Report on Intercultural Communication in Australia Experience

This report delves into the complexities of intercultural communication, drawing upon a personal experience during a trip to Australia. The author identifies language barriers and cultural differences as primary challenges, highlighting the need for intercultural competence. The report explores various causes for misunderstandings, including religious, national, and ethnic differences, cultural insensitivity, and differing societal practices. It emphasizes the importance of intercultural communication theories, such as cultural literacy and communication styles, in navigating diverse cultural contexts. The author reflects on how learning these theories has enhanced their awareness and ability to adapt communication styles. The report concludes by emphasizing the essential skills for effective intercultural communication, including verbal and non-verbal communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making, which are vital for personal and professional development. The discussion underscores that intercultural communication goes beyond a simple exchange of words, requiring skills like linguistic proficiency, cultural awareness, and social flexibility.

Running Head: INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
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Effective Communication Skills
Intercultural Communication skills
(Student details :)
4/27/2019

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Effective Communication Skills
This paper is focused on outlining the major problems within an intercultural communication
scenario, which I have faced while I visited a new place of Australia for tourism purpose. In
this context, intercultural communication is a way of communication, where diverse cultured
as well as different social groups utilise their own ways of communication within their daily
life. Here, benefits of cross-cultural social groups and professional teams are that they have
diversity of experiences, perspectives, and insights which assist different people to solve their
problems in different effective ways (Chaney & Martin, 2012). However, in order to capture
those ideas and integrate them, people must be committed to an open communication; which
means people must dare to share their knowledge and experiences (Martin & Nakayama,
2013).
The most important issue, which I have faced while I visited Australia for travelling purpose,
was of language barrier and education culture. I identified that it is an issue, which mostly
generate conflicts whenever two different cultured groups try to communicate as well as
work with each other. Besides, when I could not speak the similar language as Australian
native people were speaking then I used to point out or utilise hand signals for
communicating with them. I realized that basic education about how different cultures
differentiate or communicate their social norms is necessary (Bird et al., 2010). In addition,
without knowing intercultural communication we will be unable to succeed while
communicating with the diverse cultured groups worldwide. Intercultural communication
module and its theories that I have learnt has helped me to be more aware, and hence I could
adjust my own communication with those Australian native people. Moreover, the theories
which I have learnt during the module helped me to be educated into other cultural traditions,
social norms, and what intercultural communication is all about (Chaney & Martin, 2012).
Furthermore, an identification as well as analysis of the causes for the underlying behaviours
include verbal and non-verbal suggest that cross-cultural conflicts and misunderstandings
often arise due to wide cultural differences (Hofstede, 2011). In this context, my own analysis
over this important topic of intercultural communication narrated the following potential
causes or situations during which cultural conflicts or misunderstandings may happen:
 Whenever there is some misunderstanding or conflict amid diverse religions,
nationalities or ethnic groups

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 When there is a cultural insensitivity and ignorance by the community or national
government.
 Intercultural communication issues may arise when there is a lack of awareness of
distinct societal life practices
 When there are differences within cultural practices
 If there are differences in perception of treatment and illness of community people
Source: (Martin & Nakayama, 2013)
Apart from this, with the help of intercultural communication theories include cultural
literacy, communication, and intercultural competence, which I have learnt during the module
will help me out to be more culturally aware at future workplaces. Moreover, my learning
related to different communication ways into an intercultural scenario will allow me to adjust
my communication styles in future (Bird et al., 2010). Theories of intercultural
communication have built a cultural intelligence in my personality which offered my
following future learning for personal as well as professional development:
 Different verbal communication ways for an effective intercultural communication
 Various non-verbal communication styles for having an effective intercultural
communication
 Building positive and distinct attitudes towards conflicts and misunderstandings
 Important decision-making styles for critical situations
 Different positive attitudes for closure and completing tough tasks (Martin &
Nakayama, 2013).
In this way, intercultural communication theories enable me to have above mentioned skills,
which are essential for future career development. Hence, a detailed study of intercultural
communication made me learn about how to act or what to say in different critical situations

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comprising diverse cultured groups of people. Moreover, professional practice or efficient
working at any workplace always requires effective communication skills, which I have
learnt during this module (Hofstede, 2011).
In whole, this discussion has provided me a life-long learning about intercultural competence,
attitudes, traits and capabilities. I learnt that different traits like tolerance of ambiguity, open-
mindedness, patience, cognitive complexity and flexibility play an important role while
communicating with the people belonging to different cultures (Bird et al., 2010). In this way,
I learnt to be skilled in intercultural communications with the skills such as linguistic skills,
cultural tuning, social flexibility, and a detailed knowledge about different cultures and
countries. Therefore, the above discussion is helped me to learn that intercultural
communication is far more than a mere exchange of simple words.

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References
Bird, A., Mendenhall, M., Stevens, M. & Oddou, G., 2010. Defining the content domain of
intercultural competence for global leaders. Journal of Mangerial Psychology, 25(8), pp.810-
28.
Chaney, L. & Martin, J., 2012. Intercultural business communication. UK: Prentice Hall.
Hofstede, G., 2011. Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model. [Online] Available at:
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=orpc [Accessed 20
March 2019].
Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K., 2013. Intercultural communication in contexts. New York:
McGraw-Hill.