Critical Review: Intercultural Communication Discourse Approach

This essay provides a comprehensive review of the article "Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach" by Scollon, Scollon, and Jones, which examines the complexities of intercultural communication by dissecting the concepts of culture and communication. The review summarizes the authors' key arguments, including the ambiguity of language and the drawing of conclusions in communication. It critically analyzes the article by comparing and contrasting it with other works that discuss related topics such as diversity, super-diversity, and the influence of migration on cultural and linguistic ecologies. The essay concludes that while the reviewed article offers a strong foundation for understanding intercultural communication, additional perspectives are necessary to fully grasp its complexities in today's globalized world. Desklib is a great platform to find more solved assignments.

Running head: ARTICLE REVIEW ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
ARTICLE REVIEW ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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ARTICLE REVIEW ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Introduction
In order to understand intercultural communication, it is first important to understand
culture and communication separately. Culture refers to the beliefs, ideas, manners, objects and
behaviors common to individuals of specific society. Communication, on the other hand means
the exchange of messages from one person to another, one group to another group and so on
within a society. Intercultural communication hence, refers to the exchange of messages between
individuals of different cultures.
This paper will review the article written by Scollon, Scollon and Jones (2011) titled
Intercultural communication: A discourse approach to understand intercultural communication
in-depth. The paper will systematically summarize the article first and then present a critical
analysis. The analysis will be done by comparing and contrasting the article with other articles
written on similar topic.
Summary
The authors first define intercultural communication in an interesting way by providing
an instance of Christian Chinese and a Buddhist American. They explain that although this may
seem a strange situation, most university students in Hong Kong are Christians while Buddhism
has been growing rapidly as the most followed religion in California. The authors then move on
to state that intercultural communication is more complicated that one thinks it is particularly in
today’s rapidly globalizing world. According to the authors, it is problematic to define culture as
it might have innumerable connotations. It might refer to the culture of two different nations, the
culture of homosexuality, the Christian or Buddhist culture, the culture in universities and so on.
However, the authors provide important segmentation of culture as it means to different people.
Culture, as per some views is a verb in the sense that it is not something that people
reside in or possess rather, it is something that people act upon. Possessing specific abilities like
singing certain kind of songs, or handling machines, dress in certain ways and so on refer to
culture in this sense of the term. In regards to intercultural communication, this definition of
culture is significant. As per this view, intercultural communication takes place if an individual
focuses on the things a person is doing and the way he or she is doing it.

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ARTICLE REVIEW ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Communication on the other hand, is very complicated according to the authors because
people mostly do not communicate or convey the things they mean always. The authors delve
upon four different aspects of communication and the complexities associated with it. The first
aspect is that language is filled with ambiguity, secondly, conclusions must be drawn about
meaning, thirdly, these conclusions are mostly dormant or fixed and lastly, people take least time
in drawing conclusions. The article then segregates each aspect and explains them elaborately.
While explaining the first element, Scollon, Scollon and Jones (2011) start with
ambiguity of words in language. They give several instances of sentences to explain clearly their
point. According to the authors, the prepositions such as ‘in’ and ‘at’ are very difficult to
understand because their meanings inhabit only partially in the words themselves. These words
do not provide complete information about the sentence in which they are used. The ambiguity in
language is also visible in the use of the sentences. The authors explain that sentences too
produce ambiguity as per the contexts. Then, they move on to explain ambiguity in language at
the discussion level. The famous example of the “two sorries” by the Bush administration in
2001 when a U.S. spy plane caused the crashing of a Chinese fighter jet and death of its pilot
have been used to exemplify this ambiguity. In the two letters of apology, the Bush
administration first said sorry to the loss suffered by the pilot’s family and the second one was an
apology for landing on Chinese soil without verbal clearance. The entire episode brought to the
surface the ambiguity in discourse of different cultures.
Critical review
While Scollon, Scollon and Jones (2011) were very clear and lucid in their explanation of
intercultural communication, the examples were very basic. Nonetheless, they provided a
thorough understanding of the term intercultural communication. One important thing to note in
their article is that they have dedicated two separate sections on culture and communication.
Further, the authors have broken down the different aspects and issues associated with culture
and communication to explain those clearly. The complications related to intercultural
communication have been thoroughly discussed by the authors.
It is but imperative to state that understanding intercultural communication cannot be
confined to basic examples of interaction between Facebook friends from different cultures or so

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on. It needs an explanation of other important aspects associated with intercultural
communication such as diversity, globalization, mobility or migration. Other important topics on
intercultural communication may also include the question of citizenship and language. As
Heugh (2013) points out in her article titled Mobility, Migration and Sustainability: refiguring
languages in diversity, a certain pattern of migration has been visible in Europe that has brought
about significant changes within the cultural and linguistic ecologies. Although the authors does
not directly mention or explain intercultural communication, the terms and concepts of diversity
explain it clearly. The author focuses mostly on diversity and on ‘super-diversity’ within the
Australian context. With an understanding of Scollon, Scollon and Jones’ (2011) article, it
becomes easier to understand the significance of diversity that is growing at a fast pace in the
modern globalized world especially in Australia and the problems. Intercultural communication
on such contexts becomes extremely crucial in order to maintain the reputation of a country
promoting diversity.
In the article Citizenship, Language, and Superdiversity: Towards Complexity authored
by Blommaert, (2013), the concept of super-diversity is further explained along with its
complexities. The article also talks about the notions of citizenship, ‘dis-citizenship’ and claims
that integration of cultures for some citizens might be disintegration for some other citizens of
the same culture. Intercultural communication hence becomes even more difficult and complex.
The article, Citizenship and Superdiversity: Towards Complexity, by Jan Blommaert,
sheds light on the challenges, which play a dominant role in understanding the concept of dis-
citizenship. Focus is laid on the concept of superdiversity, which provides a hypothetical insight
into the integration within the segments of the society. Through this hypothesis, the author
exposes the readers to a polycentricity, instead of plurality. Similarity has been established
between the forms of dis-citizenship.
The variable “language” relates to the aspect of communication. The people within the
society belong to various socio-cultural background. Herein lays the appropriateness of the
aspects of “intercultural communication”. Cultural diversity is enhanced through respecting the
customs, traditions and cultural values. Language is one of an important component within this
aspect, which enhances the respect for the social integrity. Hypothetical approach towards
citizenship can be correlated to the aspect of language barriers, which contradicts the true

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essence of the term “cultural diversity”. Polycentricity indicates a pluralism, which enriches the
existentialism for the citizens.
Conclusion
In concluding remarks, it must be stated that the authors of the main article in review
have provided a strong overview of intercultural communication. The various examples used in
the chosen article have provided a strong ground by which one could demarcate between just
communication and intercultural communication. In addition, the complexities of cultural and
communication have also been examined and explained. The article has elaborated lucidly on the
issues faced by individuals in intercultural communication. These issues included ambiguity in
language and the conclusions drawn by the receiver based on that ambiguity. While critically
analyzing the article, other perspectives have also been included. The other two articles used to
analyze the chosen article, have highlighted the concepts like diversity and super-diversity and
its influence on intercultural communication in different settings.

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ARTICLE REVIEW ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
References:
Blommaert, J., 2013. Citizenship, language, and superdiversity: Towards complexity. Journal of
Language, Identity & Education, 12(3), pp.193-196.
Heugh, K., 2013. Mobility, migration and sustainability: re-figuring languages in diversity.
International journal of the sociology of language, 2013(222), pp.5-32.
Scollon, R., Scollon, S.W. and Jones, R.H., 2011. Intercultural communication: A discourse
approach. John Wiley & Sons.