Intercultural Communication for the Community College (Karen Krumrey-Fulks)

In the quest to explore the multiple facets of intercultural communication, this book is divided into three general areas: foundations, elements, and contexts. The foundations cover the basic principles associated with communication studies and culture. The elements move beyond the basics into self, identities, verbal, and nonverbal process associated with communication and culture.

We live in a rapidly changing world with larger forces driving us to interact with others who are culturally different from ourselves. National disasters, technology, business and educational opportunities are some of the many forces that lead to intercultural interaction. It would be easy to be overcome by the complexities of the things that you do not know or understand about another culture, but regardless of who we are communicating with, one fact is important to remember: the communication choices we make determine the personal, national, and international outcomes that follow. When we communicate well, we create happy memories, satisfying relationships, and desired outcomes. When we communicate poorly, we can create conflict, bitterness or frustration. By studying intercultural communication, you can acquire knowledge and skills to boost your communication competence, while improving your quality of life.

This book is divided into three sections: foundation, elements, and contexts. Each section will have several smaller chapters that outline our exploration of intercultural communication. The foundation chapters include the basic principles that underlie the communication process and building blocks of culture. The element chapters explore the parts or elements that must be considered when understanding the bigger picture of intercultural communication. The context chapters show us how specific contexts or environments are impacted by the foundations and elements. As you encounter people from different cultures, an understanding of the foundations, elements, and contexts of intercultural communication studies will prove to be invaluable to your success and happiness when communicating cross-culturally.

What is your reason for studying intercultural communication? Maybe it was a requirement on the road to achieving your major, and you dutifully signed up without having given it much thought. Maybe you’ve spent time overseas or enjoyed spending time with an exchange student at your high school. Martin & Nakayama (2011) believe that all our varied reasons can fall into six categories that they call imperatives. For our purposes, an imperative will be an important or compelling reason. Martin & Nakayama (2011) identify the six imperative categories as peace, demographic, economic, technological, self-awareness, and ethical.

Human civilization is familiar with conflict. History is full of conflict over politics, religion, language, resources, and more. The bottom line for the peace imperative is a question. Can individuals of different races, ethnicities, language, and cultures co-exist on this planet? It would be naïve to assume that simply understanding intercultural communication issues would end war and conflict, but this question does underscore the need for all of us to learn more about cultural groups other than our own.