İlham SAGHEB

Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................2
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION ?................................................................................................................2
What is non-verbal communication?..................................................................................................2
INTER-CULTURAL/CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION.......................................................................3
What is culture & cross-culture ?.......................................................................................................3
High Context Culture & Low Context Culture...................................................................................4
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................................6
İlham SAGHEB

INTRODUCTION

In this paper, communication between cultures is going to analized while defining

communication, non-verbal communication, inter-cultural communication as well as high
and low context cultures.

Because it is needed to know ‘what is communication? ‘ as a first step, it is also necessary

to know what is non-verbal communication to understand non-verbal barriers in cross-cultural
communication and the meaning of culture to clarify possible diffuculties which are
obserserved in inter-cultural communication.

WHAT IS COMMUNICATION ?

Communication is the tool needed among all living organisms to give and to receive
information .All living organisms have to communicate with each other while using different
kinds of communication methods depending on their evolutionary processes. When cells are
observed , it is clearly seen that there are messages sending and decoding among cells.When
pre-historic times are examined by researchers , it is seen that ,becuase of lack of verbal
communication skills, humans also tried to communicate with each other ,moslty, with
symbols. As it is stated by Mackay ‘’Given the enormous variety of ways in which animals
and men can influence one another without relying on words...’’. ( Mackay,1951)

When the word ‘’communication’’ is analized in terms of its origin , it is seen that what
excatly communication lies behind itself. ‘’ Communication, a derivation of a Latin term
‘communico’ means ‘to share’. If we accept this meaning then we also will not be able to
ignore its sociological affiliation as Scheflen (1972) argued that communication includes all
behaviours by which a group forms, sustains, mediates, corrects and integrates its
relationships’’.( Scheflen,1972)

What is non-verbal communication?

İlham SAGHEB

Non-verbal communication is a process which refers to the actions which do not include
word. As it is defined by Mehrabian (2009) ‘’ ‘’nonverbal behavior’’ refers to the actions as
distinct from speech.It thus includes facial expressions, hand and arm gestures, postures,
positions, and various movements of the body or the legs and feet ‘’.(Mehrabian, 2009).
Depending on the definition, non-verbal communication is wordless and it is the process
giving clues by body language signals and gestures. According to the research which was
mentioned in Fundamentals of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication and the Biometric Issue
people depend on non-verbal clues up to %93 to understand the meaning.(Bratic, 2006) Due
to the fact that people decode non-verbal clues in tune with their experiences and their
cultures , culture and cross-culture are needed to explained.

INTER-CULTURAL/CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

What is culture & cross-culture ?

Long time ago, people might not know about ‘others’ ,their needs ,behaviors and reactions
because they were living in a restricted area with the people who were similar with them and
they were sharing their own beliefs and values. Today , because of teachnological
development, people can travel easily and see what is happening all around the world.While
travelling , even using internet people recognize easily that people located different part of the
world are acting differently.The term culture is really helpfull at this point to describe these
differences under just one title.The behavior of people are thought mostly by their culture and
because of there are numerious cultures, the collocation ‘’cross-cultural’’ is started to use to
describe situations which related to more than one culture. As it is defined in Business
Communication Today ‘’Culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values,
expectations, and norms for behavior.Your cultural background influences the way you
prioritize what is important in life,helps define your attitude toward what is appropriate in a
situation,and establishes rules of behavior’’.(Bovee,Thill,2010) As it is seen from inside of the
spesific culture, everything including assumptions, actions, beliefs seems logical and consistent but
for someone from different culture , all the things which seem logical can seem for inconsistent and
illogical.( Bovee,Thill,2010) At this point it is needed to explain what cross-cultural communication
is.As it can be understood from the word itself, cross-culture or inter-culture communicaiotn means
communicaition across cultures so basically the communicaiton occurs between two people from
different cultures is inter-cultural communication.
İlham SAGHEB

Because of the fact that the world has been globalised with the help of technological
developments, people all around the world put their attention on ‘’cross-cultural
communication ‘’ term to understand each other effectively and to minimize
minunderstandings and barriers.

Inter-cultural communication has some barriers to cope with such as language

differences,stereotype,high level of stress ,para-verbal communicaiton,making a judgement.(Kutz.p.7-
12) In this paper it is going to be analized non-verbal communication as a barrier in high and low
context cultures.

High Context Culture & Low Context Culture

As it is mentioned in Burgoon’s Expectancy Violations Theory, every culture has its own
path and expectaitons for its humans , these expectations which have been passing over the
culture create an dome like environment as if nothing unusual is going to happen.(Knapp and
Hall,2010)

Cultural differences may cause misunderstandings among people from diverse cultures.In
terms of contexual differences ,culture can be divided into two as high&low context cultures
which react completely different from each other.

From culture to culture the proportion of nonverbal behavioral communicaiton varies

relative to verbal communication that is used. “Communicaiton styles that focus relatively
more on words to communicate and less on behavior – the context in which the words are
used – are said to be ‘’low-context.’’ ’’ (Novinger,2001)‘’High-context’’ culture in contrast
,rely relatively more on nonverbal context or behaviors than they rely on abstract,verbal
symbols of meaning As it can guessed from the definition, this difference between low&high
context can behave as an obstacle in intercultural communicaiton.For example, when there are
two people in conversation from low& high context cultures ,person from low context culture
is more likely to rely on words while high context culture person is concentrate on other
components of the language and adds more meaning which is not intended.

There is real life example about high & low culture communicaiton to understand how
this differences can effect people in communication in Intercultural Communication.The
example is about Russian exchance students in America who is asked about characteristics
about low context.When he tries to explain in detail while giving scientific research as an
İlham SAGHEB

example professor gets lost in topic and American student answers it.At the end , it is the
result that Russian student gets low grade while American one gets high.

CONCLUSION

Since pre-historic times , people have been trying to communicate with each other in an
effective way related to their evolution.From the begining to now people have been using
non-verbal communication regarless of their evolutionary process.They have been using body
language , gesture ..etc. to send messages.While decoding those non-verbal messages ,people
use their culture as a filter.

At those times, there was just basic understanding needed among people but nowadays ,with
the help of technological developments people all around the world have been started to
interact and communicate with each other and necessities changed. Because of the fact that all
people carry their experiences to their relations, they are acting in accordance with their
cultures.In the same culture, there may not any problem between relations in terms of context
but ,when people come across from different cultures to communicate ,which is called cross-
cultural communication, most of the times contextual misunderstandings can be
observable.When low& high context cultures are taken into account to understand the
differences between cultures, it can be easily said that people need to know much more about
other cultures to send the message without any barrier.
İlham SAGHEB

REFERENCES

1. Bratanic,M. (2006). ‘’Nonverbal Communication as a Factor in Linguistic and

Cultural Miscommunication,’’in A.Esposito (ed.),Fundamentals of Verbal and

Nonverbal Communication and the Biometric Issue:82-91.The Netherlands:IOS Press.

2. Bovee,C.L and Thill,J.V.(2010).Business Communication Today.Harlow:Pearson.

3. Knapp,M.L. and Hall,J.A.(2010). “The Effects of Territory and Personal Space on

Human Communication,” Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction:136-

168.United States :Lyn Uhl.

4. Mackay,D.M. (1951) ‘’Fornal Analysis of Communicative Process,’’ in R.A.Hinde

(ed.),Non-verbal Communication:3-26.London:Cambridge University Press.
5. Mehrabian ,A. (2009). Nonverbal Communication.New Jersey:Adline Transaction.
6. Novinger,T.(2001).”Intercultural Communication,” Intercultural Communication:A
Practical Guide:6-7.United States:University of Texas Press.