higher
outcomes. While the success of communication process depend both on sender and receiver.
Here, the communication barriers are discussed targeting “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people” in Australia. The three barriers that are identified and can be face by clients while
interacting with this group are: language, differences in the concept of time and communication
styles (Jennings, Bond, & Hill, 2018).
Language is the main barriers in oral and verbal communication with Aboriginal people
as this group communicate in Aboriginal English and not in Australian English. This leads to
misunderstanding as meaning and pronunciation in both the languages differ. All this make it
difficult for clients to understand the needs and wants of Aboriginal people and react
accordingly. Due to that distrust and issues between aboriginal group and other Australian
increased (Xie, 2013).
Communication style is considered as the way of presenting views and information in
front of others. In case of aboriginal group it is difficult to understand what they want to
communicate. Most aboriginal people are ‘non responsive’, ‘nonassertive’, reluctant to talk about
their problems and what happening in their lives and shy to ask questions (Jennings, Bond, &

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Hill, 2018).This group lacks courage and confidence to ask questions and agree with whatever
being said that resultant in one way communication and not two way communications.
Cross cultural differences is another barrier that impact on effective communication
with aboriginal people. As aboriginal group faced racism, inequality and distrust from western
society due to that there is high level of difference between aboriginal people culture and non-
aboriginal people belief and culture (Jennings, Bond, & Hill, 2018). This leads to huge gap
between client and aboriginal group people.
Effective communication skills
Effective communication is a significant part of people life and helps in to maintain good
relationship with others and to understand different culture, opinions and views. Some of skills
that ensure effective communication is active listening, non-verbal cues, clarity, concise,
empathy, confidence and feedback (Keay, Hunter, Ralph, Porykali, & Ivers,2018).
Communication can be successful and leads to higher result when an individual actively listen to
views and ideas of others and give feedback as this is a two way process that is completed when
receiver perceive the message and revert back.
Furthermore, nonverbal cues are the most important part of communication that helps an
individual to perceive what one person is trying to say. Nonverbal cues include gestures, and
postures of an individual. Empathy is also a skill that ensures effective communication as
understanding others point of view and feeling is important in effective communication (Keay,
Hunter, Ralph, Porykali, & Ivers,2018). Hence, effective communication skills that are required
to overcome communication barriers are empathy, feedback, active listening and nonverbal cues,
Overcome communication barriers
In order to overcome barriers that are identified above that includes language,
communication styles and cross cultural differences. These barriers are faced by individuals
while dealing with aboriginal group and this can be overcome through many alternatives. Firstly,
understanding local language and including a member that know local language can help in to
overcome the language barrier as with help of this a connection can be maintained at the initial
stage with aboriginal group (Keay, Hunter, Ralph, Porykali, & Ivers,2018). Furthermore,

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providing education and training to aboriginal people about western culture and design help in to
remove the cross cultural differences. In this life style and culture of aboriginal people can also
be understand by individual that resultant in trust from both the sides and this leads to effective
communication (Penn & Watermeyer, 2012). As understanding local language, providing
training and education and learning about their culture help in to ensure two way
communications. Hence, all these strategies help in to effectively communicate with Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people.
Case Study
The main problem of communication is seen between aboriginal cancer patients and
health service provider. According to Shahid, Durey, Bessarab, & Thompson, 2013 survey, it is
identified that cancer service provider (CSP) wanted to establish good relation with aboriginal
patients but because of cultural differences, aboriginal traditional belief and practices, and lack
of confidence amongst aboriginal group resultant in unmet needs of aboriginal patients. On the
other side, cross culture communication exacerbated the issue as the relationship of trust was not
established between health service provider and aboriginal patients. Most of patient’s lack of
confidence, non-assertiveness and lack of education impacted on the treatment provided by
health providers as this leads to poor communication and impact on the ability of healthcare
provider. Hence, from the case of health service provider to aboriginal people it is identified that
they also face issue related to language, communication style and cross cultural differences
(Shahid, Durey, Bessarab,. & Thompson, S.C., 2013).
Conclusion
It is concluded that effective communication is essential for establishing good
relationship with others. In this report Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people group is
targeted and from that it is identified that client face barriers in dealing with this group some of
that barriers are language, communication style and cross cultural differences. Furthermore, it is
concluded that in order to ensure effective communication some skills are essential that are
listening skills, nonverbal cues, clarity, concise and empathy. All these skills helped in to ensure
effective and two way communication between aboriginal group and Australian. At last, some of
options or strategies that are discussed to overcome communication barriers are; understanding

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local language, providing training and education and learning about their culture. All these leads
to effective communication.
Reference
Jennings, W., Bond, C. & Hill, P.S., (2018). The power of talk and power in talk: a systematic
review of Indigenous narratives of culturally safe healthcare communication. Australian
Journal of Primary Health, 24(2), pp.109-115.
Kapur, R., (2018). Barriers to Effective Communication.Pearson Education
Keay, L., Hunter, K., Ralph, M., Porykali, B., Lyford, M., Clapham, K.F., Lo, W. & Ivers, R.,
(2018). Overcoming barriers to best practice use of child restraints in an urban Aboriginal
community-formative evaluation of a program for Aboriginal Community Controlled
Health Services.
Penn, C. & Watermeyer, J., (2012). Cultural brokerage and overcoming communication
barriers. Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting, 102, p.269.
Shahid, S., Durey, A., Bessarab, D., Aoun, S.M. & Thompson, S.C., (2013). Identifying barriers
and improving communication between cancer service providers and Aboriginal patients
and their families: the perspective of service providers. BMC health services
research, 13(1), p.460.
Xie, Y., (2013). Cross-cultural communication barriers between staff in overseas-funded
enterprises and management strategies for overcoming them. Journal of Languages and
Culture, 4(4), pp.44-48.