Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures (4th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Maximum incompetence.
Review: Intercultural competence! What a totally inappropriate title for a book, especially when the subject matter is; view points of different cultures. Who gets to decide who is competent and who is not? Would one become competent after they read this book? People who do not agree with the authors, are they incompetent? After the initial shock of the title, I started reading this book, in fact I had to read the whole thing since it was the text book of a class that I was taking. Unfortunately the shock intensified. They define things that are not definable and they categorize things in the most reductionist and mechanistic fashion. Not only that but they don't even use English properly. They ask a question about apples and then give an answer about oranges, not realizing that the question has really no answer and should not be asked to begin with. This book is supposed to be about different points of view but there is nothing in it that would make one understand other cultures. It is all about the extremely narrow and linear point of view of the authors. They explain the simplest concepts in the most convoluted way possible but in reality the information is extremely superficial. They basically name and categorize things and consider them understood. After a few weeks our class turned into 'lets find out how wrong the authors are' class. I must admit after that it was kind of fun. When I asked my teacher as to why she chose this book, thinking perhaps I am missing something, her answer was "because it seems to be quite popular"! So now we are reading books not because of their content but because of their popularity. What a disappointment.