Interpreting Cultural Differences: Challenge of Intercultural Communication

When speaker and listener come from different cultural backgrounds, the potential for the message to mean different things is increased greatly.
The book explores the cultural differences that affect us all in the way we act, relate to others, think and learn. It addresses ways of improving our individual competencies, fusing some of the major ideas from the great range of scholarship on intercultural communication which has been produced over the last few decades.

 Examples and anecdotes from many different cultures, in particular Asia and the Pacific, are brought together. The needs of students and staff from outside the host country are considered as they first suffer and then eventually adapt to the culture shock of living and working in a different environment. To understand this process the author examines culture, ethnicity and nationality in business, academic and personal settings, and the way different understandings of these affect people. The cultural differences, both verbal and nonverbal, presented in the book provide a useful store of meterial on the communication patterns of others and ourselves. Since these significantly affect learning styles, the different ways of knowing and learning, both in and out of the classroom, are examined to assist educators in cross-cultural learning situations.

For academic staff, administrators and students whose work involves people from outside the host country, this book presents the beginning of an exploration into those differences between people that make the study of intercultural communication such a rewarding challenge